Listening to My Body

I should say that I'm pretty bad at paying attention to me. This is, from what I understand, pretty normal. Most people have some disconnect between their body and brain, but I seem to have some special issues. And the last few days have been a reminder of that. On top of the brooding sinus infection, I have added in whatever the low thyroid or other weird chemical imbalance thing that stops my brain from being attached to the world.

I am much better today, but I still feel like I was run over by a truck about 2 days ago. A little sore, a little achy, and needing much nappage. But the interesting thing is this - I knew I was sick and I took a day off from work to recover. I slept 3 hours past the time that my work day would actually start. My big accomplishments of the day have been a shower and these few paragraphs.

This is a new response for me so I'm still not sure how I feel about this emotionally. But I can tell that my body is very grateful. It is a new concept for me - and I don't expect to have actually defeated the "work through the pain" response forever. But the North Star book - and the class with Pam Slim - is really making me reassess.

Welcome to my crazy brain. Obviously, I didn't have enough change going on in my life so I added thinking about this, too! But I suspect that, once that I'm done with this work, it will help me get where I want to be - and that is Lighten Up embodied.

Lighten Up - from the inside out

Even before HTH gave me the words for it, Lighten Up was always a "sum of all my actions" activity. It was about doing things to be consistent with my ideas and philosophies. Call it the outside in or behavioral psychology approach to life - change the behavior to make your life better.

But I am at the point - on many fronts - that I really need to spend some time thinking about what I want to do next. And that means spending some time thinking about what I actually think. And, yes, that can be recursive and strange. To keep from getting lost in it, I needed some structure for this part of the process.

So, I'm taking a class led by Pam Slim. She is a local (yes, she lives here in Mesa) consultant who works with people transitioning out of corporate life. I've lurked on her blog for years, but had never commented or participated. But I signed up for her "What Should I Do With My Life" class. The class is based on Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant To Live. I have resisted this book for many years. As most of you know, I'm a bit of a contrary. And anyone that thinks that they can tell ME how to claim the life I was MEANT TO LIVE? Well, clearly they don't know me very well! But I singed up for the class, so I'm reading the book. And it turns out that I could've saved myself a lot of work if I had read this sooner. Go ahead - click on the Amazon link and page through the first few pages. Martha's conversation with Melvin the middle manager made me laugh so hard that I knew that I could read the rest of the book.

We had our first class last week, so I'm not entirely sure that this will be true, but I think this might naturally lead to the next stage of Lighten Up. Stay tuned - I think it's going to be interesting!

A Lighten Up side note

One of the side effects of making the herb bed was working with cement. All concretes have cement in them, so we went through 300+ pounds of various mixes containing it. And that stuff will suck the moisture right out of your skin. Even with gloves, masks and some amount of carefulness, V and I were pretty dry by the end of the project. But I remembered the wise words of the lovely PL.

She is using an olive oil/sugar scrub these days. As you all know from my adventures in face wash, I have learned that oil does work to remove oil from the skin. Adding sugar to exfoliate just makes it that much cooler. AND the oil locks moisture in even after the shower. Bonus!

I mixed up a batch for yesterday's post-herb-bed showers. And, you know me - I had to fiddle with it a bit. I had some leftover macadamia nut oil that is infused with vanilla. So I made a little test size batch. I filled the jar to the top with the sugar/oil mix, so I was planning to put some vitamin E oil in after V and I both used some of it for our showers. But I've decided not to bother. Because OH.MY.WORD! This stuff won't last the week. It is decadence in a little glass jar! I may never go back to soap again.

My point here is this. I often hear the message that "going green" or "lightening up" or simply boycotting some of the commercial folderol that gets thrown at us every day means leading a lesser life somehow - restricted, deprived, or just generally yucky. I understand that there are a lot of other issues behind these ideas - and no small amount of cultural and social cues involved. I really do. And I'm generally less blunt in my response to those concerns, but seriously? The only way that lightening up can "lessen" your life is if you're doing it wrong!

Farmer's Markety Goodness

Why I Love Summer, By Angela

1. Rosemary Potatoes - Potatoes from last weeks' Friday Mesa market and rosemary from my herb garden
   
2. Steamed Green Beans also from last Friday's market. These both went nicely with the steak that HTH grilled last night! (YUM!)
   
3. Huge eggplant bought at the market today for Moussaka tonight.
4. These beautiful heirloom tomatoes that will be added to the spinach/feta/sweet pea salad tonight.

Farmery goodness without the farming! Yippee!

What Lightenening Up Does

So, with my 4 days off, I managed to do a few things that made me happy:

• I went to the Farmer's Market on Friday. Local veggies! Whoo-hoo!
• I reconciled 2 credit cards, a bank statement, and did processed 15 invoices.
• I did all of the grocery shopping - including Costco - on NOT THE WEEKEND.
• I drove HTH to Tucson on Saturday so he didn't have to drive while he had an ear infection.
• I went thrifting for more glass containers for my pantry.

Normally, I would just manage the grocery shopping bit and possibly one of those other things. There is NO WAY that I would manage all of this on a normal weekend. It is lovely to let some things just go!

I really am part-time!

Despite the recent focus on actions, one of the biggest LUREs (that is Lighten Up Ripple Effect for those of you who didn't catch my neato acronym) has actually been in my head. I guess you could say that I'm redefining the word "need" again. That process, along with our financial habits, the needs of our baby business, and just a general antipathy to big corporations, has led me to my current 3 day corporate workweek. Since today is the first day that I'm really feeling that (I drove from Fort Stockton on Monday, my first real day off), I thought I'd talk about what I'm planning to do with all of this time!

I'll be picking up the "back office" work for our business, of course. Invoicing and inventory, banking and bills - you know the drill. This will free up HTH to do the work that actually earns money. I, as always, will be the business' overhead!

For the next several weeks, I'll also be NOT thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. I should say that this will have to be done sometime in the near future, because I do expect this part time corporate role to end as early as September or as late as February of 2009. In this transition time, I'll finish do a couple of Lighten Up things.

• Sorting: I have a 2300 square foot house with lots of storage areas. Over the years, some of the areas have become a touch cluttered. So, I've been working my way through them. After yesterday's monumental pantry sort, I now have only 2 random closets and the bathroom storage areas to do.
  
• Big Projects That I Have Been Avoiding:
  

1. Put all music onto the computer and sell off CDs. Most of our music is on the computer - but not all - and we have yet to get rid of CDs despite the fact that we rarely use them. This will be a rather large task.
2. Scan all of the pictures into the computer and put on redundant online storage. This too, is a big one.
3. Master bathroom construction. I've outsourced the bathroom design and project management to my sister V. I'm hoping that means that I don't have to think about this much, but I know that construction will mean all kinds of household management changes!
   

Although I don't think any of this could be actually called house cleaning, that is what it feels like. Cleaning my house to stave off too much chaos is a true indication that I come from a long line of Southern women!

I'm using this housecleaning time to moodle a bit on a very important question. What would I like to be doing with my time? Our current business only needs a few hours a day from me and I have no intention of becoming a full time house manager since I manage the house better when I don't have all day to do it! There are several different options that I'm considering, but I don't expect to really know which way to go at the moment. I'll probably try a few things before I settle down. But I do know this - if it weren't for the LURE that had me redefine "need" in my own head, I would not have the luxury of this time to choose. Being able to take that time is - by my definition - Teir One of being independently wealthy!

What Lighten Up Is All About and One Reason Why I Married HTH in One Quick Tale

As most of you know, my sister, V - and her kittling Bear - joined our little desert household. She and I were having a big philosophical discussion about self discovery and understanding "WHO AM I" and all of those things the other day.

We were about 25 minutes into the discussion when HTH walked into the kitchen. I turned to him and asked if he had time for a quick question. I then asked if he had some thoughts on how most people deal with self discovery and understanding who they are. As he was gathering a few things to head out the door, he said something along these lines.

Most people don't really want to spend time thinking about who they are, but it isn't actually that hard to figure out. A person is really the sum of all of their actions. Talk and theory are not enough to understand who someone really is. Also, any isolated action is not enough. A person could be fully understood only if it were possible to see all of the things that they do. And with that 2 minute comment, he was out the door.

Needless to say, this hit our discussion like a very small atom bomb. V and I had been discussing the equivalent to the Freudian talk therapy method of self definition. HTH pointed out that the same effect was possible with behavioral modification.

And, in the end, that is what Lighten Up is. I spent many hours in previous years researching, considering, discussing and theorizing about all of the potential changes that would help me feel more aligned with my own life. But, in the end, thinking and discussing is only so useful. I had to just do some things - just like HTH said about the self definition - and that is why I started the Lighten Up year.

What this story also shows is one of the reasons that I married HTH. It would've taken many more hours of discussion before I actually got to the point of realizing that self definition - like Lighten Up - is all about what I do. But, despite the fact that the answer was obvious from the HTH perspective, he understood the question and knew how to answer in such a way that he met me in the middle. Cool, huh?

Lighten Up: Oil research leads to new ideas

The funny thing is that my personal/political minor league obsession with petroleum has probably been the source of the most Lighten Up changes. OK, actually the internet probably counts as the highest source for chnages - but oil is at the root of those changes.

If I chose to frame it that way, I think I could make a case for everything that I've done being about oil. The current situation that we have gotten ourselves into with oil in this country, for me, represents a serious lack of - well, a lot of things: planning and foresight, thoughtfulness, sustainability. It speaks to me of where the trouble - in my own life - actually resides.

The kind of lifestyle that we are leading here in "my country tis of thee" is literally fueled by petroleum - and not just because we have sprawling cities that don't lend themselves to public transportation.

• Our basic foods log many miles to get to us - and even more if they come from a fast food chain that ships everything to some home base and then distributes from there.
• Our obsession with disposability has created a huge plastics industry which relies - as you know - on petroleum as raw material. Plastics also add a lovely range of new and exciting chemicals to our lives which allow us the pleasure of wondering about the long term effects of phthalates. ( It also makes me wonder why I know how to spell a word that looks unpronounceable....)
  
• Many health and beauty products use petroleum (and phthalates) as stable (and relatively inexpensive) bases for their specialized formulas.
• And, of course, oil is an input for creating electricity.

But all of my changes didn't start with my oil obsession, though. That is just one way that I can tell the story. It can be told from a number of other directions, too, so I'll start with those and try to track them through for you in the next few days.

Lighten Up: The basics

So far this year, I've focused on a few basic ideas of sustainable living. I've taken very small steps along the paths that those ideas indicate. And I've been paying attention to what happens as a result.

So, just as a reminder, here are the ideas that started the whole Lighten Up thing:

• I want to be less involved with the oil/petroleum producing industries.
• I want to be a wiser consumer.
• I want life to be less expensive, not more.
• Overall and long term. It may not be true item by item or day by day.

Although it is hard to remember with any certainty, I think that this is where I started! Just a few ideas that - 6 months later - have already changed my life!

Of course, from these 3 ideas to the current state of affairs is really all about the Ripples. I'm still trying to figure out how to break this story down for you, but should have something by tomorrow!

BTW, you'll see that the countdown is gone. I do have official word that I'll be transitioning between now and July 18 and then part time after that. There is still a possibility that it won't work - considering the factors involved - but I think I'll be keeping my job for a bit at least!

The Ripple Effect

It has been a while since I updated on the Lighten Up initiatives. The last few days have me thinking more and more about the unexpected side effects of some of my Lighten Up baby steps. This pile of suitcases (yes, they're full of stuff) and bags that are heading out to Goodwill is an example of that. I've always been aware that "stuff" has a kind of attractive energy - almost like a subtle form of gravity. As stuff accumulates, though, it seems to have more energy to pull more stuff into my life. I'm not even always aware that I'm adding to the pile until, one day, I look around and find myself surrounded! I realize that the corners of my bedroom are scattered with the detritus of consumerism and somewhat sheepishly realize that I've gone a little crazy again.

But there is something about the whole Lighten Up initiative that is helping me to reverse that. Do you SEE the number of hangers here? Granted, some of that is from long sleeved shirts that will get filled with short sleeved shirts this week. But some of that is just from STUFF that I thought I needed to get - or that I wore to work but didn't really like - or that looks FAR WORSE on me than I ever realized - or that.... You get the picture.

Although I can't necessarily explain it, I know that my record setting number of trips to Goodwill this year are an example of the Lighten Up Ripple Effect. So, over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be trying to track a few of the LUREs (I made my own acronym! What is WRONG with me?!?) that I've been seeing in my life. That will give me a good way to do a mid year update on what I have done and what that doing has done to my life!

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Every time I start formulating a new concoction of any kind, HTH starts singing a modified version of the Subterranean Homesick Blues. "Ang is in the basement, Mixing up the medicine."

I've heard that several times over the last few days, so you know I'm up to something. That's right - a brand new product Ang product is in the works!

I'll be posting some pics soon, but they will be nowhere near the normal quality. My luggage still hasn't shown up, and my fabulous camera was in the bag. Yuck!

Lighten up on the plastic bags

Thanks to my new flip & tumble bag - that now lives in my purse - I achieved a new personal record on bringing plastic bags into the house. I did the weekly family grocery shopping, specialty party shopping, and even a trip to Home Depot this weekend. And I ended up with 3 plastic bags. Just 3! And we use 2 a week! Whoo-hoo! Next week, I'm going to see if I can get away with none.

Lighten Up = Not Being Complicit

I finally found a good way to describe the weight that I am trying to rid myself of with this Lighten Up initiative. And I found it in the work of the famous sci fi author William Gibson. I was re-reading Pattern Recognition. The main character uses her pattern recognition skills to hunt "cool" and recognize whether or not proposed corporate logos "work" for the marketplace. But, in the beginning of Chapter 23, she finds herself in a bit of a funk (for all kinds of reasons that I won't go into here) and it all crystallizes into a revelation.

"...Cayce know that she is, and has long been, complicit. Though in what, exactly, is harder to say." (p194 of the Berkley Trade Paperback edition) The next paragraph goes on to say that she knows too much about the processes that surround her role and it sometimes seems that there is nothing else going on in the entire world but product positioning to influence consumers.

Her complicity is different than mine. I'm complicit in the way Corporate America encourages a world view in its employees that is based on financial dependence and school yard political behavior. I'm complicit in the rampant disposable consumerism, in which I still occasionally participate. I'm complicit in all aspects of our oil based culture - from government policies towards oil producing companies to the environmental after effects. I'm complicit in the fascination with the youth = beauty culture, with which I have several vigorous disagreements. I'm complicit in the silly water use that my desert home encourages with green lawns. And all of this complicity tugs at me - sometimes gently, sometimes violently - and tries to pull me in different directions.

I do understand the draw of all of these things. I see the advantages to following the paths they create. But, for whatever reason, I can't accept that these paths lead me to where I want to go.

So, in essence, Lighten Up is about reducing not just the weight of my complicity but the internal conflict that I feel in response to it . And that covers a lot of territory - as we've seen in this years' posts so far. The interesting thing about thinking about it this way is that I'm not sure when or where it will stop. But at least that will ensure, as the ever wise PL pointed out to me today, that I have plenty of projects to tackle at any given time. And you know me... I have to be bored.

Lighten Up - The BIG Dilemma

As you all know, books have a huge impact on my life in the form of new ideas, expenditures, and time spent doing something with the ones that I don't want to keep. There are a fair amount of books that have gone from Amazon to my house to the local second hand bookstore for credit to buy more books. It is a vicious cycle, but one that I have had a very hard time considering breaking.

But, as of today, the cycle is no more! I have joined BookSwim. It is the NetFlix of books. It lets me read what I like (I can even request that they buy books that they don't have), ship it back to them and get something else. I am on the 5 books at any time plan that lets me ship back any 3 and keep 2 at any time. Free shipping, of course. And at $23.99 a month it is FAR cheaper than my current book buying habit - but I also found a "5 for $5 for the first month coupon" to try it out.

I should say that this is not an entirely 'green' change in some ways. The shipping bit is not environmentally friendly. Of course, buying ANYTHING around here suffers from that problem. But it does address the largest component of clutter in my house (I currently have 1 or more books in every room of the house that I use) and solve a time issue (gathering books and getting them back to Bookmans) while still feeding my voracious reading habit.

All in all, I think it is going to be a beeYOUUUUtiful thing! But if it isn't, I'll let you know....

Embracing my inner "Oh, yeah?!? Bring it!"

There are times that I truly question my sanity. Somewhere inside me there is a creature that sees every challenge as another attempt to tell me "no", question my abilities, insult my intelligence, or some such other silliness. Obviously, these challenges do not know me very well. I am, as a quote on my mirror used to say, "the most persistent traveler down any path that is NOT the path of least resistance". I will see your silly challenge and I will personally smack it down! Yeah, I know. Not the prescription for an easy life - or one that ensures that I get plenty of sleep, even - but it sure is interesting!

I have two challenges that are trying to insult my abilities at the moment. One is, of course, the job. As part of the eventual transition out of the corporate world, my current position has been posted so that we can hire someone more local to the team that I've been supporting. However, my boss has also asked me to cover for 2 different vacant roles in his organization as well. So, at the moment, I have 3 jobs. This challenge I will not talk about much because it makes me tired just thinking about it. The last 2 days were pretty rough. It looks like things will clear up by Friday.

The more amusing challenge is purely self created, but definitely falls under the category of Lighten Up initiatives - quite literally! I am heading out to UK for 4 days of business with 2 full travel days on either end. I will then go straight to Louisiana for pre-wedding events and wedding festivities for a full 9 days. The challenge is this: can I manage all 3 legs of the trip (PHX-GTW, GTW-MSY, MSY - PHX) without checking a bag? It is going to be close, and will require a bit of creativity on my part, but at the moment, I'm thinking that it can be done. (I found it! Forward to about 1 minute and you can hear the Cat in the Hat song that always starts up in my head when I say it can be done.) So I'm spending some time figuring out, with some tips from the experts, exactly how to manage this. And I'm digging out every tiny travel size bottle and filling it with stuff I need. And I'm carefully considering how to do More with Less - which is also, incidentally, a great cook book!

And that last sentence (a clear example of Attention Splatter Syndrome) leads me right back to the opening statement of this post. You know - the one about questioning my sanity? Because it isn't as if I don't have enough externally imposed challenges on my life at the moment. And yet, I'm pursuing several lines of personal interest research that are also eating up time. Does this mean I'm crazy?

I've decided, based on the input of the wise and lovely PL, that adding my own personal challenges to my life is a good thing. Because if I'm going to be inundated, overwhelmed and stressed, I should at least be able to choose the sources of that feeling. In fact, I think the title of my first book will allude to the fact that stress is a force in the universe, just like gravity or momentum. "Conservation of Stress: It's not the law!" or maybe just "You Can't Make Me!" or... yeah, I'm doing it again. Attention Splatter Syndrome.... So I'm off! Ya'll have fun!

Coincidentally....

Sometimes everything falls into place to address one very small irritation in my life. This time, it all led to licorice root tea. Yep. That's right. Licorice.

So, here is the story. Because of my little herb garden, and the idea of growing useful things (instead of a lawn) in general, I picked up a book called Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West. It seemed reasonable to start with what was already growing, after all. (The book is fascinating, by the way, and has me considering much more interesting options for my front yard that will use less water and look very cool!) The book talks about licorice root as an anti-inflammatory and, get this, an anti-allergy herb. So I did a little research to see what I could find. (Nothing I found for free supported that statement. But I'm actually considering a $50 membership to American Botanical to do more research. Here is the WebMD link on what conditions mean that you shouldn't take licorice root
, and here is one article on what it does, or you can look at the American Cancer Society page)
Now, here are the two coincidental parts of this story. Part 1: This time - from when the highs hit the 80s until Phoenix finally gets over 100 - is the very worst time of year for my allergies. Everything that makes me sneeze goes nuts. I manage this by taking Claritin during the day, Benadryl at night, rinsing my sinuses, not rubbing my eyes (no matter what!), and getting extra sleep and water. And I still have some days that I can't manage my runny nose, sneezing, and watery eyes. Part 2: It just so happens that I had some licorice root from my face wash/eye treatment experiments.

So, I started drinking licorice root tea on Thursday night. BTW, licorice root is naturally sweet and doesn't really taste like licorice - especially if you throw a few mint leaves in to hide it - so it is really quite nice. 3 of those 4 nights, I didn't need a Benadryl. And I certainly have much more use of my own nose than I normally have at this time of year.

Of course, it is early days to determine effectiveness. Also, my research indicates that it shouldn't be taken for more than 4-6 weeks at a time. But I think that will probably cover the bad season. I'll be tracking my night time Benadryl usage for the next several weeks to see if this makes a difference. As for availability and cost, 1/4 pound of this stuff cost me $8 at my local health food store and looks like it might last me the entire 4 weeks.

So, I'm adding this to the official Lighten Up initiatives. After all, minimizing my allergies will definitely help me Lighten Up!

Lighten up Research

No pictures today - just a quick update on some of my R&D efforts. And this should come with a long post warning!

Lip gloss - I have a version of this that still isn't quite lip gloss, but it is a very nice lip treatment. It has glycerin (which is a plant oil based goop), Vitamin E oil, Vitamin C oil, Hazelnut oil, and pomegranate. The good news is that it works. The Vitamin C stimulates collagen, so the skin of my lips actually comes out of this smoother and fuller. The bad news is that it still separates- I'm hoping to fix that in the next iteration - and it doesn't stick like I would like. I have to reapply it regularly. It looks like this will be an ongoing experiment! I'll keep you posted.

When I was researching lip gloss, I found some recommendations for skin and eye treatments. I'm washing my face with one now. I removed the castile soap from this recipe, since I'm trying the oil method on my face. I'm not sure if this recipe just needs tweaking for my skin or if my face doesn't really like the oil method, but there is still more work to do before I'm satisfied with my face wash. This also looks like an ongoing thing. It is a good thing that I enjoy research!

The one skin thing that I am quite pleased with at the moment is the eye treatment that I created. This is purely based on a combination of ingredients that I found in other research. The current mix is almond oil, apricot kernel oil, licorice root (for lightening dark circles) and, once again, Vitamin C. My recipe will probably get modified slightly with further iterations, but I'm in no hurry on this one. This combination works for me. I'll just need to add something to "tighten" this skin a bit in the next round.

And now, for something completely different! I'm also experimenting with house cleaning stuff. I have a strange looking spray bottle filled with vinegar, a few drops of tea tree oil and several cinnamon sticks. I've tried it on a bunch of stuff to date and here is what I've found.

Best ever:

1. It is better than anything I've ever tried for dealing with hard water/mineral deposits. I know that this isn't that important for most of you soft water living people, but WOW! It is VERY exciting here. A lot of our kitchen and bathroom "dirt" is either just the deposits or deposits that have dirt embedded in them. This is huge for me!
2. Cleaning the cat water bowl. This deals with a combination of our hard water problem and the slime that naturally builds up when cool water comes in contact with anything else. HTH is really excited about this development because this is very similar to the slime that occurs in ice machines. (If you value the food in your stomach, NEVER look behind the service panel of any ice machine. Trust me on this one!) Current commercial cleaners are so nasty that - despite all the time rinsing the machine after cleaning - the first batch of ice has to be harvested and thrown away just to be safe. Since this is all food grade material, that would not be necessary. And if it works on ice machines? It will work on any slime ever! I'll happily mix up a batch for that test when the time comes!
   

Good enough:

1. Floors - I've been spot cleaning with the spray bottle and using vinegar to mop instead of bleach. The advantage is mostly no longer being careful about mop water near where the carpet touches the tile. Also, with the flu/cold season hitting HTH pretty hard, the vinegar is less irritating than bleach to already annoyed lungs.

Meh - you know, not impressed, not annoyed - just Meh:

1. Glass - I've only done this twice and don't feel very strongly about it either way.
2. Shower walls. I'm thinking about switching to straight vinegar for this one. The tea tree is supposed to be antiseptic and the cinnamon is supposed to add a little more anti-fungal power, but I'm not sure that I need it here. And I think the cinnamon is darkening the grout slightly - not like mold or anything, just turning the white grout to a lovely cinnamon color. This is starting to bug me, so I'll try the vinegar alone and see.
   
3. Tile counter tops - same as the shower walls. But I'm adding a straight peroxide spray after the vinegar based on articles like this for serious antibacterial cleaning.

With the week I foresee at work (loving the President's Day holiday today!), I thought I'd get this all out of my head and into the blog. I hope to be able to update on the herb bed this week, but no promises that I will be able to work on it AND write about it. If nothing else, I should be able to post when I hit New York on the 25th - since I won't be able to do anything about all of this stuff then!

The project

Well, I've mentioned this to a few of you, but hadn't been able to post pics yet. All of the work that you'll see in the next few pictures is to create a small herb garden in front of the house. This is, believe it or not, another Lighten Up initiative. This is not, of course, something that simplifies my life or helps me balance competing commitments. It has nothing to do with lessening my impact on the environment or even address daily stresses in my life. But this may be one of the bigger Lighten Up projects of the year.


Most of Lighten Up has a lot to do with taking the useless edges off of aspects of my life. And it feels like this picture looks where HTH is taking the interlocking lip off of the bottom layer of blocks. It has to be done for the layers on top to settle properly and it takes quite a bit of time. There is a lot of dust and noise, and it helps to have the right tools. But, for the most part, the change isn't really that visible once you get it done.

When it is done properly, as you can see here, everything just fits. And, with Lighten Up as well as many of the changes that we do around this house, it somehow looks like it has always been that way. But change is being done as a concrete and block example of what I want Lighten Up to do for me.
I For some reason, I believe that, once my life Lightens Up a bit, I will be the kind of person that can grow oregano and parsley. This is, of course, a belief that is completely theoretical at this point, you understand. But I believe it nonetheless. So, instead of having a nebulous resolution about getting my life to that ever so lovely light point and THEN having a little herb garden, I decided to do this a little backwards. Having an herb garden that will require my thought and effort will necessitate changes in the way that I run my life.

And, if all of the work that was done to get this together was not enough, I also will be building the herb garden on this little reminder. After all, one of the purposes of Lighten Up is to give me more space to focus on what I think is important, so having this at the foundation of the herb bed sure makes sense to me!

This is not the post I planned; or Dealing with Obstacles to Lighten Up

As most of you know, I have a number of exciting things going in in the Lighten Up world. But the fact of the matter is that they are happening in bits and pieces. And, quite frankly, some of them could be a lot further along. So what happened?

I hit a few obstacles that have really slowed me down. For those of you that don't speak to me regularly, you should know that there are some areas of my life that are quite stressful at the moment. I define stress as the feeling that occurs when there is a difference between expectations and reality, so that can cover a lot of territory. Last week included some really STELLAR examples of serious differences between expectations and reality. It wasn't just me - other people were thrown for a loop as well - but I was surprised at how much it affected me.

But then I realized that it all had to do with the way that the Lighten Up process is changing my expectations. You see, I printed out some pictures over the last few weeks about what I want my Lighten Up life to be like. They probably won't make sense to you, but here is a picture so that you can get the idea. Most of this has been accumulated over the last several weeks. They include pictures of places I love, or that remind me of a good time in my life, or just that represent an idea to me. But I want to draw your attention to my latest addition.

I know, I know. This can't be an idea that goes with my goal! After all, shouldn't Lighten Up mean not taking things so seriously? Rolling with it more? But that doesn't really work for me. "It is what it is" means that I don't like it but I'm not going to fix it. It means that I've made myself numb. It means complacency in the face of negative events. And that is an idea that I really want to say NO to!

So, I'm more engaged in dealing with the everyday stresses in my life. The bad news is that I feel them now in a way that I haven't for a very long time. But the good news is that I am now doing something about them. And, as you all know, doing things is what I like to do. (And now the jingle for this commercial is stuck in your head, too! Yes!)

Lighten Up R&D

In the research that led to me my hair care solution, I found a number of very alarming studies on basic cosmetics. While some of the sources could be considered questionable, there were a wide variety of issues brought up - lead in lipstick, personal care items with chemical content like my former favorite lip balm (which scores pretty clean but has all KINDS of garbage in it!) or even, from the more balanced but still cautionary article at WebMD, the following quote on how the FDA regulates cosmetics.

"The act does not subject cosmetics to premarket approval," says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek. In addition, the companies are not required to substantiate performance claims or conduct safety testing. What it does require of companies is that cosmetics be "safe when used as directed in the labeling or under usual customary conditions of use."

The fact of the matter is that nobody really knows what is or isn't appropriate for everyone. But I can make some decisions about what is appropriate for me. Enter my current Research and Development project. I've decided that, since I can taste my lip glosses, I'm effectively ingesting their ingredients. And, if I'm doing that, then those ingredients better be things that I am OK with eating.

So, on a trip to one of my local "natural foods" store, I picked up some food grade items and mixed a few of them together in the bottle that you see to the right there. To be honest, this batch is more about seeing how the coconut oil (that solidifies at 78 degrees F) will do when mixed with other oils. Will it stay liquid on my counter? (2 days in, the answer is still yes.) Will it separate and get all funny looking? (Again, so far, so good.) As first attempts go, it is even an OK lip gloss.

For my next attempt, I'd like to make the gloss a little stickier, and therefore longer lasting (so I'm looking at how glycerin is made). And I have another oil to try as a base as well.

To be honest, though, there were really only 2 tricky parts to the whole thing. 1) Figuring out what ingredients worked with the oils - without separating or looking gross. 2) Finding the roll on bottles. I had to order them from Tucson.

Now I just need a formula that I really like (that actually DOES something for my lips), with a way to add color (I already have some ideas) and I'm good to go! Yes, I know, it probably won't be quite that simple. But at least I won't be wondering what the RDA for paraffin is or what chemicals that lipstick uses to make it's unidentifiable "Fragrance". Besides, it is vastly entertaining to wander the grocery store looking for items to make lip gloss. Trust me. It is definitely one way to lighten up!