blue artichoke

Every year when I go to Mexico, I’m astounded by the amount of things I think I need to take with me on vacation. I’m a fairly light packer, but I still end up with a suitcase packed to the gills. In the past, I’ve had to frantically throw stuff from my suitcase into another zip-out bag in the middle of the airport check-in line because I’ve exceeded the 50# weight limit. This year, I crept in at 49.5#. The airline agent told me to watch my weight in Mexico. For sure. How much stuff do I really need for two weeks in a tropical climate? Some bathing suits, flip flops and lightweight clothes. How does that end up weighing 50 pounds? Adding snacks, books, and an assortment of sunscreens, lotions and products really adds up!

What would happen if I boarded a plane with only the clothes I was wearing and a purse to hold my wallet and prescription medicines? How much would it cost to buy the essentials once I got to Mexico (or wherever I was traveling)? That idea is very appealing to me. Going a bit further, what would happen if I walked away from everything I own? I’m moving to DC in a few days. What if I just got in my car and left everything behind? I’ve already pared down my belongings quite a bit, but I’m curious about the consequences of leaving everything - all my files, my clothes, my household accoutrements. I’d really find out how much stuff I actually need.

I’ve been reading The 80/20 Principle and thinking about its non-business applications. I’d say that I use roughly 20% of my stuff 80% of the time. I could probably get rid of the little-used 80% of my belongings without missing much. I’ve already started paring down, getting rid of perhaps 60% of my clothes, 20% of our books, 75% of my files, and 20% of various household items and cooking utensils. I can do better. I don’t have an exact count of how many items I own, so I can’t do a precise accounting of the winnowing process, but I think I can make a fairly accurate estimation of how much I pare down my belongings.

Though it is tempting to leave everything behind and start over, I’m not ready to make that leap. Some things are far too expensive to replace (my laptop and all of the information saved on it) or too meaningful to leave behind (family heirlooms, souvenirs). Also, I have to consider GC. He might not enjoy the extreme minimalist lifestyle I seek. I can, however, pare down to only the most important things. Our move to DC will happen in two stages. I’ll go first, taking with me only what fits in my car. This naturally makes me pick the most important and useful things that I don’t think I could live without for three months, like my laptop (and computer-related accessories), Bowflex dumbbells and avocado knife. Many of the things I decide to leave behind (other than GC and Fat Larry, of course) are the things that I can probably get rid of. We’ll take another pass through these things in a few months when GC moves to DC. We’ll have a moving truck, so there won’t be extreme space constraints, but hopefully we won’t fall into the trap of “we have space in the moving van, so let’s go ahead and keep this (insert name of little-used item).”

To prevent that from happening, I’m trying to get rid of stuff now, before I go and while I have an impossibly short deadline. No time for waffling over every little decision. I’ve already made the first sweep through the house, selling or earmarking for a garage sale the most obvious items that we don’t want/need/use/love. In the next few days, I’ll make a second sweep through the house, trying to reduce the number of things in each room by 80%.

Starting right now.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hola amigos!

I’m back from my annual pilgrimage to Mexico. The theme this year was Mexican soap opera. The cast included Soledad (the governor of Quintana Roo), Marcella (gold digger), Sophia Lupita Margarita Chimichanga Chichen Itza (maid to Soledad and Marcella), Rosa (tabloid writer, friend of Sophia Lupita), Pilar (anthropologist and archeologist, friend of Rosa), Israel (towel boy, Pilar’s lover), Fabio (bass player in a cover band, caught in a love triangle between Sophia Lupita and Soledad), and Norberto (Rosa’s editor and lover).

Marcella had her maid, Sophia Lupita, infect Pilar with the highly contagious pink eye, in an attempt to disfigure Pilar and win the love of Pilar’s long lost lover, Clemente, who has spent years following Pilar’s Latin heat. A reunion was imminent until Pilar’s quarantine halted her archeological dig. Without her work, Pilar developed a gambling habit after winning a cutthroat game of "Right Left Center." She used her winnings to buy medicine to combat her pink eye. Soledad also won a not-so-friendly game of RLC, but squandered her winnings on coconut shrimp and beer at Captain's Cove.

Meanwhile, at Captain's Cove, Fabio uncovered some scandalous information about Soledad (his lover), and passed it along to Sophia Lupita (his other lover, and Soledad’s maid), who promptly told her friend Rosa. Soledad would stop at nothing to keep her secret out of the papers, so she poisoned Rosa, who battled a sore throat, high fever, sinus congestion and a lingering cough “with phlegms.” On her deathbed, Rosa was saved by Norberto, who nursed her back to health when he could get away from his wife and children. Upon Rosa’s recovery, Norberto took her out on the lagoon to ride wave runners.

Now, that’s an exciting vacation!

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My vacation unofficially begins today. I'm heading to St. Louis this afternoon, then to Mexico early tomorrow morning. I have to stop at the outlets on my way to St. Louis today to find some pants/shorts to take with me on the trip. I certainly hope I can find something there, otherwise, I'll be pantless in Mexico! That's a whole different kind of vacation.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March is almost two weeks old and I'm failing my March resolution. I've only done yoga once.

Here's why I'm a miserable failure:
1. I might not want it enough. I can say with certainty that it would be nice and really cool to be flexible, but my actions suggest that I don't want it enough to make it a priority.
2. I can't define it. I'm already flexible. I want to be more flexible. How do I measure more? And how much work does achieving more flexibility require? If I do an hour of yoga every day, how much will my flexibility improve? What if I just do it once a week? I'm not sure how to quantify progress, so I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated.
3. It isn't my top priority. I have several very big short-term priorities this month - finishing working with my clients (done!), preparing for vacation (almost done!) and packing for my move to DC (not even close to done). Yoga sure would be a nice stress-reliever, but sleeping is better.
4. I'm not focused. Too many other things going on (see #3) make it difficult for me to make time for yoga.
5. It isn't part of my daily routine. I have made exercise a part of my daily routine, but I haven't been able to tack on yoga to that routine, though I do stretch for a cool down. Even my workout routine has been slipping a bit too, lately.

My hope is that when I'm on vacation for the next two weeks, away from my home and packing, I'll be able to make yoga a part of my vacation daily routine, and salvage my New March Resolution. Fingers crossed.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I feel like I've just been let out of school for the summer!

I just finished working with my last client, earlier than anticipated, and suddenly have the rest of a beautiful afternoon free. It is sunny and 75 degrees here. I'm wearing flip-flops and a tank top. Fat Larry and I went outside for a while to work/play in the yard. Now I'm inside, blogging for you fools.

When I say that I finished working with my last client, I mean my last client ever. I don't talk about my job here often because of privacy issues, but I am, or I should say was until about an hour ago, a professional organizer. It was a pretty sweet job, really. I never had a client I disliked (or I wouldn't have accepted him/her as a client, I suppose), and I met a lot of really interesting people with great stories to tell. Though I'm really excited about my new job (which, in a way is like one giant organizing client), I'll miss my clients.

I read a lot of organizing books, partly from professional interest, partly because I'm a bit obsessed with reaching my own personal organizing zenith. A lot of the books just reiterate each other, so once you've read a few books, you've pretty much read it all. One organizing "trick" many books mention, which I've passed along to my clients, is to pretend like you're moving. Hah! Easier said than done. I've tried this before myself and thought that it was a pretty good approach, but now that I'm actually moving, I find that the pretend-approach, while perhaps better than nothing, falls short of the real thing. For example, take papers and filing. I thought I was pretty fanatic about removing unnecessary papers from the house, but as I cleaned out my filing cabinets (which I do every year, mind you, after filing my taxes), I found that I hang on to a lot of paper clutter. It doesn't seem like clutter because it is all nicely filed away, out of sight and orderly, but, man, I don't want to move all that crap. I had two filing cabinets (one short-term and one long-term) and a filing box (business files). I'm now down to one banker's box of files:

And here is what happened to the file clutter:

That's a big box of nonsensitive papers to be recycled and seven (7!) grocery bags of shredded papers. And for you earth-huggers, don't worry, I'll dump the shredded paper into a cardboard box to be recycled. A big enough box wouldn't fit into my shredder. Back off! I like looking over my mountain of trash. It makes me feel free, mixed with a little bit of guilt for keeping all those papers just because I had the room. But mostly free. There's nothing like moving to make you question why you hang on to things, and you do hang on to things, I don't care what you say.

Getting to Know All About You: What sort of things do you hang on to?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Continued from yesterday...

Once I got cookin', I couldn't stop. Well, actually I did stop on Sunday, because I was hungover from said party Saturday night (killer brandy Alexanders!). Yesterday, I strapped on my apron again and spent some quality time in the kitchen, cooking up a bevy of meals for GC to eat while I'm gone. See, not only am I leaving him for most of two weeks while I go to Mexico (he's joining me there for a few days), but I'm leaving him all by his lonesome for a few months when I go to DC.

What!?

Blue Artichoke is moving! Finally!

Now it is official. I got a new job, so I'm packing up my business and my house and heading back to Washington, DC (which is where I lived before I moved to the Midwest). I'm moving right after I return from Mexico, and leaving GC behind for a few months while I start working and look for a place for us to live. He'll join me later this summer.

I know that GC is a capable and responsible adult who somehow managed to feed himself before I came along, but I still feel like I need to leave him with a freezer packed with meals. I don't have much in the way of a nurturing instinct, but I do feel responsible for making sure he is well fed. GC is actually a good cook in his own right, but he rarely gets a turn in the kitchen. So, before I go, I'm making double meals every night, one for us to eat and one to freeze. It will give GC options for when he doesn't feel like cooking for himself, and it will make me feel better about leaving him on his own for a few months.

Exciting times, these.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Since the January diet, things have changed around here. There seems to be a direct proportional relationship between time spent in the kitchen and my waistline. The January diet was actually a very fast and easy diet. There were no elaborate food preparations or time-consuming mixing and measuring. Nope, it was mostly oven-roasting and sauteing, meat and vegetables. No sauces, no starches, maybe a drizzle of oil or a sprinkling of spices, but that was it. Even though the J-diet ended six weeks ago, I've been too busy to get back in the habit of spending a lot of time in the kitchen. That, plus the incredibly shrinking waistline and the superlative blood work results have kept us on a slightly less-restrictive version of the January diet.

Baking is my stress reliever. More than I like eating baked goods (which I do, oh yes!), I find it relaxing to be in my tiny kitchen with ocean-blue walls, mixing, measuring, stirring, making a delicious mess and tantalizing smells. Perhaps I like the alchemy, starting with various amounts of dissimilar ingredients, mashing them all together and heating them until I have a final product that tastes good. Whatever the reason, though I've enjoyed having more free time to pursue other projects, I miss baking.

Saturday afternoon, I donned my apron and returned to the kitchen. First I baked a dark chocolate pound cake for a party that night. I don't think I shared the recipe the last time I made this cake. It's awesome. See for yourself:

Dark Chocolate Pound Cake

I chopped the dark chocolate instead of grating it, so there were pieces of chocolate in the cake, which I like. Add mini chocolate chips for an even more decadent and delicious cake.

3 c. flour
¾ c. cocoa (I used dark chocolate cocoa, usually available only around Christmas)
½ t. baking powder
½ t. salt
1-½ c. unsalted butter, softened
3 c. sugar
5 large eggs
1-¼ c. milk
4 oz. dark chocolate, grated
1 T. vanilla
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Fresh berries and mint sprigs, optional

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 10-c, 10” tube pan.

In sifter, mix flour, cocoa, powder and salt. Sift into large bowl.

In large bowl, with mixer at high, beat butter until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.

Alternately beat in flour mixture (in fourths) and milk (in thirds), beginning with flour. Beat in grated chocolate and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan, spreading top evenly; bake 1 hour + 15 minutes (rotating halfway through if your oven has hot spots) or until tests done.

Cool in pan 10 minutes; invert onto rack. Cool completely. Before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar. Garnish with berries and mint if desired.

Serves 16.

While that baked, I also made a loaf of my grandmother's banana bread (winner of the Ultimate Snackdown Banana Bread Battle) to take with me to Mexico. I usually take a loaf of her bread with me to Mexico because it travels well (frozen) and is a quick and easy breakfast. This time, I lightened the recipe from the Snackdown version, replacing the sugar with Splenda and substituting applesauce for half of the oil. The batter tasted as good as it always does, but the bread didn't rise very much. Oh well, more room in my suitcase!

To be continued...

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yoga in the morning.
Taxes in the afternoon.
32 ounces of caffeine in the evening.

BOOYAH!

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am doing a terrible job with my March Resolution. I have not done a single stretch or yoga pose. I've been too busy, which is precisely why I chose this resolution now. The next few weeks are very busy ones for me, so this is exactly the time I need to remind myself to relax, unwind and stretch out a bit.

Yesterday was a particularly stressful day. Being busy doesn't stress me out, but being too busy to do the things that are important to me does. I've been slacking off on my exercise regimen, my self-appointed reading hour and, obviously, my yoga resolution... in other words, my "me time." So, today, I took a personal day. I turned over my To Do List and made priorities of the things I've neglected recently. I worked out as soon as I got up. Then I gave myself an hour to read. I started dinner prep. I cleaned the house a bit. Then I got started on my To Do List, and was able to finish all but one big project (do my taxes) before I had to go to work. I was even able to finish some things on the list for tomorrow, to free up a big chunk of time for taxes. I can easily run myself silly and accomplish just as much as I do when I make efficient use of my time.

Before I had a clutter-free workspace, I used to have a sign taped to my monitor that read, "Work Expands to Fill Time Alotted." I repeatedly found it to be true. If I didn't have a whole lot to do one day, it would take me forever to finish a task that would take a fraction of the time to complete if I had a smaller window of time. Making time for myself in the morning may still make for a busy and stressful afternoon, but at least I know that I've already accomplished the things that are the most important to me in the long run.

Tomorrow morning, I'll start the day with a yoga video, because I know I won't have time to go to the yoga class at my gym in the evening. Then I'll start on my taxes. Ugh.

Getting to Know All About You: What do you take time daily to do for yourself?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)