Howdy 2016

Makeup-less, haircare-less (slightly filtered) me

As I enter a new year I, naturally, think about resolutions/goals/promises/improvements to make.  I have never been a huge fan of resolutions because I have never kept any of them (other than switching from regular soda to diet soda back in college). So in the tradition of my skeptical outlook, my first thought is “why set myself up for a bunch of stuff I am not going to commit myself to?”

All that being said, I have been fairly impressed with my ability to be mindful of goals (mini goals) I have set along the way these last several months and have been able to continue to work on them. They have mostly been small, but they consist of goals that come up frequently, therefore requiring some sort of vigilance and I have been proud of that.  Like I said, they weren’t earth shattering changes or goals but some of them included

1)  Shake hands more often: definitely more of a hand-shaker now-check.

2)  Do things that are not required of me: secretary of oncology nursing organization, auditioned for story-telling show-check.

3)  Stop saying the word ‘just’: do not say, text or email this word hardly at all now- check.

Those goals were in an effort to build confidence, step outside of comfort zone and increase assertiveness. Sometimes easier said than done, but I plan to continue to work on these.

Evaluating my previous goals helps me work on my current ones, so here they are:

1) Minimize. This is something fairly en vogue right now, so I am sure that social media and advertising (as well as the new year buzz) has implanted this idea in my mind like Inception, but it makes sense to me right now.  I spend an enormous amount of time cleaning and organizing the things Ben and I own. Washing clothes. Washing dishes. Folding blankets on the couch. Sorting laundry. Searching for a certain piece of clothing. Soaking pans. Emptying dishwasher. Organizing to make room for said stuff so there is room for it or, more commonly, make room to merely walk around or set something on flat surface. Clearing off counters. Rinse. Repeat. I’ve been reading a fair amount about decluttering, minimalist lifestyles, the Marie Kondo method, the Japanese art of tidying up, purging, whatever you want to call it. They all say the same things in varying ways. Some of the statements that have stuck for me include:

-Does the item spark joy? If not, get rid of it. (Marie Kondo’s phrase, not mine)

-Does the item have more than one purpose? If not, get rid of it.

-If you have less ‘things’ you can focus on the important things.

-It is liberating to purge things that no longer serve you.

-Just because an item has a story, does not mean you need to keep it to keep the story.

-If you have things that don’t fit because you are waiting to lose weight to fit into them, get rid of them. If you lose the weight, you will want to reward yourself and buy new things and not wear old stuff!

I have started to do this, I have roughly 8 trash bags full of clothing that are on their way to Value Village.  It was interesting to examine my feelings while going through my clothes. I learned that most of my clothes do not ‘Spark Joy’. A lot of my clothes are generic, cheap, old, faded/worn out, fit poorly or just plain boring. Those were easy to toss. I had a fair amount of clothing that had stories to them- they were from high school/college/first years as a nurse at Duke, they were from a concert, or they were given to me by my mom or they were my mom’s.  When she survived the earthquake in Haiti, she flew to Chicago in a C-17 military plane before flying home and bought me a sweatshirt that said “The Windy City” on it. I wear that hoodie all the time, therefore it went into the keep pile.  She also bought me a sweater when we were in Homer that is now ripped, outstretched and torn for wearing it. I hardly ever wear it now, so it went into the donate pile (reluctantly). I kept several of her blouses and tops after she died in hopes of wearing them in clinical and beyond, but I rarely do, so they also reluctantly went into the donate pile.  I found comfort in doing this by reminding myself of this: I felt I needed to keep these things because they helped remind me of a time, place or person, but if those times, places or persons were actually important to me, I didn’t need a shirt or hoodie to remind me. My closest friends from high school are only a phone call or text away, same with my old Duke family- I don’t need to go to a shirt to remember them and I definitely don’t need a shirt to remind me to think of my mom. I think of her constantly and no removal of clothing from my view or touch is going to minimize that.

The other big reason for hesitancy to put something in the donate pile was that it was expensive, especially if it was expensive AND I had hardly worn it. I hated that I paid so much for a sweater and did not get the use out if it. I used that notion as a reminder to be more mindful of what I do spend my money on- if I’m going to splurge I better be damn sure I love it. Which correlates well with number 2. 

Fraction of the clothes laid out for sorting

Hugging my clothes goodbye

Not nearly all of it, Ben is clearly disgusted

I am going to try and apply the minimalist principles to things beyond clothing, things such as cosmetics and personal care. I parred down my make up routine quite a bit last fall (mostly due to not have the money to spend on it), but it ramped back up over the holidays. I thought it would be interesting to write down what I used to do as a visual cue that it was rather OOC:

-          Wash face with Purity Philosophy face wash

-          Color correcting serum

-          Blemish correcting serum

-          Under eye serum

-          Moisturizer/SPF

-          Concealer under eyes

-          Bb cream on face

-          Eye lid primer

-          Powder

-          Bronzer

-          Blush

-          Highlighter

-          Eye shadow

-          Eye liner

-          Eye lash primer

-          Mascara

-          Eye brow powder

Probably wondering what the hell I actually look like since transforming my face into something else- but the ironic part is I did all of this to achieve a ‘natural’ look! I put all of that on my face so I would look naturally…normal? Pretty? Youthful? But I wasn’t. Since I turned 30, I feel I notice every blemish, wrinkle nook and cranny on my face and my current regimen was just accentuating, caking, and amplifying it. So my goal is to limit my face care routine as much as possible to include:

-          Wash face with Dove bar soap-because I can wash my body with it too and use it to shave my legs doing 3 tasks with 1 item

-          Moisturizer/SPF -because it helps mitigate break outs in this dry climate and both of my parents have had skin cancer so I need the SPF 24/7

-          Under eye concealer -because I seriously have had coworkers ask me if I was punched in the face when I didn’t wear something to cover my dark circles- hopefully will decrease need with increased exercise/sleep quality and hydration from number 3

-          Bronzer -because contouring

-          Mascara

-          Eye brow powder

-          Lip color -because I never have been one to wear lip color and I think it makes a difference and my mom always would tell my “I needed a little rouge on my lips” and I think it does Spark Joy to wear some lip color!

Playing with color

Practicing with lip color, but not with minimizing face stuff

I also plan to minimize things which do not serve my time and this includes social media (reading and posting), Netflix/Amazon prime (this will be easier once we finish binging on Scandal) and people. Life is short but not that short- we can waste hours and days on purposeless things. My intention is to minimize this.  Tackling other things in the house will be slightly more difficult, as we are still in the first few years of our marriage- a lot of things are still ‘his’ or ‘hers’ and I respect Ben’s things (or at least his right to have things) too much to mindlessly start tossing his belongings. 

2) Waste less. Do not buy things unless they Spark Joy or have multiple uses or will be purposeful. I already put this to the test at the mall. I was going to try and find a reason to buy some tops from Banana Republic because they were on a hella clearance and then I stopped and examined the “why”.  What is the point of buying something solely because it is cheap and on sale? Especially if I don’t particularly like it, let alone LOVE it. 

  

    Do not buy groceries because hopefully I will eat that lettuce and those carrots, buy them with intention and stop letting food go bad or expire before eating them. Alaska produce has an exceptionally short shelf life because it has spent half of its life in a truck making its way here, so it is really easy to have a fridge full of wilty, mushy, brown and black lettuce, zucchini and asparagus. Therefore I need to start shopping with a game plan, meal plan, use plan for everything I buy. Not just because I think I may potentially cook with it at some point this month.Additional motivation for me is that since I am in grad school, I have a very limited income. I only work 1-2 days per week so I cannot afford to buy food and throw away half of it out every week, although that is roughly what I currently do.

I want to start recycling because even if I am done using something, it can be made new again and therefor not wasted. I purchased a little bin that is in the closet by the kitchen and it is already filling up with glass and plastic and it’s kind of weird (sad?) how exciting it is.  It’s the law to recycle in NC, but not in AK so I really fell out of habit moving here. I am hopeful the trend sticks and we will recycle more and make less trips to the dump with trash. It’s a little too late in the year to start composting in Alaska and I don’t want to have too many large expectations/changes of myself, but composting is definitely something I want to get into when we move, especially when we get more into farming/gardening.

3) Move more. I really fell out of my groove this fall in regards to going to the gym, yoga or hiking outdoors.  There isn’t much else to say about it other than motion breathes life back into me and I need it. For further explanation, please refer to this post here.

These three resolutions are full of bullets, subtitles and expansions but they are full of overlap. They overlap because in the end, I want only one thing- to pay attention to the details. 
I want to minimize so I can pay attention to my husband when he is having a rough week or needs some affirmation from me rather than focusing on the mountain range created by our laundry and dirty dishes and bitching about how tired I am. 
I want to pay attention to the articles and readings assigned by my professor for school that will help me with my future career because she picked them for a reason rather than worrying that we don’t have an idea of what to do for dinner, or that all the food I bought is now gone bad and we are stuck ordering pizza. 
I want to focus on honing my history taking and assessment skills in clinical rather than focusing on the faded, shrunken cardigan I’m wearing because I had so much laundry I missed not throwing it in the dyer and providing the proper care for it. 
I want to pay attention to the excitement of my yoga class or weight lifting routine in the morning, rather than worrying if I have packed my gym bag with all of my make up, special face wash and flat iron or that we have food to pack for lunch. 
I want to pay attention to the exciting story my patient is telling me while they receive treatment for their colon cancer and not worry about how bloated and tired I am from poor food choices and lack of motion.

If I have less, I have less to plan/prepare so I can make last minute decisions, augmentations in schedule which Spark Joy.  If I waste less, I have more resources to spend towards things which make me happy (such as our trip to Hawaii in February!). If I increase my motion, I have the energy and confidence to do things which make me happy (like take a picture in a bathing suit while paddle boarding in Hawaii!). It all comes back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If you don’t have food, shelter and safety, you cannot begin to work on relationships, knowledge building and self-fulfillment.  By minimizing and being less wasteful, those base layer needs are less complex.

We all pay attention to different things and consider different things lazy or halfassed.  My lack of properly appointed focus has admittedly led to a lot of halfassery in certain aspects of my life. I need to finish tasks, button up, double knot and polish what I am doing. 

I want to shift my focus in order to refine my focus.  

Intentional living and mindfulness aside, I just want to spend my time and energy paying attention to what really matters to me and that starts by paying attention to everything.

Focusing on everything, I cleaned my engagement ring for the first time. If I have less, I need to care for what I do have and what is important