Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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As I said last year, Josh and I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day.  At all.  Every day is Valentine’s Day in our house.  Not that… like… I make heart-shaped pancakes all the time.  But I let everyone know how I feel every day of the year.

But what struck me this weekend was thinking about how damn important Valentine’s Day was for me back in high school or college.  If I was dating someone, I wanted to know how we were going to celebrate it.  If I wasn’t dating someone, it was a chance to get a really good mope going.  The worst was starting to date someone in January.  Was it too soon to do something for Valentine’s Day?  Would it look weird if I suggested it?

Elementary school was easy: it was class parties and paper Valentines.  But those high school and college years were a killer.

What are your Valentine’s Day memories from your teens/twenties?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Is this a post about Marie Kondo and books? Um… sort of.

I was trying to understand her concept of sparking joy. Watching the video immediately brought certain books to mind.  The Magicians trilogy is a joy sparker.  All of my copies of The Phantom Tollbooth?  Each and every one fill me with joy.  Tolkien, joy.  Lewis, joy.  My Crazy Rich Asians books, joy joy joy.

But should reading always be joyful?  I don’t feel joy at all when I pick up Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz but wasn’t it important to read it and important to keep it?  Fine, we can equate gratitude (for Levi writing the book) with joy and it remains on the bookshelf, but there are so many others that don’t fill me with any emotion, and I would still never give them away.  They represent a moment in time or a story I may want to return to in the future or simply a good receptacle of knowledge.  My reading isn’t always joyful or even enjoyable; there is plenty I read because I think there is a good reason to read it.  Like the math book I’m reading right now; zero joy, 100% still think I should read it.

This isn’t commentary on Kondo’s method — I’m sure there is some nuanced loophole that allows you to keep as many books as you please.  It’s more the thought over whether reading should always be enjoyable.  Should we be aiming for pleasure or aiming for a different target?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I read a little nugget of advice that I like and hate in equal measure.  On the plus side, it’s a really easy way to get yourself motivated.  On the minus side, it brings up all my feelings over the idea of “just one more bite.”

(No, not just one more bite.  When you’re full, you’re full.)

So the idea is that when you’re stuck or dragging, you tell yourself that you’re just going to do five more of something or spend five more minutes.  For instance, I’ll just answer five more emails.  Or I’ll work on this for five more minutes.  The idea being that we can usually handle five more of something and continuing can sometimes get us over the “don’t wanna” hump:

Don’t feel like exercising? Do five downward facing dogs. Can’t bring yourself to clean out the whole fridge? Clear out five items. Taunted by that giant unopened novel that’s been sitting on your nightstand? Read just five pages. You’re giving yourself a jump-start—and once you get going, you likely won’t stop.

What do you think?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I am trying not to eat the Girl Scout cookies in the kitchen.  (I really really really want the Thin Mints in the kitchen.)  I had to buy them.  My niece is so adorable that my heart started shrieking, “You must buy them all!” the second she started her sales pitch.  I was limited to two boxes because I won’t donate them.  I will eat them.  And I will tell myself only one more, but I will really eat four more.  Because.  Thin Mints.

The man who invented the Marshmallow Test recommended replacement as a method of self-control.  You distract yourself with something else so you don’t think about the thing you want to eat/smoke/do/etc.  So if you don’t want to eat Thin Mints (but I do want to eat Thin Mints), you do a crossword puzzle.  Or you go for a walk.  Or you scroll through photos.  Anything so your brain is occupied instead of thinking about the Thin Mints.

It didn’t work for me because, last night, I replaced thinking about Thin Mints with thinking about Pepperidge Farm Brussels.  But we don’t have Brussels.  So I ate a Thin Mint because those were in the kitchen.  Okay, I ate two.  Really, that was it.  I ate two.  For now.

What do you use to distract yourself?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I know how to play chess — I was even the head of the chess club at school (because I’m that level of cool) — but I would like to get better at chess.  It has been on my to-do list for a while: Get better at chess.  But I may be too late.  Apparently chess players peak at 36 and then slowly go downhill.

It’s a funny thought to think of yourself as too late for something.  Too young — that is a situation you live over and over again through childhood.  But too old, especially for something non-physical or biological, I thought I had all the time in the world.  I mean, yes, I recognize that there is a big difference between “get better” and “become a grandmaster.”  But still.

It made me wonder what other items on my wish list would be past their expiration date by the time I got around to it.  I imagined that I would learn how to use an D-SLR camera in my later years, add another language, master the sewing machine.

What do you imagine learning in your later years?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.