Review

A picture of some wildflowers

Self-Care Strategies that Do Work for Me (Repost)

Erica, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

In an effort to balance out my rant about self-care tactics that don’t work for me, I thought I would share some that do. While I will be sharing specific things that I do, I don’t want to present this as a list of things that work for me and should also work for you. I intend to focus more on how I settled on these methods, how they have helped me, and how I handle my own expectations for them.

1) Meditation: I will admit, my journey with mindfulness meditation began through a workplace wellness program. At first, I saw it as a great way to take an extra little three-minute break during the day. That led to many more three minute breaks, and eventually to me downloading a mindfulness app, but not really establishing any sort of routine. I had difficulty making time to meditate on the weekends, mostly because I did not want to be alone with my thoughts. After a long break during the pandemic, I downloaded a different app and started my journey over again. Most days I meditated very much in earnest, although some days I just put the timer on while I brushed my teeth to keep my streak. Eventually I noticed that I felt better on days when I meditated, and every once in a while I noticed myself dismissing troublesome thoughts.

But the results were not immediate. I was 200 days into my second meditation journey before I was able to put my phone in the drawer at work for even one day, and it was another hundred days before I was able to do so with any sort of consistency. For me, meditation hit that sweet spot of short term and long term benefits. Every day, whether I felt It was having an effect on the rest of my life or not I got some peace a few moments of peace and quiet.

2) Exercise: I’m not here to proselytize the benefits of exercise, which may not be accessible to everyone, or extol the benefits of a specific exercise routine. Everyone’s body is unique and the right exercise for you is a personal matter, so I wont to get into specifics. I want to use exercise as an example of something that takes much more time out of the day, and something that I have had an on-again-off-again relationship with for pretty much my entire life. My early dabbling for the exercise were largely tied to my teenage body image issues. After college, armed with a more thorough knowledge of how bodies work and a different set of expectations, I began to exercise again. This time my motivation was much healthier. I knew the more I moved, the better I felt, especially in contrast to a highly sedentary job.

Over the past few years I have tried, for varying amounts of time: yoga videos, which were the quickest and easiest; swimming, which was the most time-consuming, but also when I can say I was physically at my strongest; cycling during the beginning of quarantine when I was furloughed and itching to get outside, and now I do low-impact aerobics routines, which are much easier on my joints, but at least get my heart rate up.

In between each of these, there were long periods where I got little or no exercise. Sometimes I was just too busy, and sometimes my previous form of exercise no longer fit with my schedule. Every time I found something new I would have to start again from the beginning. I still struggle with having to backtrack so that I don’t over exert myself after I take a week off for whatever reason. My current routine works for me now and that’s great but I’ve learned enough from the past not to be disappointed when it doesn’t work forever and I have to find something new.

3) Setting Boundaries: This may seem like a departure from the previous methods in that it is not visibly advertised. After all, it would be difficult to sell you a boundary-setting app and no workplace wants to be on the receiving end of such boundaries. Learning to set healthy boundaries took a lot of therapy, which I know not everyone has access to, and a lot of lived experience. One simple boundary I set was not going out on weeknights. I decided it was more important for me to get enough rest before work the next day. None of my friendships have suffered. There are other, more personal boundaries that have been more difficult to set and I won’t get into details here. I had to go through the difficult task of parsing out what was reasonable to protect myself and what would put an undue burden on someone else. At the root of it all, though, I had to come to the realization that I was worthy of respect. And that is a conclusion I hope everyone is able to come to on their self-care journey.

 4) Journaling: My other on-again-off-again relationship. If you were to flip through the journals I have accumulated throughout my life, which I hope only Carolyn ever has or will, you would probably be very concerned for me. I tend to journal when I need it most, often in a time of crisis. I’ve tried at various times to create an “every single day” journaling habit to no avail. Journaling is where I exercise my self-imposed principle that nothing is self-care if it really stresses me out more than it helps. And often if I set a standard of journaling every single day, finding time to journal is more stressful than the stress it relieves. But I know that if I ever need to process something out on paper, the blank page is there for me.

5) Scheduling Me Time: I don’t do this terribly often, maybe once every couple of months or so, but sometimes if my calendar is looking either to empty or too full, I like to schedule out a little time for myself. Whether it’s taking a bath, watching a movie, or sometimes even something I just never do like cleaning my baseboards, it feels good to officially allow myself the time.

-Erica

A Set of Journals

Self-Care Strategies that Don’t Work for Me (Repost)

Erica, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

Self-care and self-improvement have always been tricky topics for me. As someone who has struggled with both anxiety and depression since childhood, I feel like I could always be taking better care of myself. And as a member of that special cohort of high-achieving children who become average to less-than-average achieving adults, I feel like I could always just be doing better. This toxic combination of nature and nurture let me to spend much of my early 20s searching in vain for a way to live my life that would make me both happy and productive.

Suffice it to say, many of these strategies and methods simply did not work for me. And every time I tried implementing one of these methods and failed, I felt the doom and gloom set in. It took me too long to learn that not everything is for everybody, and just because something worked for someone else does not mean that it would work for me.

It can be really hard to read about how a certain organizational method or habit-forming strategy worked out wonderfully for someone else while it is simultaneously failing you. It’s also difficult when the methods described require amounts of time or other resources you just don’t have. And yet another layer of pressure is added when you’re not just reading about self-improvement from a book you can stop reading at any time, but you have unsolicited advice coming from everyone in your life. I want to detail some of the self-help and self-improvement strategies that did not work for me, so that if anyone else out there find some selves in a similar situation they know they are not alone.

“Just do” or “Just don’t do” [Insert Good or Bad Thing Here]: My contention with pronouncements like these goes all the way back to when people, including my parents, would tell me as a depressed 10-year-old to “just be happy.” Now, as an adult who does not easily establish or keep routines, I simply ignore any piece of advice that begins with those words. The key to happiness may very well be exercising every single day without fail or never looking at my phone at work again. But I know that I can’t “just do” anything. I need instruction on how to start a routine and, when I inevitably break it, how to restart a routine without shaming myself out of trying all together. Included in this category are things like “just let it go,” “just don’t take it personally,” “just stop looking at distracting websites,” etc.

Many Workplace Self-Care Initiatives I want to be clear, I’m not talking about EAPs here. Those can be a great resource. I’m talking about the “do this three minute desk yoga video and don’t say we don’t look out for you!” kind of thing. Taking care of yourself should not come with any outside expectations. You are the most qualified to evaluate your own needs and establish your own goals for yourself, whether your goal is to be more active, better rested, something else. This is not to say you cannot take advantage of an employer sponsored program if it aligns with your personal goals, just throw out any messaging about how it will help your productivity. Remember you are doing this for you, not them. Don’t do anything that would put more of a burden on you than your employer already has.

Self-Help Books I tried reading books like Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before, which breaks people down into four basic personality types and provides tips and tricks for each of these for forming healthy habits. She begins the book with the caveat that those suffering from a variety of mental illnesses or mental health issues would likely not be able to follow her strategies. I soldiered on anyway, and found that she had the least amount of helpful advice for my personality type, often following her advice for the other three types by saying “well this probably won’t work for you.” If things change to later in the book I don’t know I stopped reading.

Cal Newport’s Deep Work is another book I gave up on about halfway through. I started it hoping that it would help me focus at work, but the his advice does not work for someone who’s job is almost entirely distractions.

I think it’s great that these people have figured out what works for them. And I’m not writing off the above books. They might work for you, they just didn’t work for me. So, if you’re also in some kind of slump, whether it’s depression, a dead-end job, or anything else, take care of yourself. Don’t expect one meditation or one candle-lit bath to solve everything. And don’t give into the sunk cost fallacy. If you’re trying something that’s supposed to make you feel better, and it’s just making you miserable, stop. Try something else. There are so many ways to get the same result, and you need to find the one that works for you. Don’t waste valuable time on the ones that don’t.

-Erica

Oh, The Inconvenience Of Being Protected From Unknown Nocturnal Threats (Repost)

Harry and Dash, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

Would it help you, when our so-called “zoomies” disturb your sleep, to know that they serve a purpose? And I don’t mean the derisive “practice hunting.” We aren’t practicing. We are hunting something. The only issue is, we don’t yet know what.

 I don’t know how to best describe it. There is nothing to see, smell, or touch. Only a feeling. When it passes through you, there is a shiver, but no chill. When it is near, it raises the hackles. I know you have felt it too. I’ve seen you react to it, although you always invent some other explanation. Harry did not understand it at first either. He thought it was just a cold spot or a draft. But it moves. Sometimes with us, sometimes against us. We do our best to keep it away from you, at least until we understand it better.

I know my argument that an unseen entity has taken up residence here is shaky at best, but I hope for two outcomes. One, that you have a satisfactory explanation for our behavior. Two, that we do our best to protect you, whether you appreciate it or not. Hopefully the following evidence as to where encounters most often occur, which you can correlate with your own observation, will strengthen my case.

Harry checks the bathtub before Erica showers

The entity can most often be found in the bathroom, particularly the bathtub. You have noticed that we often zip in and out of the tub just before you turn on the shower and will stand (or sit) guard on the counter while you use the shower. I know you notice this because you always laugh when we do. We are making sure it doesn’t come back, that you get to shower in privacy.

Harry (on shelf) and Dash (standing) have chased the entity to a high corner of the kitchen.

It likes high places, too. It will often be up in the corners of the room, next to the ceiling. Sometimes it stays near the water damage in the living room. Usually we try to chase it there, standing on the shelf by your door, pawing at the wall until we are satisfied that it will not disturb you for the rest of the evening. If we do not chase it up by the paint bubble, it will hover over you all evening, whether you’re reading, crafting, or just watching TV. We are cats. We know this hovering means it is ready to pounce.

It also follows you into the kitchen. You wonder why Harry is always at your feet while you are cooking or washing dishes. He has developed the hunting instinct, too. His favorite place to trap it is in the tiny gap under your kitchen cabinets. When you see him sitting there, staring at it all day, that is what he is doing.

Our most important job, however, is to guard you at night. We don’t know what this thing could do while you sleep. You will notice that one of us is nearly always in bed with you throughout the night. Yes, there are times when we leave you alone, but we always remain close by. I prefer to stay right by your head, just to be sure. Harry stays at your feet, on alert in case it comes too close.

Those nights when we race through the apartment, jumping from dresser to bed to floor, waking you up in the process, those are the nights we can feel it. I know you don’t like to be woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of us chasing whatever it is back to the ceiling bubble or the cabinet under the sink. I know that sometimes it takes too long for you to fall back asleep, leaving you groggy and grumpy the next day. I can only imagine the alternative is much worse.

-Dash

Three somewhat tragic looking macarons

Patience, Planning, and Mise en Place: a Macaron Adventure (Repost)

Ella, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

Erica is occasionally gripped by the idea that she should be able to cook or bake despite all evidence to the contrary. When in this state, she will not settle for something simple, but often attempts something complex and labor-intensive and often enlists my help. During this particular bout of hubris, or insecurity, the two are often intertwined, she decided to make macarons for an outdoor get together with her college friends.

I don’t know why. I don’t like her college friends. She doesn’t even seem to like her college friends. I must point out before I go any further, I use the term “college friends” to describe a group of five or six highly competitive young women I have nothing in common except that they were all friends in college*. And seem to think that this obliges them to a twice yearly ritual of getting together and catching up. And in this case “catching up” refers to bragging about salaries, vacations, future home purchases, and upcoming weddings.

College friends aside, I thought this adventure provided a good opportunity to teach Erica about the amount of patience in planning that goes into any large scale baking or cooking project. She has attempted to make macarons before, and from what I gather we results were not aesthetically perfect, but were quite tasty. Unfortunately, this time she fell victim to the fallacy that learning from her past mistakes meant she was ready to bake to impress. I did not dissuade her from this notion, but simply tried to guide her through the process as best I could.

We began with a very serious planning effort. She was intent on using a hodgepodge of flavorings and ingredients she had around the house and so basic recipes and other ingredient quantities were determined and supplementary ingredients were purchased. We also planned phases for the actual baking and assembly of the final cookies. Her little get together was planned for brunch time on Saturday morning which meant she would have to cook these during the week. Rather than allow her to exhaust and disappoint herself thinking that she could accomplish this all in one evening, we planned for the three separate tasks of making the fillings, baking the cookies, and the final assembly.

Erica chose to make one butter cream and two custards for her fillings. All three were flavored with puréed, canned fruit she had purchased over a year ago when her anxiety told her an apocalypse was eminent. There are not many published recipes that involve using canned fruit in delicate French pastries. Her emotional investment was high. She needed something more than her entry-level job to show off. I was sure the macarons would taste fine, but was worried about what else might end up in there.

Where Erica went right in this adventure was in her attempt do use the French cooking technique mise en place, which involves preparing ingredients ahead of time so they can simply be added to the recipe. Butter and cream cheese were set on the counter to soften. Eggs were separated. And all the fruit puréed before any mixing of ingredients started.

With the cranberry custard, she tossed the ingredients one by one into a heated saucepan. Unfortunately this meant that the egg yolks cooked immediately, but surprisingly Erica was not deterred. She uttered a few choice words under her breath, then stirred the custard delicately so as not to disturb any of the scrambled egg and strained it when she was satisfied that it was done. For the next custard she mixed all her ingredients before putting them in the saucepan and everything went wonderfully.

She had a slight misadventure with the buttercream, when she realize she had not softened quite enough butter in proportion to the cream cheese. Her attempts to soften the extra butter were not quite sufficient and she ended the night with a somewhat lumpy buttercream frosting. Much to my dismay and anxiety she made no attempt to correct this, but simply scooped it into a container and put it in the refrigerator. I can somewhat understand why as I was already close to 10 PM. Overall, Erica’s outward composure was impressive.

The cookies were another adventure. For her first and largest batch, she simply sifted plain almond flour and sugar into her egg mixture. I know she noticed something amiss when she piped them onto the cookie tray, but it was too late to do anything and she was not going to start over. While those were waiting to go into the oven she surprised me by blending the remaining flour and sugar mixture. At some point that night, she also took the buttercream out of the refrigerator warmed, it up a bit and put that in the blender until it was smooth as well. There were more choice words from her and much hand-wringing from me.

I was not present for the assembly of the cookies. Erica did that on Friday morning before work. Occasionally, her anxiety wakes her up at some ungodly hour and rather than try to get back to sleep, she decides she has to do something. This time is was fill and assemble her macarons. This particular bout of anxiety worried me more than any of the quick, panicked reactions I had seen the night before. I did expressed this to her, but she just smiled and told me it would all be fine.

-Ella

*Erica does have a number of “friends from college,” whom she genuinely likes and with whom she has healthy, fulfilling friendships.

Think of Your Aesthetic as a Journey (it’s cheaper too) (Repost)

Carolyn, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

So much social media these days, or at least the social media I read over your shoulder, is concerned with the concept of “aesthetic.” Back in my time, we would have referred to it as “style,” although aesthetic seems to be more narrowly defined. In your case, it seems to mean an Instagram feed full of pastels and leatherbound books and the breeze blowing through embroidered curtains.

I see you looking at these pictures and then at your own apartment and sighing. No, you don’t have a place in your apartment that’s a perfect background for photos, but that’s okay. Yes, your shelves still hold modern books with mismatched covers and *gasp* some DVDs that you still hang on to. That’s all okay.

Creating a cohesive environment takes time and money, both of which you have in short supply. A complete overhaul is out of the question, not to mention wasteful considering much of what you have is still perfectly useful. And even though you know deep down, you still need reminding that just because it took you an instant to look at a picture of a perfectly set table or swoon-worthy bookshelf does not mean that it took an instant to put together.

Remember, you’re starting where you are, and that’s someone who’s just a few years out of college. You still have an apartment full of thrift store furniture that you bought because it was cheap and you just needed furniture. Or its your first real piece of furniture that you bought new from the store and you don’t want to let go just yet. Either way, there is a good reason your apartment looks a bit eclectic and a good reason to get every little bit of use out of that furniture. You also like to make things yourself and display gifts from other people, two tendencies which can be difficult to incorporate into a cohesive aesthetic.

While these tendencies might mean that it takes you longer to put together a room you’re satisfied with, they have many hidden benefits. Yes, it is frustrating to watch packages and packages of homewares arrive for your neighbors while you’re not in the best financial spot, but waiting until something needs replacing will be cheaper in the long run. Whether it’s propagating your own houseplants or an inventive way to make your DVDs look like fancy books, you’ll always have a better story than “I wanted it so I bought it.” This is not to say that anyone who has already arrived at their own sense of style or has decided to completely renovate their living room to cope with quarantine is wrong. It’s just that every path has their advantages, whether or not they’re immediately appealing to Instagram.

What’s more, taking time to really develop an aesthetic means it can continue to evolve as time goes on. While certain sentimental objects will remain staples, you can replace things with something that both matches your aesthetic and is significant to you. Don’t think of the end result as the final look of the room, but rather the criteria you use when choosing new items for your apartment. Your apartment will never look quite as polished as the pictures you sigh at on rainy days, but it will be vastly more interesting, especially for me.

-Carolyn

Disclaimer: This is Frustrating, But Still Worth It (Repost)

Erica, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

To say this blog is not exactly how I imagined it is an understatement. I have been sitting on the idea starting this blog for over a year. As an avid reader of other craft and DIY blogs, I had a grand vision for my own. This grand vision involved many skills and habits I do not have. I could have waited, put my crafting projects on pause to learn these skills, but then I may have lost my momentum.

Progress photos, an essential part of any DIY blog, are the best example. I often work on my projects at night when the lighting is bad for photographs, and I have neither the budget nor space for supplemental lighting. I also sometimes just get so into whatever I’m working on at the idea of taking pictures does not even occur to me. I also don’t necessarily always have a clean and elegant setting for my photos since my coffee table is often covered with books, papers, and unfinished projects. And I’m not about to clean again just to get a quick picture.

I did think about supplementing one or two photos per post with a neat line drawing for each step. Since the lighting would again be an issue taking photos of actual drawings, I decided to purchase a drawing tablet for my computer. Well, that’s a lot harder than it seems. I haven’t given up on it yet. I’m still learning, but my skill level certainly is not in a place where I am willing to publish those drawings on the Internet.

I won’t even get into my shortcomings with WordPress and the internet in general, or crafts that I want to try, but have little experience with. If I tried to learn that before I published my first blog post, you’d never see any of this. Like all my other projects, I’ll be learning as I go, and I think that’s the most honest representation of my creative process.

I say all this not to inspire any sort of sympathy, but to say that I know it is not perfect and if I had waited until it was I would never have started. I like to create mostly because I like to control. Creating something from scratch means that I get exactly what I want, at least within my abilities. When something is beyond my abilities, I often abandon the idea without learning or asking for help.

I place an unhealthy amount of value on being naturally good at things, or at least appearing so. These warped ideals happen when you have no natural talent in areas that seem to come easily to everyone else. I’ve always been very easily overwhelmed and had trouble controlling my emotions. When I was a child, that often led to magical outbursts. They could get so bad that those around me were in danger. I was told I needed to control myself as if the outbursts were my choice, but was never taught how. My parents were ill-equipped to deal with me and professional help was out of the question. They could not trust a four-year-old to keep her mouth shut. My mother tried to teach me to cook, hoping that would help me the way it helped her, but I was so useless at it, the results were almost as dangerous as my outbursts.

Eventually, I accomplished a veneer of control. I never had an outburst when I felt good, and I felt good when I excelled and was praised. I stayed away from any activity at which I did not naturally excel. I only let myself be frustrated in private. If I had to fail at something publicly, I made a show of not putting in any effort at all. By the time I was in college, I was exhausted. I realized what I was doing was not healthy and began undoing all the harm done by the idea that I must succeed at everything.

And part of that part of undoing the damage done by those thoughts is admitting this is not perfect. It’s not how I imagined it would be. And I’m still trying really hard. But it’s still worth it, because I just need it to start.

-Erica

The Complex Nature of Curses (Repost)

Ella, Review

July is a free review month! This post would normally be for Patreon subscribers, but is being reposted for free. If you’re not a Patreon subscriber, this is what the Patreon posts are like. If you are a Patreon subscriber and have been wanting to share this post, now you can! (please do).

Like any kind of magic, the specific power with which Erica and I are endowed requires great care in its use. We cannot “curse” others according to a specific spell with more or less predictable results. The magic we carry within us depends solely on our intentions and necessitates great respect and regard for any possible consequences. I say this as an explanation for why I don’t use my own magic very often, and am focusing on other areas of Erica’s life before I teach her how to use her gift.

Let us take a situation that is relatively low-stakes, but highly aggravating scenario: You wake up early on Saturday to beat the laundry rush in your building, only to find that someone has left their clothes in the washer since last night*.  An understandable first reaction is to curse the person who did that, usually with words. After all, you dragged your week of laundry down three flights of stairs only to have to leave it unattended in the laundry room or drag it back up again. And you have your whole day planned. Now you can’t even properly readjust your schedule because you can’t predict when this person will wake up and switch their laundry.

But the hurling of curses should be limited to a few choice words under your breath. While it might be appealing, for those with any kind of magic powers, to curse the lingering clothes, there is not enough information. You might be cursing someone who came down with a sudden stomach bug or had some kind of family emergency after they started their laundry the previous night. Or, you could be cursing someone who go up a half hour earlier than you to do laundry and will be down in just a few minutes.

If this is a repeated occurrence and there is sufficient evidence, perhaps a distinctive piece of clothing, that it is the same person, the temptation to curse may grow. First there is the temptation to curse the laundry itself, which should be avoided. Like the temptation to throw a piece of gum or a broken pen in the washer, all this does is invite the now angered laundry-leaver to mess with your laundry. Or worse, you have been needlessly cruel toward an otherwise delightful person. Punitive curses are momentarily satisfying, but accomplish little in the way of tangible changes in behavior. After all, if a person is already passively inconsiderate, punishing them for an action they have no memory of may only worsen their general demeanor, making them actively rude or cruel.

The two remaining options are to compel this person to be more considerate or to find a way to remove this inconvenience from your life. The former is almost impossible, leaving the latter as the best option, although still quite labor-intensive. First, you must identify the laundry-leaver. This can be difficult in a building where neighbors are seldom seen.

Next, you must learn about them. This requires more than discovering what kind of ruse is necessary to get some cursed baked goods in the door. We already discussed the futility and cruelty of punitive curses. You need to know what you really want out of the situation. It may be tempting to send them somewhere that they will have to contend with an inconvenient laundry situation or worse, but once again cruelty is never truly satisfying. What’s best for you, from hundreds of years of experience, is the best possible life for them, separate from you. You will need to get to know them. Start with a seemingly chance meeting, find some common ground. Have a reason to speak again.

When you are in regular contact, discover more about their hopes and aspirations. Have they always dreamed of moving to the desert? Maybe they miss having a yard? Be open to the opportunities they reveal to you. Look for something that would benefit them and benefit you by allowing them to explore opportunities outside the building. How you coax them toward that opportunity is up to you. Maybe you give them a confidence boost before a job interview. Maybe you make them more perceptive to job announcements out of state. Either way, choose carefully. Pushing them toward an opportunity they are unlikely to take advantage of could lead to disappointment for them and for you. And success in this endeavor does not guarantee that the next tenant will be more considerate.

Of course, you could simply wait and do your laundry later.

-Ella

*If you are the kind of person who does this, please understand I bear you no ill will, but if you cannot stay awake for another half hour, is it worth starting your laundry at all? The worst that waiting could bring is that some earlybird beats you to the washer, but then you will only have a half hour or so to wait. We are usually much more punctual.