domicile

Mediations on mediation

new half moon zafu
Originally uploaded by emira

A few weeks ago now (nearly a month) a trusted advisor told me, in no uncertain terms, that I need to learn to meditate. Now.

I've been told before that meditation would do me a world of good, and I've always theoretically believed this to be true. I say theoretically because, to be totally honest, I spent many years believing that meditation -- namely the idea of calming your mind (or heaven forbid ridding it of all thought entirely) -- was actually about one breath away from death. Sound dramatic? Perhaps it is, and I never really rationally held this thought, but as an over-achieving, driven and cerebral person, the idea of clearing my mind of thoughts seemed like the antithesis of what I generally strive for day in and day out. Of course, those of you who understand meditation understand that that is kind of the point (and I'm slowly coming around to that realization now myself), but the point was lost on me for the better part of three decades.

The push towards meditation that I got this time really seemed to resonate with me. The woman who was encouraging me to give it a whirl probably wasn't expecting me to laugh in her face and respond with flippant "whatever" that carried all the underlying stress that life brings and my stubborn belief that there's not much that can be done to change that. She responded, very patiently, by reminding me that meditation is truly a practice. You're not supposed to get it right from the start. I guess that was the second part that always turned me off of meditation: the idea that you have to practice sitting and breathing. Seriously? I'm generally a person who strives to do most things that I do really well. The idea that I would need to practice sitting and breathing kind of struck me as a bit embarrassing to be honest.

Still, this woman's response stuck with me. And after mulling it over for 48 hours I decided I would give it a whirl. Afterall, I really had little to lose in the proposition. And so, I committed to myself to sit for 10 minutes (I set a kitchen timer) every morning right after I get up. Just 10 minutes. My rationale? It can't really hurt, and to sound all Oprah-you-go-girl-ish: I kind of owe this to myself. After a week, during which most days 10 minutes was fairly easy but a few were littered with me checking the timer slyly (so that no one would know I was cheating?) out of the corner of my eye every 45 seconds, I felt like maybe this was a possible option for me after all. It's been hard. Hard on mornings when I've worked late the night before and I feel like I need to get into work to get back at it as soon as possible. Hard on mornings when I'd rather stay in bed just a little bit longer. But, each time I tell myself "it's just 10 minutes."

The second week was a bit strange. I don't know if this is normal, but during the second week I was a crabby MOFO. I felt like this exercise of sitting and calming myself every morning was actually unearthing all kinds of anger and frustration that wanted to take over. And for that week, they kind of did. The next week, things were a bit easier again. And, after three weeks of meditating on a cushion grabbed off the couch I decided to invest in a meditation cushion of my very own (the very lovely zafu pictured here which is from Half Moon Yoga here in Vancouver. I have nasty tight hamstrings so the cushion makes it much more comfortable to sit.

This last week of meditating I've actually been really enjoying it thoroughly. As Spring comes to the West Coast some mornings during the mere 10 minutes that I sit, I'll close my eyes to the view of a last sliver of moon on the horizon and open them to the red of the sunset and chirp of the first birds. This morning, a Saturday so I was up a bit later, I sat with the sun streaming in and warming my face.

I'm very tempted to do research online, to buy books on meditation and to try to "get better" at this as quickly as possible. But I'm holding myself back. For the time being I'm just going to stick with the sitting. The sitting and breathing and trying to clear my mind (never really succeeding for more than a few breaths). For now, that seems like enough.

The Ides of November

No, we haven't officially hit the middle of the month yet but holy smokes it's been for-ev-er since I posted over here. Why? Usual reasons I suppose. Busy at work. Busy at home. Plus I've been on the road with work and the book, and getting a couple of days of playtime in there with a visit with the lovely Alex as well. And now suddenly it's November. It's dark and rainy by 5pm nearly every day and I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that this year is nearly over. But before it ends: my birthday! It will in fact be my birthday in a week (November 15th) and this year I don't really have big plans for a splashy celebration, though I'm hoping for a nice dinner party at our place which may or may not involve some champagne I have kicking around, but I need to get on organizing that before it's too late.

I also know (or think I know) that my darling Martin has yet to find just the perfect gift, so to help him out (and inspired by Alex's gorgeous Esty post) I've put together an Etsy wishlist. So my darling, if you're stuck anything from here would do most wonderfully.

Etsy Buy Handmade domicile

Friday Links

Things on the web I wish I had more time for:

• Megan's (Not Martha) interview with CraftBoom is up. I can't say enough about how generous, talented and lovely Megan is. Read her thoughts on running an online craft-based business and share in her awesomeness.
• Still on the business tip, you can hear Lauren and me talk about The Boss of You and the business of being in business from our Lab session at Velocity if you're so inclined. The Podcast is up here.
• Vickie's awesome blueberry died wool. Where does that gal find the time?
• Mighty Girl's 8 Books that Changed Me has got me thinking. I wish I had more time to compile my own list. Alas.
• Lemon Achiote Grilled Tofu. Yumm.

And on a somewhat random (but, hey you never know) tip: if you're a php/Drupal developer in Vancouver (or thinking of moving here really soon) looking for work, check out our job posting. The sooner we fill this job, the sooner I have time to breath.

Veggie in New York

We have done some truly awesome veggie/vegan eating since we arrived in New York on Sunday night. Much of that has been thanks to the recommendations of friends (Felicia is a rock star in more ways than one), as well as general internet researching.We're still here for a few more days and I've got a few places on my list I'm hoping to get to, but so far here's my run down on veggie recommendations in New York, for those who are so inclined:

• Peep: (Soho, 177 Prince Street) We ended up at Peep thanks to our lovely hosts for the first part of our trip. Chris and Sara very kindly put us up in their Soho flat for three nights, and helped us find good food when we first arrived. Peep doesn't honestly have the scope of veggie thai options that many places I've been to have offered, but really that's just splitting hairs. The entire back half of their menu can be made with tofu and really I always order green curry with eggplant anyway, so why am I complaining? Peep also managed to fit our request for "good thai food, and flattering lighting". After a day of airports and planes lighting felt like it mattered. The tasty cocktails were a bonus too.
• Bread: (Nolita, 20 Spring Street) Felicia brought us to Bread, so I knew it would be a winner. Bread is not a veggie specific place (neither is Peep) but there were plenty of options to choose from. Predictably, Bread has awesome bread. They also have wickedly tasty tomato soup and a to die for mushroom polenta dish that Felicia implored me to ordered (and rightly so). This is the kind of place with very tasty gourmet paninis (on awesome bread) made with gourmet cheeses and tasty bits. There were plenty of meaty options at bread too, but as a veggie I definitely didn't feel left out. It's a very cute little room too, though Felicia warns of occasional drunk eurotrash. This would be the perfect spot to stop for a lunch break while shopping Soho or Nolita, and made for an excellent Monday night dinner.
• Candle 79: (154 East 79th @ Lexington) We ducked into Candle 79 (they also have a second locations called the Candle Cafe) after spending the morning at the Met. It was a recommendation from our client, who we met with the day before. I say ducked in as this was the day of the rain. All the food at both Candle Cafe's is entirely vegan and absolutely delicious. Truly stunning. Apparently seitan is their speciality. It was really hard not to order dessert.
• Brown: (Lower East Side, 61 Hester Street) Another recommendation from Felicia, though she couldn't join us, so we took our gracious hosts Chris and Sara with us. Brown is also not a veggie exclusive place (and if memory serves may be a bit tricky for vegans as they had a lot of local cheese in things), but was definitely tasty and offered several veggie choices. Their schtick is local food (most of it coming from the Hudson Valley) and organic beers and wines. Brown is a pretty tiny room (I'd say it seats 20) that reminded me very much of being in Europe. Simple decor, excellent light fixtures, high ceilings, white walls. The food was excellent and again turning down dessert was a bit painful.

Tonight we're off to Angelica's Kitchen, which a friend back home literally took my hands in hers while emploring me to visit. Fortunately I only had a small bowl of soup for lunch at Union station in DC this afternoon, so I may be able to squeeze in dessert tonight!

Busy, busy, busy

It turns out all this publishing a book business is rather enough to keep one occupied for days/weeks on end. Between various book related things, and book blog posting I feel like I've barely had time for domestic life, let alone time to blog about it.

Martin, on the other hand, is up to all kinds of housey stuff lately, but sadly he's hopeless at documenting it, and even worse at typing. So some of that will go unrecorded until I find the time to put it together.

Between making my living at the computer and all the book related computer time, I've been trying to spend most of my down time away from the computer. Martin and I have in fact recently taken up a semi-regular habit (say 2-3 times a week) of going to the community centre gym. I'm enjoying it more than I've enjoyed gym-like exercise in the past (I'm typically more of a dance class/yoga kind of exercise girl) and in a further twist of strangeness am actually really enjoying the treadmill. I was always the girl left out running around the track long after everyone else had gone back into the changeroom in P.E. class, so enjoying running is truly novel to me. There's just something about the total contrast between all the sitting and thinking of my normal life and clocking miles on the treadmill that is making me rather happy these days. I've also found that I most enjoy my time at the gym when I've got either comedy (hello hello David Cross!), audio books or language podcasts on my iPod. Today Lauren turned me on to the Stephen Fry podcast (or podgram as he calls them) and I can not recommend a better accompaniment for exercise if you, like me, enjoy a little wit and esoteric commentary with your treadmill time. (Having actually just typed that, I'm going to assume I may be among the very few who do in fact enjoy comedic musings on Victorian era aestheticism on the treadmill, but if you're one of the other few I dare say you'll thank me as you chuckle through cardio).

We're off to Seattle, New York and DC next week on a mini book tour of sorts. If anyone has ideas for recommending things to do, see and eat in New York in particular I'd love to hear it (we're in Seattle very briefly and in DC for not much longer). So far I've been taken by the hand and instructed to eat at Angelica's Kitchen and I've discovered a Seville connected vendor of handmade flamenco shoes that I must stop in on. All other recommendations for beautiful foods, lovely shops and must see locations are most welcome.

Unscheduled Spring Cleaning

While I like a good Spring clean as much as the next person, I really hadn't planned on spending last weekend scrubbing my house out with bleach. I had especially not planned on being locked in said house, dependent on the kindness of very kind friends to drop of care packages of movies, gingerale and saltines while we withered  indoors during Vancouver's first beautiful sunny weekend. We got Norwalk, also known as the nasty, nasty stomach bug that just won't quit. And if being up all night expelling the contents of your entire guts isn't enough fun for you, Norwalk seems to  leave you basically wasted for about 48-72 hours afterwards, which is helpful since unless you hate the human race -- particularly the ones who inhabit your community -- you really ought to quarantine yourself. And so we did.

Martin and I have never been sick together. Not really. There was that time in Costa Rica when he was sick on the way down, and I was sick a few days later and we've had the odd overlapping cold where one starts to get sick as the other is pulling out, but this was different. We were both in bed, flat out useless from Thursday night until sometime Sunday evening. The end. Even moving to the couch to watch movies together was more than we could handle. So, we didn't. We actually lay in beds having conversations like this:

"I can't get comfortable."
"Me Neither."
"Do you mind if I just kind of roll around and moan for a while? I think that might be more comfortable."
"Sure, I did that this morning. It helped."

We had the conversation more than once. I don't tell you all this to get pity. We have enough for ourselves. But rather to note that while I'd never, ever want to have Norwalk again (ever), there was something strangely lovely about having it with Martin. We always comment on how little time off we have together. Save our vacations away, we only have one common day off (Sundays) and we're almost always doing chores/running errands/tearing the house apart or putting it back together/etc. It was kind of nice to just lay around, even if it was in agony. And to know that we can lay around in agony together and actually laugh every once in awhile. Almost makes up for missing bike rides through the Spring weather and cherry blossoms. Almost.

The Boss of You is now shipping from Amazon.com

This book thing just gets more and more surreal all the time. Get your copy now, if you're so inclined.

New Year, New Look

I spent much of last year wishing I had time to rejig the design of this here blog, and sadly that time never materialized. Today, on the last day of the holidays I found myself with not enough time to start any of the big new projects on my list, and a desire to spend a fair bit of time in my pjs. Mucking around with Photoshop and Typepad therefore seemed like a swell thing to do. I'm hoping this design is a bit simpler overall (I've removed a number of content elements including most of the ads), and that the banner becomes something I can switch out from time to time. At the moment the photo doesn't include Martin, so that will need to change at some point. Sadly we have almost no photos of the two of us together.

The other thing you'll notice with this redesign/retooling is that I'm featuring my book that is coming out later this year in the sidebar there. The process of self promotion seems a bit strange to be honest, particularly since I've yet to hold the physical book in my hot little hands. This year is going to be a lot about that book. Preparing for promotions over the early Spring, heading out of the office and away from the domicile in May/June for a mini-book tour, and hopefully a decent amount of publicity and public profile to help get the word out. I'll surely be cross promoting it here and ask you to forgive the interruption of domestic goings-on once in a while.

What else does 08 hold? On the home front we have many ideas but little in the way of reserves. We redid Miss P's room as her Christmas gift (photos to follow soon); we have to do a bit of a rush polishing job on our downstairs bedroom in time for house guests later this week; there will liklely be a fair bit of painting (and hopefully not too much drywalling) to redo our livingroom colour, our bedroom and the big looming project of repainting the outside of the house. I'm also hoping this spring and summer will bring me more spare time for gardening and some creative outdoor projects. Last year I spent so much of the spring and summer working on the book in my spare time that not much remained for puttering in the dirt. I'm feeling very inspired by some successes (and some useful failures) in my holiday gift sewing and hope to keep a bit of momentum going with sewing this year (I do still have that awesome Amy Butler fabric to find a home for). I lost a bit of steam with the bread making last year, but have spent today (between photoshop fiddling) on a new bread recipe for a french boule, and hope that the addition of the KitchenAid for auto-kneading might be a bit of a kick in the pants in that direction. And, while it frustrates the hell out of me that this is not something I can control, I'll admit that it is my sincerest wish that by this year's end we'll also have a proverbial bun in the oven over here. And, if I may be so bold I'm hoping the process is a smooth one and not full of the drama and sadness of past years.

At the very least I do hope that this year brings enough spare time for reflection and creative musings in this space. And of course, there will be lots of snuggling, purring and mischief coming from our beloved Pluto the Wonderkitty.

Bedroom Redux

  Wall Graphics 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When we first moved into our place we had a long list of things that had to be done to make the place livable. Things like tearing out all the carpets and redoing the hardwood floors (hello drum sander!), taking down the oh so nasty window valences and rotting curtains and painting every wall in the house. Now, I knew at the time that choosing paint colours for every room in a house you've never lived in, and while under the insane stress of buying a home and moving into it (while also working full time, and oh yes did I mention redoing all of the floors?) wasn't the wisest way to arrive at colours you want to live with forever. That said, it was much better than the yellowing, dirty white walls with butter yellow trim that filled the house when we got it. As such, we've lined most rooms up in the house for a repaint. We already did the kitchen of course, and next on the winter task list is our bedroom and now Miss P's room.

Of all the colours we painted, I actually really liked hers the best. It was called Pinko and I've often described it as feeling like you're walking into a room made of Hubba Bubba gum. In a good way. But, she's tired of it. And I can relate. I once had a pink room when I was growing up and while I adored it at the time, over the years it grew to grate on me pretty heavily. She brought up repainting her room when we asked her what she wanted for Christmas. Given that it was just her birthday and she, as usual, received a bounty of gifts which now have her decked out with all the electronics an 11 year old could desire, redoing her room seems like a good gift.

The only draw back? Trying to find time to repaint her room and restyle it -- we're going to find some furniture that fits a small room better than what's in there now -- in three weeks. The bit that gives me hope? No plumbing. That makes every reno better let me tell you. And really, this is just paint and some furniture. Likely a curtain or two and maybe a light fixture. Piece of cake.

I've ordered her some wall graphics from Surface Collective, which you can see in the image there. Surface Collective is a local Vancouver company -- so local in fact that I can go pick them up on my lunch break when they're ready -- that have really caught onto this whole wall graphic thang that's going around. We'd love to do more with wall graphics in our house but very few of our walls are smooth, in fact only Miss P's room, the bathroom and the kitchen. So she's the lucky winner of this current design trend.

Now I'm on the hunt for some eco-paint to use. I love Yolo, but she's requested a colour they don't have. I've heard that Sherwin Williams makes a low-VOC paint, so I'll call around this weekend to see how true that is, if it's available in Vancouver and what their colours are like. If anyone has ideas or links to awesome bedrooms for 11 year olds, send along links. We're in the research/inspiration phase, so all ideas are welcome!

On Aprons. Again.

  gardening apron 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I promised plenty of apron talk this month, and I have to warn you we're a month out from month's end and I'm still in the thinking/planning stage and not the actually doing stage.

So here's the thing. I have a chance to be near my favourite fabric store this week and the two books containing apron patterns that I ordered have yet to arrive. I'm pretty sure I want to make the Lotta apron (as seen here, but I need to know how much fabric to buy. Does anyone have Simply Sewing? Can you send me the fabric requirements? I'd so appreciate it.