petit forethought

mouthy mindfulness

learning how to love (more than one thing at a time)

Posted on April 14, 2011 by kori

Hey there.

It’s been a long time.  Long.

I’ve been spending copious hours of my life at the country bar (shocking, I know), and more recently, I’ve been spending my time lounging around my apartment in pajamas due to a nasty cold.  For the last few days, I have officially been feeling better, and spending some time home alone gave me the chance to review the past few months and how I’ve been spending my time.

I love dancing.  It’s fun and freeing and full of endorphins.  It’s one of the only forms of exercise that I actually enjoy (the others being yoga and riding my lovely bike).  When I lived in NC, I danced on a schedule.  I went every Wednesday, and I looked forward to it.  When I first moved to Seattle, I didn’t dance, so when I took the habit up again, things got a little crazy (again, shocking).  It was like getting into a relationship with someone you already knew you loved and realizing you could see them five nights a week.

So, what happens after you see someone (or do something) five nights a week for several months?  Well, you begin to realize that as much as you love this person/thing, you also love other people/things.  So here, I am, loving writing, loving y’all.  Sorry, I’ve been gone.  I do get distracted so easily.  But, what’s important isn’t how often you get distracted, it’s what you decide to do once you realize how distracted you’ve been.

And, I’m back.  Because I remember why I wanted to blog in the first place:  to share information, to start a discourse, to lend my expertise to those who seek it.

As is the case for many epiphanies, I didn’t come to mine on my own.  My first night back at the bar after being sick, I chose not to stay as long as I normally would.  On the way home, I caught the middle section of an interview with Bodhipaksa that was airing on KUOW.  My curiosity got the best of me (as per usual), and I began to listen carefully, considering his words like they were new concepts.  Although I didn’t hear the whole interview (available for free until 4/20), the parts I did hear resonated with me.  His words brought me back to some goals I had forgotten about, like mindfulness and learning to exist in a moment without reacting to it.  I often find it too easy just to rush through life, trying to get things done (usually so that I can go dancing), and hearing this lovely, calm voice reminded me that rushing is not only unnecessary but frequently disadvantageous.

After hearing the interview, and probably still riding the dancing endorphins, I felt a little giddy, happy to the point of silliness really.  Almost immediately, I began thinking of petitforethought, and I was excited about it again.  I found something I wanted to share, something that made me feel hopeful, and ergo, something that might make others feel the same way.

Being mindful or cultivating a new lifestyle is not as easy as listening to one interview, but one interview is enough to start the revolution.

So, do you want to revolutionize or what?

xoxo!

Kori

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why you look best when you’re willing to look crazy

Posted on February 18, 2011 by kori

I am in love with country dancing.

It started with line dancing, and now it’s progressed to include a number of couple dances (two-step, east coast swing, etc).  When I first started line dancing, I was a clumsy, ridiculous mess.  But, I loved it immediately, and so I was willing to look like a dorkwad for several hours each Wednesday night as I tried (with minimal success) to translate music into movement.

I danced without ulterior motives.  It wasn’t practice, it wasn’t to look cute (I promise I didn’t), it wasn’t even meant to be exercise.  I danced because I loved it.  The thrill of figuring out how to do a triple step or a drunken sailor shuffle was enough to keep me coming back.

Over the course of the past four years (and with the help of countless vodka tonics / hot toddies and a few good friends), I got better.

Although this seems like a basic progression, it was a shocker (to me).  I have always been a superklutz, and I was under the impression that I always would be.  This was a label I had put on myself and kept there so long that I considered it to be more truth than personal opinion.  I was comfortable in my clumsiness; I had learned to embrace the idea of myself as a silly mess.

After a few years (and a hundred or so trips to the bar), a stranger complimented my dancing.  I laughed.  Compliments from men in bars are always a bit suspect.  However, the more I went to the country bar, the faster I picked up moves.  When I realized that I was no longer the awful dancer I’d thought I’d always be, I became more optimistic about my dancing abilities, and then the real improvements started to show.  As I learned to trust my own skills and instincts, the dancing knowledge I’d absorbed became even more apparent.  I tried harder dance moves, and I willingly laughed at myself when they didn’t work right away.

If I had trusted that I could learn to dance, I would have picked up the whole process a lot faster.  However, learning slowly allowed me to enjoy my evolution.  Dancing was never work to me, even when I worked hard at it.  Although I have improved immensely, the point of my dancing hobby was never to improve.  The point was to dance, and improvement took care of itself.

Take a moment.  Think about what you love doing just for the sake of doing it.  I am as addicted to the feeling of competency as I am to dancing, but finding an activity you love even when you’re bad at it, well that’s a whole different kind of rush.  A rush that can (and should) remind you that life isn’t all about being good at things.  It’s about doing what you love and laughing when you fuck up.

People (especially women) still tell me that I am a good dancer.  I think it has more to do with the fact that I am always smiling, laughing, or trying a ridiculous dance move that I saw in a movie somewhere (and probably can’t even do … yet).

Happy Weekend!  Spend some time loving a ridiculous hobby….

Kori

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life changes: are they for you?

Posted on February 7, 2011 by kori

Do you spend a large quantity of your time talking, reading, and planning about life changes?  Do you spend more time thinking about changes than creating them (We all know I do, seeing as y’all get to hear all my pontificating on the topic).

Sometimes you make big plans for what you want your life to look like, but you don’t always know where to start.  In moments when you crave change, you can look to others who have made changes that you admire.


Often, we look to the big changes.  We admire those who move to foreign countries or start their own businesses or create environmental movements.  As you move forth in your research, however, you might find that you take the most solace in those who make changes that you can emulate right away, like reducing the amount of plastic you use or learning how to cultivate a worm farm.

Granted, you might also want to move to France (it’s great, and I vote that everyone live outside her native country at least for a bit) or start your own business or begin an environmental movement.  And you should do all those things.  Or, you should at least give yourself permission to do all those things.

BUT

Often it is easier (and in some ways more fulfilling) to start with small changes.  Habits are what make up the matter of our lives, after all.  Don’t hold out for the “when I live in Cambodia” or “when I am self-employed” moments.  Make your life livable now, and that contentment will travel with you to all the big moments your future holds.

So, do you want to make some life changes or what?  Clearly, I vote for life changes. And it has nothing to do with your worth in this moment (your worth is intrinsic to your being; it’s not changing).  It has nothing to do with any potential you ought to be living up to.  Nothing to do with shoulds or coulds.

It has to do with you and what you want to spend your life doing.  Every minute is your life.  Every moment is a piece of your existence that you’ll never get another chance to have.  So, I vote life changes because they can help us get on track with the life we want to be living.  The one that we will love even on the shitty days.  Life changes do not mean we will always be happy or pleasant or perfect.  Choosing how to live your life means taking charge and putting more stock into volition than hope.

So, life changes:  are they for you?  are you ready?

here are some resources that I’ve been loving recently:

Kitchen Stewardship

My Plastic-Free Life

Healthy Happy Life (I’m not vegan, but I do like vegan recipes)

Minimalist Knitter Knitting is a great way to reduce stress and make something nifty at the same time.

The Tiny Life I have only done minimal reading on this site so far, but it seems promising.

Rowdy Kittens Tammy has been a source of inspiration for me on so many levels.

If you found this article to be useful, please share it. Or, if you found it lacking, I’d love to know why.

best & bisous

Kori

ps you can follow me on Twitter here.

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counting your blessings when there don’t seem to be any

Posted on January 27, 2011 by kori

It’s been a long time, and I’ve been a naughty blogger (which is to say that I haven’t been blogging at all).

The past few weeks have included a whole slew of attention-demanding events, and, as I continue to learn again and again, sometimes you gotta let stuff slide.

So, after a few weeks of craziness, here I am.  And I am sick (again).  I could beat myself up about being sick (again), about how I must have been letting stress get the better of me, or about how I must not have been eating right, or about how I’d be in better health if I could only fall asleep at night, but that’s not what I am going to do.  Because sometimes, no matter what lengths we go to, we just get sick.  Because being healthy means giving your body a break when it asks for one.  Because being sick is part of life.

I know that some bloggers think it’s best to be a superhero for their readers, and I think that is great – for them.  However, I want to be authentic here, and the authentic version of me fucks things up sometimes.  I get on my soapbox and I fall off and sometimes I laugh at myself or sometimes I pout for a while.  I have good days and I have bad days, and I try to let my blog reflect my imperfections.

Because being imperfect is part of being human.  Because you can be imperfect and still be awesome.  Being imperfect doesn’t mean beating yourself up for your flaws; it means figuring out who you are and celebrating the whole of yourself.

So, because I am sick, I decided to make some super easy lentil soup.  We all know soup is the best when you’re sick, and I didn’t have any canned (which turned out to be a secret blessing).

Lentil Soup:

1 ½ cups lentils (I used the greeny-brown kind)
2 carrots, chopped
10 mushrooms, sliced
1 TBSP olive oil
16 – 48 oz broth/water or some combination
spices
juice from ½ lemon

Saute carrots in olive oil and add mushrooms after a few minutes.  Rinse lentil and add.  Add broth or water (I did 8 oz veggie broth and about the same amount of water).  Add spices  – I used a teaspoon of cinnamon and madras curry, a pinch of coriander, cumin, and cayenne, and a bay leaf.  Feel free to adjust spice choices or amounts for your palette.  Bring to a boil and then cover and simmer for 40ish minutes.  Add lemon before serving.  Note:  I would have added onions to the carrots, but I didn’t have any and clearly wasn’t going to the store.  You could also add some plain yogurt and fresh cilantro for an extra fancy version.

I guess the easy lesson here is that being sick can slow you down enough to appreciate the lentil soup.  Or to appreciate how well your body functions when it’s not sick.  Whenever you get bogged down in everyday life, take some time out to say thank you for all the tiny miracles your body is constantly performing.

love and good health to you all,

Kori


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ten mini manifestos

Posted on January 14, 2011 by kori

I feel like some terrible monster is trying to claw its way out of my throat via my tonsils.  Ok, that might be a bit melodramatic, but my throat does hurt enough that I canceled all my plans for the next forty-eight hours.  Am I a grownup now?

In other news:

1  Quinoa, which is healthy and delicious, can be added to pancakes, breads, cookies, etc (much like oatmeal).  I tried pancakes and zucchini-banana bread with quinoa.  Both were awesome.  Precook quinoa and add at will.  Please feel free to comment about the results!

2 What would happen if you made up a recipe?  It might end in kitchen chaos or it might lead to the best cookies ever!  I am creating a bread recipe that includes grapefruit soda, cardamom, and lemon zest.  Once the recipe has been tested and deemed delectable, I will share it here.

3  January is gray.  Try to get some color/craft/excitement in your life any way you can.  Visit a museum, find a new blog (such as poppytalk), or get out the old coloring book and crayons.  Color is a visual cue for joy.

4  Hang out with a kid this week.  Play a ridiculous game with him/her and try to remember how much fun it is to just be silly.  I recently started babysitting a fantastic kid who challenges me and makes me laugh every time I see him.   Kids know how to struggle through difficult situations, and they are experts at trying until they succeed.  Don’t be afraid to learn from a five year old.

5  Stress is pointless (it’s amazing how often I have to re-learn this).  Earlier this week I spent hours worrying about how I would get home in some nasty winter road conditions.  When the time came, an acquaintance with lovely snow tires offered me a ride.  If you can change your situation, make the effort, but if you can’t, well, stressing over it won’t do you any good, so just let it go.

6  Check out the game Rush Hour.  It’s a great way to learn about backwards planning.  Although I started playing this with the kid listed in item 4, I have since started thinking about my life goals in terms of tiny plastic cars.  Strangely addictive.

7  Instead of checking your email thirty-seven times a day, check it twice, and every other time you get the urge, get out a card or a scrap of paper and write someone a note/letter/cartoon.  Handwriting is special.  Maybe you’ll even want to get on board with a thank you writing movement.

8  Going to bed on time may make you feel like a child, but happy mornings are worth it.  Seriously.

9  Being an artist doesn’t have to mean starving just like being an English major doesn’t have to mean teaching.  If you look for opportunities, you will find them.  And if you don’t find them, then maybe it’s time you made your own opportunities.  Wanting a job that doesn’t exist doesn’t have to mean changing your mind; it can mean changing reality.  Get some guts and create the life you want.

10  Stay home when you’re sick and don’t push your body beyond its boundaries.  Convalescence is worth it.

Wishing you all happiness and health!

bisous,

Kori

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do the damn thing.

Posted on January 7, 2011 by kori

Do you have a dream of applying to grad school?  Teaching ESL in a foreign country?  Attempting the master cleanse?

Whatever it is, do it.  Don’t worry about it being the perfect time, or place, or way.  Don’t get me wrong – I fully support researching choices before you make them (even though I’ve been known to do the opposite), but I know that I also have a tendency to want to wait until the timing is perfect.  There is no perfect timing.  Give yourself permission to be imperfect and to move forward in whatever way you can.

I am a chatty kathryn.  I spend a lot of time talking about all of the stuff I’d like to be doing.  While talking about something is fairly antithetical to acting on it, verbalizing your goals can help you decide why they are important to you or what elements of them you find to be most appealing.  With the amount that I talk, I am frequently conversing with myself, but it’s also helpful to find a friend who wants to be part of a little goal-support group.  Working towards a goal is like exercise; it is easier to accomplish if you have to be accountable to a partner.  It’s also more fun and you can congregate in locally owned, sustainable venues where you’ll likely meet other lovely, goal-oriented people.

BUT

Don’t just talk about your goals.  Don’t just research every aspect of them.  Don’t just plan out in obsessive-compulsive detail how you will tackle them.

After all the talking, researching, and planning comes the integral (and, in some cases, the hardest) part of the goal process:  doing the damn thing.

I’ve been thinking about doing a master cleanse for a long time now.  I once even bought the lemons and maple syrup (and I am sad to say that I let the lemons go bad).  I toyed with the idea for months, always putting it off for the indefinite future.  But now it’s 2011, and I am ready to do the damn thing.  In my ever-existing personal dilemma about committing to a ten-day cleanse, I decided to do a mini cleanse.  I could wait until I have the time (and willpower) to do the full length, but we all know how that would turn out, which is to say that in December I’d be lamenting that I’d never done my cleanse.  So, I am giving myself permission to do my cleanse the imperfect way.  I am attempting a three day cleanse.  Maybe it will be awesome and I’ll unhesitatingly schedule a full-length cleanse for spring break.  Maybe I’ll hate it and never want to do a cleanse again.  All I know is that I am finally doing the cleanse in some form, and that is enough to make me smile.

What have you been talking about doing for weeks/months/years?  Are you ready to jump in and give it a go?

happy weekend, my lovelies!

Kori

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


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want to accomplish something amazing this year?

Posted on January 3, 2011 by kori

It’s January.  That means it’s time for resolutions, reflections, other words that start with re.

Do you usually follow your resolutions?  If so, feel free to skip this post.  If, on the other hand, you tend to make grandiose plans and then give up almost immediately (and if you actually want to make some ch-ch-changes this year), well, then you’re in my camp.

Ok, so you want to accomplish something this year.  Let me be the first to congratulate you.  Seriously.  Wishing to accomplish a goal means admitting you have one and risking failure in order to pursue it.

First of all:  why are you trying to accomplish your goal?  Write down a list of all the reasons.  Understanding your own motives will help you establish whether your objective is something you truly want to execute or merely something you feel you “should be doing.”  Avoid the shoulds.  Living your life by the standards of others will bring no satisfaction, even if you attain your goal.  Good aspirations, like eating healthier or spending money more wisely, can be unfulfilling if you aren’t pursuing them of your own volition.

Now you need a plan. How will you accomplish your goal?  What steps will it take?  How will you encourage yourself when challenges arise?  I make plans all the time.  I usually revise them before I even act on them (I’m kind of the gets-carried-away type).  Planning is a great way to envision the reality you want to achieve, and hopefully it’ll help you navigate the rough spots, too.  That’s right, rough spots.  You know, those moments when you think you’ll never get there or wonder why you even got on the road to begin with.

My first few months in Seattle didn’t exactly go according to plan.  What can I say; I get distracted.  I could worry about this (actually I did a bit), but the best way to get back on track is to look back to my plan.  Why did I make that plan to begin with?  How is it different now that I am in Seattle and have an idea of what it’s actually like to live here?  What goals do I want to keep and which others can I let go of (if only for now)?

I get very excited about things that pique my interest (such as eco life choices, healthy eating, and knitting), and I want to institute broad changes to my life at a very rapid pace.  In some cases, this works beautifully, like the time I decided to become a vegetarian two hours after eating chicken for lunch.  In other cases, I need a strategy to implement changes more slowly so that I’m not disheartened when I don’t meet my goals immediately.  My impetuous nature lends itself to quick changes, but some goals require time.

Everyone can accomplish goals.  Knowing yourself and your own personal challenges (be honest) will help you.  If you are impulsive like me, incorporate small, rapid steps that you can take.  If you are more calculating, take time to figure out all the micro steps necessary to succeed.  The real question isn’t about whether or not you can meet your goals.  You can.  The real question is which goals are the ones you truly want to meet?

Think about it.  It’s your life: make it what you want it to be.

hearts and hugs,

Kori

ps   for an in-depth look at goals and annual reviews, check out this amazing post by Chris Guillebeau.

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new schedule!

Posted on January 2, 2011 by kori

it’s winter quarter, which means new classes and a new schedule.  I’ve also taken up country dancing on Sunday nights, which means I’m not spending them writing.  Some sacrifices are worth making (read:  dancing is essential to my bliss).

Ergo, I will be changing my schedule for blog posts as well.  I am going to plan on Monday and Friday, but I want to feel my options out before I commit, which means blogs might be happening regularly (or might not).  As always, feel free to suggest topics or questions….

bisous!!

Kori

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cuddling up with your flaws

Posted on December 30, 2010 by kori

Flaws.  They suck, but we all have them.  Do you constantly curse yourself for your inability to overcome them?  Are you always making plans to avoid or outsmart them?  It’s easy to hate flaws – they seem so wicked.  But are they?  Is there a way that your flaws can actually help you?

I have spent years battling some of my flaws.  years.  of my life.  that I’ll never get back.

Flaws can make you uncomfortable.  I get it.  I hate to admit my own (or conversely, sometimes I insist on admitting my own – I’m a weird one like that).  Flaws remind you that you can (and do) mess things up.  What a nice thought.  No, seriously, what a nice thing to know – that sometimes we will mess up no matter how hard we try to get it right.  How is this nice?  It’s nice because it’s unavoidable and you can stop giving yourself so much crap for it.  Indeed, you can even learn from it (epic, right?).

Learning.  Not in the sitting-at-a-desk-for-eight-hours way that we did in school.  No, better – hands-on learning.  You get to go ahead and fuck things up.  Then you get to pick up all the little pieces of your life and see what kind of sense you can make out of it.  I know, this sounds awful.  Who would want to do this?  Maybe no one.  But maybe that is the problem.  We are all too afraid of fucking things up to even make a move.  What if we harm our lives in irreparable ways?

What, indeed.

Let’s consider, shall we?  How many brilliant, bold, and amazing people totally botched things from time to time?  Probably most of them.  In our culture, we look down on failure.  Oooh – you didn’t get it right the first time; you must be a moron. What a stupid idea.  I mean it.  If you aren’t willing to fuck up, to risk everything, to follow your heart, then you must be asleep.

Memo:  living life the way you want is hard if you aren’t even awake.

You don’t have to try to fuck things up.  Just try things.  And when things don’t go your way, take some time to examine the patterns.  It’s not about finding the right answers; it’s about asking the right questions.

Now get to work, bitches….

bisous,

Kori

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things to be thankful for:

Posted on December 27, 2010 by kori

postsecret a crucial connector for truth seekers everywhere.

laughter.  it will cure what ails you.  and if it won’t, try veggies, full nights of sleep, and yoga.

rowdykittens tammy’s wisdom rocks my socks off.

candles, incense, and hot tea.

knitting and knitting blogs, especially minimalist knitter.

family.  they can drive you mad, but damn they’re awesome.  being away from mine is making me super homesick and teaching me to value the time I do get to spend with them (even if it’s only on the phone).

the middle finger project. this blog is amazing.  and funny.  I totally admire Ash’s willingness to be candid, creative, and curse like a sailor.

friends.  call them.  send them care packages.  hold them to high standards and hug them when they need it.

savage love.  not just highly educational, but also witty and heartwarming (in a kind of sick way).

cats.  I am catsitting right now, and let me tell you, Kanye rocks.  pets take care of us as much as we take care of them.

derrick jensen. he’s intense, but I’m a fan of that sort of thing.  are you?

line dancing.  don’t judge me; it’s fun.  and for that matter, any kind of dancing is something to be thankful for.  it’s hard to be angry when you’re doing a happy dance.

white hot truth. this site will make you feel good and light a fire under your ass.  what more could you want?

gratitude is a kickstart to living in the positive.  make a list.  you might be surprised by how much you have to be thankful for….

bisous

Kori

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