distractions

Finals are coming. Finals are coming! FINALS ARE COMING! Starting tomorrow I'll be a madwoman feverishly trying to construct sentences around topics like "Narrative Mediation" and "Power and Negotiation". One especially large paper, followed by a medium-ish one, followed by two more the next week. sigh.

I try really hard to not do coursework on Sundays. Today put a dent in my record, sort of, because I spent essentially all day on campus listening to Capstone presentations by people who will soon be done with the program I started a few months ago. Valuable but...on a Sunday? Poopy.

I've taken the rest of the day off though. Good for me. To distract myself from all the papers I'm not writing I've been reading up on one of my favorite subjects: minimalism. And I had to link to some of the stuff I've been looking at today. 

Currently reading: You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap). (2012). Strobel, T. 
The subject matter is fun and interesting, though her writing isn't the strongest. Still, she and her husband live in a tiny home and are car-less, and that means she's tenacious and disciplined and therefore has won the respect sufficient to have me read her book. My brother Richard, fellow minimalist devotee, tipped me off on this read. So far, I recommend it.

Finished today, and highly recommend this read:
"If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right" (2010). Dunn, E., Gilbert, D.T., & Wilson, T. D. All of it is online and oh-so-fascinating.

Peeking at these tiny-home/apartment spotlights tonight:

Upper West Side, Manhattan

Midtown, Manhattan

San Francisco

beautiful NY spaces

Let me clarify that I am mostly not into coveting. If I were into coveting, I would definitely covet the apartment I was lucky enough to hang at today with summa the ladies from my congregation. But I think sometimes it's good for us to look at our reality and say, "hey, I'm a student. I like that I'm a student. But that also means I get to live in a student's apartment." or "yeah, I'm an almost-thirty mom. And that means I have an almost-thirty mom's body." You get the idea. Maybe it's good for us to face reality, accept it, maybe even learn to like it, and just be happy for people who have a different reality right now (with their own assembly of setbacks that come with it. trust me, there are some).

As soon as I walked into L's apartment for ba-runch I started snapping photos. The way she had worked her living space was inspirational in an I'm-not-trying-too-hard-this-decor-just-makes-me-feel-happy kinda way. Let me walk you through the spaces and point out what I love. Also, huge confession, I uploaded each of these photos to Instagram so I could manipulate the images because, as it stands, my plain-old phone camera did not do justice to how it looked in real life.  L was nice enough to give me permission to post these pictures on my blog. Ready--oo!

Walk-in space. First off, I love this brick wall. I love the light highlighting the brick wall. I love the hanging blue bike. The bookshelf is in an accessible, but not obstructive locale. Oh, and she actually has cool books on her shelves. Even better, yes? Something I like about living in New York, with its crazy real estate, sky-high rent, and generally small spaces, is the way people learn to make efficient use of the space they do have. L has really mastered this I think. Way more than that, she makes do with less (this is HUGE actually). Her entryway is used, but uncluttered.

  

Kitchen/hallway. Like so many people here, L has a kitchenette. Which means next to zero counter area and smaller-and fewer-cupboards. She has partially solved this problem by using a small roll-around countertop which I didn't capture here. But you see the way she's solved the storage issue. By using her hallway to hang her kitchen aids.  I love this.

 

 

Living Room. Uncluttered. Functional. Comfortable. Eclectic. Artsy. Interesting. Colorful. Old meets New. Mortar and Pestle on the DVD player? I'm in love.

Living room/ Stairs to rooftop. Winding stairs will get me every time. Especially if they lead to a NYC rooftop. A part of me likes the low-key color, but another larger part of me wants to paint it turquoise. Your thoughts?

  

Roof.  Decked out in second-hand furniture. Bees buzzing (!). Potted plants.  Of course, if this were my rooftop the pots would be full of tomato plants. Oh well.

 

 

View. Can you spy the Cathedral of St. John the Divine down the street? There's also a view of the Hudson if you turn to your right. 

  

A huge plus: L is extremely likeable, which makes it easy to be happy for her for having such a rad apartment. She's an American who grew up in Austria because of her dad's work with the UN. I knew her decor had an international flavor.  I also knew almost instantly that she was some kind of designer. And...nailed it! Graphic design.

So the takeaway from this for me is: declutter. less is more. use space creatively and efficiently. be as colorful and eclectic as you want to be.

Things that don't bring happiness:

Fancy toys
Stunning good looks

Two stories here:

Story one, fancy toys, takes place back in Provo, Utah. Lissie and I were playing in the front yard. She was collecting sticks and these nifty seeds that dropped from the tree bordering the sidewalk and the street.  Down the sidewalk rolls a hefty kid and what appeared to be his little brother in a two seater toy car.  It was the shiz.  Nice plastic parts, and it even moved at the pace of one of those motorized chairs you see not-so-healthy people sitting in sometimes. With such a magnificent ride, you'd think those kids would be grinning ear to ear, right? Umm, not exactly.  In fact they looked, I kid you not, totally miserable.

Story two, stunning good looks, took place today on the 1 train between the Financial District and Times Square.  On walks a woman who obviously has a career in modeling.  This woman truly was in possession of stunning good looks. That is to say, she was effing gorgeous. I wish I could have taken a picture so as to send readers on a hunt to find what mag she poses for.   But did she and her metro boyfriend and their perfectly groomed Boston Terrier hanging in his doggy sling look exceptionally happy? Hrm, no. Not really.

I know both stories are anecdotal.  Some of you may be thinking I may have missed some longitudinal details, or that objectively, what does happiness look like anyway? I will say in response to the latter that I know happiness when I see it.  And some of the happiest people I've known in my life didn't have exceptionally fancy toys or stunning good looks. I'd like to be more like those people. 

What happy people do you know that don't  fit the marketer's image of happiness? I bet you know some. Tell me why you think they're so happy, if you please.Okay, so maybe these (<) questions are a little too cute. Fine. Answer your own best question about happiness. 

joie de vivre

Since I became a mom roughly three and a half years ago, I've found I'm becoming more interested in, and much better at, celebrating. Which seems ironic, right? But I'm realizing my interests in celebrating, mindfulness, and minimalism -seemingly separate things- all dovetail beautifully into, simply,  joie de vivre.  Because those three things, I think, are ways children naturally are inclined to experience life until they become jaded; sometimes much too soon.

I think in large part my attention to being "plugged in" with my surroundings (in my "Depleted" post, I write that this is possibly the biggest factor in my celebrating style) is due to seeing things through my daughter's eyes.  A ride on the subway isn't a mere ride on the subway.  It is full of sounds, smells, heat (oh, the heat!), and so so so many people to meet.  Lissie has the talent of melting just about everyone's chilly disposition when she inevitably asks "What's your name?" and, without waiting for a reply, "My name's Lissie."  Derrick and I were remarking today about how our daughter seems to bring out the best in everyone we've met here so far. Especially that elderly black woman Lissie insisted on holding hands with up the subway steps. They'd met about, oh, two minutes before, and the woman gently and happily obliged. 

Lissie has brought out the best in me, too.  Though I was formerly resigned to jadedness, she's been training me in the art of creating and appreciating new experiences.  She's taught me to savor them too.  Because by plugging into wherever I am, I am creating something beautiful and rich; I am creating the person she will become, by virtue of the things she is experiencing and will continue to experience, wherever we may be.

 (Eating Chinese food in China Town, Lissie style)

 

(Watching the squirrels in Central Park)