Continual State of Becoming

I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve our quality of life.  It's easy to just get stuck and continue to do things just because you've always done them.  But by going through this whole minimalize process I'm really learning about the things that improve my life and my happiness, and the things that stand in the way of it.  It's amazing how much better i feel when i learn to let go.  

I have been a purger for as long as I can remember, at least in my adult life. I'm not really sure what started it, maybe moving so often growing up, but I have realized that I prefer having less things around me. When I live in clutter, I almost feel claustrophobic. I've been pretty good about getting rid of things over the yar, especially clothes (since I use the seasonal closet method). In all honesty though, I've always held back a little because I felt this unexplained obligation to have certain things. But this year for whatever reason (I have my theories), I've started taking things to a whole new level... and I'm loving it. Once I started purging this spring, I just couldn't stop. And now that I'm in Fall Cleaning mode I find myself wanting to get rid of even more... a lot more. So much so, that I've decided to finally embrace my minimalist nature. I was a little hesitant at first, but I've found all these encouraging bl...

My 10 year high school reunion was this past weekend. I didn't go, but just knowing it happened makes me realize how long age high school was. I wont have any more birthdays in my 20s I remember my parents when they were this age, which makes me realize that i am as old as they were, and everyone thinks their parents are old (even though mine are quite young). It's a perception thing. I don't listen to the radio anymore for several reasons: i can't keep up with all the new music, i think all the bands sounds alike, and i think they're all crap nowadays. What happened to good music? One of my aunts told me (when i was in high school) that when you get older you start listing to country music or more mellow music. And while i definitely have started listening to music with some "alt country" influences (Wilco, Avett Brothers, Monsters of Folk) i still dislike country music... And i still listen to some of my old punk rock music. Am I trying to resist g...

So earlier this night I was driving in the car by myself, which i thoroughly enjoy since i don't get to do very often anymore with Dylan usually in the back seat. But i was on my own, and i was driving the Jetta, which is even better because it has the iPod connector, which means that i was able to listen to whatever music I wanted, at whatever volume I felt necessary. It was great. I fully savor those moments when i get them. I don't know why it's so different than when I'm driving with Dylan because he thankfully hasn't started demanding kids music in the car yet... we conveniently don't own much kids music... I figure he can just learn to appreciate real music from the get go-I'm sure one day he'll pick up on kids music from someone else, but I'm In no hurry to get there any time soon if I don't have to. Besides, he likes plenty of the music we like. in fact there are a few songs he will even request, and as much as I love Wilco, after he...

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110876/why-the-rich-dont-feel-rich I found this article very interesting for a few reasons. Not so much because they pick this guy apart for not recognizing how rich he is, but for some of the other points made. 1. The brouhaha is ripe with psychological lessons. First, Henderson is a classic example of the hedonic treadmill at work. First articulated by psychologists in the late 1960s, the hedonic treadmill speaks to the phenomenon of human adaptation. We buy something new, we're thrilled with it, then we get used to it, then we want something bigger and better and we're unhappy when we don't get it (or, in Henderson's case, we end up feeling "poor.") I certainly see this with Dylan. It's the main reason I don't buy him a lot of toys. He's far more interests in the novelty than actually having more stuff. It just makes more sense to bring him to a friend's house and let him play with "new...

and planning to enjoy every day of the last year I get to spend in my 20s.

We've had a super productive week: cleaned out the garage, the piano was tuned, Eve was groomed, air ducts were cleaned, and went through all the stuff in Dylan's room (took down the changing table pad and diaper station since those are no longer necessary). Wahoo! I feel so productive and accomplished. There's still plenty to do around the house, but isn't that always true? I also finished the C's! I never thought I would get through them. It was a very large chunk of the dictionary, and I'm pretty much convinced that everything you ever wanted to learn about classical music can be found in this "chapter." In my last post I mentioned a bunch of the major concepts covered and here are a few more, just to prove my point: chromaticism, church music, clavichord, classical, clef, composition, concert, concerto, consonance and dissonance, counterpoint, country and western, and criticism . Counterpoint wins for 2nd longest article so far (6 pages) ...

It's been in the high 90s and low 100s nearly everyday this summer. Which has made me slightly miserable. I'm not a huge fan of summer to begin with, so going through an even hotter summer is not fun at all. We finally have a break in the hot humid weather, which I'm happy about. Yesterday was a beautiful day, in the 70s for the most part. Today it's even cooler out. Dylan and I are both wearing pants with no sweating in sight. I should be really really excited. Except this is one of the rare days that I had outdoor plans, so I'm kinda bummed. But on this rainy, dreary day I figured I'd take a moment to jot down some of my random thoughts... First of all I think I need to admit that I have absolutely no ability to be spontaneous. In fact, the idea of not having every detail planned out way in advanced causes me to panic quite a bit. Today, for instance, I was ready to start calling my friends at like 7am to come up with a Plan B since it looked like o...

I was reading through some of my first blog entries last night when I came across this excerpt that made me chuckle (July 2005 I believe): I just got back from grocery shopping. Which is one of my least favorite things to do. But I'm convinced, especially now that it's summer break and there are more kids being dragged to the store with their mother, that grocery stores must produce some kind of painful ultra-high frequency that only kids can hear. And it must be so painful to have to listen to it that all a kid can do is scream. Not just cry... scream... at the top of their lungs... the entire time they are in the store. Those poor kids, why do parents force them to go through such torture. I read this after taking Dylan for a quick trip to Wegman's. He was so miserable I gave him a lollipop just to keep him quiet and happy for the 10 minutes we were there. If I had only remembered that the source of his discomfort was that high pitch frequency I would have given ...

I wrote a while ago that Dylan didn't like the library. In fact, he screamed whenever we spent more 5 minutes in one. I tried showing him how fun it was to get a stack of books and read them at the library, I also tried taking him to story time a few times, but that NEVER went well once he got old enough to know where he was. It took me a while (longer than I should admit to), but I finally remember something I heard in grad school about how boys typically like nonfiction books more than story books. So a couple weeks ago I tested the theory. I told Dylan we were going to the library to get truck books... he couldn't wait to go. It worked, we got there and he was so excited about getting some books about trucks, that he didn't seem to mind the fact that we were in the library at all. We went back yesterday and got some boat books... I think I hit the jackpot by finding one about aircraft carriers, planes and boats at the same time, work in a few trains and constructi...

I've made it up to the term "cadence" in my dictionary, which means I have conquered the B's! Wahoo! In an attempt to make this task seem more attainable, I've come up with a plan... I'm figuring that if I read 100 pages a month, I can finish in 8 more months. Which means that if I read 10 pages a day at the beginning of the month, I'll make enough of a dent after 10 days that if I feel a need to read something else, I can do it without feeling guilty. And then when the next month comes around, I'm all set to go back to the dictionary. I can do that, 10 pages a day for 10 days is hardly a challenge. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts as I made my way through the B's. One of the longest entries in the B's was for bibliography. I was a little surprised to even see it in there, let alone that it was 4 pages long (the entire continent of Africa had 7 pages). It was mostly just lists of important historical musical bibliographies. I'...

Dylan is potty training. We spent the whole weekend at home so that he'd have easy access to the potty, and he did surprisingly well. I say "surprisingly" only because I was fully dreading the whole experience, so the fact that I only had to clean up a few very small accidents was like a dream in comparison to the nightmare of clean ups I was mentally prepared for. I was in no way planning on potty training at this point. In fact I had decided that I would wait to potty train until Dylan was really ready. In my mind that moment would be when Dylan came up to me and said something along the lines of "mother dearest, I wish to use the toilet now." Well, he didn't quite phrase it that way, but he did tell us a few times that he needed to pee, and then he started asking for diaper changes pretty frequently. So I took that as our cue. He must have been really ready, because aside from a few incidents on day one, he's been mostly accident free. Piece o...

I've finished the A's! One letter down, 25 more to go :) I know I'm not even close to done, but at least I finished one letter, and it makes me feel like if I can do this much, surely I can do it 25 more times. No problem. Here are some last little A tidbits... it blurs into the B's too. -There are lots of instruments. LOTS. And I've noticed that a good amount of the non-western-classical music instruments have some kind of drone aspect to their instrument/music. Interesting... -There are lots of organ stops. LOTS AND LOTS. I have no idea how anyone can play the organ. Piano is challenging enough. But throw in multiple keyboards, tons of foot pedals, and a boatload of various stops, I can't even comprehend. Let alone, how on earth does someone get their doctorate in organ performance??? (in case Elaine ever reads this... I doubt it though) -One big problem I'm having is that there are times when I want a more tangible grasp on what I'm reading...

Lately I've been getting more and more into yoga. I started taking a weekly yoga class at the rec center in February and it didn't take long before I was hooked. It wasn't my first attempt at yoga, I'd taken several beginner classes a few years ago. And I also took prenatal yoga while I was pregnant. Both of those classes were great and I'm definitely glad I took them because the class I"m in now is not really geared towards beginners and I'm sure I'd be completely lost if I hadn't had some background. There are several reasons I love going to my yoga class 1- It's an hour and fifteen minutes each week in which I get to just focus on myself. I don't have anyone else to share my attention with... no family, no friends, just me alone. It's somewhat selfish, but at least it's a healthy selfish activity. I don't really even talk to people in my class all that much because I really just want to appreciate my alone time. And I...

This was an instrument similar to a cello at one point. Schubert wrote a sonata for it, but since the instrument is no longer around it's usually now played on the cello. I actually (successfully) accompanied a violist on this piece in college. Well I thought it was successful anyway. About 10 minutes before we played it in a recital one of the piano teachers listened to us go over it and told me I had completely interpreted it wrong. Then she showed me how I should have played it. Even though we played the same notes it sounded night and day different. She was probably right, but I still liked the way I was doing it, so I didn't change anything. Nothing quite like someone telling you how wrong you're doing something right before you're about to get up in front of all you peers. Oh well. I could never remember the name of the piece though, (Sonata in A minor by Schubert, D. 821-- not too catchy. but I think I remember Arpeggione Sonata) so I'm really exci...

Appoggiatura I learned a lot from this entry (not the least of which was the fact that an appoggiatura is not quite what I thought it was) #1- I always thought that my college piano teacher called grace notes "verschlags," and every time I tried to look it up, I could never find the definition. Clearly I was doing something wrong, which isn't surprising since ornaments confuse me to no end. But now I know that she was saying "VORschlag." Which makes a whole lot more sense. I've also learned that there's more "-schlags" out there. I initially assumed "schlag" meant note but I cheated and looked ahead... it means "beat," which also makes more sense especially since I know enough about German prepositions to know the following translations: -vorschlag: before the beat -anschlag: on the beat -zwischenschlag: with (another note on) the beat -nachschlag: after the beat #2- There's no clear right definition for an appoggia...

Lately I've been reading a lot. I tend to go through spurts when it comes to books. I'll read about a dozen books one month and then I won't read another book for 3 or 4 months. I also tend to read obsessively (but I am NOT a fast reader). If I can't finish a book in 3 days then I figure it's just not good enough to keep reading. This is because during the three day time period I will read every moment I can. And since I don't have much available reading time during the day anymore this usually means I stay up late, sacrificing precious sleep just to see what the next page brings. And then once I find that out I just HAVE to know what's on the next page after that... it's a never ending process that only stops when I realize that I'm SO tired I've read a paragraph three times and still have no idea what the words are. So my most recent reading spell is coming to a close. I don't really want to mention most of the books I read because ...

Last night my sister Sarah and her boyfriend joined us for dinner and a night of Pinochle. We have this type of get together every so often, just infrequently enough to make Matt have to reexplain the rules of Pinochle every time. But we had a good time last night. We also had good food :) I've made a recent attempt to refocus my creative energy from piano playing to cooking. Mostly this is due to the fact that it's har d for me to spend any amount of time at the piano. I'm hoping it's just a temporary hiatus and once Dylan is a little older I'll be able to get back into it. But in the meantime I decided that since I enjoy cooking, and it's something I have to do every night anyway, I may as well put a little more effort into it. I've been trying to challenge myself to use a brand new ingredient as well as a brand new recipe once a month. It's a pretty easy goal to accomplish, but it helps me push myself outside what I'm used ...

We have hit a few minor milestones lately with Dylan. First of all, he's talking up a storm. I think he's reached the 3 word sentence point now and I'm sure 4 and 5 words are just around the corner. His words still aren't that clear... motorcycle sounds more like moder-car, but he's getting there. Second, we took down the baby gates. He's fully capable of going up and down the stairs now on his own. He still has to hold on to something to keep from losing his balance, but I think he's smart enough to know not to go head first down the stairs. Plus he's pretty s familiar with his boundaries at our house, so there just didn't seem to be a point to the gates anymore. It's so strange to me that he no longer needs to be corralled. Third, he has peed on the potty a whopping 4 times! Always right before his bath (since the first thing he was doing in his bath was peeing anyway). It took me a few weeks just to get him to sit on the potty, and the...

After making a big deal of not wanting to use the word "hate" I did a search in my blog to see if I do use the word. I do. Here's how: I got 61 results, though a lot of those were for the word w hate ver. So that made me feel a little better. I took Dylan to the library, which Dylan HATES. Dylan's only doing one nap a day now, which I though I would hate, but I actually love. I'd just hate for them to have to walk through it. (Referring to my piano student and his father coming to the house on a day when our door was covered in beetles). I hate it when I'm wrong. I hate having to fight for a good spot. (at a general admission concert) I hate needles and doctor-related things. I used to hate gardening. I really hate that the rest of the world doesn't structure their information so it is library ready. (I think I wrote this while working at the NGA when I came across an artist who constantly used a different version of his name, yet I needed to make a...