Laurie Perry's Blog, page 2

And the year 2007 thanks me for finally arriving

Over Christmas I bought myself a Kindle Paperwhite 3G. I haven't made the leap to eReading and I believe it's going to take me a while to get into it, but I'm glad I bought a Kindle. I like it. It's small, portable, useful and aligns with my 2013 zeitgeist.

I'm hoping that the Kindle will help me a little with my book storage issues (I am running out of room at home!) Look, I'm always going to buy books -- I love them, I love the way the feel and smell and the solid way they fit in my hand. What I do not love is boxing them up and moving them or storing them in piles all over the house. If I buy half the books and read twice as much using the Kindle I'm ahead of my own game.

Perhaps the Kindle will come in handy with another 2013 goal: Go On Vacation. My idea of vacation is sitting in a cafe somewhere far away reading a great book. On my last trip to Paris I had to pay a hefty luggage overcharge for all the paperbacks I bought at Shakespeare & Co! That dumb fee cost more than an eReader.

The Kindle is really simple to use and it's much lighter than my iPad. The built-in light is useful at night. I also sprung for the case, when I travel it will make a nice protector. Downloading books couldn't be simpler. I already started my first book, but it's a very different experience on an eReader. I didn't realize how often I thumb ahead in a book or locate passages by sight based on page placement, but perhaps this is something you get used to. I also miss that comforting feeling of holding a physical book. Is this something that wears off? Did you get used to it in time?

My loyalty to Amazon tipped my decision in favor of the Kindle. I've heard wonderful things about the Nook, but I know that Amazon's customer service is the best of the best of the best. I figure if I read one extra book a month (while simultaneously not adding to my overfilled bookshelves) the Kindle will be worth it. (For the record, yes I know libraries are wonderful, yes I love libraries, we all love libraries. But I choose to buy books, author karma, etc. etc. You do what's best for you.)

Have you made the switch to an eReader? Did it take you a while to get used to reading electronically? Do you read mostly digital, mostly paper books or a combination? Has your eReader helped you cut down on physical book storage? (At first I almost said "book clutter" but books are not clutter!)

Winter

Winter in Los Angeles is so cold, every morning it's hard to get out of bed and brave the deep chill. Today it won't even reach 70 degrees, how will we survive? Probably with coffee and Ugg boots and indoor scarves.

And maybe a warm hand-knit hat.

How Byg?

Download your own goal-tracker (stickers not included)

Yesterday when we were talking about goals, reader Helga asked:

"Can you talk some more at some point about the mechanics of how you track your goals? I too am a tracking and goalsetting nerd and I love hearing about what other people do. Also, I confess to being thoroughly intimidated by the volume of goals just for January, and would really like to hear how it works. Is it one star per thing per day, etc.?"

Hi! I am so glad you asked and I cannot believe I forgot to include these links yesterday (apparently I am out of practice a bit.) If a tracking system isn't simple I won't keep up with it. Anything too restrictive, overly detailed or color-coded guarantees I won't do it so I created myself a blank grid that has enough room for six write-in goals and little boxes to put in a star each day (or leave blank, if I miss a day). It's simple, visual and cheap. Instead of worrying over a special printable page for each month I just created one with 31 days and I can write the month at the top above the numbers column.

Feel free to download them and use them yourself:

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (letter size)

• Monthly goal tracker PDF (legal size)

The template has six slots at the top for my daily goals. Six goals per day felt like the maximum I could safely pledge without giving up in a fit of frustration. On January 1st, though, I added a 7th in the margin and the world did not stop spinning on its axis, so all is well. Some goals are simple ("Take vitamins daily") and some have time limits attached ("Exercise for at least 20 minutes daily.") If I accomplish my goal that day I get a shiny star sticker in its spot.

If I don't accomplish my goal for a day, I leave the spot blank but don't give up, just try again tomorrow. The idea is to have more stars than blank spaces at the end of each month. You could also use this template to track a single goal over a month at different levels of progression. For example, if your goal is to walk more you could chart your walks and make notes of time, distance, hills vs. flat, etc. Author Gretchen Rubin has a similar goal-tracking sheet on her website, The Happiness Project, and her goals are already written in if that helps you.

After eleventy-nine years of making goals for all kinds of stuff, I have learned that my systems have to be simple if I'm going to stick with them. This is about as simple as they get. I highly recommend investing a buck fifty into a pack of foil star stickers -- it's only January 3 and already I am addicted to the high of putting stickers all over my chart. This is a ridiculously silly thing that I have only just discovered about myself, but apparently I am still six years old and I love the thrill of checking off another task with a shiny star-shaped sticker.

Bob has accomplished all his goals for the day.

January (Energy)

Hello, new year, you are all full-up with possibility that something terrific could happen in the next 365 days. My 12-month plan is posted on the wall, I've got a fresh calendar ready and a shiny pack of foil stars from Office Depot because I am an awesomely huge nerd.

This year I am turning myself into my own science experiment. I'm super excited about it. Most of the time the changes that shape me are unexpected and take me by surprise. I prefer shaping my own path, so why not start right now?

Creating lists and setting goals makes me happy. Not everyone is this wired for bullet points, of course. Every time I talk about my love of goal setting it makes some people uneasy, especially The Gratitude Police who show up with their finger-wagging platitudes, saying:  "You should just be happy with what you have! Be grateful! Other people have it worse!"  I don't understand Gratitude Policing AT ALL. Are we supposed to stop setting goals, just be grateful and .. what? Wait to die? I am not built that way. Setting goals is my way of paying back the Universe for the pleasure of living. It's a huge expression of thanks! Trying to live to higher standards is a tenet of every religion on earth. Great spiritual leaders never sat around telling strangers to shut up, be grateful, and stop making improvements.

So, to be clear, this is my personal way of expressing thanks for my life -- by making a plan to not squander all I've been given. I will let my freak flag fly and cover it with foil stars from the office supply store if that is my thrill.

By the way, that IS my thrill.

I'm a huge fan of the Grand Gesture, a big sweeping moment of change. (Think, "I want to quit my job!" or "To hell with this, I'm moving to France!") I've done a few of those in my life and while satisfying, the grand gesture just isn't practical every single day of our lives. In 2013, I'm working my science experiment inside the confines of my day-to-day life, to see if small changes worked every day can really add up into big change by the end of the year.

My January goal is to improve my energy. I need energy so I can accomplish my other goals for the year. This theme is swiped directly from Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project. I rarely recommend self-help books here because I am sensitive to the amount of cheese one human can push on another, but The Happiness Project is a wonderful book that reads more like a memoir. If you need inspiration, guidance, and fresh ideas on getting your year off to a good start this is the book. The author is charming and pragmatic and she's done all the research for you, essentially rounding up a century's worth of advice and research on happiness and distilling it down to the essence.

(Some of) My January Goals

Take vitamins every single day for the entire month

Get at least 20 minutes of physical activity each day

Go to bed at a regular time every night and try to sleep for 8 hours

Eat three nutritious meals each day

Declutter or clean house for 20 minutes each day

Read one fiction book I'm excited about

Write in the mornings

Floss every night

I'm not posting the whole list lest I seem like an insane person, but you get the idea. Some of these things seem so basic -- take a vitamin -- but I often skip or forget. And others, like sleep, are biological necessities that I have come to think of as luxuries in my weird, busy world. Many of my goals don't initially seem to be in service of the theme but living in a clean home, taking care of myself and relaxing with a good book are things that make me feel lighter and happier. Everything I do and say and eat and drink in January will be intended to boost my energy, that's my plan for the month. Also, it's measurable -- 20 minutes a day, one a month, etc. Hello, science! I am measuring stuff!

Are you making a January plan? I'd love to hear about it!

I'll let you know how mine goes at the end of the month. It ought to be an interesting four weeks. My inner Type-A is saying, I BETTER SEE A WALL FULL OF GOLD STARS. My outer sloth is saying, did I really sign up for this? 

I'll be here radiating adorableness while you get right on that.

Happy New Year!

In 2013, I hope you get everything you want and something so good you didn't even have it on your list.

Twenty Minutes

Apparently, my brain believes twenty minutes is just the right amount of time for almost anything. Fifteen minutes is too short to be useful or worthwhile for any task. Why bother on fifteen minutes of anything? And thirty minutes is too much, exhausting. My brain cannot imagine committing to thirty minutes of some stupid self-improvement task each day for a whole month.

Yet I'm totally down with committing to twenty minutes every day of exercise, or decluttering, or conjugating French verbs, or doing paperwork.

Weird brain.

I have ruled people in under twenty minutes.

My favorite time of the year

The little space between Christmas and New Year's Day is my favorite time of the entire year. I love the possibility that comes with a fresh start. And is there any bigger fresh start than a whole new calendar year?

This is the time when you can let go of all the ways you goofed up or failed or fell behind because you're thisclose to starting all over again. That's how I think of the new year, a reboot, a clean slate, a fresh start.

I usually make resolutions because the only thing I love more than the promise of a new year is the hope-filled temptation of a new list. Some years my lists have been long and detailed, some years my resolutions are just a concept or a single word (or four).

Next year -- also known as "three days from now" -- I've decided to use my life as a little personal science experiment. I vow to spend the 365 days of 2013 doing all the things I keep saying I'm going to do but haven't gotten around to. If I discover that a certain task or activity comes up and I have the deepest urge to postpone or avoid it, I'm going to finally cross it off my life's to-do list and stop carrying it around. Or I might outsource it, or scale it down, or figure out why I'm avoiding it but there is no more postponing. This year is about transforming my day-to-day life not with grand gestures or Big Dreams or radical life changes. It is about finishing what I started and holding myself accountable for all the things I say I want.

Two months ago we hired on a temporary project coordinator for the Art Department. Our schedules had become hectic and projects were rolling in with no tracking and if you have ever worked with a group of artists you may know that we are not the best at things like "budget guidelines" and "email" and "tracking project hours using a spreadsheet." The new coordinator is a tiny little woman who lives on a houseboat and wears Uggs and laughs easily. Entertainment isn't her chosen field and I think we're driving her crazy, but she puts up with us. She's in her mid-fifties and we sit near each other and chat a lot, I like her. We're in different stages of our lives but we're both entering a year of Big Change.

The day before the studio closed for the holidays we were chatting about the break and our plans and she told me something that I can't shake.

"I decided to go to Arizona for the holidays," she said. "I have friends there that I just love and I need to be around them and start looking for a home and a new job -- a permanent place in my field that I feel right about. So I'm going."

"Wow," I said. "That's quick. That's ... tomorrow."

"If I don't do it now, then when?" she said. "I know one thing for sure, if I stay here the months will turn into years and before I know it, three or four years will have gone by and I'm still not where I want to be."

She paused for a minute. Then she looked at me and said, "I don't want to wake up one day and find out I'm 60 years old and I spent the last five years in limbo, just waiting to be happy."

This little off-hand conversation has stayed with me every day since. She's right -- days turn into weeks and months and before you know it you've been living in a temporary apartment for 21 months and putting off finishing your book because you're scared of sucking and working for someone else for 12 hours a day instead of writing.

Wisdom comes when you most need it.

I spent most of last night working on my list, drafting a schedule with tangible dates and little rewards (and a few big rewards) for accomplishment. Planning for a year this way sounds like hell to some folks, but it makes me feel happy and a little overwhelmed and a bit scared and a lot relieved. Mostly I feel hopeful. I'm at my worst when I'm avoiding stuff and ignoring my to-do list or not making a list at all. I'm at my best when I push myself, motivate myself, and keep a schedule. I'm at my best when I'm making an effort.

These next three days are my time to eat, drink, be merry and thankful. It's also my time to be quiet and still and make the list of everything I want to do "someday" and set about a plan to make it happen or take it off the list forever.

If I don't do it now, then when?

You could feed me now.

Cute Overload: The tiniest little baby cardigan

One of my favorite friends is about to become a first-time dad. In just a few days he'll be meeting his new son and I wanted to give him something soft and warm to celebrate his happy new arrival. I selected this pattern because it reminded me of the cardigans my friend wears to work, and I thought his son would look nifty dressed just like dad.

The pattern for this tiny treasure is the chunky cardigan from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies and I used supercotton in pure white. Unfortunately this yarn has been discontinued, like every yarn I have ever loved in my life, how do they know? Is there an early warning system deployed to all yarn companies that alerts them as soon as I fall in love with a beautiful fiber so they can immediately discontinue it?

The pattern calls for Rowan all-seasons cotton yarn, which has not been discontinued. I like the Skacel yarn, though, it's incredibly soft and smooshy.

One of the best features of this pattern is the use of chunkier yarn. I like a knit that won't take me 25 years to finish (especially as babies tend to arrive whether you have completed the piece or not). But I'm torn about whether to recommend this particular pattern to my knitting friends. The final product turned out really well, but the pattern was sometimes hard to follow and had a lot of mistakes (even after finding the errata online I still found math errors). The sweater is knitted in five pieces, which means you're doing a LOT of seaming for such a tiny garment, and those seams can easily become much too bulky if you aren't careful. The pattern looked like I had gone all Beautiful Mind on it by the time I was all done.

There's a lot of blocking and seaming required in this pattern, but the end result is undeniably adorable. I really appreciated the classic design and the chunkier yarn and it was fun searching for just the perfect buttons. If you're willing to give the pattern some patience the result is really sweet and worth the effort.

I love knitting baby items for dear friends, it's my way of welcoming a tiny new person to the world and trying keep them cozy.

And oh, how tiny...!

Tree of Life

I live here now, in this tree.

For the first time in eight years I decided to get a real Christmas tree. Of course I decided this during the one year I am living at the top of a three-story walkup, nonetheless, Happiest Time of the Year!

It wasn't until I got the tree home that it dawned on me Bob and Frankie have never had a real Christmas Tree. Frankie has been living in the tree since Saturday. She thinks she is a wild forest cat.

Forest cat waits for Meow Mix to arrive.

She has sap and pine needles stuck to her fur and she smells like Christmas. It's wonderful. And those tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow? In my home the glowing eyes are coming from inside the lower 1/3 of the tree. The tree has been summited several times, like cats to Everest they are called to climb it. There was a light incident yesterday that resulted in all the lights coming off the bottom of the tree and the cats gathered 'round to feel the collected warmth.

I found a snowflake ornament in my shoe this morning, how it got off the tree and moved across the room and deposited into a patent-leather spectator pump one will never know.

These are the mysteries of Christmas cat.