Reverb 10 - Beautifully different

December 8 - Beautifully Different (just a day late!)

Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

There are tons of things that are "different' about me, but I'm pretty sure they are currently being underappreciated. For example, I like to leave the carton of soy milk out on the counter after using it instead of putting away. DH doesn't like this very much. Perhaps I need to explain to him that this is what makes me beautiful?

Reverb 10 - Make

 free front from how about orange

This one is easy! After spending all day cooking on Sunday for our Chanukah party, I feel like I've been making a lot lately. I'm not sure which dish was technically the last, but I do know which one was the easiest - Deb's mom's noodle kugle. I followed the recipe from Smitten Kitchen pretty much word for word (with no cherries), so I won't repost the recipe here. But let me tell you - IT IS EASY. AND DELICIOUS. This makes a winning combination. It all came together with egg noodles, eggs, sugar, cottage cheese, butter, vanilla, and salt.

I love cooking so there are always dishes that I want to make. But, a while back this recipe for pumpkin pie bars caught my eye. yummo. I have wanted to make these, but just haven't quite been able to find the time for it. However, it is probably better for my waistline if these stay on the "to-do" list rather than move over to the "scarfed down" category.

Reberb 10 - Let Go

Remember how I said I was going to be flexible with my commitment to this? Well, this was actually yesterday's prompt. I didn't get to it because my day was jam packed with preparing for my Chanukah party and studying for finals. It is a good one though - so I'm going to go for it today.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

When I first read this prompt Sunday morning I was immediately taken by the question. I'm obsessed with letting things go. I like nothing better than to go through our house and make a big pile of all of the things we don't need/don't use/don't want. 

I don't want to be defined by things. I don't want to be overrun with things. I don't want to hold on to material possessions just for the sole purpose of having things. And so I purge (my stuff). I tear my closet apart and purge the dress I will no longer wear, the jean jacket I've had for two years and never worn, and old jeans that don't fit. I tear our cabinets apart too and ask myself questions like "Can we survive with only 1 spatula?" and "What is the minimum number of mixing bowls we need?" I argue with my husband and try and tear his things apart too.   

Reverb10 - Wonder

So I've already messed up with this Reverb 10 challenge - I missed yesterday! oops. But that is the way life goes sometimes. I'm giving myself permission to be flexible in my commitment to this project. If I miss a day here and there it is because other things took priority.

Here is the question for today

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? 
(Author: Jeffrey Davis)

To prompt my thoughts on this I looked up the definition of "wonder." As a verb, wonder means "to think or speculate curiously" or "to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe." As a noun, wonder means "the emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration."

After mulling over this definition, I must conclude that I don't have much of a sense of wonder in my life. I tend to be a bit cynical and it is hard to cultivate a sense of excited interested when you're too busy making snarky comments.

It is a shame too. I'm in the lucky position of getting paid to learn and do research. Looking at the first definition I provided, you could argue that it is actually my job to wonder. In my previous line of work this wasn't the case and I missed learning new things. Now, however, I've slipped into viewing learning as a chore instead of something to relish. 


While I don't think I'll ever stop loving snarky comments, perhaps it might make sense to try and cultivate just a teensy bit of wonder into my life. But, I'm not sure if I even know the first steps to doing this! How do you cultivate a sense of wonder?

 

Reverb10 - Writing

December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

I'm currently working on my thesis right now to get my master's degree in clinical psychology so that I can move on to working on my Ph.D. A lot of different kinds of work go into a thesis, but at the end of the day it all comes down to writing. It doesn't matter if you become an expert in your topic through countless hours of research, design an elegant study, collect data, or have interesting conclusions. If you don't write it, it doesn't count.

I'm at the "approved proposal" crest

Last year, when I started my project,  professors suggested that I make time to write everyday. They advised me to schedule a small amount of time every day that I could devote just to writing, even if it was just half an hour. It sounded so simple, so easy. Thirty minutes a day and before you know it - a thesis! But, you know what? I never was able to follow through.

Not only did I want to take mental breaks from my project, but I found it very hard to get geared up to only work for 30 minutes. Thoughts like "I won't get anything done in just thirty minutes so why even start" made it hard to get motivated. Of course I didn't write everyday - I kept telling myself it would be a waste of time! 

There are lots of other obstacles to writing everyday, but most of them I can't control. Negative thinking, however, is something that I can work on changing. The truth of the matter is, 30 minutes is enough to: edit a few pages, read two or three articles, or write a couple of paragraphs. Focusing on what I can accomplish in the time I have will help me meet my goal of finishing my thesis by June*.




*Whether or not this happens by writing everyday or just once or twice a week, I don't care. I just want to be done already!