An invitation

Hi Reader, 

Two things I want to discuss with you:

No.1:  If you're reading this in an RSS feed right now (it's likely most of you are), take a moment and bounce over to the full my madeleines URL. I spent time in January completely redesigning the site and I'm happy with how it turned out. I found a cleaner, more direct way to integrate my photography blog, instagram, flickr, facebook, twitter, pinterest, yelp, tumblr, and more. Take a peek. 

If you're not in an RSS reader right now, this photo is so meta.

No.2: If you're a facebook user, join other readers on the my madeleines page. RSS feeds are convenient, but they're also quite solitary. I want the chance to interact with people and create a community of blog readers. That won't happen with each of us in our own RSS silo. I invite you to like the my madeleines facebook page and start a conversation with other creative souls who live for travel, photography, design, food, and cultural adventures. 

facebook.com/mymadeleines

What January Taught Me

One month into my happiness project and I've learned, remembered, and/or articulated the following:

just keep going.

+ I do not actually want to re-learn classical guitar. I thought I did. Turns out, I only want to pick up the guitar and rip through the songs I loved playing in college. My February happiness goals omit any mention of the guitar. That makes me happy.

+ Scheduling out my goals on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis reveals a distinct pattern to avoid scheduling tasks on weeknights. I gear most projects toward Saturday and Sunday, and it makes me happy to have creative weekends. Partially this is because I'm happy when I maintain a sense of choice and spontaneity with open evenings, and partially this is because my job wears me out more often than not. How I create a long-term balanced ratio of energy is a larger question of employer/career shifts and I'm not ready to deal with that yet.

+ Somehow, and this is supremely annoying to me, flossing every night before bed is far more difficult than designing, rebranding, launching, and facilitating an itsy bitsy social media empire. Go figure.

+ Blogging at least once a week is important to me. It's one of my preferred creative outlets. Also, I'm awarding myself bonus points for accomplishing tasks that weren't on my list and I hadn't anticipated needing/wanting to do. I completely re-designed this blog, as well as my instagram online landing page, tumblr, and twitter. I also created and now manage a my madeleines facebook page (more on that later). I would be the happiest person on planet earth if I could figure out how to monetize my love of writing and photography into a manageable salary.

+ I'm not a great chef. That's okay. I own pretty kitchen things and I'm starting to figure out what I'm supposed to do with them.

+ I've been consistent in my trips to the gym. For the most part, I've made it at least four times each week and this habit makes me happy. I lost six pounds and my skin is particularly awesome after all that sweating and such. The true challenge will come when my travel schedule picks up, as it does in February.

+ I hate waking up at 6:00am. I absolutely hate everything about it. This is actually the true test for all of my habit-forming happiness project mumbo jumbo. I remarked in an Evernote about two weeks in that the little things will make or break this project for me. I need to prove a point to myself and do it right. I may accomplish a thousand large goals and finish all the major projects I line up for myself, but if I can't master the 6:00am weekday alarm, there's something about this adventure that's failed.

+ I love genealogical research. Who knew? I always wrote it off as an activity for bored Mormon grandmas, but I feel like such a super sleuth tracking down the details of my family. Nearly more than any other piece of my happiness project, I wish I had unlimited time to explore this new interest. Also, I want to expatriate and live in Denmark more than ever.

+ I purged and donated just over 20 pairs of shoes. You're welcome, drag queens who thrift for fabulousness at DI and are the only humans who share my size 11 sometimes 12 feet. You're welcome.

+ Moving into February I realized that I will be more successful if I drill down even further into specifics. My two Evernote tracking table things turned into five Evernote tracking table things, but I feel more on target. My "read more and watch less hulu/netflix" turned into three nights of each per week, with one freebie night to do whichever suits me. It all seems so basic, but again, Rubin's point is that happiness is in the habit and the details. I agree. I also believe those details will add up to a sum far larger than their parts.

Happiness Project brunch, no.1

welcome.

Eight of us gathered at my house this morning to talk about being happy. I alluded to this discussion group in a previous post, but in summary: Throughout 2013 we're partially discussing Gretchen Rubin's book and partially discussing our own happiness projects. Today was the perfect reminder of something I've always known: My friends are amazing human beings. They're smart, funny, creative, thoughtful, and in this case, adventurous. I mixed a few different friend groups to compile the full invitation to 18 people. It's not easy for everyone to discuss something as personal as happiness, habits, and goals when you met some of the people in the room five minutes ago.

You read that I mixed friend groups, right? Well, by way of constant introductions, this happened.

One of Rubin's rules is "Spend Out" - Meaning use your favorite stuff every day, over and over.

Of course I'll never mention anyone by name, and it's not my place to blog specifics of anything outside my own happiness project, but the variety of ideas covered today was fascinating. Rubin's January chapter focused on organization, purging, reclaiming your energy, etc. Collectively our favorite takeaway seemed to be the 60-second rule: Do not procrastinate anything you can do in less than 60 seconds. Tasks that feel daunting because they build up to a lump sum are virtually eliminated if you spend 60 extra seconds doing that one last thing you need to do. For example, why do I have three magazine subscription mailer things sitting on my counter right now? Why have they been sitting there for two months? Two months. That's 60 days, Internet. It would take me less than 60 seconds to renew the subscriptions and move on with my life. Instead I pass them every day and say, "Shoot. Right. Okay, tomorrow." Not tomorrow...do not put off anything you can do in less than 60 seconds. Watch it add up and watch your energy level shift when you don't have little bits of tasks floating around you.

Yes, the glasses say "Happy" and they were actually purchased before I'd ever heard of the book.

We talked about our own successful organizational strategies, but also shared our preliminary individual goals for the month and/or year. On one side of the room I have a friend who translated a year's worth of goals into daily checklists and spreadsheets, and on the other side I have a friend who is currently resisting the idea of anyone telling her what to do (even if that person is herself). I have a friend who has already organized and purged her home room by room, including the dreaded bedroom closet. Another friend joined a writing group and he's working on his memoir. Someone is beginning the process of moving in with a partner, and all the organizational compromise that comes with that, while someone else is settling themselves back into their own home after a long-term partner moved out. The similarities and differences are awesome and I can already tell we're going to learn a lot from each other this year. There were six additional people who couldn't make it to this first brunch for whatever reason, so it will also be interesting to watch the conversations and dynamics shift and different personalities are thrown in the mix.

Conversation starters related to the book, which this particular group did not need at all. 

We left our conversation on the note of "Power Words" -- a single word mantra that will remind you of your overarching goals for the year. A theme word, if you will. Each month may have specific goals, or maybe even a theme, depending on how people laid out their projects; but the power word is a summation of what you want the year to be about. I have an Instagram friend, who I've never met in real life but we're so similar in so many ways, who chose "light" as her power word. Isn't that beautiful? I decided on ABUNDANCE. There are many reasons why I settled on that word, and likely many more reasons I'll discover throughout the year that I don't even realize yet, but that's another blog post entirely. The basic idea is that I want to learn to trust in abundance, demonstrate that trust by taking more risks, and show gratitude for everything I have. Cheers, 2013!

Power Word reminder cards. I hear they're all the rage.

Finally, remember how I don't cook? Well, Dear Reader, that's what potlucks are for. Our spread this morning was particularly awesome. Also, there's one brunchy dish that isn't terribly difficult and I can more or less pull it off. I think it's full of flavor and great for groups. If it's your thing, the recipe is below. Perhaps you might make it and host your own Happiness Project brunch. Spread the love. And the frittatas. 

veg + egg + feta = done

Ingredients (yields about 16, depending on size of muffin pan):

6 large egg
4 large egg whites
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
2 cups fresh spinach, baby leaves, coarsely chopped
1 cup canned artichoke hearts, packed in water, cut in chunks 
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, packed in water, cut in chunks
1/2 cup uncooked scallions, finely diced
1/4 cup low fat cream cheese, room temperature

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat muffin pan(s) with canola oil cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, beat eggs, egg whites, water, salt, and pepper until blended. Stir in soft cream cheese, then add spinach, artichoke hearts, feta, roasted peppers, and scallions. Mix well.

3. Spoon about 1/4 cup egg/veg mixture into each prepared muffin hole. Bake until set, about 20-25 minutes. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 4 minutes. Remove frittatas with a rubber spatula and cool directly on wire rack for 1 minute before serving. 

(mis)adventures en la cocina

I set a goal for My Happiness Project to tackle one cooking adventure a month. Yes, one. A month.

Listen. Don't judge. I realize I'm a grown professional woman in her 30s. I know this. My schedule and lifestyle just aren't built around the priority of elaborate meal preparations. I don't cook. My relationship with cooking is akin to my relationship with dance. I have season tickets to a number of ballet and modern dance companies in Salt Lake City, but I'm not getting up on that stage. I'm a foodie who enjoys weekend brunch almost more than anything in this world, but I'm not competent in my own kitchen. I'm a patron of the arts, if you will, and cooking is most certainly an art. Perhaps I need to unfollow the posh cooking shows that fill my hulu/netflix queues and stop psyching myself out, but I still maintain that cooking is an art. I can't begin to explain the intimidation.

I mean, seriously. Where the hell do I even start?

Armed with a new cookbook, I accepted my mission: One pot. Surely I can't mess up a single pot of something or other (wait for it). I also armed myself with a cute new pot thing. I was so proud as I headed off to the grocery store with a recipe in hand. Like a real live grownup, with multiple ingredients and everything. I decided on chicken and dumplings because it was the easiest recipe in the dutch oven section of the book. Here's the deal, Reader, I didn't even realize until I was already home with groceries that the cute new pot thing I purchased wasn't even a dutch oven - and - it couldn't actually be used on the stove top. Apparently I'm supposed to bake casseroles inside the oven in my cute new pot. Not my goal. Not relevant to the ingredients I'd just carted home from the grocery store. Great.

Emergency phone call to mom to confirm that stoneware is not meant for stovetops. It's not. Emergency trip to Williams-Sonoma across the street to buy a cooking thing I can actually use for my One Pot Wonder plan. A painful chunk of change later I'm standing in my kitchen trying to focus on the recipe and ignore the un-scripted cash I just dropped. I'm also trying to ignore the fact that most blushing brides simply add Le Creuset to their registry and wait for gramma to pull through. Let it go, let's not add insult to injury. Yet - I felt excited to be chopping veggies and preheating my new fancy cooking pot thing. I was on my way! Look, y'all, I'm cooking!

I used the instructions in the cookbook to know how to chop my veggies propoerly. Yes, I did. 

Once the veggies were chopped I lifted the fancy lid and cried. Cried. Out loud. The little book inside the box told me not to cook anything dry, so I oiled the pot before letting it heat up. The pot was now covered in burnt black weirdness and it was smoking like crazy. In that moment I was like the first cavewoman who ever saw fire: confused and angry and completely out of my depth. I had never seen this one pot cooking process in motion and was convinced I had completely ruined my new toy. Mumblings of "damnit" and "it took all of three minutes to screw up three hundred dollars" and "I should've bought a handbag" and "I knew this was a horrible idea" escaped my lips. I'd been told they were indestructible, but through the haze of burning oil smoke I lost all sense of perspective and logic. I trudged forward and softened my onions.

Burnt mess. 

Once I got rolling I put aside defeatist thoughts of what I assumed was a ruined pot and focused on the experience I set out to have. I then made dumplings for the first time. Which is to say, I whisked flour, salt, baking powder, and parsley together before dropping it in the pot. Oh la la.

Time to make the dumplings...

Thirty minutes later, as I scooped out broth, veggies, chicken breasts, and dumplings, I realized the catastrophically burnt mess was gone. And now masquerading as parsley bits. Oh well. At least I hadn't overreacted like a jackass by crying into my veggies.

ta-da!

My Wanderlist

Fellow Globetrotters, 

If you don't use wanderlists yet, you really should. AFAR (which is my favorite travel magazine of all time) is featuring the wanderslist I created for Prague on their homepage today. Ooooh, so fancy.

Prague...collected by Yours Truly.

What is a wanderlist? Well, the whole concept of AFAR is to travel authentically and locally and off the beaten path. In relation to their online collaborative, travelers post tips on the AFAR website (think tweet-sized advice with a photo and pinpointed city map), then users curate a wanderlist of sights they want to see in that same city. The most genius feature: You can use it when your phone is in offline or in airplane mode, i.e. when you're abroad. Brilliant. 

I should say, about my featured Prague wanderlist, it's not tips that I've posted of my own trip. Not yet. For now, the list they featured is what I curated from all the possible Prague information posted on the AFAR site. They like my curation of the city, in other words. I have a goal to add my own tips for others to put in their wanderlists, I simply haven't had time yet. At any rate, I'm obsessed with AFAR and this was the highlight of my day, for sure. 

Bon Voyage!