Happy Halloween from Gandalf and a pumpkin!

A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live by Emily P. Freeman (4.5 stars)
Emily Freeman’s second book for adults, about expressing your vocation or “art” in your everyday life, was right on time for me as usual. She encourages paying attention to our own unique design and what moves us, promotes the value of the everyday, and looks at the different things that hold us back from our art and creativity. I’ve been studying these topics all year, but still found many revelations here. A good companion to this book would be Edith Schaeffer’s The Hidden Art of Homemaking, which I also loved and which is really about bringing beauty to ordinary life.

Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (4 stars)
Questlove, the drummer for the Roots (Jimmy Fallon’s house band), has written not only a unique and fascinating memoir, but also a sort of Hip-Hop History 101 for the casual observer. Stories about his upbringing in Philadelphia and the early days of the Roots are interspersed with lists of the albums that shaped his life. His editor, co-writer, and manager also contribute (that would be the “Meta” part). I learned a lot from this intelligent, riveting book!

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (4 stars)
Eleanor is an outcast with a terrible home life. Park is a thoughtful music-obsessive who’s always been sort of on the fringes of popular. One morning he takes pity on her and offers her a seat on the school bus. What follows is the story of their first love and its serious complications… very sweet, but also raw and real. I don’t understand how this book hasn’t won a national award. To me it has all the markings of a new classic. Loved it.

Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando (4 stars)
I reviewed this here.

Books for October: 4
2013 year to date: 60

1 Comment + Posted in: book reviews, reading

General Highlights:
In October I hosted an annual gathering of out-of-town friends; hung out with one of my favorite high school teachers who’s now a published YA author; and played a Halloween concert at a real concert hall while dressed as a Frappucino. I also did some volunteering with my company (which I didn’t post about here), and did a lot of intentional thinking about rest and how to make more space in my life.

Read and Reading:
The monthly book list will be posted tomorrow. Spoiler alert: it’s short.

TV/Movies:
My Tuesday nights are currently devoted to watching the How I Met Your Mother I missed the night before, then New Girl and The Mindy Project. That’s all the TV I’m committed to, although I did start catching up on Revolution last night (crazy developments there!!)

I didn’t go to the movies at all in October. That should change big time next month!

Music:

  

My top three musical obsessions this month: “Say It, Just Say It” by the Mowglis, “Anything Could Happen” by Ellie Goulding, and of course Katy Perry’s new album Prism. If you were a teenage girl in the 90s, you will love Prism. Trust me.

You can listen to my entire 2013 So Far playlist on Spotify. I traditionally narrow it down in December.

Video:
When the SIPsters get together, YouTube videos are always involved! My two favorites from our weekend:

Late Night Lip Sync Battle: Jimmy Fallon vs. John Krasinski.

Things I Love:
Myla told me about the Food on the Table app. I haven’t used its recipe feature yet, but the shopping list feature alone has made my life much easier. For years I’ve made multiple shopping lists on Post-Its and frequently lost them or left them at home. Now I have an in-process list that’s with me all the time and automatically categorized! Plus, you can sync it with your local stores and it’ll alert you if an item on your list is on sale. LOVE.

I played Telestrations for the first time at my friend Sophie’s house. On our very first round, my secret word went from “boa constrictor” to “vacuum.” So hilarious. I bought my own set and can’t wait to play this again!

I bought my cowboy boots in Texas back when I was still line dancing regularly. I don’t know why I hesitated for so long, but I just started wearing them NOT for dancing, and it’s a whole new world of fun fashion options!

On The Blog:
My relationships post, He’s Just Not That Into You (Or Is He?), became my most-viewed post EVER within 48 hours. Thanks to all who read, shared, and commented! I’m happy that it’s resonated with so many.

I also talked about my September trip to Colorado for the Soulation Gold Gathering, and I’m working on another reaction post now that I’ve had more time to process.

Blog Love:
How to Be Kind to an Artist. I should just print this out and hand it to everyone I know.

As always, I could link to a million Storyline posts, but this was my favorite of the month: Why I Quit Being Nice. Especially relevant to me after I took a spin through my old middle and high school yearbooks.

From September, but I really needed it: Flatter the Figure or Flatter the Soul? In October I’ve wrestled with the concept of not owing prettiness to the world, and I think this post is what got me going.

The Scars on My Couch were an opportunity for Eileen Knowles to stop beating herself up.

More great thoughts about grief from Leanne Penny: Here, With Holes.

So much truth in this Jennifer Fulwiler post: Shadow Beliefs and Giant Centipedes.

8 Comments + Posted in: what i'm into

With November only a few days away, I’m hearing a lot of buzz about NaNoWriMo. My only attempt at NaNo was in 2008. It was a stressful experience, and by mid-month I was too far behind to finish in time, so I never did. Still, every year I think about trying again. I have an idea that’s been hounding me since the summer of 2012. It’s a growing collection of bits and pieces, but an anchor could emerge if I took a leap of faith and actually worked on the thing. You know?

The truth is, I’m terrified of diving whole hog into a novel. Blog posts and short pieces are no problem. I can finish and publish them in a few hours, at most. Quick turnaround, quick appearance of productivity. But a novel would be a marathon. In the dark. 

I have a love-hate relationship with Jon Acuff’s motivational tome Quitter. The most important question he poses in it is, What do you do that makes time behave differently? Whatever the answer is, that’s your life’s work, or at least a clue to it. Writing is absolutely that thing for me. When I write, I go down a rabbit hole. I wrote a lot of (terrible) fiction as a teenager, and I can’t count the times I looked up in shock to realize that it was 1 or 2 am (and I’d only written a few pages). But that’s a luxury I don’t really have as an adult with a full-time job. I’m afraid of what could happen to my relationships and responsibilities if I free-fell down the rabbit hole. More than that, I’m afraid of sacrificing for something that, in the end, I might not even be able to show to anyone. Let alone get published. Wouldn’t that be a silly waste of time? Is the work enough if it only matters to me?

I’m working through (my guru) Emily Freeman‘s latest, A Million Little Ways, and this passage that I read last night spoke directly to the issue:

The only reason we would ever call something a waste of time is because we have a certain idea of success and anything short of that idea we label “waste.” Or maybe we are adhering to someone else’s idea of success and we adopt it as our own. If you are worried that your art is a waste of time, perhaps you need to redefine success in art. Are you becoming more fully yourself? Is there someone else who believes in you or has been inspired because you are living life more fully alive? Are you learning what it means to depend on God in ways you’ve never had to depend on him before? There is courage in connection – connection with your true self, with the true self of others, and with the one true God. If waking up to your desire is bringing you closer to someone else, if it allows you to be vulnerable in ways you weren’t able to before, if it reminds you of your desperate need for God, then your art has not been wasted.

I can’t end this post with a commitment to crack down and do NaNo like a woman possessed. But what I can commit to, what I’m increasingly sure of, is that real art takes a long time. Much longer than I wish it did. There are no shortcuts to becoming the writer, or person, you’re meant to be. There’s no way out except through. The reward is in what you learn and become in the process. My goal is to believe that enough to start acting on it in bigger and bigger ways, to be brave enough to invest myself with no guarantee of glory.

8 Comments + Posted in: the writing life

Yesterday was my first real concert with the Bartlett Community Band – the third annual Halloween concert at the BPACC. Most people were in costume and it was SO much fun! I went as a Starbucks Frappucino (an idea from Pinterest). I freehanded the Starbucks logo onto white posterboard, and for the straw, rolled up a green posterboard and hot-glued it to a headband. The dress was a truly last-minute find at Goodwill the night before. I’m very happy with how the costume turned out!

The band had a great time backstage before the show checking out each other’s outfits. My favorite was the clarinetist who dressed up as a blind referee. :) It was also an opportunity to officially meet more people. I’ve only been a member since July and hardly know anyone besides the other second-row fluties.

Alanna and Jonathan, and of course my parents, were faithfully in attendance.

The other exciting event of my weekend was attending a book signing for Thin Space, the new YA novel by my 11th-grade Honors English teacher, Jody Casella! A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail about the upcoming event and was like, “Wait, I know that name.” I followed the link to her blog and we reconnected. On Saturday I went to the signing along with a couple of my old classmates (whom I hadn’t seen since high school – I didn’t go to my 10- or 15-year reunions), and then we all hung out talking for most of the afternoon! It was a great time, and I’m happy and excited for her success and what might be next. Look for a review of Thin Space here soon!

On another note, I grew up in Hickory Hill. For those of you not familiar with Memphis, that area went, well, downhill very rapidly during the mid-to-late 90s… my high school years. I had no idea how much I’d missed knowing people who share that experience. My family moved after my first year of college, and the friends I’ve made as an adult have never driven down their childhood street and felt heartbroken at how dilapidated it is. Or watched the mall where they had their first jobs become a run-down, deserted shell. So it was good to talk to people who carry that with them too, underneath the Hickory Hill card that we occasionally pull for street cred.

2 Comments + Posted in: fall, friends, reading

When I really like something unnecessary, I stalk it for months waiting for a sale. By the time I finally purchase it, my friends are so tired of hearing about it that they probably want to throw a party. A few times they’ve even bought it for me to bring the agonizing to an end!

Toward the end of last winter, I started to wish for a lighter jacket that wasn’t a trench. I was tired of the belts and buckles and added bulk. Happily, the military jacket trend is right up my alley – I wore my dad’s olive green Coast Guard coat for most of college. It was big on me then, but now I practically look like the kid from A Christmas Story in it, so I can’t start wearing it again. When I saw this Madewell military jacket online, it was instant love. But it cost more than I’ve ever spent on one item of clothing. For the last six weeks I’ve searched for something comparable at a more reasonable price. I hit T.J. Maxx, Ross, and all my usual online haunts. Friends sent me links from fashion blogs. Nothing else came close to the perfection of this jacket. Every detail was exactly what I wanted.

I was off on Monday for my friends’ visit. So after they left, I drove out to our only Madewell in Germantown to see the jacket in person, hoping that it wouldn’t work for me and I could stop thinking about it. No such luck. When I put it on, it was like it was made for me. The salesgirl saw her easiest commission of the week in my face. I took the jacket home, and everyone rejoiced.

15 Comments + Posted in: fashion