Musings | Pancakes and Postcards

One More Year

June 17, 2012 by Courtney 9 Comments

The times, they continue to change.

I have a list as long as my arm – leg – okay, maybe body – about topics that I have wanted to blog about but hadn’t. the couple of posts a month is probably a really clear indication of how crazy life off of the computer has been. I have really needed to focus on joy right now and unplugging a bit. But as I have said before, a source of joy is this blog, which is causing me to set the goal of blogging 5 times this week. More times than I’ve blogged in the last month! But I am ready to get back on the wagon.

I’ll start with my birthday. I turned 26 (gulp!) last Saturday. I was approaching this particular birthday half with anxiety, half with ambivalence. 25 was exciting, plus I’d just moved to SF and started a new life so there were a lot of milestones going on. 26, however – different story. On the one hand, I’m all for celebrating every birthday. It’s a time to celebrate yourself, do what you want, reflect on your life. Why should anyone wish a birthday not to come? It’s so much better than the alternative! But of course, that self reflecting piece has gotten the best of me these days. Lots of time spend wondering where I am in life, how I got here, where I wish I was, and how to get there. So the birthday came with some baggage, but the good sort – the kind you use for positive growth.

I definitely was not going to let a birthday pass uncelebrated so I planned a three-part celebration to make sure everyone could take part that may want to. The morning sent me on a quest for bocce ball and picnic food, and then my sister officially began the party when she showed up fresh-faced from Berkeley. We set up shop at the lawn at the Conservatory of Flowers for a picnic.

We were blessed with amazing weather! It’s rare that I feel comfortable in gauchos and a t-shirt in SF – correction, that never actually happens. But it was a perfect day. Lots of friends, friends of friends, cheap wine, kettle salt and fresh ground pepper chips, birthday cake oreos, and general fun times.

I felt very blessed to get to spend my special day with so many awesome people.

The evening activities commenced with a trip to Top of the Mark – blogger fail, no amazing pictures of the skyline! (Oh wait let’s remember – the last three months of my life have been a blogger fail.) Top of the Mark is at the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel at Mason and California (1 Nob Hill). You pay $15 for an unremarkable martini, BUT the 360-degree views of the city can’t be beat! It’s definitely a special, once-in-a-while spot, so I was excited to get there again along with a bunch of friends who had never been before.

The party continued across the street at the Tonga Room – no pictures here either, too busy drinking the lava bowls full of sugary rum punch and dancing away on the dance floor.(For anyone who has not been to the Tonga Room, it’s a historic “tiki bar” on the bottom floor of the Fairmont Hotel in Nob Hill – literally across the street from Top of the Mark. It rains inside and generally has a very cheesy but fun ambiance with drinks served in punch bowls and a live band that plays on a “boat” in the middle of the “lagoon” inside the restaurant. If you like tiki and love cheesy, you must come here.) The next day’s continued celebration brought pancakes and a stroll across the Golden Gate.

I had a great birthday day, but also have enjoyed ruminating on my goals and dreams for the next year of my life. 25 was not a great year – it was an important year, a transition year, but not a “wonderful” year. I believe I started many processes of personal growth and development that will ultimately make me the person I am going to be, but I haven’t gotten there – yet. however, I am looking forward to 26 and figuring out more about who I am and who I want to be. And I’m really grateful to have true friends to share it with.

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: birthday, Musings, picnic, pictures, tonga room, top of the mark

Fostering an atmosphere of growth

May 20, 2012 by Courtney 5 Comments

One of the subjects I’ve been meditating on a lot lately is Happiness. Happiness is a fickle thing—you often don’t recognize it when you have it, resent not having it when you don’t have it, or attribute it to things that are not really the cause or the source. I’ve long considered myself a happy person overall. Sure, we all have our moments or days or occasionally weeks where anxiety and stress override, but in general, I’m pretty happy and positive. Though lately, at times I’ve felt dissatisfied with my life and where I’m at – but why? I’m incredibly lucky and blessed, and everything is pretty much good.

I realized that I’ve been feeling like I’m in a rut. Somewhat bored, disaffected. I shouldn’t feel this way – I have some great friends, a job that challenges me, a city surrounding me that you have to work really hard to be bored in. But in my little bubble, things have felt a little stale and I’ve been trying to think of what I can do to revitalize myself.

This spring would definitely have been the time in my life that I decided to go all Elizabeth Gilbert on everyone and move to Bali, but unfortunately I don’t have anyone who wants to pay for me to travel the world for a year to find myself, nor do I have a trust fund. So instead of the “leave, only to figure out what you’re looking for was there all along” mentality, I am trying to figure out how I can experience growth HERE in the day to day.

I’ve read Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project” before and I really liked it. Okay, the writing is self-indulgent (by necessity), the tone occasionally preachy and her style much more type-A than my own, but it’s a great book to read more for what it makes you think about in your own life. I’ve been rereading it lately, and one of the things that really hit me was the importance of creating an atmosphere of growth to happiness and life satisfaction. I realized that, while I do have a pretty dynamic life, I haven’t been feeling like I am truly growing as of late, and decided that I am going to change that.(Note – I made some goals on the blog after reading this book last year – fun to look back on.)

How can I foster an atmosphere of growth when the circumstances of my life – where I live, how much I work, my salary – are staying the same? This is something I’ve been thinking about this weekend and I’ve decided to put some goals together. Often when we want to revitalize our lives, we try to do all of it at once: “I’m going to lose 20 pounds, buy a new car, become fluent in French, invest in stocks, fall in love, and volunteer more. In the next three months.” No wonder so many resolutions fail! In view of reality, I’ve come up with the following goals for myself to help me “create an atmosphere of growth” within my daily life:

1. Bike more.

2. Pick up one new hobby.

3. Redefine friendship – spend less time on facebook and more time investing in old friends and meeting new ones.

4. Make home homier: turn my apartment from a cluttered mess into a sanctuary.

5. Reduce small, daily stressors by being proactive and not putting off tiny tasks.

6. Embrace new challenges at the office.

7. Give my blog the time and energy that I want to.

8. Focus on the future – finish my “30 by 30” list.

9. Remember the importance of being mindful about what I choose to eat.

10. Ask myself each day if I am moving towards being a better me or settling for less.

All of these things are doable, and give me something to work on in the short term. I hope that, in accordance with #7, that I’ll be blogging about them. some of these I may succeed at, others will inevitably fail. But striving towards something – regardless of what the outcome is – can often bring happiness in and of itself – proving that it often truly is about the journey, not the destination.

Courtney

Question for anyone reading – how do you foster growth in your own daily life?

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: blogging, goals, growth, happiness

Posing

April 22, 2012 by Courtney 27 Comments

I’ve never been very good at posing.

Like many others, I wear my heart on my sleeve. Even people with the emotional radar of a doormat pick up on when I say I’m fine but am lying through my teeth, or when the smile and usually bubbly demeanor seem strained.

The last months have required a lot of posing on my part. Life just hasn’t been as awesome as it usually is for a variety of different reasons that I didn’t feel comfortable discussing openly with family or friends, much less putting out in the blogosphere for strangers, professional contacts, and God knows who else to read. (Let’s just call Spring of 2012 “The Perfect Storm” and leave it at that.) But after a long day of pretending everything was rocking as usual for the benefit of those around me, the last thing I wanted to do was to come home and write a blog post about this awesome new restaurant I tried or this sweet dessert I just baked or other “wow, my exciting life in San Francisco is the raddest!” type of fodder that often invades my place on the web here.

And when I write that stuff, it’s true. I’m an honest person, whether it is with my friends, my colleagues, or my internet persona—I just have, necessarily, more of a filter. But I got to the point where I felt like I was lying to everyone around me and the last thing I wanted to do was perpetuate the everything’s-rosy mentality on the internet when I was often sitting at home and NOT feeling that way, exactly. There is a lot of value in concepts such as “choose your attitude” or “fake it til you make it” but when it gets to the point where it seems you’re lying to yourself, it doesn’t feel right.

So I stopped blogging. That’s the real reason. It’s not that I was too busy—I’m always too busy, but there’s also always time for the things that are more important. I stopped blogging because I didn’t want to LOL and Winking smile and tell funny witty vignettes about my super-duper life when I was kind of going through a rough patch. Which we all do, at different times, and that’s fine—they pass.

But then I realized today that I was very much at risk of losing this blog forever. This blog has gone through seasons of life with me, from a hut in Africa to meandering through Southeast Asia to moving home to Granite Bay and wondering what to do with my life to a new world in San Francisco. There have been times I’ve been posting frequently, other times less so. There have been fun posts and insightful posts and stressed out posts and everything in between. Life isn’t perfect and there are seasons for everything. Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don’t. But the answer is not to hide under a rock during those times and pretend they’re going to pass without casualty. Life’s rockier and more uncertain patches are a gift that give us the opportunity for learning, for growth, and for reflection, and make those sweet times and perfect moments that much more meaningful.

I won’t lie and say everything has been worked out yet, but I will be honest and say that I’m working on those things. Life will always have its complications, and the important thing is to focus on the joys, blessings, and love that we all have in our lives—sometimes you just have to look a little harder to see them.

I won’t let P&P die. There may be times I don’t want to log on and don’t want to share, and other times I do. But this blog has been an extension of me, and I need to hold on to these hobbies that I love and that bring me joy, if only on a small piece of the interwebs. And at the end of the day, life really is super-duper awesome.

For anyone who is actually reading this post, thanks for not forgetting about me. This time, I’m really back, bit by bit.

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: blogging, life

Because I’m Awesome.

January 16, 2012 by Courtney 29 Comments

It’s amazing how easy it is to go through life without having enough FUN.

I have a lot of fun, usually, but also find myself occasionally wondering what happened to the carefree nature of life. Days when I’m tired, stressed, and “fun” activities become obligation.

Tonight was one of those nights. I’d paid to go to a GrubWithUs—hadn’t been to one in a long time and I love them—but it ended up being a little stressful. Work is crazy, I’m flying to San Diego tomorrow night, and I had to get to Pac Heights at a decent time. Once I found myself in Chinatown waiting for the 1 California bus, two passed me and didn’t stop because they were full. I was stressed, miserably cold, freaking out about being late, wondering how I’d get to the restaurant and then…

I realized that NO ONE WAS MAKING ME DO THIS.

Instead I walked up to Powell Street and hopped on the cable car back down to Market, enjoying the wind in my hair and one of my favorite SF traditions on a peaceful night. I walked into Forever 21 and bought a super cheap, sexy dress and $3 turquoise feather earrings because I could. I finally bought the Street Smart newspaper from a homeless person, hopped on the bus, bought a 7-pound bag of ice for $2.75 just so I could have one icy cocktail, mixed it up when I got home along with a bowl of pasta. For dessert, I ate an entire king-size chocolate bar without caring about how many miles I should run tomorrow morning to burn it off.

And I realized: I can do this. Whenever I want.

Not saying that eating a whole chocolate bar or being buzzed off of a gin and tonic on a Monday night is the key to life, but I realized that I’m constantly obeying rules for myself without even realizing it.

I have to be working all the time.
I always have to be checking my email.
I have to run all the time or be feeling guilty about not running.
I need to eat healthy and punish myself when I don’t.
I shouldn’t eat the chocolate. I shouldn’t have the cocktail.
I have to follow through on every. single. obligation. regardless of how important it actually is or how I am feeling in my mind, body, and spirit.
I should be doing something more productive right now.
I should lose 5 pounds to be sexier and skinnier. I should feel bad about my body until I do so.
I need to constantly project a certain image.
I have to obey one million ideas that no one’s forcing me to do.

Well I’m done with this. I’m ready to spend more time being selfish. I’m ready to spend more time doing things that make me feel good. Because I’m awesome. I’m done doing everything for everyone else and I’m going to focus on me and what makes me happy, whether that’s running 7 miles before 7 or not waking up til 11 or eating a fresh salad or the entire chocolate bar or going to bed at 9PM or 3AM or going out and not having a drink or going out and having several or taking an extended lunch break because we all know I get my work done or working through the whole day so I can turn my computer off at 5PM and not touch it til the next morning. I’m going to spend my time how I WANT to spend my time, whether that’s out with a bunch of friends or home drinking cocoa in my jammies or waking up early to exercise or deciding that in no way I’m going to exercise today or prioritizing happiness and pleasure. Because I’m awesome.

I’m done hanging out with friends when it feels like a chore.

I’m done sitting home alone when it feels like a prison.

I’m done thinking of what others expect before I think about what truly makes me happy.

Lord knows I keep healthy. Lord knows I’m good at my job. Lord knows I’m dedicated. That’s not the question. The question is how much joy I take out of the small moments.

I’m resolving to be more hedonistic in the small moments.

I’ll get off the bus a stop early to get hot chocolate for less than $2.
I’ll walk the long way back to the bus after work to think.
I’ll eat the chocolate or the ice cream or the fried chicken.
I’ll waste time doing something that feels like anything but a waste.
I’ll look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I’m gorgeous. I’ll have a dance party with myself and not care who is watching.
I’ll flirt with whoever I want, be it the guy on the bus or at the store or anywhere else, just because it’s fun.
I’ll stop trying to apologize for the fact that I am sexy yet strong, smart and sweet and a whole ball of sass rolled into one.
I’ll stop trying to live up to other’s expectations and set my own.

Because I’m awesome. And I deserve it. And so do you.

Why do we as women put so much pressure on ourselves, in work, in relationships, at home, in life? Why do we feel like taking time for ourselves is selfish or lazy or unproductive? It’s not. If we all were a little more selfish with our time, if we were all a bit better at saying NO, at expressing how we ACTUALLY feel instead of convincing ourselves that we’re overreacting, at eating the chocolate, at dumping the dude who makes you feel bad about yourself, at hiring that babysitter or house cleaner or pickup/delivery laundry service or whatever small thing to make our life easier, the entire world would be a better place.

There’s a place for selfless sacrifice in every day. But there’s also a time to stop caring about who thinks what and what you should be doing and concentrate on what you want to be doing so that YOU feel fulfilled, refreshed and more energetic and happy than ever and can apply that to every area of your life. I’m doing that… because I can.

Join me.

(PS, if you’re ever in need of a pick me up, listen to the Dollyrots’ song Because I’m Awesome while singing along in your jammies. It’s a guaranteed mood booster. It might even prompt an inane blog post about your self-appointed awesomeness.)

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: awesome, cable car, chocolate, drinking, girl power, life, pressure, San Francisco, self love, selfishness, unhealthy goodness, work

Too Close to Home: The Masonic Ave Fire

January 2, 2012 by Courtney 27 Comments

Last night, nothing happened and everything did.

I had just sat down with my laptop around 8PM to do a little productive work on the 1stof the year to get it started off right, after quite the lazy day. Only minutes afterward I heard a woman screaming outside, in a bone-chilling way, and the sirens of police cars. Mind you, I live in a cute house on a hill in San Francisco, this doesn’t usually happen right here. I called my neighbor to see what was going on and that’s when the fire trucks came. Several. The street was rapidly filling with red and white lights and that’s when I went outside and saw the smoke billowing from the house three doors down.

Initial reaction was slight panic. It’d be fine, right? Firefighters do this stuff every day. I was outside and then I went back into my apartment with the door still open. Then the commotion around grew louder and people start streaming out of their houses. A policewoman banged on the door and said words I’d never heard in this context – “we need you to get out.”

I grabbed the duffel bag in front of me and it was like the world stopped. There I was standing in the middle of my apartment as chaos was erupting in the streets and I was focused, in that millisecond, on the age-old question: what do I take with me?

I threw in my computers, phone charger, purse, passport, and camera. Luckily I keep all those things together, but more intentionally for an earthquake—not this. Then I grabbed a pair of jeans and my makeup “for work tomorrow.” Irrational, but in that millisecond, it was what I thought about. At this point, 15 seconds have passed at most and I found myself in the middle of the room heading out. What do I take? I grabbed my three full marathon medals off the wall, my journal, and a framed photo of me with great friends that was in arms reach. I took one glance around and had only one coherent thought: I would be okay without these things. Then I closed my door and walked out. (Don’t worry—I took these below pictures well after the fact. No photos happened until after I realized things would be okay)

When we were told to evacuate, I was not in imminent physical danger. The fire had not spread to my house. But fires have been running rampant over The City, and when I closed my door, I didn’t know if I’d see my belongings again. Two doors down isn’t much when you’re in old Edwardians. (Below stunning photo by Pete Briones who got some shocking shots of the fire)

When I was out, the flames were licking the sky, two structures fully ablaze. We were pushed all the way up to the street corner as more and more fire trucks and emergency personnel arrived. At one point, the wind picked up slightly and the embers from the flames were falling on the roof of my building. In that moment, I was waiting for what seemed to be inevitable. In that moment I was feeling three somewhat discordant things simultaneously:

Wow, I’m an idiot for not getting renter’s insurance, and that tab has been open on my laptop for a full week. Guess I’ll be the poster child for all my friends to get it.
Man, it would really suck to lose everything.
If this happens, everything is going to be okay.

The last one was a bit weird but sitting out there, with neighbors wondering if our house would go up in flames, I lost the utter anxiety that had overwhelmed me and realized that I might lose everything but I would bounce right back. I was tweeting during the fire and the outpouring of love and support I received was amazing and left me at peace—realizing that even if I lost everything I owned, and it was my fault because I live in an old house with no insurance, I had people that loved me and that’s what mattered.

And then all of a sudden the fire was contained.

Three buildings are heavily damaged. I don’t know the residents of those units personally, but my heart goes out to them. I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now and I wish them peace and an outpouring of love. In the end, everyone was okay. Praise the Lord.

Once I realized the place I lived wasn’t going to go up in flames the adrenaline crash left me queasy and feeling like I was watching a movie instead of living it. After what seemed like hours of sitting outside watching the madness unfold, we were led back to our unit by a cop under “shelter in place” conditions (aka stay inside or talk to the firefighters outside if anything is wrong). The fire ladder was still on the roof, but somehow we were okay. When I walked into my apartment and things were as they’d been, I was shocked. In that time, I had gone through shock and anger and then acceptance that I might be homeless. To walk in hours later and for the place to look untouched—it was insane.

I feel so incredibly blessed today. If there had just be a little more wind, or had the SFFD been just slightly slower, I could be writing a very, very different blog post today. My thoughts are with my neighbors who suffered losses last night. I truly feel an outpouring of gratefulness for so many things—the San Francisco Fire Department, the rare still night, friends who offered support if things had gone otherwise, for this building that I adore so much to still be standing. Grateful for the moments that take you out of your trivial problems and make you realize what really does matter. People, not things.

Here I am, writing this blog post, in my intact apartment, just one day later. Nothing happened—but yet everything did.

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: fire, frederick, masonic avenue, San Francisco, waller

Christmas Actually Is All Around

December 25, 2011 by Courtney 9 Comments

As I sit here on Christmas evening, I’ve found myself thinking about what Christmas means to different people. It’s Jesus’s birthday, of course, but the holiday is celebrated in many different ways by people who believe many different things. There’s an overarching “holiday spirit” that infects us, and takes on a variety of forms. I’ve seen Christmas manifest itself in several ways over the last few days.

Christmas is nighttime Embarcadero runs with friends, followed by fries.

Christmas is a Christmas Eve trail run with mom, a beautiful day with some big hills to boot.

Christmas is cinnamon rolls, cookies, waffles, more waffles, more cookies…

Christmas is spending hours setting up what seemed like thousands of paper bags filled with dirt and votive candles two feet apart across two huge corner lots, only to have the end result be completely worth it.

(Please note the bottom sign: Occupy Christmas! One man controls 99% of the presents!)

Christmas is time with family.

Even the adopted family that barks.

Christmas is receiving Funfetti cake, pancake mix, a waffle maker, and The Stick for Christmas, and recognizing that your loved ones know you pretty freaking well.

Christmas is watching movies that are definitely Christmas movies, some that are debatable, and others that most definitely are NOT.

But to me, most importantly, Christmas is a time to reflect on the faith that shapes my life that defines my heart, that gives me comfort in times of turmoil, that gives me hope in times of despair.

The holidays have been pretty loaded for me these last few years. In 2008 I was overseas and lonely, away from all I held dear; in 2009 I was home for two weeks after 15 months abroad and in extreme culture shock and confusion; in 2010 I had just returned home after 27 difficult months overseas. The post I wrote last year really shows where I was at that time—grateful.

This holiday season has been hard. Instead of filling consumed by joy and love, I’ve been, to be honest, a bit sad. Loneliness has ruled in my mind over togetherness. Stress has overwhelmed peace. But finally this weekend I’ve been brought back to Earth, to focus on what truly matters instead of getting caught up in everything else.

This week is my one year anniversary of returning home from Africa, one year since going vegetarian, one year since the most recent chapter of my life began. So it’s a little emotionally loaded. But what I pause to reflect on is LOVE. Just love.

I’m looking forward to an exciting new year ahead, to new beginnings and endings. And to remember the spirit of Christmas for what is truly is: a gift of love.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Courtney

PS. The winner of the coffee giveaway is MCM mama. Send me your address! : )

What does Christmas mean to you?

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Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: Christmas, dogs, Faith, family, holiday, holidays, Musings, presents, running

One More Year

Fostering an atmosphere of growth

Posing

Because I’m Awesome.

Too Close to Home: The Masonic Ave Fire

Christmas Actually Is All Around

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