on patience (earned)

I used to be an incredibly impatient person. For as long as I could remember, I had always been anxiously awaiting something, anything. It's a stressful and exhausting way to live, honestly. I don't recommend it.

As life progresses and I grow older, I am finding myself capable of patience and acceptance, in ways and in circumstances that my younger self would never have been able to handle. Part of this change stems from a changing perception of time - it's no joke that the older you get, the faster time seems to go by. Sorry to my mom and dad for all the times I rolled my eyes at them when they said that sort of thing to me. 

Another part of this comes from the time and effort I have invested in creating a happy life and healthy environment for myself. The happier and more at peace you are to begin with, the easier it is to maintain that peace and positivity in the face of difficult moments. Prioritizing my own happiness seemed like a selfish and petty thing to do at first. Shouldn't I be more worried about saving the world / changing my community / helping others? Well, I have learned being happy makes it much easier to do all those things; happiness is the root of a good life, it impacts things both great and small. The younger me would have scoffed at my excitement about finding the perfect nail polish color - isn't that such a trivial thing and wouldn't my time be better spent reading ____ or ruminating on the existence of _____? But now I know that, while the nail polish itself isn't important, those little bits of happiness really are. They add up to a well-rounded perspective. Volunteering at the animal shelter brings a different kind of happiness than laying on the grass in the sun at the courthouse; helping others is certainly the more honorable action, but both are important and necessary in their own ways. Life is not exclusively grand gestures and great accomplishments. Neither is love, or happiness. It is the sum of the whole.

(fresh flowers...another little thing I enjoy so much)

The final great contributor to my level of patience is faith. That the journey will never be too long or too hard for me to handle. That life will never be completely without some sort of pain or struggle, and that is okay, because I am stronger than I think. That everything is temporary, nothing is permanent. Things are always changing, and that means that even if things are bad right now, they won't be in the future. I may not know when or how, but I know things will get better. The good and the bad are always changing, always fluctuating, and you either learn to ride those waves and stay afloat or you drown. To me, being patient is choosing to believe that things will be wonderful, maybe not on your own timeframe but that they truly will be...

a poem by rudyard kipling

This lovely poem by Rudyard Kipling was posted on A Cup of Jo many months ago. It is definitely something to aspire to, for all of us, including the ladies (despite the final line of the poem).  I am far from perfect and definitely cherish the reminder that being a good person with kindness, confidence, and integrity is the loftiest of goals.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son! 

—Rudyard Kipling

hippie lessons: a clean home

One of the first projects I took upon myself after The Husband and I returned from the honeymoon was something I had been thinking about for quite a long time. After reading The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking (thank you to Ms. Stephanie M. for that recommendation!) and with the wedding behind us, I was ready to take the plunge. After years of loving the magical whitening power of bleach to brighten the horrifically stained old sinks in our rental home, I was sick of having a headache after cleaning the bathroom, worrying about The Cat Who Thinks She's A Dog getting those chemicals in her system, feeling guilty over what I'm contributing to the watershed, and generally hoarding an embarrassing amount of cleaning supplies.

speaking of embarrassing.......The Husband rocking clip-on earrings with two of my favorite people

Here's what I use to clean our entire house***:

Vinegar + Water + Lavender Essential Oil cleans the bathroom, kitchen, windows, basically everything. Vinegar is wonderful at killing mold and mildew, and the essential oil cuts through the vinegar smell while you're cleaning. And no worries, the vinegar smell disappears when dry. Instead of having a bleach cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, and window cleaner, I have ONE BOTTLE. Also, it's great for wiping down thrift store or antique store finds that smell musty or like cigarettes.

Mrs. Meyer's All-Purpose Cleaner is what I use to clean wood furniture, as I have read that vinegar can dull wood over time. Considering The Husband and I built our own coffee table (so much fun! so much work!), I am not going to risk messing that thing up. I love the lavender scent. Mrs. Meyers does not release their formulations for their products (especially the scents), which is why I limit my use of it to only wood. I'm not going to use a product more than I have to if I don't know what it is made of.

Nature's Gate Disinfecting Multi-Surface Cleaner is my answer to smug anti-hippies who worry about the fact that vinegar is not as strong a disinfectant as bleach. This cleaner works as well as bleach, killing 99.99% of household germs. Thyme oil is a very strong disinfectant, but it doesn't pollute your home or your watershed with chemicals. I spray this on toilet seat handles, door knobs, etc. The thyme smell is very strong, but very worth it, in my opinion.

The Shark Steam Mop was a wedding gift, and probably one of my favorite things ever. Nothing but water, and it heats up enough to disinfect the floor and knock out the toughest stains.

That being said, can anyone recommend a hippie toilet bowl cleaner that won't require me to shut off the water to our toilet tank? The Mrs. Meyers toilet bowl cleaner sucks. Any recommendations for eco-friendly products I may have missed in this post?

***KEEPING IT REAL DISCLAIMER: we still use bleach every couple weeks to whiten our kitchen sink, which is severely old and incredibly stained. Not every hippie is a perfect hippie (and I am incredibly far from being perfect).

meditation + technology

(The Funk Zone on a cloudy day, Santa Barbara)

As someone who tends to become anxious easily, meditation had always intimidated me. I did not think I was capable of shutting my brain off and finding that inner peace that had always been elusive to me. However, I tried Deepak Chopra's 21-Day Free Meditation Challenge (now over, sadly, but you can purchase the series here, and I also mention some FREE guided meditation audio sources below) as a desire to try, really try, to understand and practice at least the basic tenants of meditation. Shockingly, I loved it and immediately felt the calming effects of taking 15 minutes out of each day to participate in this challenge. While I chose not to purchase the meditation series (I'm super cheap), I firmly believe it was an incredibly effective introduction to meditation for beginners and would recommend it to anyone.

After the challenge was over and I was meditation audio-less, I was stumped. I may have completed the 21 days of meditation, but I wasn't ready or able to just sit back in a silent room and try to achieve that inner peace myself. I needed the verbal instructions to keep me on task, instead of letting my mind wander into worries and stresses. What's a hippie to do?

Answer: Spotify! For those of you who are not familiar with Spotify, you really should be. It is a free music player that functions more like iTunes than Pandora. You can search for songs, albums, artists, make playlists, look at friends' music, get recommendations, and so forth...all for FREE. The free version is a desktop-only program with some ads between songs. The paid version ($9.99 per month) gets rid of ads and allows you to utilize Spotify's mobile app, so you can rock out on your phone to your playlists for free. Not all music is on there (big, sad, missing one: The Beatles) due to copyright owners not allowing the music to be used by Spotify and the like, but I rarely notice the absence, even though my music taste runs towards the obscure.

(Goleta Beach Park near UCSB, on a cloudy day)

Deepak Chopra and The Chopra Center have quite a few albums available for your use. The 21-Day Meditation Challenge is on there, but without the truly inspiring introductory remarks Deepak makes in the paid version. However, the real winner (for me) has been The Soul of Healing Meditations. It is a guided meditation CD (remember, I need someone telling me to stop thinking, dammit) and is a great way to ease into the wonderful world of meditation. Another amazing guided meditation for encouraging sleep is Blissful Sleep with Deepak Chopra.

I am so grateful for my mind and body, and my desire to be my own sense of peace. Even if you don't take it seriously at first (I chuckled aloud during my first meditation attempt), try it a couple times. You have nothing to lose, and so much inner fulfillment to gain!