Hobby Update

I didn't know what to call this post. And then it dawned on me that both topics are hobbies in a way. First off, I was going to share I think I have a garden gnome breaking into my house and stealing my gardening tools. Basically I have no explanation about what's happened. Last year I acquired two sets of hand held pruning sheers. They were great and I pruned away all last year. This year, I took them out in spring and started pruning.  And then I started my job and they have gone MIA. I looked everywhere. I'm good about bringing my tools in every time. I put my tools in their home and they are just not there, or anywhere. I looked everywhere and fell further and further behind on my pruning after a few months, I gave up and bought a new set of sheers. I used them once and remember thinking, I'll bring them up into my place instead of leaving them in the basement with my other gardening tools. They are too precious to not keep locked up. 

And then this weekend I went to garden, and nada. I couldn't find the sheers. How did a third pair go missing? I even found the packaging of the third set so I knew I hadn't imagined buying them. Granted, I had enough gardening too keep me busy even without my pruning sheers. I started thinking I'll just use giant loppers for even the small trimming. I mean I can't lose my loppers - they're huge. It's like when the gas station attaches a hub cap to the bathroom key so it doesn't go missing. 

And of course, just writing about the shears, and taking a day off from looking for them, and my brain relaxed and I remembered tucking them away in my back closet. But in amongst my cleaning supplies. Which makes no sense - it was just the closest place when I came up after the last gardening jaunt. Lesson reinforced, everything has a home and put everything back in its home, even if it's an extra step or two. Your future brain will thank you. 

I'm still way behind on the gardening, but I'm slowly getting more comfortable about what to keep and what to get rid of and I've started formulating a plan for planting. A bunch of plants I want to move.  And I'm realizing it makes sense to just tackle a little bit at a time. I was pulling the crab grass in the strip of lawn between the sidewalk and street this evening after work. I haven't mowed all summer and the crab grass took over and killed off the regular grass. My plan is to move some lilies like my neighbor which hopefully will give the tree a little less competition. 

And in other news, orienteering started back up for the fall. I was out all day yesterday. Even though it cooled down last week, to the point I was putting away some summer clothes, I should have looked at the forecast.  It was a warm day yesterday and all this week will be hot and humid again. But I did pretty well. I ended up starting out on the same course as these two other people. One was ahead of me and the other one I could hear running behind me which kept me running a bit longer than I normally would have. I wasn't good about staying in shape in the off-season. I should have been running more this summer but then again I did have my toe injury (I dropped my vacuum on my big toe - it's healed pretty well). I found all the markers pretty well. Number six was the most challenging and that's where I left one of the guys (who had been running behind me and passed me). I kept thinking I knew where it should be and then it wasn't in the spot so I took a lesson I learned earlier which is to give up early, go back to a point where you know where you are on the map and start again to try to find the spot. I blame the bugs because number six was in the woods and flies where on me the second I stopped to look at my map. I basically just kept running around, to get away from the flies. 

And at one point I came up to the marker and the other fellow had gotten there before me but was sitting and studying his map so I took advantage and went off running to the next spot. He ended up catching up to me and we found the next spot together but then took different routes to the following marker. I kind of had an advantage since this is the third year I ran this location. So I knew the way you think you should go according to the map is tricky because the paths aren't clear.  I took the longer way around, but think I got to the spot first. I should add that each year the markers are in different spots, but you get familiar with the areas. 

Anyways, you don't need the play by play. The nice thing is I hung around after I was done which I usually don't do. I said I'd help with clean up and I was meeting up with a fellow orienteering person that I'm helping run a local meet in a few weeks. Im shadowing him this year and the plan is I run the meet next year. The fellow I passed on marker six (he spent over 20 minutes hunting - I've been there before) showed me an app you can download on your phone which tracks your route and then afterwards you can overlay the route onto the topo map and study what you did. I think I'm going to try it out next time. 

Speaking of which, next weekend is the bicycling event. I liked doing it last year but noted I should train  prior since it's a lot of biking. The event is 3 hours plus biking to and from is another 1.5 hours. Not only were my legs sore, my butt was super sore. Somehow, the event snuck up on me, even though it's usually Labor Day weekend. I'm hoping to get into the gym this week to train a little. I'm still sore from yesterday - a few steep hills I ran up and down. I'm writing this down in the hopes I remember, next year, when it's strawberry season (June), I need to start training on my bike. 

And the weekend after, is canoeing orienteering. And the weekend is the event I'm helping run. So lots of exciting weekends planned full of orienteering, and hopefully some gardening. My moss in the backyard is thriving which only makes me want to get out and weed out the grass in the remaining portion. And yet, I haven't made it out back as much as I've wanted to. It's the one nice thing about the weather getting hot again, it feels like it's still summer and I still have time to catch up on my gardening. 

Decluttering: Clothes

A friend of mine reached out asking if I could help her tackle her closet. She's the friend who I helped organize her pantry this spring and she reported the pantry is still super clean and tidy. Which is great to hear. 

Her ask got me thinking about my path to decluttering my clothes. I'm still not there but I've come a long way and tried a bunch of things along the way. I was just noticing the other day how as things were ramping up at work I was pulling items out of my wardrobe and just bringing it down to the core. The crazier work gets, the smaller my wardrobe became. A nice solid core of about 8 tops, 2 bottoms, 1 dress and 2 pairs of shoes. I never thought this would be enough but it is. I should note that this is my summer wardrobe, when it's hot and humid out, And not my entire closet. 

So here's what I found in my path to where I'm now:

1. Taking everything out. I made a pile in my living room of all my clothes, shoes, etc. everything from all my closets, dressers, storage, etc. I was blown away at how much there was and weeded through and took out the not for me anymore items. I think I got rid of about a third. It felt so good but this was just the start. People often stop at this point and don't revisit which is key to not end up back where you were before. 

2. Figure out your categories. I tried a bunch of things on where I store my clothes. From keeping everything active, including out of season clothes, to packing away stuff, including extra clothes I considered my "store" to shop from. What I found, for me, is that if I have too much to chose from, it can get overwhelming and I get into "I don't have anything to wear mode". I divided my clothes into modules that I rotate out. For me I basically have four work modules for each season and four casual modules for each season and a few specialty categories. Specialty categories include: fancy (for a wedding or Christmas party),  shoveling and for each I only have on or two outfits that I don't wear that often. Right now, I have two modules out for summer: work and casual. 

3. Do the math. This was a big aha moment for me. I don't want to have a closet where I only wear items only once or twice a year. I want a closet where I wear things a bunch. I calculated the number of days per season for work and for casual (basically weekends). The first thing I noticed is that I have too much casual items for every season. I had so many tops for casual that I was only wearing an item twice a year This helped me rebalance my closet for my needs. 

4. Holding Pile. I spent a weekend trying everything on and figuring out outfits, head to toe, including jewelry and shoes. At first I just found outfits that worked but after a little practice I became ruthless and the outfit only passed if I felt 100% - dressed to impress. This resulted in a few items I still love but haven't figured out an outfit yet. So I took the pieces out of the closet and bagged them up. This is my working pile that I work on periodically when I'm feeling creative to find an outfit that works or else let the piece go. I only have the pieces that work for me right now in my closet. It's so much simpler. 

5. Sentimental Pile.  This I just did recently and it helped more than I thought. I went through my closet and pulled out pieces that had a story and I'd be hesitant to let go of. Everything from pieces I picked up from my trips abroad to my oldest piece of clothing from college to my first sweater I knit. If I can find a way to use the piece where I feel 100%, then in the closet it goes. For instance my first sweater I knit I wasn't wearing much f at all and then I turned it into my go-to shoveling sweater and wore it tons last winter. But if I don't have a use for it, it goes into my holding pile. This includes my fantasy self items too. Clothes I don't fit into at the moment, too big or small.  Everything I'm not using gets packed away and if the holding pile gets too big, I weed it down but now I know why I'm holding onto it which lets me let go. I don't need three pairs of jeans that are too small, just one. 

6. Know Your Style.  I realized I often bought pieces as experiments but didn't realize they were experiments. So they just lingered longer than they should have. It's easier said than done about finding your style. It's an iterative process of trial and error. The key is to be conscious of what you're trying. And that your style shifts. What used to be a favorite may no longer work, especially with clothing, fashion comes and goes. I had a good quality blazer I loved for work and wore all the time. It took awhile for me to realize it wasn't my favorite anymore. The cut had gone out of fashion gradually so I wasn't reaching for it but the history had me keeping the piece. Recently I had picked up a few key core pieces but I realized a skirt was not in my regular go to category so I to.d myself, this is an experiment piece, let's see how it goes. I've learned to limit the number of "experiments" I purchase. Along with style is knowing what colors, cuts and fabrics work best. I still have a ways to go but I'm getting there 

Driving

So work has ramped up pretty quickly. I knew it would so I was enjoying the "quiet" days of my first few weeks. And I took advantage of the time, networking and connecting with key people throughout the organization. Which is a good thing, as the person who was acting as the interim director is moving on to another position. It's a good move in the long run for all concerned, but in the short term, there is so much institutional knowledge and relationship building that needs to be transferred. 

As I mentioned before, I looked at my life and identified what can I do in my life to minimize the extra stress I will be experiencing.  And one thing I identified early on was my commute. I wrestled for the longest time about going over to the dark side and driving into work. My commute with public transportation took at least an hour. I found the fastest way in to work was to avoid the bus and ride my bike to the subway, take the subway and then from my subway stop, walk to work which is about 15 minutes. But often the commute would creep over 90 minutes, especially getting home.

I had dropped my vacuum on my big toe last month and it's been healing nicely, but the first week I was conscious of not wanting to put too much stress on it, walking everywhere. And since my commute includes a 15-20 minute walk, I opted to drive into work for a week. And that was the beginning of the end. It took about 20 minutes and that's with traffic.  Summer traffic mind you (it will get worse after Labor Day) but still.  All of a sudden I had an extra hour in my day that was freed up.

My whole career I've commuted to work via public transportation. The last time I drove to work for a job was my summer internship after my sophomore year of college. And that was with my first car, "darling". Aptly named because I'd have to coax her up a big hill that was on my way home and every day I'd try to get a running start but 2/3 up the way, she'd run out of steam and putter along with me cheering her on, "darling, you can do it, you're almost to the top". On hot days, she'd have even less umph.  No AC, so I'd listen to my music - a mix tape of Bob Dillon songs, with the window rolled down, while a line of cars would accumulate behind me. Fast forward to now and I'm living the life with a nice luxury car that handles so smoothly, has AC and is just so comfortable. A far cry from Darling and a big step up from being crammed on a bus, trying to keep my balance as I'm forced to stand and we lurch down the street stopping every 100 meters for traffic.

It's taken awhile for me to transition my thinking. I mean it's been over 20 years since I first started commuting to work using subways and busses. It's my time to get my reading done and ignore the traffic situation, leaving it to the bus driver to deal. When the weather is nice, it's such a beautiful bike ride to the subway and I get a lot of steps is with all the walking. Plus, not only is it nice to reduce my footprint for the environment, I save a ton of money. That's why I've always commuted. 

But, I often am worn out at the end of the day and don't get too much reading done.  Most of the year I can't bike because of the weather - winter, rain or too hot/humid. I get plenty of steps walking during the day with this job, outside of the commute. And so really, it boiled down to money and environment - that's why I was so patient with my commute. Wait, I should clarify that previous jobs, public transportation was the only real option since driving in would take just as long.  Maybe a little less but nothing to write home about (or post on my blog). 

So faced with my new situation, with a job much closer to home and farther from the subway stop.  And a sudden demand on my time with work while wanting to keep a work/life balance. I started seriously contemplating switching. The week I was driving in because of my toe was an eye opener of how big a gap in my two modes of transport. I knew there was a gap and had decided that when I paid off my mortgage, I'd treat myself with a parking pass. I'm younger now than later after all, so now is when I should be doing the harder stuff that would wear future me down faster. I'd rather take the subway in my 40s and drive in my 50s and 60s, than the opposite. 

Well, now I'm rambling and trying to explain myself. My point of wanting to blog is to say I got a parking permit at the beginning of the month and have been driving to work. It's been taking some time to unwire my thinking and what I'm used to. Last night, I was working late to finish a report (I'm taking off this afternoon for a dentist appointment).  And when I was almost home, driving down my street, I was still surprised how quickly I went from desk to door. It was 15 minutes!  And I was struck by how much I have geared myself up when I leave work.  It's like I've been taking a deep breath when I leave work, getting ready to endure a long commute with a lot of waiting, either stuck in traffic, or if it's later in the evening, stuck waiting for my bus or subway to show up. It's like I've tensed up in anticipation of how much waiting I'll have to do and now I'm slowly learning that I can just relax. Relax in the comfort of my own car and not being jostled around.  Relax as I have control over my way home and can just go with the flow of traffic. Relax as I listen to music and podcasts - something I stopped doing years ago because I was concerned about my hearing - having to play things so loudly to hear stuff over the rumble of the subway or street noise of the bus. 

It was just so nice last night to zip home after a long day at work. I still need to figure out the financials and environmental impact. I mean, I can afford it, and if you look at my footprint for this job, compared to my last job, it's so much less because I'm not flying all over for work. But I still have a it more work to unwire 20 years of thinking. The question will be, will I be posting in the future complaining about being stuck in traffic. Who knows, but the nice thing is I live and work in an area where I have a lot of options.