Friday Five – My Life According to Nidhi

3 Feb

In case you couldn’t tell from my header, I love the art of Nidhi Chanani. So many of you have asked where I got my headers that I thought I’d share a few of my current favorite pieces, as well as giving her a much deserved plug. She is letting me use her art just because I emailed her and told her how awesome I think she is, after all. Her work embodies the exuberant spirit, the sense of freedom, and the appreciation of quiet moments I wanted to bring to life in BiRL. It also pays homage to my heart-home city and my heritage. I so love everything she makes, and really want some Nidhi art to be part of redecorating our bedroom one day.

As I was going through some of her latest creations, I was struck by how well a few of her prints illustrated my life right now. For those of you who don’t know, A is an accountant. He ceases to exist from January through April 15th. This year it’s been more like October through April 15th. He gets home late and works on weekends, and I miss him. This year he’s really laying down some boundaries and just saying no to working on Sundays, so we can still go to church and have the rest of the day together. So this Friday Five has a double purpose: to celebrate my favorite parts of my day with my man, and to share some truly great art.

We set the alarm clock at least half an hour before the earliest of us has to get up so we can cuddle up and spoon. Usually A. hits the alarm and whispers to a sleepy wife to turn over so he can hold me. We spend every morning in each other’s arms, dozing, hitting snooze, until the reality of the day forces us up. It is, without a doubt, my favorite part of the day.

Especially now, A usually leaves the house before I do, planting kiss after kiss on my sleepy lips. Half the time I have to call him when I wake up to confirm his ‘notes’ to me before he left. He always tells me when he’s going to be home and if he fed the dogs, but in my sleep-addled state I never can remember. I remember the “I love you’s” though, and the “I’ll miss you, have a good day’s.” (I think the girl kind of looks like me, too. Yes?)

This is so how I feel when A comes home. I don’t always show it – I’m usually up to my elbows in dinner prep – but the thrill, the joy, the peace that’s in this piece is there. Oh, and sub two over-exuberant dogs for the cats.

Ok, this one is a bit of a stretch. We do this sort of thing – eating in bed – when we’re on vacation and I absolutely love it. But by the time we get under the covers we’re both in the  mood for quiet down-time, not a snack. But we often have the late night snack in our living room, just before bed. So bad, I know, but these nights A gets home so late so we end up staying up talking or watching a show, and a snack just helps sometimes.

This is absolutely us, every night I don’t have trouble sleeping. We both love to read before bed. It sets A at peace, it calms my mind. This piece shows us one light-click away from dreamland. And the next day we get to start all over again, in each other’s arms.

Thanks to Nidhi  Chanani for sharing her art with Bigger in Real Life. You can view Nidhi’s etsy shop here, or click on any of the images to view their listings.

If someone drew a picture of your life today, what would it look like?

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More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Marmota Monax

2 Feb

Today deserves an explanation. And who better to provide that than the explanation comic stylings of C.G.P. Grey? Without further ado, here is Why Once a Year We Care What a Ground-Rat Thinks, or Groundhog Day Explained:

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Intentionally January

1 Feb

image from chasing vivid dreams

Let’s see, one month ago I was waxing poetic about all the things I wanted to do to make 2012 the year of living intentionally. I thought today, on this first day of February 2012, would be a good time to look back on the month before through the lens of being intentional. Let’s see how we did, shall we?

Pursuing the Lord’s heart like I did when I first loved Him.

I did ok on this one. Instead of just skimming over my daily verse and thinking “oh, that’s nice,” I started saying a prayer about that verse. Usually that God help me to apply it to my day, or let me understand Him better through His word. Not a bad start, but I could have done better.

Moving into a season of greater spiritual and emotional intimacy with my husband.

This one went well, I feel. (Will have to check with A. and see what he thinks.) A is neck-deep into tax season, and traditionally this time of year we are never at our best, intimacy-wise. But remember my idea for building intimacy through wine and cheese? We’ve kept it going, every night A is home for dinner and we don’t have to rush out the door, which usually means 2-4 nights a week. On Sunday we were doing our big grocery run for the week, and I started tallying up what portion of our food budget we spent on wine and cheese. It wasn’t obscene, but definitely more than we’d usually spend just to have a little luxury. I said as much to A on our drive home, to which he replied, “yeah, but you know? I see it as an investment it us. It’s not really spending money on food, we’re spending money to bring us closer together, which we really need right now. Plus, it’s cheaper than going out to dinner.” True dat, my love, true dat.

Moving forward with the ministry God’s put in front of me.

Yeah, this one I haven’t paid much attention to this month, except to worry about how much I’m not doing, and time is slipping away. This month will be better.

Making the most of the relationships I have, and taking time to nurture them.

I haven’t done much with this one either, though now that I think about it, how would I measure this? I did well with A, as noted above, but I don’t know about my other relationships. Do my dogs count? Truth be told, one of the hardest things to deal with as I work through S.A.D. is feeling distinctly anti-social. It’s hard, because I’m a very social person. I’ve really appreciated how a lot of my girlfriends and sister have made a point of reaching out to me, and I’ve loved going out when they suggest it, but it has sometimes been hard for me to make that phone call. So I haven’t been proactive about making active time to nurture my relationships outside of A.
Wait! I’ve got a success! (Little stream of consciousness here.) My friends all seem to have a lot going on in their lives right now, and in January I’ve felt more of a burden to pray for all of them than I have in a long time. They might not know about it, or be able to see it, but right now when my time and emotional resources are limited, I’ve been praying. And truth be told, I feel like I love them and appreciate them more now for doing it.

Tackling some of the harder things on The List, especially the ones that scare me.

As I’ve said, January didn’t see me cross anything off my list. I am working on learning the guitar, and have started a teeny-tiny dream fund, but no actual crossings yet. I’m hopeful for February.

Having more people over for dinner, and not letting time/stress/money get in the way of my love of being a hostess.

Done! We had A’s bff from work and his wife over for dinner. They brought wine, she baked my favorite cookies ever, my chicken was dry (per usual), but we had a great time. It was the first time I’ve felt a little hangover in awhile, let me tell you. Accountants, man, they be crazy! There was a time in the not-too-distant past that having one couple over for dinner in a month would have been a step down for us. But looking back on 2011 (which will forever be known as The Year Suck) we really didn’t have people over. So one this month is a step in the right direction. Yay, Team Aylesworth!

Finding ways beyond words to show people that I love them.

I’m going to defer to my note on praying for people on this one. And my successful implementation of wine and cheese nights with A. Oh, and yesterday I picked up a bag of gummy bears for A while I was at the store. (They’re his favorite, and I’ve never seen them carried at Trader Joes. All of a sudden, there they were! Get while the gettin’s good, I say.)

Buying locally as much as possible.

This has been a mixed bag. I just put a temporary hold on our CSA order, as I’m not cooking as often or as much as I have been, and it was starting to be a waste. But I continue to seek out local veggies at the store (again, SO BLESSED to live in California!), buy from local dairy farmers, and I just found an egg supplier who is local as well for year-round egg buying. Score! (Come summertime I buy eggs from my friend Danielle, our church’s very own urban farmer, if she has enough. You don’t get much more local than that!)

Finding fun, creative ways to get together with friends that don’t revolve around food.

I had two FWF dates this month. BOO-yah!

Reading challenging, empowering, quality books instead of solely feeding my brain a mental fast food diet of chick-lit.

Hmm, let’s see. What have I been reading this month? Not a whole lot, unfortunately, the newest issues of Relevant and Runners World aside. I finally picked up The Man Who Ate Everything. Loved The Night Circus. Finished Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) and The Handmaid’s Tale. There were two chick-lit books thrown into the mix as well that I don’t really remember (mental fast food indeed), so three chick-lit, three non? I’ll call that a win.

Putting my health first and making the time to exercise.

I went out four times, which is better than my previous month’s score of zero. Still working on shaking of my sense of inertia courtesy of S.A.D, and I hurt my foot somehow. It’s really quite the mystery. I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday if it doesn’t feel better by them. For now I’m walking on my toes on my left foot.

All in all, I’m going to say not bad. This year isn’t about doing everything all the time. No one can do that, especially me. I’d exhaust myself trying, and drive myself crazy thinking about all I’m not accomplishing instead of focusing on my successes. No, I can’t do everything, no matter how much I’d like to. But I want to do something, and cataloging my journey towards being intentional is part of my being intentional; I know myself, and if I didn’t purposefully take a look at how I’m doing I’d get nothing done. So now I know what I’ve done and what I want to work on next. Less of a check list, more of a status check on my journey thus far.

If you had a resolution or a word for 2012, how’s it going? I’d love to hear! Leave a comment or link to a blog post you’ve written on this below.

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Amphigory

31 Jan

Remember my list of books I want right now? My loving mother found a copy of Amphigorey she had in her library and bequeathed it to lil’ ol’ me, along with an equally great collection by Chaz Addams. I’d forgotten how brilliant this book is. I was especially taken by the section titled “The Listing Attic” which contained dozens of truly morbid limericks. Which is fitting, since I have a truly morbid sense of humor. (Ask A about my fascination with dead baby jokes. On second thought, don’t.) So I thought I’d try my hand at one or two (maybe slightly less morbid) as I’ve been known to throw a poem or two around in my day. And limericks are so much fun!

There once was a young man named Louis
Who was struck with a bad case of ennui
To get out of his funk
He took up with a skunk
And all who laid eyes thought him screwy

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The Cost of Dreaming

30 Jan

photo from soul meets body

So I was looking back over my wishes for 2012 and saw that I wrote, on this very blog, that I would live to cross 15 of the 25 remaining items off of The List this year. That’s 15 things in 12 months. Or, more accurately since I haven’t accomplished any this month, 15 things in 11 months. Holy crappers, people, that’s a lot of things to do!

As I look over my list, the thing that strikes me most is that crossing things off my list is going to cost me. Why didn’t that occur to me, in a real dollars and cents way, before now? A and I do just fine, thankyouverymuch, but most of our money isn’t liquid. As A likes to put it, we’re house-poor. Even more so with our water heater basically exploding last week. The more I work on crossing off the list, the more I realize that even having a list means accepting cost. It has a tangible monetary cost, but it also costs time, it costs effort, and I can see why people put off their dreams because, at the end of the day, dreaming is costly.

A few months ago I was at a lecture by Kathi Lipp where she talked to women about finding their dream. One of the things I remember her saying the most was (and I’m heavily paraphrasing here) that lots of women don’t know how find their dreams, and those who do let the excuses of time or money get in the way of pursuing their dreams. My 30 before 30 list is an excercise in dreaming, and there’s no way I’m going to get 15 things crossed off in the next year, let alone 25 in two, if I don’t plan for it. Make the time, set aside the money, and just balls-to-the-wall go for it, baby.

When A and I decided it was time to put aside excuses and have me start Christian counselling, we did it not knowing where the money was going to come from. All we knew was that we’d prayed for assistance, it hadn’t come, but that we’d waited long enough and it was time. After we took the leap and I started meeting with a counsellor, the financial help appeared. Our prayers were answered. But we had to take the leap first.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that was a special case. I don’t think God’s going to show up if I pray hard enough for the money to appear so A and I can learn to make sushi. My point it that dreaming takes planning, intention, and making a choice to go for it, come what may. So this month I’m starting a 30 Before 30 fund. I’m lucky enough to work at a job where I get reimbursed a bit for the endless amount of commuting I do. With A’s blessing I’m now going to save up my mileage and designate it my dream fund – a little bit above and beyond our normal income that I can put towards my dreams guilt-free. But if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t let that stop me. I’d find another way to cut a corner: forego my Friday latte, reduce my cell phone’s data plan, nix Netflix, something. Because as nice as those little luxuries are, they’re nothing compared to seeing a dream become reality and being able to look back and say “yeah, I did that. I went for it.”

If you’re waiting on someone to hand you the golden ticket to  make all your dreams come true, I have three words for you: Get Over It. No one will care more about your dreams than you will. No one has the capacity to make them happen like you do. No one else will hunger to see them come to life, and darn the cost. Because it will cost you: effort, time, willpower, maybe even money, but as someone working through her own mini-bucket list I’m here to tell you that it’s worth every bit of it.

So that’s my pledge for this next chapter of my life: to go forward with no excuses. If I can’t afford it, I’ll save up or find a way to make it happen for less. If I don’t have time, well, we always make time for that which is most important to us, don’t we? If I don’t have the drive, I have a friends and a loving husband to help keep me accountable. I’ll be intentional, and make it happen.

Do you ever let outside forces stand in the way of your dreams?

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