The Zen Leaf

Favorite Things About My House

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Thistle

Last week, I mentioned that I could fill a whole post with just my favorite things about the new house. Well, um, that seems like a good list topic for today. Heh. So here we go! My favorite things about my lovely new house, in no particular order:

1. It reminds me of my grandmother’s house. Well, not just my grandmother’s house, but many houses I grew up in or frequented in childhood. Jason also says it reminds him of houses he experienced growing up. This is especially true in all the little quirks from being built in the early 70s: solid wood paneling in the living/dining room, pressed-faux-marble tile in the entryway, a brick sidewall in the entryway, bar access from kitchen to dining room…

2. My shower sings to me. I’m actually not sure what causes this, if it’s pipes or vents or drainage, but whenever I turn on the water and step down into the master shower – yes, it’s a step down – there’s this low hum that sounds like music. It’s kinda like being inside a happy haunted house, which is awesome, and totally makes up for the fact that there’s no bathtub in the master bathroom.

3. There are fireflies in the backyard. At least there are this year, which admittedly has been pretty magnificent in terms of cooler-than-usual weather here in San Antonio. It’s really nice to sit outside and just watch the fireflies at dusk.

4. Plus there’s this super nice deck on which to enjoy said fireflies. We don’t have deck furniture yet, but I still love the deck. It’s under a canopy of trees, and the perfect place for a cup of coffee and just being outdoors. I imagine in the winter, it’ll be the perfect spot for writing.

5. My living room is big big big big big. Probably the thing I missed very most about my old house was the huge living room that allowed for plenty of exercise space. I’m very happy to have that again.

6. There’s a secret passageway in the entry-brick-thingy. I mentioned the entry-brick-thingy (like a sidewall, only short) in #1. It has a half-arch built into it that’s like a secret passage. Maybe the “passage” only goes from one side to the other, but certainly the kitty loves jumping back and forth through it. And we can rest our shoes there!

7. And a not-so-secret garden out front. The sidewalk leads up to the house, passing between two wrought-iron mini-fences and through a landscaped garden area. It’s lovely.

8. While it’s all on one floor, it’s split-level(s). Probably because the street slopes, there are all these steps/levels built into the house. The bedrooms are on one level; the entryway is a step down; the living room is a step below that; the dining kitchen are a step below that; and then you step down into the utility room and garage area. I love split-level houses!

9. There’s a giant picture window in the living room where it’ll be perfect to put our Christmas tree. Am I thinking ahead or what? Ha!

10. And then there’s carpet – lovely amazing wonderful carpet. I know people love hardwood floors and tile and such, but MAN I love carpet. Not in kitchens or dining rooms or bathrooms, of course…but everywhere else! Not rugs, but wall-to-wall carpet. I hate sweeping, and don’t mind vacuuming a bit. When there’s no carpet, I have to wear shoes all the time because I can’t stand the feel of dirt on my feet. It feels good to free my feet again!

Honorable mentions: Avocado-green range that includes a second convection oven above it, built-in drawers and cabinets in every bedroom, the working fireplace and stone hearth, and the dolphins that are all over the house (door knocker, fan pulls, wind chimes, sun-catchers…).

Y’all? I really love this house! For never having seen it except in pictures beforehand, this was a really serendipitous purchase. 🙂

Posted in Personal | Tagged house, lists | 11 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Splurge, Purge, Splurge, Purge

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Thistle

I am really, really good about purging stuff I don’t need from my house, computer, social media, life, etc. Unfortunately, I’m also really good at splurging. And while I’ve gotten much better about not splurging too much when it involves spending money, I’m still really bad at certain kinds of acquisition. Like adding possible books to read to my “investigate” list on Goodreads.

At the beginning of the year, I mentioned that I had waaaaaay too many books on my to-read, to-investigate, physical-shelf, and audio-queue lists. My big goal for the year was to pare that down, and to be fair to myself, I did work really hard at trimming down several of those categories. But then they built up again, until I had nearly 100 unread or untried books. Thankfully, very few of those are actually ones I own (three), and more than half are “investigate” books (which means a good chunk will get deleted once I try them out).

My original plan was to start gathering books from the library and systematically eliminating them or moving them from “investigate” to “read” categories. Then I discovered the extremely handy Nook preview on the Barnes & Noble website, which enabled me to go through the list a hundred times faster. In a single afternoon, in fact. Numbers:

To Investigate: Began at 52 books. Previewed all but 6, which are either on order from the library (4), or unavailable via library or bookstore (2). I’ll leave the unavailable ones for another time. The to-investigate list is now shrunk by 46 books. Win!

To Read: Initial list started at 20 books, with a further 22 which have yet to be released. This future-TBR list remained unchanged, of course, but I was hoping that the to-read pile would only increase by a small number. Um…apparently I’ve gotten better at spotting what I’d like to read, because in previewing those aforementioned 46 books, 27 of them ended up on the to-read pile. !!! That’s an astonishingly high rate for me. Usually about 95% of the to-investigate list gets cut.

Totals: What started out as a total of 94 books – including future-TBR books – is sadly only reduced to 69. That is a distressingly high number of books I’d actually like to read. I’m sure some of them won’t make it past the second round of cuts – when I read further and decide a book isn’t for me after all – but really? 69? That’s WAY too many!! I haven’t had more than about two dozen actually-want-to-read books on my list in about four years…sigh. [ETA: Um, 75, including the six to-investigate books. I can’t count.]

Time to start reading off my to-read list only…

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 9 Comments

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (audio)

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Thistle

Maryam is an Iranian immigrant who has long lived in Britain with her British husband and a now-grown, pregnant daughter, Sara. When Maryam’s sister dies in Iran, her son comes to live with Maryam, dredging up a past that Maryam had long attempted to forget. After her actions set off a chain of events leading to the miscarriage of Sara’s baby, Maryam leaves for Iran to confront her past. The story is told from alternating perspectives – Maryam’s and Sara’s – and weaves present and past narratives together.

This audiobook was a random find from the local library shelves in Massachusetts. I was preparing a collection for travel-listening, and then between traffic and rain and exhaustion, didn’t really end up listening to much on the trip to Texas! I’d been anticipating this one for awhile, though, and decided to set it going right after we settled into the new house.

Now that I’m done, I’m in two minds about the book. On the one hand, it was fantastically presented. I didn’t want to put the book down, and found all sorts of ways to listen to it. When a book can get me to do extra chores around the house in order to listen, you know that speaks well for it! It was also a fantastic portrayal of Iranian culture. Realistic. Grim in places, yes, but not dismissive or disparaging of the culture in general (the way too many books about or set in the Middle East tend to be). There was a great contrast between loving a place that is home, even when that home and the things that happened there were horrible at times. There was also a fair amount of pre-revolution Iranian history. I loved the characters and found them all three dimensional and sympathetic.

So why am I in two minds? Well, it’s certainly not anything specific about the book. Nothing ruined the experience. I finished it and loved it. Within a few days, however, the book almost entirely disappeared from my mind. Despite my extra chores and such, it still took nearly two weeks to listen to the book, so it wasn’t that I went through it too fast – the usual culprit when a book disappears from my brain. All I can think is that this book ended up suffering from what I think of as the Cellist of Sarajevo syndrome. I loved that book when I read it, and within a few months, I couldn’t remember anything from it. I really don’t know why. For some reason – something that could be specific to a book or to myself in a certain moment – some books just don’t stick. This is one of them.

The thing is, I’d still want to encourage people to read The Saffron Kitchen, for all the reasons I named above. The audio performance, read by Ariana Fraval and Mehr Mansuri, was also fantastic. I don’t know why the book didn’t stick, and I suspect in this case that it probably has a whole lot to do with moving across the country and putting a house together and not being quite yet into a real routine. In other words, because of me, not the book. So if literary and cross-cultural fiction, with a little historical fiction and immigrant experience, is your kind of book, then this is definitely one to pick up.

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged audio, gender studies, Middle East, POC, psychology | 4 Comments

Acquisitions

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Thistle

I’m not really one to acquire a whole bunch, especially not at one time. This past Sunday, though…well, I kinda went on an acquisition-bender. Observe:

The day involved a series of fun errands, on my own, time to myself, and MAN it was exactly what I needed.

First stop: Half Price Books
Oh I missed Half Price Books when I lived in Massachusetts. Going there, I was primarily looking for summer reading books for Morrigan and perhaps some copies of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for my mom and stepmom. I didn’t end up finding the summer reading books, but I found a copy of the Tidy book, as well as a Yoga Zone video (my favorite!) and 13 Going on 30 (yay!).

Second stop: Barnes & Nobles
Well, I had to stop here, of course, because summer reading. The books for Morrigan were easy to find there (not pictured), and I picked up a second copy of the Tidy book, as planned (also not pictured). But then…well, I didn’t want to waste my time out, so I browsed. I’d already intended to pick up a new daily journal – I love those thick leather-bound journals that last forever – so I grabbed that. And then I grabbed an Irish folklore and mythology book for Jason (not pictured) and a new Fairies coloring book for me.

Third stop: Sprouts
The goal at Sprouts was to get a few groceries unavailable at my normal store: orange Tazo tea and pecan butter. The later of which turned out to be unavailable. Grr. In its place, I noticed that they had Peets coffee today! I missed Peets from Massachusetts. Of course I had to get some. Then they had a sale on mini-wine-bottles, so I grabbed four different kinds to try. Then I finally grabbed the Yoga magazine that I’ve been drooling over – it’s expensive! – every time I go to Sprouts. Lastly, I bought bulk lavender, bulk chamomile, and a tea ball for Jason (not pictured).

Fourth (and final) stop: Library
Notice I didn’t say buy-bender, but acquisition-bender. Because really, I prefer the library for my book-acquisition needs. My original plan was just to pick up the movie I needed for my paralegal course (Anatomy of a Murder), but then Jason found the anime series – seasons 1 and 2 – of Emma by Kaoru Mori, and of course I had to get that, too. Then I spotted Her by Harriet Lane on the New Book shelf, and it sounded interesting, so it also came home with me.

The result: a massive pile of New Stuff, and a happy Manda. 🙂

Posted in Book Talk | 3 Comments

My Favorite Things About Being Home

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Thistle

It’s been about a month since we returned to Texas. I can’t say, and have never said, that I love everything about this state. The heat and politics in particular drive me crazy! But despite all that, this is home, and today I’m listing out all my favorite things about being home again. In no particular order:

1. My house – I thought I didn’t want to own a house again, but OH MAN I missed having my own house so much. I absolutely adore my new home and never plan to leave again if possible! And in fact, I love my house so much that the things I love about it could make up a whole post of their own…

2. Friends and family – The first couple weeks I was here, I met up with someone every single day, sometimes planned, sometimes by accident. I was met with so much love, from friends and family who stopped by to say hello, to the librarians at my local library who all had to stop and tell me how happy they are to see me again. We’ve had birthday parties and welcome-home gatherings and all sorts of fun.

3. Familiar places – I know how to get anywhere and everywhere. I recognize all the towns and areas on the news. The roads and highways don’t intimidate me. All of my secondary homes are so close again – favorite restaurants, my library, the parks I walked at, the cafes I frequented…

4. My chiropractor – I missed him more than I can express. I missed him so much that I actually set up an appointment when I visited San Antonio last December! After seeing him monthly for about eight years, he knew my particular issues so well, and I never found a chiropractor I particularly liked up in MA. It’s good to be back with mine.

5. Write-ins – Oh my fellow writers, how I missed you. And I cannot wait to have NaNoWriMo with my fellow InSANowrimos again this year!

6. Bookstores – Half Price Books, Barnes & Nobles, Nine Lives, the list can go on and on and on…

7. HEB – Seriously, for those of you who have never lived in Texas, you should one day strive to experience the wonder that is the HEB grocery chain. There is nothing like them. They have everything. I know it sounds stupid to be excited about a grocery store, but let me just say that even my boys were excited about HEB. Seriously.

8. The food – I don’t just mean my favorite restaurants. There were several products and foods that were unavailable in MA: Mayonesa, lard, masa, Oberto jerky, fresh tortillas, Dos Equis, many spices, etc. Not that everything is wonderful in this category – we are now missing foods the other direction, too, most notably (for me) being Fage Total (whole fat, rather than reduced).

9. The library – The library system in Boston was pretty good, yes, in terms of selection. However, there are some things about the San Antonio Public Library system that are so much better, like the fact that I can tell what number I am in the hold line, and the far more expansive sci-fi/fantasy selection, and the use of Wowbrary so I can see when books are ordered and can put myself on the hold list immediately!

10. Thrift Town – I adore thrift stores, and never found one I liked in Boston. Maybe I just didn’t get to the right ones, but seriously, I went to many stores and only found three (pointless) kinds of thrifting: consignment shops that sold clothes for more than I was willing to pay new, stores that didn’t sort anything and had no dressing rooms, and stores that had dressing rooms but only sorted by color. Really? By color? How useless is that? Thrift Town, on the other hand, sorts first by gender and adult/children, then by type of clothes, then by size, then by color. Furthermore, they separate out the “better” clothes in each category, clearly labeled. It’s as easy to find something there as in a department store. Oh, Thrift Town, I’ve missed you…

And I cannot write this post without giving honorable mention to the symphony of sounds that exist here in San Antonio. Things that give me nostalgia to hear – cicadas in the evenings, mourning doves in the mornings, mockingbirds and grackles – the sorts of sounds that become a background hum that fills your days without you really even noticing it. It is so good to be home. 🙂

Posted in Personal | Tagged lists | 14 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Birthday Madness

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Thistle

Yesterday was my middle son’s birthday. Ambrose is now officially a teenager. So of course, his 13th birthday party had to be a big one.

It’s kinda funny, actually, about Ambrose’s birthday. Because it’s at the end of summer, he never gets to celebrate at school, and a lot of people are on vacation when he has his party. Last year, though, we were only a week away from moving cross-country, so our extended family ended up having several huge parties for us, all of which had some element of birthday-for-Ambrose to them. Over our almost-year in Massachusetts, both Morrigan and Laurence had birthdays sans extended family, and now we’re home just in time to host everyone for Ambrose’s birthday again. Ha!

Since everyone wanted to welcome us to the new house and get house tours and stuff, we had a lot more people than usual over: grandparents, great-grandparents, great-aunts, aunts and uncles, cousins and second-cousins…you know. There were also LOTS and LOTS of presents. (Mostly because we bought Ambrose about two dozen beanie babies from the thrift store, with the intention of putting them in the pinata, except the pinata was too small, so we wrapped them individually so that he’d have TONS to open for his 13th. He got a kick out of it.) Pics:

before the party – birthday prince and his dozens of (Christmas-wrapped) beanies

The party was “hobbit-themed,” which meant 1) the games were all related to Tolkien (including “Galadriel’s mirror,” where the kids fished fortunes out of a bowl of lentils with a pair of Pocky Sticks, and “Orc camp,” where everyone was assigned an Orc name and had to try to “kill” each other throughout the party); 2) the cake said, “Ah elbirthday gilthoniel” (I don’t get it, but I’ve never read Tolkien); and 3) the pinata was a pony labeled “Fatty Lumpkin.” Heh.

It was a quite enjoyable afternoon, topped off by an evening dinner at Olive Garden. And we now have two teenagers in the family.

Posted in Personal | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 9 Comments

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Thistle

Subtitled: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

So…basically this is a kind of self-help course in decluttering and organizing, as the subtitle suggests. It’s been traveling around the blogosphere for a time now, and I first heard about it from Gricel. This is not the sort of book I should have been in the least bit interested in. I don’t usually read self-help or get much from it when I do, and I’m a fairly organized and efficient person to boot. However, the things I’ve read from other bloggers intrigued me, and so I spent half an hour in Barnes & Nobles one evening, previewing it. After half an hour, I did something I almost never do. I bought the book despite not having read (most of) it yet.

Things I was told about this book: that there were some eye-rolling parts; that there were great tips about putting both your stuff and your life in order; that it was useful even for people who are naturally tidy and/or organized. My thoughts on these three after finishing? Sure, I can see what was called eye-rolling, but nothing made me personally roll my eyes, and in fact, I liked those parts! There were definitely great tips for both stuff and life, even for naturally tidy/organized people like myself. In other words, the book confirmed all the good things I’d heard and also contradicted the bad things. Awesome.

Let me put it this way. I’m an organized, efficient person who already does not like to collect superfluous things. I don’t generally like/enjoy self-help or pseudo-spiritual books. Actually, I don’t often like a whole lot of nonfiction in general. This book? Not only was I unable to put it down, but I wanted to read it a second time right away. I’ve never multi-read a nonfiction book before! Not only did I start seeing myself and my belongings in a whole different way, but I began to explore my personal spirituality more than I have in recent years. I’m also trying to get everyone in my family to read this book. I want to start using the KonMari technique immediately, but I’m forcing myself to wait until we’ve fully moved into the new house and the boys start school in August. In a word, this book was transformative – and that’s before I actually begin the work of tidying! I can only guess how much more powerful it will be once I begin to use what I’ve learned.

I am really looking forward to organizing my space. I love organizing, always have, and I can’t wait to start applying this new method to my personal space. Wish I could do the whole house, but with a husband and three pre-teen/teenage boys, that’s simply not going to work out. Now if I could get them all to read this book…

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose, Wellness | Tagged Asia, favorite, KonMari, memorable, multi-read, nonfiction, POC, translation | 18 Comments

Top Ten Books That Celebrate Diversity

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Thistle

This is both a fantastic topic and a very difficult topic – difficult because I’ve read so many great books of many sorts of diversity and it was hard to narrow down to a top ten! I debated between choosing the top ten of a particular type of diversity versus many types, and decided to go with the latter. In no particular order:

1. Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters – brilliant, heartwrenching YA about a boy whose moms are splitting

2. Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa – looking at the Palestinian/Israeli conflict from the Palestinian side

3. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet – nonfiction memoir by an autistic gay man with synesthesia

4. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck – generational classic about a Chinese family

5. Sold by Patricia McCormick – poignant YA about the underage sex trade in Asia

6. The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon – YA that focuses on US civil rights in the mid-1900s

7. The Untelling by Tayari Jones – one of the best books I’ve ever read portraying the realities of urban poverty

8. Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb – European-born, African-raised refugee narrator with a mixed Muslim-and-traditional-folk faith

9. the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson – shows that fantasy can explore diversity as well!

10. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi – nonfiction about oppressed women and religious minorities in Iran

What’s on your list?

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged lists | 2 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Tidbits

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Thistle

Good morning, everyone!

It’s one of those weeks for me, the kind that involves miscellaneous bits and pieces as my family tries to fully settle into the new place. Jason now has a place to go to work during the day, and we’re working on getting a second car. Morrigan has an interview on Wednesday with the agriculture magnet school that he’d love to get into, and has also been spending a lot of time with his best-friend-since-kindergarten. Ambrose will be turning thirteen this week (!!). Both he and Laurence are also settling into the summer routine. My big goal is to get back to my paralegal studies this week, which have been sorely neglected for the last month because of this move!

Also neglected? My health. I haven’t talked much about my health, fitness, and weight since reopening The Zen Leaf. Those who have known me for a long time know that I went on a weight loss journey in 2011-2013, losing about 105 lbs total. The last year has done a number on me, and I’ve regained about 30-35 lbs. This morning, my Wii Fit told me I was officially obese again (ugh). So today begins a new weight loss journey. I’m not going to talk about it much here – I’ll keep those posts out at Sparkpeople – but I’m hoping to embrace a more positive approach to weight loss this time, a self-loving approach instead of self-hating.

In general, I’m trying to be more positive in the way I see and do things. My PTSD has caused me to see the world in a generally hostile light for decades, and I’m trying to turn that around. Little things. Color-therapy has been wonderful. Yoga. Oh man, yoga. I swear, I never realized how good yoga would make me feel! Then there’s signing up with Ipsy (thanks, Amanda!) and eagerly anticipating my first glam bag. Who is this person trying all these new things?? Ha!

And, of course, there are friends. It is so good to be back in an area where so many friends and family members live. Yesterday, I had a little potluck gathering with a bunch of fellow writers, readers, and fitness-enthusiasts. These people are so awesome, and the wonderful feeling of love all gathered together in my living room was very good for my soul. 🙂

Posted in Personal, Wellness | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 11 Comments

Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Thistle

Park is half-Korean and barely escapes bullying at school. Eleanor is the new girl, overweight and red-haired and oddly dressed, the target of bullying – and she sits next to Park on the school bus. The year is 1986. The friendship, and later romance, is unlikely, and destined to be ripped apart.

So here’s the deal with this book. When it came out, everyone was talking about it. Everyone. People were posting pictures of the back-and-forth sections, alternating Park’s and Eleanor’s views, and talking about how much they loved it. Everyone said it was a real weeper. And me? I didn’t think this was my kind of book. It’s grounded in the 80s, one of my least favorite decades. No one said anything about anything except the romance, which seemed a little dull if that was the entirety of the book. And I’m not a huge fan of rapidly-alternating sections in general, and that’s all anyone was posting in terms of pictures. Everything about Eleanor & Park screamed “not-Amanda!!!!!”

Then I read a really good writing pep talk by Rainbow Rowell, centering on her novel Fangirl. Then I read Fangirl, and adored it. Then I read Attachments, and liked it. Then I read Landline, and was blown away. And if all three of Rowell’s other books were either good to excellent, I knew I was going to have to dig past my barriers to try E&P.

Verdict: I put this in the same category as Attachments – good but not great. The romance was a little overdone for me, and I would have preferred for Park and Eleanor to have become friends-only (and that’s coming from someone who loves love stories in general!). The other characters seemed a bit underdeveloped. I would have loved some furthering of Eleanor’s family life, and Park’s family life, and especially of the whole Park-eyeliner plot. I did not cry, or ever even feel like crying, and I didn’t fall in love with the story.

But. It certainly captured my attention, and had me reading all the way through nonstop. I did love both Eleanor and Park, and thought they were very good round characters who were not always entirely good people. I thought the portrayal of Eleanor’s family was amazing and horrifying and realistic all at once. I thought Rowell captured the timbre of poverty and bullying and trauma well. I thought her main characters opened up and grew as the story went along.

In the end, I’m glad this wasn’t my first experience with Rowell, because I probably wouldn’t have gone on to read her other amazing books. At the same time, I’m glad I read it, too, because it makes me appreciate her evolution as a writer. Plus it was a fun, cute story, even if it won’t become one of my favorites.

Posted in 2015, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged body image, POC | Leave a comment