Category Archives: Inspirational Thinking

Dear Holly,


Life is incredibly good right now. Savor it.


For instance, last night you slept 10 uninterrupted hours in a row because you were tired. Life is free like that – when you are tired, you sleep. When you are hungry, you cook something delicious. When there are errands to be run, you hop in the car and make that To-Do List your bitch. Weekends are easy, weeknights hold a multitude of opportunities — enjoy this, because right now your life is your own, and that freedom is a gift.


Give yourself a pat on the back – you have lost 80 lbs, girl! While it seems easier to focus on what you have left to lose, seriously take a minute and wrap your brain around your accomplishments. You are stronger than you have ever been, weigh less than you have in the last decade, and feel like nothing is beyond your reach. Enjoy your confidence in your abilities.  Appreciate the pride you have in your body.  Even though it isn’t perfect (and probably never will be, so quit seeking that while we’re at it) you have earned it!  Each muscle is a testament, every bruise has a story to tell.  You have found a way of eating and a fitness program that has completely relieved your life of diet and exercise noise. And on top of that, it has been a success! Some people struggle with this their whole lives, be grateful you have made peace with this at 32.  You have the rest of your life to get to the perfect weight/size/skill level – it is not a race. Don’t forget to enjoy the process and keep up the good work.


Speaking of enjoying the process, you are in the healthiest and best relationship of your life. Remember when you were young and single and felt like you would never find that person who perfectly shared your offbeat sense of humor, yet was also adorable, responsible, and totally up for any adventure? Remember the nights in your early 20s, mid 20s, and even in your late 20s when you thought — Will I ever find someone AT ALL???  Well you found him. The Relationship Holy Grail, Holly, now sleeps beside you every night. When you remind yourself of how much you wanted this, and relive the work it took to get you where you are now, let your feelings of gratitude be overwhelming. The next time he forgets to pick up the meat share or adds paprika to the crock pot instead of chili powder, or wants to explain to you every specific nuance about how to drive your car – choose to laugh about it instead of getting frustrated. And the next time someone gives you a hard time about not being married yet, remember that you are not under any obligation to follow someone else’s timeline. Married or not, you are luckier than ever to have this kind of love.


Also remember to love your job. Yes the job that seems to start just a little bit too early each day. The one that requires you sit at a desk in a cubicle during some of the most beautiful days of summer?  Yep, that’s the one. Love that job.  Remember that this is the job that is supporting both you and Garrett in a very comfortable manner. It wasn’t that long ago that you were stressfully living paycheck to paycheck and crying over credit card bills and wondering how you would ever make it as a functioning adult. Remember those days? I know you do because it was only 5 or 6 years ago, you can’t already be that senile. That is so far from the reality of your daily life now it is laughable, and for that, say thank you. So what if you are not doing EXACTLY what you want to be doing, when you want to be doing it. You have realized by now that if you really want something, you have the skills to make it happen. So if that’s the problem, then MAKE IT HAPPEN. But in the meantime, don’t mope about your current opportunities. Remember what a fabulous opportunity you are cultivating RIGHT NOW in that cubicle, no matter how small it is. Someone, somewhere would love that opportunity and for now, it’s sitting right there in the palm of your hand — so care for it. Don’t be a jerk about it.


Enjoy your family, because they will not always live nearby. Remember those days of living in LA and having to hop on a plane to hang out with your mom? Well now on a whim you can A to Z every aisle of Target with her, and you know there is no better shopping enabler.  You can BBQ with your family, or watch your baby cousin learn to crawl, or have a fun night out that doesn’t involve getting super dressed up because when you hang out with good friends the dress code is always comfy. And you can do all of this with relatively little scheming because everyone is right there in your backyard. Yes, someday you may want to live somewhere that is a little more exotic than Sacramento, CA. But for now, you have a wealth of love right in your backyard. Appreciate the fact you’re your current zip code means that loneliness is never a defining emotion in your life, and this is a gift you have wished for in the past.


These are awesome times and life is good. Things will always change – some will get better and some will get worse — but right now, make sure to acknowledge that you are lucky. And if you remember only one thing from this letter, please remember that.


Love,

Holly

I’ve been reading a number of things about personal finance, simplification and consumerism lately. These are things I think a lot about anyway just because I find them fascinating, but with all the recent lifestyle changes we have been making I have found myself even more committed to making sure we are doing the best we can with our finances, saving where we can, DIY’ing when it makes sense, and generally being cognizant about Need vs. Want. With Garrett working part time right now there’s really no glossy way to put it, our income has been reduced by almost half.

That’s actually kind of a panic inducing number when you think about it – but in actuality it really hasn’t been that stressful. I know what you are thinking, “But Holly, what do you mean things haven’t been stressful, I read your blog. You’re life has been a ball of stress lately.” And to that, I would agree, but I would also clarify: I’m not saying we haven’t had stressful things going on – um, you are correct to note just about every post over the last two weeks — but the reality is that this stress would have been there no matter what, whether we were both working full time making twice as much money, or not. And my point is that our reduction in income hasn’t made life more stressful and in fact, I’m going to posit the exact opposite.

What has been amazing over these last few weeks with all this stress going on is that with Garrett’s new part time gig at Peet’s (free coffee, FTW!) it has been so incredibly awesome to have him around because he is well suited to be Captain of Team Fix It. These types of stressors are things Garrett handles better than I do, so he’s kind of the obvious choice. So even with all the craziness going on there is definitely a more relaxed energy around our house.

For me, it has been because Garrett has been majorly owning life on the home front (instead of us both juggling to split it) and for him, the fact that this new job is about 90 Bazillion times less stressful than either of the jobs he has had in the last 5 years is improving his quality of life in ways we didn’t even plan for. No doubt we have definitely had to contemplate decisions about purchases more carefully, and we have had to (sadly) say no to a couple of experiences that we would have normally jumped at the chance to be a part of, but overall life with less money has felt (dare I say) better.

This is weird, right? Stick with me for a minute and I will explain away the crazy, I promise.

I read something recently that that sort of inspired me, and also did a little dot connecting for me in my head. The post was about creating a life that needs no escape, and the part that really resonated with me was this:

I think that for a lot of people, vacations are as much about getting away from normal life as they are about seeing new places. Most people get two or three weeks of vacation time each year. Do you really want to have two or three great weeks per year, during which you try to get away from whatever it is you do with your time the other 49 to 50 weeks? I would rather have 52 great weeks and no desire to escape from my life.

I think what resonated for me was this idea of being intentional with your life. You are in the driver’s seat, so why not be creating a life that you want to live, instead of planning all these things to do when you finally get some time off from life? Even though the above post came from a financial blog, I feel like this idea of creating a life you want to be living encompasses so much more than just saving your money (though that is a big part of it). I think it is about defining what you value – and really, when you get caught up in the hustle bustle of everyday life, sometimes you forget to ask yourself if the tasks on our to do list are really aligning with what it is you truly value? Defining your values, figuring out what excites and inspires you, and determining what success looks like for you in your own life is hard enough. Add on trying to actually achieve these things in the context of the well meaning others around you (with their own opinions) and it becomes almost this radical idea.

For us, the past couple months have been a little bit radical. We have definitely had much less disposable income to kick around, but what we found is that we had an overabundance of time and energy and, as it turns out, that we were ALWAYS craving! Time to get things done, time to plan, time to execute and of course time to breathe – all of these things are such underappreciated luxuries!

But it turns out, we’ve unintentionally created this life where all of that comes standard. And even though we’ve been doing some penny pinching, having a little less money lately has really forced us to think about what we truly value, and many of those things: time with our family, having dinner together, being outside, exercising, reading, working in the yard, tending to our little garden, catching up with friends – don’t really require millions of dollars.

But having the time to spend doing them? Priceless.

I drive the same route home from work everyday — no highways, down a long busy street, through a kind of expensive neighborhood, through a not very expensive neighborhood, and then through to our neighborhood which is a nice hybrid between the two.  It’s a monotonous commute, but a short one (20 minutes tops — and that’s if I hit traffic) so I am grateful.  I don’t pay attention too much to my surroundings, but when I’m just about home and I drive through that fancy schmancy neighborhood, there is one house that always sticks out.  It’s a nice big colonial house, with sturdy dark colored shutters and a cleanly landscaped lawn.  It’s a beautiful shade of gray with white trim and the most striking feature is the big red door. 

You all, I LOVE this house. 

And each day when I pass it, totally depending on the type of day that I have at work and depending on what mood I’m in, I have one of two thoughts:

1.  I love this house — I’m so happy I live in such a beautiful area and get to see this house everyday. 
OR
2.  I love this house — WHY CAN’T I HAVE A PRETTY GRAY HOUSE WITH PRETTY WHITE TRIM AND GORGEOUS A RED DOOR AND WHEN WILL I EVER GET A BREAK, AND WHY IS IT ALL SO HAAAAAAAAAAAARD??? WAH!

*I’ll let you decide which mood is which* 

So recently I had a bit of a rough day, and I drove by the house as I always do, and sure enough said to myself pretty much everything in Option # 2 (plus a few melodramatic explatives, I’m sure)  and then just a minute later I was pulling into my own driveway.  I reached over and grabbed my purse, my lunch bag, my coat and got out of the car, and all of a sudden I looked up at my own house and really saw it — my pretty gray house with the pretty white trim (granted it only has a regular old brown door) — and I thought to myself, holy moses, I’m really only a coat of paint away and I’m sure I can hire Great painters from the Alex Trend Painters company to repaint our house. Sure it’s not a sprawling colonial with a freshly manicured yard (BAHAHAHAHAHA!) but it’s so close.  And this one is mine.  And this one is perfect, right now. 

And I wondered how often do I do this?

How often do I make myself feel like something is so monumentally far away — so far out of my reach that it is impossible — when really the difference between the life that I have and the life that I want is as simple as a coat of paint?  Because seriously, even on my worst day I could probably handle a coat of paint.

It was a strange moment of consciousness that afternoon, and one that I now think of almost daily on my drive home when I pass that house.  Half of the battle of getting where you want to go, is being able to truly acknowledge where you are — and letting that to be okay.