Things I Love on a Saturday

I adore weekends. Treasure them, in fact. Good week or bad, it doesn't really matter. And this weekend has been full of good things, including:

• Awesome breakfast: Nothing beats a breakfast you take the time to make. Granted, I usually have eggs and toast a few times during the week, but I added some chicken and apple sausage this morning. Seriously, this stuff is what's keeping me from giving up meat completely.

• Picture Shows: Last night I saw The Iron Lady and tonight I rented The Help ONLY because it was nominated for so many awards. I haven't read the book because I had no desire to, but I'm keeping an open mind. As for last night's show, Meryl Streep was incredible as Margaret Thatcher. What could have been a boring bio pic was a very engaging, beautiful story.

• Feeling Pretty: Saturdays and Sundays are perfect for ungodly long showers and bath bomb-filled tubs (with a book, candle, and alcoholic beverage of choice). Saturdays are all about pampering and pretty things. Today? Lavanila vanilla and grapefruit body butter and Sephora by OPI in Teal We Meet Again. Part of closing in on 30 is the ability to confidently wear nail polish not in varying shades of red.

• Impromptu pit-stops: After my binge shopping at Sephora, I needed a Chick-fil-A chocolate milkshake. NEEDED IT. And it was delicious.

• Curling up with a good book: I am now reading four different books at once, which is something I don't normally do, and they're all so different. Joyce's Ulysses, Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, This I Believe essays, and Delirium (YA lit). I also downloaded previews for about nine other books on my Nook. If I could get paid to read all day, I would.

• Wine: Do I really need to explain this?

Happy weekend, my pretties! Cheers!

The Difficulty of Saying "Thank You"

One of the perks of my career is that I need to keep taking classes, truly accepting the role of the life-long learner. This year, I've been blessed with a delightful class and one of the most caring professors I've ever had in all my years of schooling. I'm feeling guided, encouraged, and praised in ways I never felt in undergrad or graduate school.

Tonight, she started off by apologizing for putting herself in the comments on our papers. Instead of making general comments about what we said, she instead would say, "I love this!!!" or "I agree with what you're saying..." Maybe it's in our nature to insert ourselves when we should really be focusing on YOU (whoever "you" may be). But, taking the attention away from ourselves is something we could probably all strive to improve upon.

Our conversation then evolved to giving compliments and saying thanks. Our general consensus was that it's much easier for men to receive compliments than women. Those little bantams will just puff out their chests and have no shame in detailing how hard they worked to achieve whatever it was they received the compliment on in the first place. Is this true for all men? Certainly not. The men in my life are quite humble. But we've all known our fair share who are not, I'm sure. As for the ladies, it's harder for us to simply receive a compliment. You like my sweater? Oh please, it's so old and can't you tell it's faded? My hair looks good today? Surely, you jest; it needs conditioner desperately. What I said at the meeting was really on point and needed to be addressed? *shrugs shoulders* Whatever. LADIES! Why is it so damn difficult for us to just say, "Thank you!" ?

Are we trying (rather unsuccessfully) to be modest? Do we not deserve such praise? Is it a geographical issue (in other words, do women in the South tend to brush off compliments more than northerners?)? This is something I've thought about all night since we had the discussion! The reality of it is, I find myself doing exactly what I'm describing. ALL.THE.TIME. This same darling professor took the time to e-mail me and compliment my scarf and colors last week and I nearly spazzed out, thinking she was out of her mind and that nobody could really be that nice. And I'm not joking when I say it took me longer than usual to respond to her e-mail to thank her. Do I brush it off? (No, she admitted to making a specific effort to tell me how great the colors looked on me.) Do I tell her where I found the scarf? (No, she doesn't care that much.) What to do?! Tonight, we were throwing compliments to each other left and right, and I think we really had to practice listening to what the person was saying and simply respond "thank you." It's harder to do than it sounds.

Thankfully, she shared this bit of wisdom: When you put down or brush off the compliment, you are doing the same thing to the person giving the compliment, insinuating that what they say doesn't matter. It does. So ladies, the next time someone tells you that your shoes are incredible or that your house looks really put together, bite your tongue. Don't argue. Just smile and say, "Thank you!" This time, mean it.

Slip Sliding and Sweeping

I don't know what it is about January that encourages everyone to try new things. Friends and family are practicing yoga, writing, dancing, and doing a myriad of other activities. Me? Well, my goal is to get back to swimming and my father has encouraged me to get back into yoga classes. However, I define my year by semesters, and as I have a week until a new semester begins, I have done neither swimming nor yoga. Really, I've just been stressed and lazy. Until! I stumbled upon central Virginia's only curling league. Thankfully, the blurb in the local weekly newspaper sold me faster than you can say "learn to curl" and before I knew it, I was determined to make curling something I could actually do.

If you slept through the Winter 2010 Olympics (How could you?! Crosby's game winning-goal to give Canada the gold medal! Lindsay Vonn and all her skiing! ALL THE CURLING!), then you missed the popular rebirth of curling, where teams throw/slide giant rocks of granite (with handles on them) down a sheet of ice while some other team members have awesome little brooms and they sweep the ice before the rock to make it go farther. You aim for a bullseye, and the team with their rocks closest to the center win that "end" (like an inning in baseball). There is minimal athletic ability required, which is awesome because people who like beer more than they like weight training can actually go to the Olympics and WIN A GOLD MEDAL. Back when I was in grad school in 2006, I started watching curling (before it became "cool" I suppose) and when I didn't want to do any work, I started playing this for more time than I care to admit. I was hooked.

So yesterday, I dragged an enthusiastic and willing friend to the local ice arena, and with about eight other people, we learned to curl. I was afraid that it was going to be more difficult than it looked, but our instructor gave us these directions: "Keep your ass up in the air, and then just Tebow." EASY. And fun! He added, "Most people are drunk while they play, so it's not really all that competitive." This was also good to hear as I don't really want to participate with people who are serious about winning and blame teammates for screwing up the game. It took a little umph to get the rock down the ice (as you're not using your arms to send it, but the power in your hips and legs from pushing off), but with a little practice my rocks were landing right on that bullseye where they were supposed to. And the sweeping! You put aside your fear of running on ice in tennis shoes and you simply do it. It was clear to see how the sweeping worked to make that rock go just a little farther (just enough to frustrate your opponent). We all had a fun time cheering each other on as we tried our hands at the different positions. How can you not get excited when nearly everyone improves so quickly?

At the end of the day, my friend took some awesome photos of me not falling on my ass, my hands were frozen, and I joined the league with a few other newbies to play every Monday night for the next 10 weeks. I was thrilled I enjoyed curling as much as I enjoyed watching it, but I think I was even more thrilled that I didn't hold back. I didn't blink at the cost of joining the league (which wasn't necessarily cheap), and I didn't think twice about participating in an activity with people I had met only 90 minutes earlier. I am not an extrovert, so this feels like a big deal for me.

Go out. Find something you've never tried before and do it without overthinking things. Join that rec league. Bake that difficult recipe. Find a local curling club and see how much fun it is! Who knows what kind of trouble you can get into! It just may be the best trouble you've found yourself in in a long time.

The Art of Redding Up

I have a problem in that I hate clutter. I guess I don't know anyone who actually likes it, but every so often, my blood pressure rises and I develop a crazed look in my eyes and decide that EVERYTHING in my house has to go. Clothes, shoes, blankets, kitchen items, books, nothing is safe. So during my most recent winter free time, I decided to redd up. And oh, redd up I did.

Timeout. For readers who think I'm speaking Slovak, the proper definition of redd up according to the Pittsburghese Glossary is: to tidy up.

Right after Christmas, Redd Up Part I had about five shopping bags of various sizes that ended up at one of my local Goodwill centers. I have absolutely nothing against Goodwill, as they are a great organization and an excellent place to find ugly Christmas sweaters or a retro-looking Halloween costume. But, my first choice to donate my used items is the local SPCA Rummage Sale. We adopted our precious, little black cat from the SPCA and I try to give back to them as much as possible. Thankfully, their storefront has provided me an excellent way to give back and hope that someone (along with the animals) can benefit.

Redd Up Part II is a little larger, with seven more shopping bags of various sizes (tiny bags from Eddie Bauer to much larger Pottery Barn bags) plus a Crate & Barrel box, because I think I've finally run out of shopping bags. What are some of the things that I cannot wait to get out of my house?

• My copies of the Twilight series. I'm embarrassed beyond belief and I apologize to every English professor I've ever had for letting these touch my hands.
• Three winter coats. God bless my mother, who always wanted me to have a good coat. Unfortunately, one is my original ski jacket from my freshman year in high school and two never quite fit right.
• Sweaters. Nothings says comfy like a warm sweater, but I also have a habit of buying a lot of them. Naturally, some of the older ones had to go.
• Mismatched bath towels. In another nod to my mother, who only wanted matching sets of towels in her bathrooms, I feel it is my daughterly duty to do what she was never able to achieve. Out go the pinks and greens and yellows that do not match my navy color scheme.
• Frames, travel mugs, kitchen utensils, mismatched Christmas decorations, etc. In other words, things that I will never miss.

Usually when it comes to clothes, if I haven't worn it in a year, it's out. I almost never give away books unless they are similar to the title mentioned above. And only once I start to see an unnecessary accumulation of household items do I attack the cabinets. So while 12 bags and a box total seems like a lot of stuff to give away, it doesn't really feel like that much to me. But maybe this round of redding up will mean that I don't have ones in the future that are nearly as drastic and I can get a better handle on all the stuff that enters our lives. I don't think I could ever live like a minimalist, but at least I can aspire to live as a not-as-muchist.