Category: Life


Dec
2016

How Does She Do It

categories: Life, Trifles, Writing

Editor note: I found this post languishing, forgotten, in my Drafts folder from about a year ago. It’s a bit wordier than I like my posts here to be, but I figured that, at this time of year, at least some of you might feel like reading something other than year-end wrap-up posts. But, never fret! I have some of those coming up too! So, read on at your own discretion. Or come back next week to see my favourite outfits of the year. Merry Christmas!

Right off the bat, let’s talk about the word that isn’t in the title of this post: all. I purposefully left it out because it can be terribly misleading. While I certainly have plenty of things on my plate – and some readers have expressed an interest in reading about how I juggle all of those things – I most certainly don’t “do it all”. More importantly, I know a lot of incredibly accomplished and successful men and women, and none of them “do it all” either. So, before we go any further, let’s agree to toss “all” out of the window. Nobody is doing it all, and if they tell you otherwise, they are lying.

How do I handle family, work, and life? Usually, by hanging on for dear life and hoping for the best. Recently, I was lamenting to a friend that I was dropping more balls than I was juggling, and she replied that as long as we give the dropped balls a swift kick now and then, they’re still technically moving. I think I may need to embroider that on a pillow and carry it around with me everywhere, so that I remember it next time I feel like I’m failing at this whole adulting business.

Needless to say, I don’t have any sage advice for other working parents (or anyone else juggling a lot of different and competing responsibilities), but I do have some ideas about the kinds of things that keep me sane and (somewhat) productive.

Prioritize Ruthlessly

Think of life as an infinite buffet, each of your activities as dishes, and the corresponding caloric load as the time required to do each task. As much as you might be tempted to try, you cannot eat your way through the entire buffet. Time is, sadly, nothing like a stretchy pair of pants; there is only so much of it in a given day, and it can only accommodate so much. So you have to make choices and, in some cases, compromises. (Some things in life are like vegetables – not the first thing you’d reach for, but necessary to your overall well-being. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can pay someone else to eat your veggies for you. Take house cleaning, for example.)

The key, of course, is making choices that maximize the enjoyment you get out of your most precious commodity, time. Sometimes, doing that comes easy. Often, it doesn’t. For some people, doing all the necessary grown up things, which are about as enjoyable as eating kale, doesn’t leave much time for anything else. For others, narrowing down the choice of fun activities is worse than choosing between chips and chocolate. I have no words of wisdom to help with that, I’m afraid. The choices each of us makes are deeply personal and subjective, and much like I wouldn’t presume to tell you what you should eat every day, I’m not going to even try telling you how you should prioritize your time.

But here’s the more important thing: the most content people I know are those who are able to make their selection from the life buffet … and then completely ignore the other options. They don’t second-guess their choices, and most importantly, they don’t listen to others second-guessing their choices either. This is abso-freaking-lutely hard. We are constantly bombarded with unsolicited opinions about what we should, and shouldn’t, be doing – as parents, as spouses, as professionals, you name it. For some people, tuning out these voices comes easily. Me, I have to work at it. (Let’s just say that I’m glad that internet forums and mommy blogs weren’t around when I was of a more impressionable age.) I still second-guess my choices. All. The. Damn. Time. but I’m now aware not only of the habit itself, but of the negative impact it has on my enjoyment of life, and I try to cut that ish out whenever it starts eating away at me. I’ll say this: it does get easier as one gets older.

Let me return to my analogy for a minute. It’s not just the dishes you pick that invite scrutiny and unsolicited opinions. It’s also how much of each dish you put on your plate, and how you hold your fork while eating it, and how you deal with the leftovers. Put in those terms, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Let’s put it another way, with an example: people will judge you on your choice to have (or not have) kids, on the number of kids you have, on whether you stay home with them or go back to work, on how soon you go back to work, on how much or how little you work once you’re back at work … and on every single other aspect of your parenting, no matter how minute and insignificant. If I could sum up my two cents: don’t let someone else try to prioritize your life for you, and don’t waste a minute of your time and mental energy wondering if you should.

Embrace Routine

Bo-rrring! Amirite? I am a creature of routine, so I didn’t realize until recently how big a role it plays in my day-to-day productivity. It’s just how I’ve always operated. The realization came when I was sitting in a seminar on brain health, which focused on strategies to maximize the potential of our decision-making powerhouse, the frontal cortex. One of the things that the speaker mentioned was reducing the amount of decision-making in our lives. How do you do that? Bingo: routine.

To understand why routine is so useful, it’s important to remember that our frontal cortex is involved in all of our decision making, no matter how complex or simple. Your frontal cortex does not distinguish between the types of decisions that you might have to make in a given day – whether they involve, say, life or death calls on the operating table, or ordering coffee at Starbucks. Your frontal cortex also gets tired easily, and once it’s tired, it tends to shut down and require a certain amount of “downtime” to recharge. And this is why eliminating, as much as possible, extraneous or unimportant decisions comes in handy.

How much you can “routinize” your life is, of course, up to you. Here are a few examples of the kinds of things that I do:

Pick out what I’m going to wear to work ahead of time (Sometimes weeks in advance; if I have a chunk of free time, I’ll sit down and brainstorm ideas, and write them all down. I like to be creative (and have a blog to keep alive) and rarely wear the same exact outfit. If you’re less concerned with sartorial novelty, developing a master list of favourite or reliable outfits means that you don’t have to keep repeating this exercise unless/until you add new pieces to your wardrobe, and need new combinations to incorporate them into your rotation.)

Eat the same breakfast every day. In fact, I generally eat the same things most days. (Research seems to suggest that this can also be a strategy for weight management. People who eat the same things every day apparently tend to fluctuate less in weight over time.)

Have a make-up routine. Bonus: I can get ready for work in under 15 minutes (and that’s only because I’ve got the whole thing down pat after years of daily practice).

Have a well-established bedtime routine with the kids. This ensures that I have a guaranteed block of time in the evenings for other things (work, blogging, writing, etc.).

There are certain parts of my life that don’t lend themselves to reliable routines (ahem, work), and I try not to stress or over-think those too much – key word here being “try”. It helps to remember one of my husband’s favourite quotes, from Mike Tyson of all people: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

It Takes a Village (but, especially, a supportive spouse)

Duh! Trite sayings do not become trite without a reason, after all. Problem is, we don’t always see other people’s villages, if you know what I mean. And many of us, having internalized the “must do it all” superwoman narrative, immediately assume that the people who appear to have everything together, do so without any help. Save yourself the heartache of the comparisons that flow from that (almost certainly) wrong assumption. One of the hardest things I learned as an adult was to ask for — and accept — help; had I not plunged into parenting like a non-swimmer diving headlong into the deep end of the pool, I might still be struggling with that lesson. (Nothing like the sheer panic of first-time parenting to motivate some quick learning.) There is a stigma around the admission that, at various times and for various reasons, we may need help — from family, friends, co-workers, professionals, public bodies, strangers. As I get older, this makes less and less sense to me. The asking for and giving of help (with grace and respect on both sides) is what brings us closer together as a society and as communities. I have never judged someone for asking me for help; it took me a long time to realize that I was judging myself for asking. I still do it, to be honest, but I’m working on it.

Of course, there is an implicit privilege in having a village upon whom to call. Some of it is luck, no question about it. For example, I have a close relationship with my parents, who are healthy and happily take an active part in my kids’ lives — pure luck on my part (thanks Mom & Dad!). Some of it takes planning and investment (financial or otherwise). I live ten minutes away from my parents (and my in-laws), by design; it’s not the neighbourhood I might have picked in different circumstances, but it makes life infinitely easier. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to choose my husband as my partner in life. Part of it was luck (some day I’ll share the story of how we met), and part of it was planning — looking into the future, at the life I hoped to have, and realizing that we could build that life, together. At the risk of sounding like I’m practicing my Oscar acceptance speech, I could not have accomplished all of the things I have without his support; my hope is that he can say the same about me.

Because, yeah, being part of a village is a two-way street. You have to give help, not only ask for it. Another difficult lesson is learning not to keep score — especially in close personal relationships. Life has its seasons, and that is true of everything. Some seasons, you will need more help and have little capacity to give it. Other seasons, you will be called upon to give and give. Nowadays, I try to simply remember to trust that help will all balance out in the end.

But this is just one perspective, and I know that while mine is certainly not unique, there are many others out there, rooted in different experiences and values. I would love to hear from you about the things that help you keep the balls in the air and chaos at bay, whether you are a working parent or not.


Dec
2016

What I Read: Two Articles of Note

categories: Life

Through my years of blogging, I have tried to get various recurring post series going, with minimal success. And by that, I mean that I have had little success in staying organized enough to keep such series going. I’m not going to attempt to start another one, but if I did, I’d be tempted to try an “articles of note” round-up; I love reading them on other blogs. However, I am going to do a one-off (for now! Not committing but also not not-committing!) because I recently read a couple of fantastic articles and, despite making a mental note to share them (organically, as it were) in a style post at the earliest opportunity, I just haven’t managed to do it yet.

Fair warning to you all: neither is precisely about personal style, but both are great reads well worth the time investment in my opinion. I also think that both could be the springboard for some interesting discussion … and you guys know how much I love a good discussion.

First up, The Fashion Law (which is quickly becoming one of my daily reads) recently ran a series on “The 24 Anti-Laws of Marketing” (part 1 / part 2). It focused on the marketing strategies employed by luxury brands to maintain their cachet, most of which run entirely counter to typical fashion industry strategy. The book Bargain Fever touched briefly on some of these different techniques in one of its chapters, but the TFL articles are much more in-depth and specific.

I found them fascinating because I am endlessly fascinated by the luxury industry, and the reaction of different people (myself included) to their products. Growing up poor, I always saw myself as an outsider to the fashion industry, especially the luxury market, and that self-perception has persisted despite the changing circumstances of my life. I love beautiful things, so I am very vulnerable to the lure of luxury, whose products are often (though definitely not always) very beautiful even when not practical. Case in point – and I could point to many:

Gucci via Lyst
Gucci via Lyst
This dress is like a work of art, quite apart from its label. But I am also cognizant that the label is not without an impact on my appreciation of the dress, even though I like to think of myself as a fairly savvy consumer. Recognizing my own vulnerability, I find it intriguing to read about how luxury labels craft their image and manipulate the impact on consumers. Coincidentally, having recently read Propaganda by Edward Bernays, I am more interested than ever in examining the masses of messaging we consume daily, from all sources. If anyone has recommendations for other books on this general topic, I am all ears.

Second, I randomly came across a 2011 advice column from The Rumpus, wherein the blogger was replying to a reader who asked how he could decide if he should or should not have kids. The resulting post is a must-read for anyone contemplating the same question (and deeply resonates with me now, 6 years after I answered that question for myself), but I think it has broader relevance. You guys should definitely read the whole post, but here is the excerpt that encapsulates its message beautifully, and which goes straight to my heart:

 “I’ll never know and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”

Chance are, if you’re like me, that just hit you like a metaphorical train. I have spent a good chunk of my life thinking about my ghost ship(s), without ever being able to put their existence and meaning into words quite as perfectly. I love my life, and would not change a single moment of my past (even the really, truly shitty ones) because each one was a link in the chain that guided me through the labyrinth of choices to this present moment … but I have still wrestled, too many times, with my “what ifs” – never quite knowing what to call the feeling they evoked, what it meant, and what to do about it.

Take the decision to have children, for example; I knew, without question (though, in fact, I never asked myself the question point blank, and sort of just stumbled towards the answer like a person left blindfolded in a dark room), that I would regret not having children. But I also often wondered, sometimes regretfully, about what my life without children would have been like. As I have sailed on through my life as a parent, those thoughts are growing ever more distant. The same is not necessarily true of other life choices; there, the wondering still visits me – like a ghost ship – every so often. Somehow, the thought that all I need to do is wave and watch it pass on, is deeply reassuring.

If you’re feeling in a confiding mood, here’s my question for you: how you deal with your ghosts ships or, more generally, with making difficult choices in the first place?


Dec
2016

Blogging, Budgets, and Perceptions

categories: Life, Shopping

One of my fave bloggers, Xin at Invicible Summer, who shares my interest in both clothes and personal finance (an Odd Couple pairing if there ever was one), recently wrote a thought-provoking post about clothing budgets, and specifically the balancing of shopping desires and fiscal responsibilities. Go and read her post (and the recommended reading), and then come back, and let’s chat.

I’ll wait.

OK, I obviously have many thoughts about this topic. I kinda touched on them before (like here), but reading Xin’s post made me wonder if they might be worth revisiting — not because the substance of my opinions has changed (it hasn’t), but because the readership of the blog has increased dramatically in the last year or so, and some of you may not have come across my old posts. At any rate, I think it’s a discussion worth having again.

As a blogger and as a blog reader, I am very much alive to the proposition that blogging sends messages, both explicit and implicit. Although I do not believe the focus of my blog is consumption per se, it is fundamentally a showcase for consumable goods so the distinction may be one without meaning. As far as that goes, I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: I do buy a lot of clothes. Obviously. Which is not to say that I think you should also buy as many clothes as I do; different strokes and all that. I do my best to side-step the connection between blog reading and shopping – it’s one of the reasons why I don’t use product links in my posts – but I realize that it’s probably impossible to avoid it altogether. Many of you have commented about buying an item because you saw it on my blog and liked it. The more clothes I feature on the blog, the more opportunities for you to find things you are inspired to buy – and, perhaps, to find tacit approval for buying them (should such thing matter to you). I get it, and it’s why I am about to talk about some things that are either outside the usual scope of the blog, or too “meta” for a typical post.

Shopping Responsibly

I don’t talk about my personal finances on the blog, but I want to make this clear: I shop within my means. My family does not have any debt (apart from a modest mortgage), and we have healthy emergency, retirement and education savings. We live in a country with (largely) free healthcare, and have coverage for things like dentist trips and pharmacy prescriptions through our jobs.  We are comparatively thrifty in some life categories, but we don’t scrimp on categories that are important to us (whether things or experiences). I’m fortunate to have enough discretionary income to indulge my passion for (collecting) clothes — responsibly, which means without negatively impacting my family’s financial situation. Most importantly, I have never spent money I did not have in order to buy clothes, and I would never encourage anyone to do that (with clothes or any other non-essential items). That means that there are things I lust over, but cannot and will not buy — unless I get lucky at the thrift store. It also means that, as I have come to put more and more value on having a large and varied wardrobe, I have made other adjustments to my shopping behaviour (i.e. buying a greater proportion of my clothes secondhand).

I realize that my discretionary income, while certainly not limitless, is higher than that of many people, and that some of those people will find it distasteful to see my spending “documented” on the blog. There isn’t much I can do about that, and I accept that it’s a legitimate reason for some to avoid my blog. But I do hope that the blog also shows that it’s possible to enjoy fashion no matter what your budget, and do so in a responsible fashion. (Psst, I’ve written before about ways to make the most of what you’ve got to work with, budget-wise.)

Shopping as Therapy

I know, I’ve joked about this many times, but listen: shopping is NOT actual therapy, OK? It’s not therapy in the same way that buying clothes is not an investment. Shopping — and more specifically, thrifting — is something I do to relax and take an occasional mental break … while I work on actively addressing whatever real problems or stressors I’m facing. [Which is the part I don’t talk about here, because it has nothing to do with this blog.] Shopping doesn’t fix my problems, nor do I expect it to do so. Some people watch TV to relax. Some people knit. Some people work out. I go thrifting. It clears my mind, by allowing me to focus on something very specific: finding a treasure in a haystack of other people’s trash. It’s the process I enjoy; the end result (if I find the proverbial needle) is just a nice bonus. Let me put it this way: I find it equally relaxing to thrift whether or not I buy something at the end.

In that sense, I find thrift shopping to be completely different than retail shopping. At a mall, it’s almost impossible NOT to find some thing (or many things) that appeal, without much effort — the retail business is predicated on it — so the experience for me is often less about the process and more about the end result. With that said, not much turns on this, ultimately. No matter what you get out of shopping, in any of its incarnations, the bottom line is the same: it won’t fix your or my problems (unless said problems are of the what-am-I-wearing-to-the-office-Christmas-party variety, and don’t get me started on that). That doesn’t mean that using shopping to get a “quick fix” (or relaxation, distraction, mood boost, whatever you want to call it) is a terrible thing. It’s not, as long as it’s recognized for what it is, and as long as it doesn’t amount to irresponsible behaviour (see above) — much like, say, having a glass of wine after work.

(Sidenote: we can certainly talk about the ethics of clothes consumption as it impacts the value of shopping as a form of relaxation, but that is a whole other topic which deserves its own post. I will just say that I do believe that it is important for everyone, as consumers, to be aware of the impact of our actions on the environment and others; it’s another one of the reasons I have embraced thrifting.)

Shopping and Blogs

I read only a handful of style blogs these days, and I read them mostly because I love their respective writers’ voices. Which is another way of saying that most of them are focused equally (if not more so) on writing as pretty photos. Even so, I occasionally find myself clicking a link to a retailer’s website … which, these days, is pretty much the only time I check those out. Inevitably, I end up with 2 or 3 items in my cart, and it takes a very conscious effort on my part to close my browser without going any further.

So, I get it. If you’re constantly looking at pictures of pretty things, it’s hard not to want to possess at least some of them. I avoid certain types of style blogs for that very reason, and I would encourage anyone struggling with blog-inspired FOMO to do the same with whatever is the source of their angst. If that means all style blogs are a no-go zone, then so be it.

One issue I do struggle with, however, is the amount of responsibility that bloggers owe to their readers, particularly with regard to implicit messaging. For example, I would probably feel bad if I knew that someone went into debt to buy something they saw on my blog; but is there, in fact, a degree of culpability on my part for that person’s actions? And further, if I am aware that my posts may be perceived as conveying an unintentional message, is it incumbent upon me to change them? Should blogs come with content warnings?

As you can imagine, this is a topic on which I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you have a clothes budget? And if so, how does blog reading (or media consumption generally) affect your budget or your shopping? If you read style blogs regularly, why do you do it and what do you wish you could change about them (or your engagement with or reaction to them)?