A Rainy Day Starter Kit

Rainy season is here and I have put together a rainy day starter kit for Fall! I absolutely love the rain. As a kid, I used to post up by the window panes and feel the thrum of raindrops as I read a book. As a teenage, I loved to hide under the blankets and listen to music or talk to my friends. Adult me is about the same. I now love drinking coffee, writing on my blog, and flitting across Pinterest on rainy days.

It may seem weird to say, but I do like to set up my surroundings on rainy days. That’s why I made this rainy day starter kit! I’ve got to create the right atmosphere before settling into the cold, gloom, and rhythmic lull. This means pillowy blankets, candles, coffeehouse music, and quiet spaces. I create forts where the cat would find me. I dim the lights and play pretend I’m in the Nordic North. My attire matches the event by wearing dark colors, and itchy socks. Together, I’ve wrangled a list of things you need to make the most of your next rainy day.

Candles to set the mood.
A cold-weather capsule wardrobe: robe, leggings, slippers, and socks.
Cozy blankets.
Aromatherapy.
A great read.
Perfectly weighted stoneware mugs.
My favorite kettle.
Something to do.

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The Pursuit of Doing Nothing

This post is sponsored by Territory Design. By curating a collection of items centered around crafting a life well-lived, Territory inspires the pause needed for grounding us in our everyday living.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a dying art. Hardly do I ever encounter a human being capable of nothingness. We Americans, especially, are never not doing. We have a bad habit of seeking activity rather than pleasure. We are always looking ahead to the next thing. We are constantly in search of distraction. How many times do you automatically take a moment of stillness and use it to pull out your phone and subconsciously hit that social media icon. BOOM! Time spent, action checked off.

But are you well?

Does it behoove you, the things you cram into your schedule?

We leave the art of doing nothing to the monks, as if it is an occupation that is not worth our time. Or we make up some excuse, saying we were born this way – our personality is just not meant to sit still.

There’s a reason the monks call meditation a practice. Because even monks were not born to be doing nothing. They are human, after all, with human minds that wish to plan ahead and human hearts that wish to conquer dreams. The practice part of it is required in order to master the art of stillness. It is, even for them, a pursuit.

Many of us get uncomfortable sitting with ourselves for too long, constantly on edge should a negative thought fleet across our minds or a scary imagination flicker behind our closed eyelids. We seem to always be waiting for bad news. Why waste time thinking and worrying? Best we get up and go do something about it. DO, ACT, GO. Or so the consensus goes. There is a certain courage required to pause in the face of discomfort and keep going as if nothing was shaking you to the core. There is growth in being able to take a short-coming and process it in ways that transform you.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a challenge worthwhile. It’s not going to be easy, and certainly the world isn’t making it easier. There will be temptations thrown your way, low-hanging fruit dangling inches from your brow, but don’t be fooled. Everyone else will also be holding on to low-hanging fruit. It’s hardly special, and will always be around. You’ve got a job to do.

Look at nothingness as an opportunity. Have you ever found yourself saying, “I don’t have the time”? Doing nothing is required to create space for something new. Therefore, the pursuit of doing nothing is preemptive to moving forward. It is old-age culture that is lacking in new-age thinking. No one else around you is doing that. Everyone else is too busy to take on the opportunities, and losing them too, all at the same time.

The pursuit of doing nothing is a dying art, and we, a backwards culture. Since when did we value filling our time with useless action items that are essentially repetitive loop cycles? Get up, go to work, come home tired, eat dinner and barely see the kids, binge watch TV, go to sleep, repeat five times a week, fifty-two weeks a year, forty-five years of our life. Is this what you want to call a living?

I don’t know about you, but I am committed to pursuing doing nothing.

Territory Design’s Flecha Pillow in Cream is the perfect muse for reflection and thought, growth and discovery. For a limited time, TheDebtist readers can receive 15% OFF using the code debtist15.

Small Space Living

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Tip 11: Finding Cable Solutions in Media Consoles

I am really adverse to adding furniture to our small space, especially if it entails taking up floor space. It pains me to clutter up a home, and for this reason I have been fighting the urge to add anything but a couch to our living room. So why did I buy a media console?

To be honest, the media console stemmed from my contempt regarding cables. I wrote prior about how I detest the sight of wires running along walls like snakes, connecting different gadgets throughout the home to each other so that they may work in harmony. It isn’t the tech itself that I despise. It’s the inability to make the tech look neat and tidy and clean.

Currently, we have an amp near the kitchen area that connects to a projector behind the couch that wires to two speakers and a record player, and somewhere in the vicinity sits a Switch console. Don’t ask me how they interplay with each other. The moral of my story is that the unsightly array of wires drives me crazy. And we came down to the solution of trading our five speaker system and amp with a sleeker, minimalist pair of Sonos 5 speakers (in white, of course), which can plug directly into the record player and the projector. Wire management is the name of the game here.

And with a media console, I would have the ability to hide both speakers behind sliding doors. I could connect them to the record player that sits atop, and run the wires out of holes around the back where a plug remains hidden. The Switch consoles and controls can also be tucked safely inside, and the only thing to hide is a single wire connecting the projector to one of the Sonos 5 speakers. Everything moves from the kitchen to the living space and it brings me such peace to know that, finally, the cables can be nearly invisible, even if it means at the expense of floor space.

However, outfitting a home with media consoles that are sustainably sourced or ethically made is near impossible, barring the case that you know of a particular woodworker who would be willing to custom create you a shelving unit at an affordable price or that you do woodwork yourself. Thankfully, West Elm provides a few options that was aligned with a mid-century style. The particular one we bought was a narrow and short (48″) low profile console which was barely deep enough to house the speakers. All of the wood is FSC-certified and therefore sustainable sourced and the product is a fair trade product. Additionally, it is GREENGUARD gold certified.

There were only a few things I did not like about the console. First, it’s very narrow, so if you were considering hiding a few vinyls behind the sliding doors, then you’ll be out of luck. However, it holds coffee table books well. Secondly, the color was a bit darker than pictured, which isn’t too much of a bad thing. All furniture from West Elm comes with white glove service which is a mandatory additional fee, but the service was actually very good. Plus the delivery came two days from ordering, a few weeks in advance from when we would get the speakers.

Speaking of the Sonos 5 speakers, we used a perk for being a healthca[;’pre worker during this time, as Sonos is offering a discount of 20% to all medical professionals and first responders. To learn more about potential COVID-19 perks for certain professionals, check out my post here. It could serve to be a very frugal opportunity until the end of 2020.

Ethical Furniture and Home Goods

I know that ethical and sustainable options are few and far between when it comes to home goods. While slow fashion is starting to garner attention, slow homes are lagging behind. Here, I list a few of my favorite go-to sources.

Furniture

Home Goods

Small Space Living

Tip 10 // Hide the remote control

When it comes to small space living, it becomes important for a neatnik such as myself to have a few simple solutions regarding clutter. Small spaces can feel overwhelmingly full much quicker than larger spaces, and neatniks can feel overwhelmed much quicker than carefree individuals. Rules such as keeping surfaces clear or walls white help tremendously in creating a peaceful sanctuary for mindful living. Whereas a regular sized home may house a grand clock over the fireplace, for example, a small space home would be better off sticking to bare walls.

As a minimalist living in a tiny home, the importance of these basic ‘rules’ becomes magnified. I am not a naturally tidy person. However, I am an introvert who does not like an excess of stimuli and who works most efficiently out of a space without distractions. Therefore, I work diligently in order to maintain the environment that lets me thrive. Which leads me to the conversation of hiding remote controls.

I am greatly averse to tech because of the endless amount of wires, routers, chargers, connections, et cetera that come with them. I like the devices themselves, if only they could be invisible and not need to be attached to something to communicate. As you can see here, I try with all my might to disguise mangy cables and the like. I mean, we don’t even have a TV because I did not want anything bulky hanging on our walls. Instead, we have a portable projector that creates a screen on our wall bigger than any TV we could buy but remains non-existent when not in use … a win-win situation for us both.

Unfortunately, a projector still requires wires to hook up to speakers and power. It also came with a remote control. This is the only remote control we own, which is already quite the statement considering the number of controls my parents have. It’s quite tiny too, but it still felt like a visual nuisance, until now.

We’ve decided to stash the remote control in a place unseen. Instead of always looking for it (sometimes it would be on the kitchen island, on the dining table, on the projector itself, on top of the speaker, etc.) and instead of always being an eyesore (because previously it belonged on the tiny side table), I am happy to say that it has a designated spot out-of-sight. With the help of two pieces of velcro that we had lying around in the garage, we decided to velcro the control underneath the side table that it’s supposed to sit on. The project was hardly a project at all. We simply cut a small piece of velcro and placed the felt-type part on the remote and the scratchy-part underneath the table.

Now our surfaces are clear of clutter, our remote control is safely stashed in it’s proper place, and peacefulness has been restored.

I know this may seem less dramatic than I make it sound, but I cannot emphasize how important small details such as these are to creating an intentionally curated home. Simple solutions in small spaces bring me such joy. I wanted to write about it as yet another example that storage solutions does not always lie in buying storage containers, as more begets more. There are equally easy solutions that can be found with a bit of resourcefulness and creativity. Most of the time, these are solutions that save you money. And of course, there is always the option of getting rid of. If you think about it, a remote control is quite unnecessary since the projector sits right behind the couch and every button you’d need is within arm’s reach. Whereas most people would think that purchasing a basket to stash the control in would be the better solution, I would argue that it goes against curation as a whole.

How about you?

Small Space Living

Tip 07// Rugless

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Our home is a live/work loft wherein the living space above makes up less than 950 square feet, while the business below makes up 600 square feet. It is an industrious home, with vaulted ceilings, exposed air vents, and, well, cool gray cement floors. While the floors lend us something to covet during the summer months, they make it a bit harder to get out of bed during early morning routines when it’s cold. So as winter descends, it becomes easy for one to start considering rugs to cover such floors.

As usual, I am writing here to pose the idea of going without. Currently, we are rugless.

The beauty of our space lies in its flexibility, wherein one is not tied down to specific room designations. As example, our bed lies is where the next-door-neighbor’s living room resides, and we’ve placed a dining table dead center in the loft. So why place a rug, whose purpose includes separating spaces and making distinct rooms out of nothing? I had made some autumnal adaptations to our home recently, in an effort to promote gather within our limited square footage, and adding rugs would leave my intentions robbed.

Additionally, adding rugs may just complicate things. My qualm with having more things in general is the worry. When we accumulate stuff, we add to our minds an additional thing to consider. Will we spill coffees on this rug? Will the dogs we sit mistake it for a place to go? Will the cat start to tear at it with it’s claws the same way I imagine it would if it were carpet? Plus, I worry about the mess.

I find that rugs have a tendency to collect all sorts of detritus, serving as platters presenting an array of things, including, but certainly not limited to, cat hair from a cat that would enjoy such a rug, dried flour bits falling from my apron, and bread crumbs sloppily stuck on my shirt from morning’s breakfast.

It would complicate things because, currently, we run the vaccuum 3-4 times a week. We have a Roomba that actually runs on its own. The decision for such a vaccuum is plenti-fold. We like it’s sleek minimalist appearance and the ability to stash it underneath a book case, sight unseen. We also like that it is self-sufficient, and we can turn it on from our phones when we are away, or let it run on the weekends while we lounge on the couch. Our ability to live life unperturbed while still maintain clean floors is highly valued. It was a very intentional purchase, which we were too frugal to actually buy, so really, it was a house-warming gift from a pair of parents who refused to go giftless.

Having a rug amidst it’s trajectory can cause problems. The Roomba will likely get stuck, the way it does when it encounters the bathroom rug. The rug will likely get dragged around, mopping the floors. Or the Roomba and rug will devise a plan against us and team up to coagulate all sorts of dust particles into the deep crevices of the rug. Yes, I’ve been told I think too much.

So while I have been fancying a rug ever since I decided rugs were beautiful, I also have my reservations. Deep down, my desire for beauty is restrained by my knowing that less is more, my inability to stomach spending money on something so accessory, and mostly my effort to keep things at home simple.

How about you? What are some winter decors that you can do without this year?

Soups for Slow Living

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the colder months, I imagine that something happens to our energies. I can’t quite say whether they are lower in availability or simply hankering for a slower kind of work, but the things that our souls yearn for are markedly different from that in the summer. In the Fall and Winter, I like to slow things down. More than usual, anyway.

In an effort to budget my time in a way that allows me to do more meaningful work, I have recently been trying harder to practice Essentialism when it comes to household chores. And while I thoroughly enjoy cooking and baking (especially when new recipes are in tow), I also like to minimize the cooking and cleaning when the goal is to keep our bellies satiated rather than to experience a new culinary feat.

So with the Fall and Winter season upon us, I’d like to turn your attention to a solution that generations before us frequently exercised but our youth has forgotten about: Soup.

A simple word, and not by any means pretty. Soup is the savior from the holiday rush that befalls all. Soup is the reliable companion ready to comfort you after a long day’s work. Soup is the nutritious meal that you need without the high price. Soup is readily available with a few basic ingredients in the kitchen, stocked. Pun intended.

There are many ways that soup alleviates stress in our lives.

It accepts our rummaging through the kitchen cabinets to collect what we have at hand and eliminates the need to run to the market for that one rare ingredient crucial to its being. It’s forgiving in preparation, usually welcoming a haphazard throwing into the pot. It requires little time (on our end). We usually take a few minutes to prep and let the simmering do all the work. I am the first to say that we put our Crockpot to good use during these short days and long nights. Big batches of stuff, frozen for later and rationed throughout the week, sometimes as appetizer and sometimes the main course, makes soup a practical solution. Cleanup is facilitated by the need to only have one pot.

I don’t know what else to say.

With all the excesses of today, the youth views soup as an add-on. An appetizer and nothing more. An introduction to the meal. Another excess to add to the bill when we are too tired to cook from home.

But may I remind that soup can stand on its own. And it’ll cook on its own while you’re off at work. It’ll let you live your life, however slow or fast that may be, without so much as a fuss.

Soups, therefore, are essential weapons to carry around in the backs of our pockets … and at the forefront of our minds.

Without further ado, a soup recipe for you:

Ciabbotola

(adapted from Kinfolk Table)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
3 yellow onions, cut into 1/4-in pieces
3 green bell peppers, cut into 1/4-in pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-in pieces
2 pds zucchini, chopped into 1/4-in pieces
1 eggplant, chopped into 1/4-in pieces
4 large ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 tsp sea salt
4 large eggs
Fresh basil, sliced
Parmesan cheese, finely grated

The Process:

Heat the olive oil over medium heat before adding the onions and green and red bell peppers. Cook until the onions have softened and are translucent, approximately 10 minutes.
Add the zucchini, eggplant, tomato, and salt.
Cover and reduce the heat to low. Let simmer for 30 minutes.
Add the eggs and stir gently and constantly until cooked through, approximately six minutes.
Sprinkle with basil and cheese.
Serve with fresh sourdough (optional).

For those looking for soup of a different kind, here are a few favorites:

I’m sure many more soup recipes are to come. How about yours? Would you care to share your favorite soup recipes?

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Choosing Socially Conscious Scrubs with FIGS

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It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about how having a capsule wardrobe for work saves me money AND time. However, as of late, my luck has made a turn for the better. Over the course of the past few months, I was given an opportunity to seize a position at an office three blocks away from my house. Although it required a pay cut and involved busier hours, I took the job for two reasons. Firstly, the office primarily serves the under-served in our community, which more aligned with my intention in becoming a dentist in the first place. And secondly, the commute meant that I could nix using my car all together and substitute a ten-minute walk in order to save on gas money and cut emissions. Hurrah hurrah!

With the new position also came the ability to trade in my professional clothing and white coat for scrubs and sneaks. Prior to the transition, I only owned two pairs of scrubs, which I usually wear in IV sedation – days when looking professional didn’t matter and when I needed to focus my concentration on more important things such as monitoring screens and breathing. Both pairs were remnants of the seven that we were required to buy in dental school. Being a frugalist, not to mention dead broke at the end of my four year schooling, I sold the other five pairs to students in grades below me when I graduated. I have alternated between these two pairs for the last two and a half years, and they are still high functioning, but with the new position, it was hard to get through a week without having to do laundry twice mid-week. Two pairs would suffice in the weeks when I only worked four days, but five day weeks led an awkward amount of laundry. In the name of simplifying, I thought I should own another pair.

I used my birthday as a means to get a pair of FIGS scrubs, which seems to be all the rage these days. Although I’ve been at this new office for the past few months, I didn’t jump the gun and buy them myself. At nearly $50 a piece, it wasn’t something that I could justify. However, they are well known for their modern and sleek cuts, as well as their stretchy, breathable fabrics. In fact, they seem to be disrupting the scrubs industry by providing medical professionals scrubs “that take care of them as much as they take care of their patients”. Advertised as scrubs that can follow any busy medical professional’s lifestyle, I was at first attracted by the versatility of many of the scrub fits. I liked that they were chic enough to wear out after a long day of work, and that they offered pants that one can wear to a yoga class before or after a shift. After receiving a pair for my birthday, I could not agree more with the reviews.

The fabric is extremely breathable, and very flexible, which works wonders for someone who is always on the run. I feel comfortable meeting someone for an interview for the blog, then going to yoga class, then heading to work, and still going to grab dinner afterwards. The styles are very versatile. I chose a trendier Mandarin cut for the top paired with a basic core pant for the bottoms. The pants are a petite size and is the perfect length for a five foot one inch thirty year old. I stepped out of my black and gray comfort zone and chose a Caribbean Blue color, which dresses it up some. Part of me wishes I would have chosen a neutral pair so that future FIGS scrubs could mix and match with different pant styles and tops, but the other part of myself reminds me that we mustn’t own things that we do not love.

Part of what attracted me to FIGS is their effort in being a socially conscious brand. They commit to being a part of Threads for Threads initiative. Thus far, they report having donated hundreds of thousands of scrubs to medical professionals in need spread between thirty-five countries in the course of two years. Some medical professionals perform surgeries and save lives in their jean and T-shirts and have never had access to scrubs before. FIGS is trying to change that. But their efforts don’t stop there. Currently, they are matching donations toward the Human Rights Campaign all of June on behalf of Pride month.

There are a few things that I didn’t like about FIGS. First, they could have an improved transparency regarding materials and scrub production. Secondly, I’d prefer the branding to have a little more humility. Flippant embroideries that equate saving lives to not being big deals make serious matters trivial, which I think is neither fair to the patient nor the practitioner. Although medical professionals do great work, they must be amazing humans without the need to wear shirts telling the world that they think just as highly of themselves. Humility is part of what makes a doctor great, and the brand fails to reflect that.

Overall, I couldn’t be more happy with the quality of the products. I practically live in scrubs these days. It’s nice to wear an outfit that are as comfortable as loungewear without looking like pajamas. Plus, I still retain the mantra of having a capsule wardrobe, or in this case, a uniform of sorts, in an effort to simplify my life even further so that I can get to the doing quicker. While I think a pair of FIGS for every working day would be useful, this single one partnered with my two older pairs will suffice. In an effort to curate my closet, I stray away from excessive additions of any one item. I would highly recommend these scrubs to any colleague in the medical profession, while challenging FIGS and other scrub companies to increase transparency and source materials more ethically.

Gift Guide: Day Planners for a Simpler Year

I’m a paper person. I love everything about paper. I love the smell of fresh blank pages as much as I love the smell of weathered sheets, yellowing around the edges and bound together by a thick leather spine. I love the warmth of paper just born, hot off the press. I love thick canvas-y types that I can throw globs of paint on equally as much as tissue paper gently stuffed in a bag. I love the way pencil sounds when it scratches the surface, and the way pen indents, making its permanent marks. I guess you can say that I am a bit crazy about paper, that I have a major paper crush.

It makes sense, then, that I lean heavily in favor of all things paper. Books over Kindles, notepads over Iphone notes, mailed letters over text messages, and off course, planners over E-Calendars. Every year, there is one particular Christmas wish that I ask for, which is a new planner to start off the new year. Staying organized is part of the way I create a simpler lifestyle, and although electronic versions of calendars and planners are much more eco-friendly, they are just not as… how to put it… exhilarating? Writing things down via pen is certainly much more inspiring and to-do-list making and crossing off tasks on said list are extremely satisfying. Okay, okay, call me a nerd, but a nerd teeming with ideas, hopes, and a plethora of possibilities.

Before I leave you be with a list of favorites that I have had my eye on, I just want to dismantle the common misconception that a planner is yet another boring stocking stuffer. A planner is practical, yes, but also a very very personal thing. I liken a planner to a perfume, each person with their own particular style and it takes a great degree of intimacy to know just the planner that’s right for a person. Additionally, planners are life-changing, quite literally. It is a space to collect goals, ideas, and, well, plans, for a better tomorrow. And everyone deserves a better tomorrow, no?

So here’s to planners, for all. How do you create a simpler year?