The Gifts of Imperfection: A Chart!

I’ve been on a Brené Brown kick for the past several months. When I read The Gifts of Imperfection, I made a spreadsheet-graphic of the guideposts to wholehearted living.

Thoughts on The Dance of Anger

I recently read The Dance of Anger by Dr. Harriet Lerner, and I loved it so much that I’m going to tell you all about it. Check out these highlights.

How to Balance Writing Time and Chores

your work done first, then you’ll never write. Here’s a five-step process I’m trying out to set boundaries around my writing time. List Your Chores and Rank Them by Importance First, list all the chores you have to do on a regular basis. How you define “regular” is up to you — I interpret “regular”…

The Myth That Paid Work = Personal Fulfillment

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not against women in the workforce. I just don’t think that paid labor is creative salvation.

How to Find Your Ideal Job

With jobs, knowing what you want can be difficult because so many factors are involved. But here’s an outline for how to figure out what your (current) ideal job is. Identify Your Dream Job For now, stay in the real world. (Don’t choose “unicorn wrangler” as your dream job.) But don’t worry about money. Ask…

Decluttering Books: Making a Buying Plan

In a magical world with endless public libraries in every city, we would buy only the books we want in our personal Hall of Fame. We will have previously read these books, likely more than once, and know that we love them and that owning a copy of each will make our homes more joyful…

Decluttering Books: Donations and Joy-Sparks

Kondo says we want to focus on what to keep, not what to get rid of, which is generally a solid plan. But donating books is one of my favorite things, and it’s positive enough that in the case of donation, I think focusing on what I’m letting go is great. So here’s a post…

Decluttering Books: Personalizing the KonMari Method

As with recipes, I subscribe to the “try the advice and then change it as needed” approach. With books, I depart from Kondo’s philosophy on two main points.

Learning From How Dare the Sun Rise

How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana and Abigail Pesta, is a memoir about Sandra Uwiringiyimana’s experience with war, genocide, refugees, immigration, discrimination, mental health issues, and healing, among other things. I won’t spoil the book for you (go read it!), but I do want to talk about how…