Birthday Post, vol. 48

My birthday is upon us again! And once again, as a birthday gift, I'd love to hear about the memories and experiences that we've shared.

Here are some prompts if you're looking for ideas:

  • Your very first memory of me
  • One of your favorite memories that we shared together
  • Your favorite photo of us together
  • A photo you’ve taken of me that perhaps I’ve never seen
  • A memorable conversation we shared

You can leave a comment on this post, but if you’d prefer to keep it private, you can email me or use my contact form.

Birthday Post, vol. 47

Today is my birthday! Over the years, I’ve come to understand that I value experiences and memories over anything else. That said, I have a request for my birthday, for you to share your own memories and experiences with me.

Here are some prompts to guide you!

  • Your very first memory of me
  • One of your favorite memories of an experience we shared together
  • Your favorite photo of us together
  • A photo you’ve taken of me that perhaps I’ve never seen
  • A memorable conversation we shared

Please leave a comment on this post, but if you’d prefer to keep it private, you can email me or use my contact form.

Looking forward to revisiting these moments with you! 💝

Reclaiming Boredom

I recently read this comic* by Kate Wheeler that really resonated with me. I recommend you read it, but to summarize, Kate remembers what it was like as a child to be bored, which led to letting her mind wander. In the current time, she realizes that she was finding herself grabbing her phone whenever she found an idle moment.

*The comic is also available on the Washington Post, but it is paywalled.

At best, my phone was a time waster. At worst, a thief of boredom and creativity.

—Kate Wheeler

Kate deleted “everything interesting” from her phone in an attempt to get back the feeling of boredom and creativity that she experienced as a kid, and she seems to have been successful with that.

Reading Kate's story inspired me to try something similar. I hope to not only to encourage my creativity again through boredom, but also to disconnect from the barrage of news and “junk food” that social media often serves up, as well as connect with people outside of the context of apps on my phone.

My experiment will slightly vary from Kate's. For the month of February, I am going to delete social media apps from my phone (i.e., Instagram, Mastodon, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter), but I'll give myself permission to make occasional, intentional visits to the desktop versions of these sites while sitting at my computer, and spend a limited amount of time on them.

I intend on running this experiment for a month and I'll see what happens! So if you don't see me around those networks as often, now you know why. I intend on posting a recap at the end of month, so see ya then! 👋🏽

Courtney's 2021

It's typical on New Year's to write a post reflecting on the past year. Although I have been mulling over all the thoughts and feelings on 2021 as a whole, I am opting to keep those thoughts internal for now, and I'm more motivated to document some of my personal experiences in this year-end review post. Read on for a bulleted list!

January

  • Went to the emergency room for what ended up being diagnosed as my first stomach ulcer. The cause seems to had been a perfect storm of naproxen (for back pain), triggering foods, and the stress from the January 6 insurrection.
  • Celebrated one year with our sweet kittens.

February

  • Hunkered down for the first winter storm of the year (10 inches of snow, if my memory serves me).
  • Made the decision to sell our house of seven years, the first house we'd ever purchased!
  • Spent a lot of the month sorting through and purging a lot of the belongings we'd accumulated over the past seven years.  Started moving out of our home gradually.

March

  • Completely emptied our house and did a bunch of painting and prepping for staging.
  • During the moving process, I injured my back so horribly that I could not get out of bed. Full recovery took a couple weeks, which unfortunately made me a bit slow with our prep for selling. I am endlessly thankful to Robert for balancing out moving, house selling tasks, and taking care of me through all this. <3

April

  • Staged and listed our house, and quickly received multiple offers!
  • Accepted an offer and the house welcomed its new owners by month's end.
  • Signed off of work for three months as I started my three month sabbatical!
  • Got my first vaccine dose on the first full day of my sabbatical.

May

  • Started a daily habit of going for wandering walks and sitting in parks.
  • Got my second vaccine dose!
  • Got my hair professionally cut (with the return of the undercut!) and colored for the first time since
  • Voted in the special election.
  • Subscribed to MasterClass and started learning new things.
  • Bought a waffle iron and waffled all the things (favorite waffled food: tater tots)!
  • Met with a friend for the first time in a year and a half <3

June

  • Witnessed my baby nephew turning one year old!
  • Went for our first vacation since December 2019, to Palm Springs. I spent a heck of a lot of time doing nothing in particular, sitting in the pool and reading.
  • Went on multiple day trips to the Oregon coast (Manzanita Beach is our favorite) to sit on the beach and watch the waves.
  • Continued my daily habit of walks with podcasts, and sitting & reading in the park.

July

  • Went back to the movies for the first time in 19 months, to see Summer of Soul.
  • Traveled to L.A. to visit our close friends (incidentally, the last folks we traveled to see before the pandemic began).
  • Continued my daily walks and park sitting.
  • Inspired by a MasterClass, I picked up a DJ controller and started playing around with DJing.
  • Went to the art museum for the first time in years.
  • Went to Retro Game Bar for the first time, with my brother for some bonding time.
  • Wrapped up my sabbatical and went back to work!
  • Published a post of my recently consumed media.

August

  • Published a post with my thoughts on my sabbatical.
  • Bought an espresso machine and started to attempt to perfect my latte technique.
  • Traveled to Newport for our 9th wedding anniversary. Visited the Oregon Aquarium for the first time and enjoyed some more time staring at ocean waves.

September

  • Went on a hike to one of our favorite waterfalls for the first time since the wildfires in 2017.
  • Celebrated Robert's last day of a job he'd had for 9 years, and his start at a new one!
  • Participated in a project with a group of rad AAPI women and non-binary people.
  • Rang in my 45th birthday by celebrating my inner child at Disneyland, back for the first time in 3 years.

October

  • Welcomed both sets of parents for a visit in Portland early in the month.
  • Celebrated Robert's birthday with early dinner at his favorite restaurant, and a low-key evening at home.

November

  • Started a new role in Designer Experience.
  • Created a new office space at home (since I had been working from a desk in our bedroom since I returned from sabbatical in July).
  • Had a nice intimate Thanksgiving dinner with just a few family members.
  • Celebrated 16 years together with Robert <3
  • Got my vaccine booster.

December

  • Back at Disneyland at the beginning of the month to spend time with family!
  • Started a new hobby with Robert of assembling jigsaw puzzles together.
  • Celebrated Christmas with just the two of us at home for the first time.
  • Stayed up till 3am on New Year's eve listening to records while working on a puzzle!

How I learned to stop worrying and loved my sabbatical

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

–Mr. Rogers

My employer gives the gift of a 3 month sabbatical for folks that have been with the company for 5 years. I reached that mark this past April, but the planning for my sabbatical started back in autumn of 2020. At that time, I debated whether it was a good idea to take a sabbatical in the midst of a pandemic. But at the gentle urging of wise friends, I decided to go ahead and go for it.

In the months leading up to it, I was approaching my sabbatical like a project, because I wanted to make the best of this generous gift of time. I kept asking myself, What could I accomplish in three months? What goals should I set? What boxes could I check off?

Initially, I was super excited to start new projects, revisit neglected ones, learn new things, and return to work as an improved version of myself.

As a planner by nature, I made lists upon lists, only to find myself overwhelmed with the seemingly endless possibilities. Whenever I have these many possibilities, I find myself paralyzed with indecision on how to proceed. It got to the point that I felt like I really needed to reel it in and get to the core of what I wanted... not just out of a sabbatical, but from myself.

My teammates are always thinking of and are very giving to others, and I really treasure that quality about them. While this is a great and admirable quality, I have found that I have a tendency to over-deliver on it and lose sight of myself.

After some thought, I decided to lower my expectations for quantifiable accomplishments during my sabbatical, and concentrate on returning to work as an improved version of myself. To improve myself, I concluded that needed:

  • To get to know myself outside the context of work, home, and various responsibilities,
  • To treat myself with kindness, and
  • To accept and like that person I was getting to know again.

Getting outside

My most frequented park

One of the most important things I taught myself was to get outside. Not just out of the house, but outside my head. I found myself going on frequent walks, usually without prior planning for a particular route or destination. I made lots of neighborhood discoveries — gazing at gardens in full bloom; finding tiny libraries, fairy doors, and yard art; greeting neighborhood dogs and cats (and even chickens and tortoises); listening to orchestra musicians practicing in their backyards. I also spent a lot of time sitting in various parks, reading, listening to podcasts, and watching dogs play.

It turned out that it was really helpful for me to get out of the house, in order to get out of the context of the place where household chores and other responsibilities are always looming. This helped clear my mind to enable me to spend intentional time with and for myself.

Taking the idea of getting outside even further, as the time progressed I wanted to get out of the context of our town to reset a bit. We took a couple of local day trips, and eventually, once we were fully vaccinated, even hopped on a plane a couple of times.

Where the heart is

Part of nourishing my heart is spending my time with loved ones. I'm grateful that I was able to reconnect more deeply with my spouse and close friends, and I've been grateful for having family close by again. Maintaining these kinds of connections is important to me, especially during the pandemic.

The Rest

I listened to a lot of podcasts, played video games, read books, and watched plenty of movies and television shows. Because I cannot resist making lists, I published a list of everything I consumed.

Speaking of rest, I did a lot of that. It was incredibly restorative to be able to get the sleep my body needed (despite still battling with occasional insomnia, and a recurrence of some health issues from earlier this year). I wrote in my paper journal. I kept up with my therapy sessions. I meditated. I got my hair cut by a pro for the first time in 21 months. I got a manicure and pedicure. I cooked. I supported local chefs' pop-up businesses. I drove around without a destination. I wandered plant nurseries with no agenda. I tended to my house plants. I assembled furniture. I sketched. I went to the art museum. Inspired by one of the MasterClass courses I took, I even bought a DJ controller and started dabbling in DJing.

These were all things that contribute to who I am! Reflecting back on all I experienced, this is the most “me” sabbatical I could've taken.

Interlude:
A video composed of 1 second of each day of my sabbatical.

Bringing it all back

I feel like I really had the time and space to get to know myself again, and I hope to bring my full self back to my everyday work. I don't want to lose sight of who that person is, so I want to be more aware of when I am losing myself in my work and not having a good balance in my life, because that is what often leads me to stress and burnout. As I returned to work last month, I wanted to be aware of setting boundaries for myself and others, getting the rest I need, not overcommit and over-work, and asking for help when I need it.

I came back to work refreshed and ready to dive back in with a new and improved perspective, so I'd call my sabbatical a success.

Bonus: Link to some photos from my sabbatical. Lots of cats, food, drink, and parks :)

As Time Goes By

As much as I resisted admitting this for a long time, I think it's time to call a moratorium on my 2019 in Review project. I got really stuck on June 2019 because that was a really hard month, mainly because that is when we said goodbye to our sweet Ginger.

It was also a bit challenging for me during this time of pandemic to look back at a completely different time and yearn for the “old normal”. Time to embrace my new normal.

Speaking of normal, I would like to make blogging a regular, normal habit again. I am considering this post as the marker of a new chapter. Here we go again!

Life Happens

Although yet another one of my personal projects has fallen by the wayside, I still intend on finishing it!

Something I didn't account for is that life happens.

I had a lot of travel during the month of December, a family emergency, some health issues, and new additions to our household. Whew, that sounds like a lot.

Past me would've gotten discouraged, and I would've beaten myself up about not completing my project “on time”. But y'know what? No one gave me a deadline except myself. I should be more patient and kind to myself.

As a matter of fact, I see 2020 as the year where I intend on practicing more kindness towards myself.

Because life happens, and I will get myself through it.

Remembering XOXO

Since XOXO has affected me so profoundly, I wanted to share the recent release of this video that is the most perfect recap:

I’m inspired and humbled all over again. I’m hoping to get back into creating things again in the near future. Remembering XOXO is great motivation for me.

Do you Remember...?

…the 21st night of September?

I’m trying to recollect this past month. Where did September go? It went by so quickly because I had so much going on: XOXO Festival, the Automattic Grand Meetup, a vacation to Hawaii for my 40th birthday.

Suitably, the above photo is a snap that I took on the evening of September 21st, on our way home from the airport. The sunset was gone as quickly as the past month. But what a great month it was!

XOXO Festival Thoughts

This weekend marks my third XOXO Festival. I’m honored and humbled to be a part of a wonderful event such as this.

So what is it, exactly? Contrary to what a current straight-to-streaming movie leads you to believe, XOXO is not an EDM festival. It’s so much more than an “arts and technology festival”, which is the short description that I hear the most. It’s even a whole lot more than what the official website describes, “an experimental festival celebrating independent artists who work on the internet”.

To me, XOXO Festival has been an inspiration, the catalyst for my creativity, and most importantly, the source of a lot of great new friends and a community that I have severely lacked in my life for a long, long time.

Ever since last year’s festival, I’ve been wanting to write something about my experiences there, since it has affected me so profoundly. But here we are a year later, well into the festival’s current iteration, and I’m only starting to write my thoughts out. Better late than never, right?

Part of my inaction has a lot to do with the strong presence of imposter syndrome amongst the attendees, as evidenced by this tweet by a fellow attendee:

twitter.com/BrianEnig…

Every single person I’ve chatted with during every XOXO fest I’ve ever been to says they feel like the most boring/uncool/socially awkward person there. Everyone wonders if they deserve to be at XOXO. I am definitely no exception, and I’m glad that I’m not alone.

I’ve written nary a word about my experiences because I thought that no one wanted to hear what I had to say. There are plenty of folks that have written about the festival, why would I want to add to the noise? Oh gosh, aren’t the folks who haven’t gone to XOXO so tired of hearing about it from their friends that have gone? I don’t have a cool creative project in the works right now. I don’t feel like a particularly interesting person. I don’t have a lot of faith in my writing skills. Add that all up and that equals complete blogging paralysis for me.

This community has taught me that my experiences are unique. That my friends do care about what I have to say and want to hear my perspective.

But for some reason, I still have trouble convincing myself of that. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I’m hoping to share more over the course of this year’s festival and well past the closing party. More soon.

File-o-phile

Tonight, I randomly decided to re-categorize and tag every single entry in my blog. It started with what I initially told myself would be a “simple” conversion of categories to tags, but of course, it ends up not being all that simple. I’ve found myself also paring down and eliminating rarely-used categories/tags, and merging similar ones.

I told Robert that I was doing this and that staying up way too late on a Wednesday night working on blog taxonomy seems a bit obsessive. His response was that it’s just as obsessive as his fantasy football hobby.

I suppose he’s right. :)

May 2016 in Photos

[Author note: photo gallery was deleted during site migration]

I didn’t do so well at blogging in May, but I was taking snapshots constantly. Here’s my May in photos:

  • Cocktails at Bit House Saloon, which is probably my current favorite spot for happy hour. They have great drinks, mellow atmosphere, and a tasty fried bologna sandwich (don't knock it till you've tried it!).
  • Spent Mother's Day with my Mom-in-law and Mom, who came to visit for a long weekend. This specific shot was taken at the Oregon Garden, that we set up to jokingly caption it “Happy Mother's Day, Birches!”
  • Enjoyed a beer at Bailey's while the Moms shopped downtown.
  • Collaborated yet again with Halsted on a delicious dinner. She made a Chicken Tagine, and I made a Mediterranean-inspired salad. Cooking with a friend is one of my favorite things to do!
  • Went to see Tycho at the Wonder Ballroom. It was a great show and experience. The sound was really good, even from the mezzanine!
  • Enjoyed Matt's BBQ with some XOXO friends. Coincidentally, this was on WordPress' 13th birthday (WP's founder is named Matt).
  • Planted our garden seedlings in the ground. This year, I have two types of tomatoes, Japanese eggplant, fennel, leeks, English thyme, French tarragon, basil, and nasturtiums. Hopefully they survive the excessive heat that we're supposed to have this weekend.
  • Made a Strawberry Basil Pink Peppercorn Shrub with Hood strawberries, by Andrea's recommendation. It's a tasty way to welcome summer!

Vitamin D

I had my Vitamin D Levels tested the other day, which my Doctor originally told me that I wouldn’t need to worry about till I was older. But she ordered the test anyway. The results were surprising – I have a fairly serious deficiency.

Vitamin D deficiency is common to some extent, but serious deficiencies are hard to diagnose aside from a blood test, as symptoms can include fatigue, muscle/joint pain, and weakening of the immune system.

Vitamin D levels — what’s really optimal? >100 ng/mL - Excessive vitamin D (see note on toxicity) 50–70 ng/mL - Proposed optimal range 30–50 ng/mL - Suboptimal <30 ng/mL - Deficient <20 ng/mL - Overt vitamin D deficiency <10 ng/mL - Seriously deficient (Source)

I’m at 11 ng/mL, which hovers right over seriously deficient. Luckily, it is easily remedied… I am starting off with 8 weeks of a prescription strength dose of Vitamin D (50,000 IU/week), and I should regulate my Vitamin D intake (both supplements and sunlight) thereafter in order to stay at an optimal level.

Why am I telling you this? Because even though a a slight deficiency is normal, an overt or serious deficiency can lead to more problems if it is not addressed early enough. Have your doctor request this test next time you have a routine blood test to be sure.

Also, I just wanted to set it straight after my Twitter post set off a whole chain of replies commenting on my situation.

How to Feel Miserable as an Artist

I forgot how I found this, but it’s been posted in my line of sight on my cubicle wall:

How to Feel Miserable as an Artist
  1. Constantly compare yourself to other artists.
  2. Talk to your family about what you do and expect them to cheer you on.
  3. Base the success of your entire career on one project
  4. Stick with what you know.
  5. Undervalue your expertise.
  6. Let money dictate what you do.
  7. Bow to societal pressures.
  8. Only do work that your family would love.
  9. Do whatever the client/customer/gallery owner/patron/investor asks.
  10. Set unachievable/overwhelming goals. To be accomplished by tomorrow.

I do a lot of these things frequently, but remember this list to snap me back into proper form within reasonable time. It’s all quite good advice.