Showing posts with label Lynn Crawford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lynn Crawford. Show all posts

Thursday, January 28, 2016

2016.01.28 — On Joy, KonMari (Marie Kondo) and Softly Folding Fushigis*


Today, in my second effort at blog resuscitation, here are a couple of sort of, soft, fushigis. This is my effort at keeping it short, because I have other ‘important’ things to write today.

Sort of fushigi #1

On Tuesday I was talking with a young man about fushigis. And, for some reason of all the examples I could have given, the one that came to mine was coq au vin. In summary, while in a grocery line, the man in front of me was describing how he was going to make coq au vin. Later that morning I watched someone make coq au vin on the TV Show Chopped. Today, Thursday, my wife had the TV on while I was doing yoga, and I heard chef Lynn Crawford on the Marilyn Denis Show refer to coq au vin as part of a wine pairing discussion. I don’t know if she made the recipe or not, as my wife flips channels.


Sort of, soft fushigi #2

It begins with the discovery, on Tuesday of KonMari, the method of decluttering one’s home and life following the methods of Marie Kondo, who uses ‘Spark Joy’ as the guiding principle behind the method of decluttering one’s home and life. My first draw to KonMari was her idea and technique for folding and storing clothes, which I absolutely loved. And I have since then been going around my home KonMari folding things! I’m not following the proper principle, but am more or less randomly folding. (For a nice intro to KonMari folding, see Lavendaire.)

When I did a bit more research I learned that Kondo is about much MUCH more than ‘just’ folding clothes. And I feel myself embracing her approach to decluttering my life. And I am both excited by the opportunity, and intimidated too, mostly because Kondo addresses decluttering books. I have probably 1400 books or so in my library, and her method requires taking every book from every corner of the home from every shelf or drawer or floor and piling them up around you. The decluttering begins by first energizing them. After they have been energized you decide, one book at a time, whether or not it ‘sparks joy’. The nots are removed from the library.

I’m blown away by the simplicity of this method of increasing joy in our lives!

So, sort of, soft fushigi #2 part I: I recently talked about my having come into joy, and the ‘energy’ of the universe. See The Liminalist #49. I loved how Kondo’s ideas have a parallel. I know, weak, but it has a resonance with me.

Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part II
: As it so happens, my wife has been seriously badgering me to pack my books away for several months now, and last week I accepted in my heart that I would move forward with that project. I had been thinking I’d just pack them up, but I have been putting it off for various reasons, including the monumental physical task it is. But now, I will energize my books, find those that still spark joy, and thank the others and let them go from my life. This I find intimidating, and maybe even a little scary, because it may mean letting go of books that have been very important to me. And that is, of course, part of the process of decluttering and emotionally and energetically detoxifying my life. My mind knows that, and my heart at this time, too, and yet that niggle of fear. So much to learn, still.



Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part III
: Last night I was at a friend’s place. They are joy-filled people and I was excited to share with K my discovery of Marie Kondo and her idea of organizing one’s home by keeping the things in it that spark joy and to remove from it all the rest. He’d never heard of it. ‘I’m doing that!’ his wife, B, said. ‘But he doesn’t know.’ And so we chatted about her attempt to organize the closet as per KonMari, but that her son and husband were unintentionally undermining her efforts because she hadn’t told them what she was doing.



Update! About 2 hours ago, around the time when I started to create this blog, I confirmed a coffee date with a friend I haven't seen since early last year. In my confirmation I mentioned my recent discovery of Marie Kondo. I asked CB if she'd heard of Kondo. Her reply was perfect!   
Just talking about those books this morning! I'm borrowing my pal's copy to apply a little magic to my circumstances...
LOL! Does that contribute to the sort of fushigi nature of this post? [Headshake.]

Sunday, November 7, 2010

2010.11.01 — Where's the Cheese? In Agassiz — a Fushigi


The blog that can't help but be made irrelevant extends that into inane cheesiness.

This morning at work, BV asked me to check out the main-frame application she was using. 'Have you seen this before?' she asked. BV asked not just because we sit in the same pod, but because I am far far more experienced with this application than is BV. As it turned out, I hadn't seen this particular problem before. After poking and prodding the application, it became clear that shutting it down and restarting was at the very least needed and which would hopefully re-align the electrons in their clouds to improve the weird output we were seeing. And in fact, that turned out to fix the problem, which was to check for what are called 'binder' comments on the record for a cable in the Agassiz exchange area of BC.

In typical fushigi fashion, nothing special in this — except, perhaps, for my not having seen this trouble before despite having more than fifteen years of experience with the application. Otherwise I would not have seen on BV's computer that the trouble happened to have occurred in one of BC's small exchanges.

As you can see it is a farming community.

And so it came to pass that later that night, while flipping through the TV stations, I stopped when I heard the host of 'Pitchin' In,' chef Lynn Crawford, comment about being in Agassiz, in the beautiful Fraser Valley, looking to learn about everything that goes into artisan goat cheese. But you might want to say that this is not a fushigi because I watch 'Ptichin' In' regularly. Well, that's just not the thing, because I've at best watched it occasionally, perhaps even rarely — in its one and half seasons, Agassiz's cheese was the 4th episode I've seen — the other three being Lobster, Oranges, and Pigs. Also, this was the first time I've watched it on a Monday, my previously exposures to it having been on weekends. And the only reason I stumbled into it this time was because my 'normal' Monday night viewing was disrupted by the World Series and repeats.