50 days (and a manifesto)

let’s just get it out of the way now:
yes, it’s april fools day. you know it, and i know it. so i’m not going to attempt to shock anyone with an announcement about converting to raw foodism or reveal that i’m knocked up with triplets on the way. (in my case, the former would probably be more shocking than the latter . . . ). so, you can rest easy, put your guard down, and read the rest of this post free of suspicion.

besides a day for fooling people, april 1st is also the beginning of a new month, the second quarter of the year, and the start of an important countdown called 50 days until the end of my 20s.

honestly? i’m in need of a fresh start these days. i’m not saying that i’ve been miserable, but i’ve been feeling sort of unmotivated and lost lately. i have been spending FAR too much time piddling around online (i love you google reader, but i sort of hate you too), and not enough time doing . . . well, really everything else.

work-wise, i’m just “slogging through” — feeling like i’m sort of over and done with residency despite there being 3 months left. instead of seizing the learning opportunities BECAUSE i won’t get a chance to do things like work in the ER later, i’ve been pretty negative about it because in truth many of the skills i am using now will not be the types of things i will be doing beginning in july.

but: that is not how i want to live. i don’t want to slog though. i also don’t want to spend hours glued to a screen. i need to get out of the mindset that life is just some sort of countdown to brief blips of bliss in the form of vacations or days off. life happens every hour, every minute, of every day. and it only happens once.

so what do i want?
i want to experience life to the fullest. i want to appreciate the joy in little things and spend time with family and friends. i want to continue learning and use what i have learned to help others. i want to experience art every day — in the form of a great song or in the chapter of a book. i want to eat great food, as well as food that makes me FEEL great. i want to be myself. i want to find flow and get lost in what i’m doing, whether it’s in clinic or writing this post. i want to connect with others. i want to treat my body well. i want to forgive myself when i’m not perfect. i want to learn to be present in every hour of every day.

THESE are the things i want to focus on over the next 50 days. i still care about my 2010 resolutions — i think they are all noble goals and i’d like to spend some time focusing on each of them again. however, right now i think i would like to devote the next 50 days to to putting my “wants” from above into action.

the paragraph above is getting taped up above my desk in a prominent location. and beginning tomorrow, i’ll add a daily report on how this is going! get ready . . .

of varying depth
just because i got all dream and dreamy above doesn’t mean this post doesn’t have room to showcase a few new favorites from anthro‘s april catalog. i LOVE that it is finally warm enough to go sans tights (i tried to get into them, but really — i just love the easiness that is a breezy frock, bare feet, and sandals — with height, of course).

in line with the goals above, i will mention that i believe that fashion is art, and i get a lot of joy out of wearing pretty things. in fact, i’d like to get more wear out of my anthro dress collection (how many do i have? not enough 8, but who’s counting . . .). this shouldn’t be terribly challenging.

look! LOBSTERS!!

the salty seas dress is fabulous and fun. also, attention fellow shorties: it comes in petite!
the ipanema dress would need a belt, but has an airiness that i love. and OOH, that color . . .

though truthfully, the pampas dress is probably a better palette pour moi. very lush.
these chambray roll-ups remind me of being, like, 12.
only they cost 3x as much as they did then, and this time i’d be pairing them with some fierce platforms. what goes around, comes around, i suppose. but only kind of.

this month’s cooking inspiration
so far this year, monthly themes for my kitchen adventures have included recipes from favorite blogs, the splendid table: how to eat supper cookbook, and cooking light magazine.

this month, as more fresh fruits and vegetables become available, i feel like trying something a bit different. the bulk of april‘s recipes will come from these two tomes:

super natural cooking by heidi swanson and eat drink and be vegan by dreena burton
these two authors have a lot in common — they both make healthy, wholesome plant-based food, both got their start as bloggers (dreena at vive le vigan, and heidi at 101 cookbooks), and both have huge, almost cult-like fan bases — especially in the blog world. while i have NO aspirations of becoming a vegetarian or vegan (see above!), i still love great food in those genres. i think it will be a delicious month.

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3.31.10

workout: 45 minutes elliptical + weights
– 2 x 12 pushups
– 2 x 12 lunges with ball, 10 lb weights
– 2 x 12 bice curls (10-12 lb weights)
– 2 x 12 walking double lunges (8 lb weights)
– 2 x 10 lateral/forward raises in lunge (6 lb weights)
– 2 x 15 bicycle crunches

cooking: nothing worth mentioning. YET.