Andy and I just got back from a trip to Portland, Oregon to celebrate our 5-year anniversary. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, time flies, etc, etc. We had a wonderful trip. And, in case a similar milestone is coming up for you, I created this handy gift guide based on the traditional 5th wedding anniversary gift of wood.

<a data-pin-do=”embedBoard” href=”https://www.pinterest.com/lcl/5th-wedding-anniversary-gift-ideas/”data-pin-scale-width=”80” data-pin-scale-height=”200” data-pin-board-width=”400”> Follow Laura’s board 5th Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas on Pinterest.</a>

1. For the traditionalist: red roses that will never wilt

2. For the gadget lover: a solid wood phone case

3. For the organizational junkie: eucalyptus storage boxes (perhaps filled with her favorite treat…)

4. For the hostess with the mostest: a personalized cutting board or a wood wick candle (bonus wood points for the campfire scent)

5. For the jewelry maven: wooden stud earrings or a wooden heart necklace

6. For the nature lover: Adopt an Acre from the Nature Conservancy

7. For the reader or advernturer: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

8. For the whiskey afficianado: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked (see, it’s EXTRA woody)

9. For the home: a tree!

10. And if you’re really just not into wood, then you can go big with the traditional 5th anniversary gemstone instead: sapphire and diamond anniversary band

Happy celebrating!

March was a good reading month after a slower February. 5 books completed–3 of them for my reading challenge–and another one started. It’s a bit of an epic, so I’ll be on that one for awhile. I picked it up on March 28 and hoped maybe I could squeeze it in, but ain’t nobody got time for that. I read for enjoyment now, not like in college when I had to plow through on a schedule!

This was much better than the other Man Booker prize winner I’ve read. It was long, though, I’ll tell you that much. I ranked it 4 stars on Goodreads, but now that I’m a month away from it I honestly couldn’t really tell you why, so maybe those stars don’t mean much.

I had planned to replace my “book that takes place in Asia” for the reading challenge, but this one, my original pick, was available as a library e-book, so I pounced. I read it quickly and enjoyed the story, but the writing was only so-so. All of the cultural details were fascinating, though, because I’m not that familair with Chinese traditions. And I was morbidly interested in reading such a detailed account of foot binding. It made me sad, but it was definitely an integral factor in the novel’s plot trajectory.

I devoured this book on an afternoon when I couldn’t concentrate on writing and needed a break. It was recommended by Modern Mrs. Darcy. It’ll suck you in and then punch you in the gut, which honestly is sort of my favorite kind of book. I liked that Moyes made the more realistic choice, even though that wasn’t what you would want out of a romatic story. I hope to read more books by her.

We took a detour for book club in March and selected a non-fiction book. Only three of us met to discuss it, but I’m really glad I read this! It struck a nice balance between relatable anecdotes and hard statistics, which is tough to do. I enjoyed reading it AND I think it will really impact my thinking about habits and why I do things the way I do.

I wanted to love this one, I really did, but it was just a bit odd for my taste. The “Greek chorus” approach wasn’t my favorite conceit. My friend Meredith’s review on Goodreads says, “I get the sense that he’s more interested in the tricks he can play with language than with telling a story I want to know more about,” and I think I agree. I loved his jointly written novel Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but maybe it was actually the John Green in there that made it so good to me.

How was your March reading? Any good beach reads for spring break?

Disclosure: links are Amazon affiliates and help support my blogging habit.

I recently started using My Fitness Pal to track my food and exercise. I’ve tried out my share of apps and processes for doing this in the past, but I’ve never really tracked calories before. I tried to manually in college for awhile, but it was exhausting trying to determine the calorie count in everything I ate! My entries would get ridiculous if I ate, say, a sandwich, and had to write out the bread, the mayonnaise, the lettuce, etc, etc.

I’ve always done well using just pen and paper to keep a food log, sans calorie count. Something about knowing I would have to write it down kept me from grazing on the miscellaneous treats out in the kitchen at work. Even though the manual method doesn’t provide any graphs, charts, or progress reports, it was still satisfying to me, and I noticed results.

I tend to return to my food log habits when I’m feeling out of control in other areas of my life. What I put into my body is something that I can have 100% control over, and by writing it down, I get the self-reflective pleasure of looking back over it at the end of the day. I try to be really careful, though, because I can also see how my controlling tendencies could very easily morph into an unhealthy obsession.

I love food, and I also suffer from drastic hunger mood swings, so I would never skip meals or give up eating just for the rush of the calorie count at the end of the day…but I can see how that’s tempting.

All that to say, I’ve been feeling a bit out of control food-wise of late, and my pants haven’t been fitting quite how I like, so I decided to try to take charge over my food instead of letting it be in charge of me. My mom recommended My Fitness Pal, and so far I’ve really enjoyed it. It has a large database of searchable foods, and you can also import recipes from the web and let it magically calculate the nutritional info. This is great for me since I cook from Pinterest a lot! (The only thing I wish it did was give you gold stars for your water consumption…I drink a LOT of water, and it doesn’t seem to care.)

The app can also connect to other fitness trackers, so I have it counting my steps from my FitBit. You can manually enter exercise as well, and between that and your steps, you’re given calorie credit that gets added onto the calories it assigns you based on your goals.

I told it my goal right now was to maintain my weight, because the calorie allowance got way too small when I told it I wanted to lose five pounds. BUT, I try not to eat the calories I earn from exercise, and so far it’s been telling me that I’m on track to lose a couple of pounds, slowly, over five weeks.

I really appreciated the exercise allowance on Saturday, when I pigged out on pizza and went to a brew pub for a friend’s birthday. I had conveniently gone to spin class that morning and walked to said brew pub, so I had a bunch of extra calories and still managed to come out ahead for the day.

But when I’m not exercising like crazy, I appreciate that the app includes a number of restaurant foods in its database. In fact, someone had even entered a few beers from the local brew pub we went to! Sometimes I just wing it, though. Tonight I made up a sauteed cabbage and mushroom dish with some leftover sauce from baked tofu I had made, and I just picked something called “Mushroom Spinach Sautee” from the database and called it even.

Last week I had a team lunch with the other writers for a local startup news site I just joined. It was only my third day of tracking calories, and I wanted to eat really healthily. We were heading to Jason’s Deli, so I checked out their website ahead of time to try and make a reasonable choice. I found that they had a handy nutrional calculator!

I had NO IDEA how many calories I ate in a day before I started using this app, and I’ve been somewhat appalled at the calorie count of some of my favorite, seemingly innocuous foods. Like, the turkey club I may have gotten otherwise at Jason’s was worth about half of my daily calories. Yikes! But I selected a Mediterranean Wrap that still sounded pretty delicious.

By selecting my food ahead of time, I avoided hemming and hawing in line at the restaurant and risking being swayed into picking something less healthy. For me, anticipation is often half the fun, so I got to think about how yummy that wrap was going to be for a few hours. And, I still ate the baked potato chips and had a small cup of the free soft serve, because I knew the main part of my meal was not calorie-dense.

Even if the place you’re going doesn’t have a nutritional calculator, you can still look at the menu and use your common sense to determine what might be a good choice. Anything with “fried” in the name is probably not the best, and even salads can pack a wollop in the dressing. It’s worthwhile to take those few minutes ahead of time to serve you better nutritionally in the long run.

I doubt I’ll count my calories forever, but it’s been eye-opening doing it for the past few weeks. I’m sure I’ll have free-for-all days in the future, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do them guiltlessly knowing what I know now. That makes me a little sad in some ways, but I also know I’m better off for being aware. I’ll savor the things I do eat even more!

A few weeks ago, Chasity asked me if I would write a guest post for her blog during Women’s History Month. I’d never really given much thought to Women’s History Month, but it seemed like a fun thought exercise. Here’s where my brain ended up.

Lessons in Feminism From Southern Mothers & Gilmore Girls

To be honest, I didn’t know until recently that March was Women’s History Month. I’m not sure what rock I’ve been living under, but that’s the truth. So I can’t really tell you any glowing stories about what this month means to me. What I can tell you is that, at the ripe old age of 26, I’ve embraced a brand of feminism that is centered on choice.

I have a complicated relationship with the word “feminism.” I grew up in Mississippi, the only child of a Connecticut Yankee mother and a Southern Californian father, both highly educated. They were together quite awhile before they had me, and my mom kept her last name when they married. I learned to read early and attended public schools somewhat as a matter of principle. I always assumed I would go to graduate school. I never dreamed about my wedding day. Of course, I thought, I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up. Of course, it seemed like I ought to be a feminist.

And yet all of the women I came to admire were traditional Southern women who looked nothing like what I figured a feminist to be.

Read the rest on ChasityCooper.com—>

I don’t much like the word hustle. I know it’s all the rage these days. Hustle is the new black. People have their “side hustles” and they hustle early in the morning and they hustle late at night. They hustle, hustle, hustle. But I’m a word person, and I don’t like the sound of hustle.

Hustle

• to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction

• to obtain by forceful action or persuasion

• to push or force one’s way

• to act aggressively, especially in business dealings

• to push or convey in a hurried or rough manner

And as a noun….

• busy movement or activity

• a fraud or swindle

• anything you need to do to make money (Urban Dictionary)

There are so many words inherent in the definitions of “hustle” that are the absolute antithesis to how I want to live my life. I don’t want to be in a hurry and move without ceremony. I want to have soft edges. I don’t want to merely be “busy.”

I know that, as a freelancer and small business owner, the world may tell me I should hustle. But I’m over shoulds. And I think there are plenty of nicer actions you can take that will still inch the needle forward on your goals.

Rather than hustle, let’s…

1. be dependable
2. live with intention
3. savor the moment
4. celebrate
5. make a list
6. work hard
7. show up early
8. ask good questions
9. be consistent
10. enjoy the journey
11. focus
12. do one thing extremely well
13. plan ahead
14. prepare for all eventualities
15. use language persuasively
16. get enough sleep
17. prioritize
18. consider life to be a grand adventure
19. commit to the process
20. defy expectations
21. embrace who you are
22. explore the possibilities
23. take the next logical step
24. run the numbers
25. be the change
26. get the job done

I’m not knockin’ hard work and getting in over your head. I’m not knockin’ working weird hours, or a lot of hours. I’m not knockin’ pouring every drop of your blood, sweat, and tears into achieving a goal. I just think we’re better than hustle.

Let’s chase the work we’re proud of, the work that makes us happy, and the work that supports the kind of life we want to live. ~ Lisa Butler

Pick your word. There are plenty of alternatives to hustling.