Month: February 2021

February Book Report

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.” – George R. R. Martin. I found myself sacrificing sleep this month because the books were so good!

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins – (Actually finished this one in January but forgot to include it in my January Book Report.) If you are a fan of the original Hunger Games books, definitely read this one! It’s a pretty interested prequel, taking a closer look at President Snow’s childhood and how he became the monster we see in the main books. Lots of interesting commentary on power dynamics, political corruption, and “othering” of people. But in the end, it’s very much a young adult book so it doesn’t get overly deep.

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson – The final book of the first Mistborn trilogy. I enjoyed it! It was LONG. I mean, the other two were long also but this one felt like it took longer to read. Maybe because there were a lot more diverging story lines in this one and more plot points to keep track of. But I felt it wrapped up the story really well and the ending was in keeping with the books.

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal – I enjoyed this book but in the end, I’m not entirely sure how to describe it. It was not a dense read but it dealt with some pretty heavy subjects (sexual assault, addiction, childhood trauma). The main character wades through her own trauma response while trying to reconnect with a lost family member, but at the same time she gets involved in a vacation love story… I also didn’t really like the ending, it felt false. But endings don’t ruin the entire book for me. So I’d recommend this if you aren’t sensitive to difficult topics but also just want something easy to read.

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith – Galbraith is a pseudonym of JK Rowling, presumably to discourage her young Harry Potter fans from picking up these books since they explore violent issues such as murder, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. This fifth installment in the series is no different. The primary characters are a seasoned private detective and his temp-turned-business partner. While this wasn’t my favorite of the series so far, it was still an interesting read and definitely kept me guessing. Rowling does a great job of bringing the reader along in the investigation, providing enough clues to make you think you know what’s happening and then bringing in a truly surprising twist at the end. And the twist doesn’t come out of nowhere, the detectives always walk back through the clues and you realize it was there all along. Anyway, if you like good detective novels I’d recommend it, but start at the beginning of the series with Cuckoo’s Calling.

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi – This book is good. Dense, but good. I am glad I read some of the other antiracism books I’ve discussed in previous posts first, because it gave me a good foundation to really engage in some of Kendi’s deeper points. He writes like an academic, but it’s not like reading a dry textbook. He does a great job of peeling back the layers of racism to expose all the hidden nuances by discussing his own journey as a black man from racist ideas to being an antiracist activist. Highly recommend for those who are serious about continuing their journey of unlearning and learning.

“In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.” – Audre Lorde

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This year was the first year since I graduated from my public school career that I’ve taken intentional steps to learn about Black history during February. I spent maybe 15-20 minutes a day reading the daily emails in the 28 Days of Black History series from Anti-Racism Daily, looking at content posted on Instagram by some of the influencers I follow and looking up the prompts from Rachel Cargle’s Discover Our Glory series. What I learned was challenging, uplifting, heartbreaking, and powerful. I so wish I had learned more about some of these people in the many years of Black History Month curriculum in school; a chance to see the breadth and depth of Black history…which, after all, is American history.

Billie Holiday – Yes I knew who Billie Holiday was before now, I’d listened to her recordings of popular jazz standards. But I’d never heard her sing “Strange Fruit” based on a poem about lynchings in the south. I’d never learned about how the FBI targeted her for her drug use, how her hospital room was raided as she was dying and she was placed under police guard and handcuffed. She had a troubled life, sure, but no one deserves such indignity in death.

Glenn Burke – Co-inventor of the high five! I had never heard the high-five story and for such a ubiquitous gesture, it seems like something I would have known. He was also the first publicly gay player in Major League Baseball and suffered a lot of prejudice because of it. The LA Dodgers even offered him money to get married before trading him to the Oakland As.

Matthew Henson – He was an arctic explorer with Robert Peary and claims to be the first man to reach the geographic North Pole and planted the American flag. He ended up being the first African American to be made a life member of The Explorers Club and was subsequently elevated to the highest level of membership. During his explorations he studied Inuit survival techniques and learned their language.

Florynce Kennedy – Oh man do I wish I had known about this woman earlier. This one is probably due to my own ignorance of the early first wave feminists, but honestly we hear so much about Gloria Steinem and less about Florynce who traveled and lectured alongside her. She was instrumental in the Miss America protest of 1968, founded the Feminist Party and the National Women’s Political Caucus. She came up with the idea to protest the lack of women’s bathrooms at Harvard by pouring fake urine on the front steps of the university’s Lowell Hall. And she did it all wearing a cowboy hat, pink sunglasses, and false eyelashes! This is a woman I wish I had learned about in high school.

Bayard Rustin – Rustin was active and instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement. He helped organize the first of the Freedom Rides and worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr in putting together the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. However, he was distanced from King after a US Representative threatened to leak rumors of a sexual relationship between the two, knowing that Rustin was known to be gay. Rustin still participated in the movement and helped organize the March on Washington. He was not given public credit at the time due to other civil rights leaders seeing his sexuality as a “liability.”

Audre Lorde – As an English major, I’ve read Lorde’s poetry before. It is beautiful and powerful. But this is an example of a writer who has had huge influence on intersectionality, womanism, third wave feminism, and discussions of identity. I am fascinated by her for so much more than her poetry now and I can’t wait to learn more.

This is just a small sampling of the Black historical figures that crossed through my email and social media this month. I am so happy I took the extra time each day to learn and I’m inspired to do more.

Friday Five Things

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

After writing my blog post last week about my favorite Valentine’s Day memories, I had such a feeling of gratitude after dwelling on the things that make me happy. As I was looking through draft posts and topic lists to decide what to write today, I realized that I use this platform a lot to express my opinions about what I think is wrong in the world today and how we can fix it. (Enneagram Type 1 much?) So this morning I decided to fully dedicate Fridays to things that make me smile going forward.

I’ll still do occasional recipe posts and my monthly book reports, but on other Fridays my plan is to do a quick list of 5 things that brought joy to me from the past week. My hope is that this will prompt others into a grateful mindset or give people some fun ideas to check out for themselves.

  1. My house plants! This past week of winter weather has been brutal for a lot of people. I am lucky that Colorado wasn’t as severely impacted as some other parts of the country, but it’s still been frigid and gray here. Seeing my green plants thrive inside my house always makes me smile.
  2. The TV show Superstore. A few weeks ago my sister recommended that Tyler and I check out this show and we’ve been loving it! It’s a very funny show with some quirky characters and offers a witty and satirical look at issues in today’s society. We’ve been watching old episodes on Hulu every night.
  3. Nightly Aquaphor. Winter in Colorado can be mild, but dry dry dry. So to keep my skin from drying to a husk overnight, I’ve been putting a small amount (like, maybe a pea size) of Aquaphor on my face over my usual nightly skin care. There’s usually enough leftover to rub into my hands as well. If you think I’m crazy, look up “skincare slugging” and you’ll see lots of articles talking about the benefit of using either Aquaphor or Vaseline on your face.
  4. The Daily Page Planner. You guys…I’ve been using the digital version of this planner for a few months now and it’s everything I wanted in a daily planner. It’s super simple…monthly pages and daily pages. The daily page format has space for your top 3 things for the day as well as the rest of your to-do list. It also has room for you to either plan or track your meals and track your water intake. There are a couple other notes fields for health/wellness notes as well as general thoughts and ideas. I don’t use every section every day, but it certainly has helped me keep on task! I’ll have to do a longer post in the next few weeks about how I use it on a weekly and daily basis. Sold on Etsy if you want to search for it.
  5. Giving advice. Seriously, being asked for my thoughts on something is one of my favorite things. I’ve always felt like I have a gift of asking the right questions and helping people see things from a different perspective. I’ve had several conversations recently where I feel like I was able to help someone determine the next steps they should take in order to drive toward resolution. And it really brings me so much joy to feel like I’ve helped in some way!

“The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”― Albert Camus

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“Assume good intent.” I’m sure most of you have heard that phrase before and some of you may have even adopted it as a rule in your life. I’m not going to tell you it’s a wrong way to live, but I do want to offer up a bit of critical analysis on how it might end up doing more harm than good in certain situations.

During my years in Corporate America, one constant that I’ve found is that wherever you have groups of diverse individuals, there will be conflict. Most workplaces strive to reduce interpersonal conflict, through codes of conduct, informal agreements, or even group workshops. One of the teams I worked on made an attempt to address their history of conflict by creating a set of team commitments – “assume positive intent” was included on the list. While this was written out explicitly, it had always been an implicit expectation at most companies I worked for.

I could never really put into words why it didn’t sit well with me. Because on the surface level, it seems like the right attitude to have. Approach interactions assuming everyone is on the same team and wants what it best for the group. But the way it was stated always made me feel like it was putting the responsibility on the receiving party to “just get over it” or “let it roll off your back.” Again, generally good skills to have in the workplace. But ultimately I felt like it was still missing the root cause of why people sometimes walked away with hurt feelings in certain situations.

And then I started hearing people use the phrase “impact over intent” and I realized that’s what I’ve always felt was missing in these corporate mantras of “assume good intent.” There are times when we need to hold people accountable for their impact rather than making the recipient accountable for their reaction. The commonly used analogy is Mary stepping on Alex’s foot and apologizing even though she didn’t mean to. She is recognizing that her unintentional actions caused harm.

This is certainly not a new concept. In fact, as I was thinking about writing this post I googled “harmful good intentions” and a ton of content came up. I was particularly struck by this blog post* that discusses the harm that these kinds of workplace agreements can have on diversity and inclusion efforts. The author does a great job of expanding on the “stepping on the foot” analogy, stating that groups with a history of discrimination have been stepped on day after day and policies to assume good intent put them in a position where they have to ignore the repeated harm because people didn’t mean to step on them. And that if they call out the harmful actions of people around them, they are subject to a code of conduct that requires them to assume their peers meant no harm. It gives them little to no recourse for correcting bad behavior.

I think back to how often workplace relationships could have been mended or even avoided breaking in the first place if acknowledging the impact of words and actions was placed above defending intentions. Would everyone be best friends? No, of course not. But I think a lot of hurt would have been lessened.

All this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t still assume good intent as a starting place. The continuation of the title quote from Camus is “On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.” I really do think for the most part people are not acting or speaking with malice, more often than not it’s carelessness or a misunderstanding of how they affect others . But I think there’s a lot more emphasis that could be placed on impact over intent. I always say that words mean something. And if we start to explicitly change how we talk about interactions I think it would start to change how those interactions happen as well.

*disclaimer: I cannot vouch for anything else on that website, I only read the one blog post and liked it. Upon initial glance it looks like there’s some interesting content to dig into.

“Agreeing to not celebrate Valentine’s Day is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.” – Internet Meme (someecards)

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and if you’re anything like me, you probably couldn’t care less! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take any excuse for a decadent meal, but other than that the day doesn’t hold much appeal for me these days. I think it might be some form of celebration overload for me. In addition to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, we have 10 family birthdays between November and February. Then to tack on to that the CFB National Championship, Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, and Valentine’s Day? Something’s gotta give and it ain’t gonna be football. So V-Day gets pushed to the wayside, no extra energy to purchase cards or flowers or gifts. Occasionally I’ll pick up some chocolate at the store, but more likely I’ll wait and get it on sale after the fact.

I’m not a Valentine’s Scrooge though! I’m not going to harp about it being a made-up holiday or commercializing love or anything. I think it’s great when people want to go all out for Valentine’s Day! I just plain don’t have the energy anymore. But that’s not to say I didn’t used to get more into the spirit! I started thinking back to memorable Valentine’s Days in my past and actually came up with quite a long list! Maybe some of these will make you laugh or trigger a sweet memory of your own. Either way, enjoy some very random memories!

  • In elementary school, decorating “mailboxes” for the other kids to drop their little paper cards into.
  • Picking out boxes of Valentine’s from Hallmark and then agonizing over who in your class should get which card. (Hopefully avoiding a Lisa Simpson/Ralph Wiggum “I Choo-Choo-Choose You” situation!)
  • In seventh grade, when my little wannabe skater boy boyfriend gave me a single rose and a book of Calvin and Hobbes comics. I don’t think I have the book anymore but I wish I did!
  • Getting flowers during the school day and not knowing what to do with them. Carrying them around all day? Stuff them in your locker?
  • High school girls making extravagant displays of affection for their group of friends to reclaim the day from just romantic love.
  • Those fundraisers in school where you could pay to have a carnation delivered to someone in their fourth period class and force them to figure out what to do with flowers for the rest of the school day (see above).
  • The sweetest guy friend in high school roping his mom into decorating the rooms of his close girl friends with chocolates, flowers, and stuffed animals. We were all single and he made us feel so special.
  • Going out with friends in college and dancing our butts off.
  • My crazy wonderful friends in New Orleans forming the Krefeld of Mariah and hosting the first Heartbreakers Mardi Gras Ball. We dressed in theme for Valentine’s Day and had a blast!
  • That same year when the guy I was dating gave me the tiniest box of crappy chocolates that he had picked up at a gas station on his way home from work.
  • When Leslie Knope introduced us all to the vastly superior holiday of Galentine’s Day!
  • The homemade cards my friend Kaela made for me with her favorite romantic movie quotes. (I still have them after many years!)
  • The time Tyler and I decided to see different movies for our date night because he wanted to see the Revenant and I wanted to see The Force Awakens for a second time. That’s true love!

No matter how you plan to celebrate or not celebrate this year, I hope you have a happy Valentine’s Day!

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.” – Elizabeth Edwards

~ kofriedery ~ 3 Comments

The definition of resilience, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is 1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress; 2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Now, the primary definition is how resilience is used within the context of physics. And the secondary definition is what we commonly mean when we label a person as resilient. But I think the two together can be applied to how we have coped with the past year! I mean, I feel particularly deformed by stress and am hoping I have the capability to recover my size and shape!

Resilience is often used as a determining factor in predicting someone’s success in life. After all, life is nothing if not constant change and if we are able to bounce back quickly, we should be able to continue on our merry way without much difficulty. However, I think people often omit one small word from their personal definition of resilience. “Adjust”

We usually expect someone who is resilient to end up back on the same path as before, regardless of the hardships thrown their way. Resiliency is often paired with perseverance in those circumstances. But what if there is a whole group of people who have managed to adjust their path and instead of recognizing their resiliency in doing so, we label them as quitters?

I was listening to a podcast recently about when it is a good idea to quit. I will try not to be too biased here because I’m actually a really big proponent of quitting…in the right circumstances. I’ll get to that in a minute. Back to the podcast, they were discussing the fallacy of sunk costs. So often we feel the need to stick with something simply because we’ve already invested so much time, energy, money, etc… But continuing down that path and investing more time, energy or money isn’t going to get us a bigger return on investment. Sometimes we do more harm by sticking with it than by quitting.

It isn’t an easy decision of when to quit something, but I think asking yourself if you are suffering by continuing, if it is still serving a long term goal you believe in, and also exploring if there are alternatives you haven’t thought of yet. The example they used in the podcast was a young woman who was playing viola but wasn’t enjoying it. Her mom was actually encouraging her to quit, but she kept sticking with it. Eventually it came out that she was continuing to play in her school orchestra, community youth orchestra, and taking private lessons on top of that because she thought it would help her get into a good college. She realized that there were so many alternative things she could do with her time, that she might actually enjoy, that would help her college applications. So she quit and never looked back.

I also really like a quote from Glennon Doyle who talks about quitting every day. “A journalist once asked me, “With the onslaught of bad news and endless needs – how do you not quit?” I said: “Oh, I do quit! Quitting is my favorite. Every day I quit. Every single day.” I wake up and I care the most amount. And then- at some point – I put it all away and melt into my people and my couch and food and nothingness. And I care not at all. I forget it all. Then I go to sleep and wake up and begin again. Begin and quit every day! Only way to survive. Embrace quitting as a spiritual practice.” She gives it all she can every day and then quits when she needs to. And is able to start it all over again the next day after she has proper rest.

All that to say, I think we need to revise how we think about resiliency. It isn’t about continuing down the same path no matter what obstacles arise. It is about learning how to recover or adapt when these things occur. Recovery could look like Glennon’s – quitting and restarting over and over. Adapting could look like quitting something that isn’t serving your goals and finding alternative pathways.

I think this has been a great year to practice resiliency, just remember that it could look different from what you’ve previously been taught. And don’t be afraid to quit.

“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.” — Craig Claiborne

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This week has been unseasonable warm, even for Colorado! But this weekend we are headed back to our regular February temps of 40s and 30s (I know, I know…still very mild compared to some wintery places!) So I thought it would be a good time to share some of my favorite winter recipes!

My husband was away for work earlier this month and being alone combined with post-holiday fatigue meant that I wasn’t really doing a great job of cooking for myself. I was relying heavily on prepared food and frozen meals I could just heat up quickly. But the past week I’ve gotten myself out of that rut and am excited to be cooking more!

  • Spaghetti Carbonara – This is one of Tyler’s favorites! I think it’s actually a perfect date night menu item (you know, since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner) because it feels fancy, but it’s actually pretty easy if you follow the instructions closely. My suggestion…if you haven’t made it before read through the whole recipe before you start. There are certain things that need to be done pretty quickly and you don’t want to be caught trying to get your egg mixture ready while your pasta is either overcooking or cooling because you already drained it! Not saying that from experience or anything… Also, traditional carbonara does not have any vegetables in it but sometimes I add peas. I am not a stickler for traditionalism!
  • Chicken Parmesan Gnocchi Bake – I love chicken parm! But I hate cooking it myself. In my world, it’s one of those perfect dishes to order at a restaurant! So when I saw this recipe in my inbox I knew I needed to give it a try. It has the flavor profile of chicken parm, but it’s a lot less work. It uses ground chicken, so there’s none of the breading and frying involved. Is it a lot like the original? Umm…no, it’s not really. But it’s really yummy in it’s own right! The last time I made it our store didn’t have burrata so I just added it a little extra mozzarella on top to match the cheesiness. I also stirred in a block of frozen chopped spinach that I just thawed in the microwave to boost the veggie factor.
  • Zuppa Toscana – Copycat of the Olive Garden recipe. This is one of my absolute favorite soups. The recipe linked is for an Instant Pot, but you can just google this recipe and find a million different versions. It’s hearty and creamy and comforting…everything you want in a winter soup. I recommend serving it with some yummy bread, either from the store or homemade.
  • No-Knead Bread – Speaking of homemade bread…last winter I was in the habit of making this about once a week. Need to get back into that routine because it’s so so easy and so so good. Again, this is one of those recipes that you can look up and find a lot of variations. They are all basically the same thing…flour, water, yeast, and salt. Mix it all together. Let it rise overnight. Form into a ball and bake in a Dutch oven!
  • Crispy Tofu Bowls with Peanut Sauce – I don’t have a complete recipe I follow for this so I just linked the one I use for crispy tofu and another for the peanut sauce only. Lately I’ve been using these Vegetable Yakisoba frozen noodles I found at Costco and just adding the tofu and peanut sauce on top, but I don’t recommend if you are trying to cut down on sodium. You can really use anything. A super easy version would be to buy a bag of frozen stir fry veggies, cook up some rice, and then add the tofu and sauce. It’s a nice change of pace from my otherwise steady diet of heavy Italian food.
  • Chicken Pot Pie Soup – I love a good chicken pot pie, but just like chicken parm, I rarely want to go through the full hassle to make it. Enter the chicken pot pie soup! This one is definitely more like it’s namesake. I made this not too long ago when my parents came over for dinner. I served it with Pillsbury crescent rolls and it was perfect! The recipe makes a lot. It says 6 servings but I think we had it with the four of us the first night, then Tyler and I had leftovers the next night, and I think there was still a little leftover.
  • Sweet Potato, Kale, and Black Bean Enchiladas – I love a good enchilada recipe, especially when I can pack it full of good veggies. This is a really delicious recipe with an unexpected combo of flavors! One thing to note is that this recipe includes mashed sweet potatoes in the ingredient list…which means the cooking and mashing of the sweet potatoes is not included in the steps or time estimate. So either build that into your timetable for cooking or prep the mashed sweet potatoes ahead of time.

Writing all these out and looking up the links got me very excited about cooking these over the next several weeks! I hope there’s something listed above that looks good to you and inspires you to get into the kitchen.

“Accountability breeds responsibility” – Stephen R. Covey

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I’m writing this on the first day of February and I spent my journaling time this morning reflecting on January and how I did with the goals I set for myself. I do think accountability is a big part of working toward your goals, whether it’s a public announcement on a blog or just letting one close friend know what you are working towards. And since I let you all know what my January goals were I’m going to give an update here.

Be Present – my goal for January was to journal every day. I think I missed 2 or 3 days during the month, but overall I was pretty consistent for the month. I used some journal prompts to do some deeper reflection on 2020 and some dreaming about 2021. I plan to continue the daily practice of journaling for February. I am also going to be more intentional about time-blocking my days and weeks so I can be more present and focused in my tasks.

Focus on the Essential – I am very proud of myself for doing no unnecessary spending this month on material things! We did splurge on takeout a couple times, but I stuck to my goal of no new skincare products, hair care products, clothing or home decor items! It actually wasn’t too difficult until I realized that my birthday month always comes with a few “free gift with purchase” rewards at some of my favorite stores. But I then I reminded myself that even though it’s free…it isn’t something I need and therefore it was okay to let it go! I’ll continue this into February, only purchasing replacements for empties and instead making sure to use what I already have. I know I have a couple necessary clothing purchases to make, but I’m going to do my research and be really intentional about what I buy, focusing on quality that will last a long time and also looking into the sustainability practices of the companies I buy from.

Stay Connected – Well I wasn’t successful in this goal completely. I wanted to have two video calls with friends and my second one ended up getting rescheduled to later this week. I did however get to FaceTime with my family a couple times and drove up to the mountains to spend my birthday with my parents instead of being alone, even though it would have been easier to just stay home. Overall I think I made a good effort of staying connected to people instead of isolating myself! For February I want to continue doing one or two video calls, but also making an effort to reach out to a friend via text at the beginning of each week.

Activate Inner SJW – In January I made an effort to engage more on social media and share items that resonated with me. While I did share more than I had before, it didn’t feel like enough. I also signed up for Anti-Racism Daily, which is a daily email newsletter focusing on a different topic every day. I’ve really appreciated the information shared there and have also signed up for their 28 Days of Black History virtual exhibition emails for this month that will share a different work celebrating Black history in the U.S. I also plan to engage with Rachel Cargle’s daily #DiscoverOurGlory learning series where she will be providing daily prompts for people to research and learn about.

I had a couple other goals for the month that I also want to report on:

  • Walk 1 mile every day: I got outside and walked every day! A handful of days I didn’t do a full mile, but still proud of my discipline here. A couple of those short days were due to weather or local roadwork in my neighborhood, so anticipating a cold and snowy February my updated goal will be at least 30 minutes of activity every day, either inside or outside.
  • Write 500 words every week day: I did really well on this one until last week. As I said above – my plan for February is to adjust my time-blocking strategy to hopefully promote more focus and productivity. So…writing for long periods of time on a few days rather than short sessions every day. Overall I’d like to add 5,000 words to my novel manuscript by the end of the month, as well as explore some other ideas for my writing.
  • Read 5 books every month: done and done for January. And I have my February list already picked out! I read 25 books in 2020 and I think I’ll easily hit 60+ this year.