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Friday Five Things 2/4

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“The human mind always makes progress, but it is progress in spirals.” – Madame de Staël

Hello again! I ended up taking more time off from writing than I had planned, but it was restful and relaxing so no regrets! December was full of festivities with family and friends and then we basically hibernated through a very chilly and snowy January here in Colorado. February is shaping up to be more of the same, but I can’t stay holed up forever, right? So here’s to the new year, just a month late!

  1. Rewatching Star Wars. We have a family trip to Disney World coming up in a few months and it will be my first time getting to go see the new Star Wars land that opened a couple years ago. As a big lifelong fan, I am BEYOND excited to be immersed in a galaxy far, far away. To prep for it all, Tyler suggested that we rewatch all the Star Wars movies. Even including the prequels. We started this week and it’s always fun to jump back into something so nostalgic.
  2. (Partial) Kitchen Renovation. Ever since we moved into our house six years ago, we’ve been strategizing how to redo the kitchen. To do everything on our list would be expensive and time consuming. But this year we decided to pick one area to work on and I’m kind of kicking myself for not doing it sooner! We are removing part of a wall that shuts the kitchen off from the rest of the house and reconfiguring the central island. We are putting in new shelves, a decorative beam, and a new butcher block countertop for the island! It’s a budget project and Tyler is doing all the labor, but it’s really going to make a big impact to our main living space. It’s a good reminder that when a big project seems too daunting to take on, sometimes you can find a small piece of it that is more doable and will still move the ball in the right direction.
  3. Salmon and Corn Chowder. I love a cream-based soup in the winter. I usually include one in my meal plan for each week and with two of us, most recipes make enough for two dinners. Last week I made a Salmon and Corn Chowder for the first time and it was SO GOOD. I didn’t really use a recipe (what’s new…) but I did look at these for inspiration (here and here). For mine, I cooked some diced bacon in my Dutch oven, removed the bacon and left about 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease. Then I sautéed some diced onions and garlic in the grease for a couple minutes, added a few tablespoons of flour and stirred that for a few more minutes. Then I poured in a few cups of chicken broth and stirred to combine the flour. Stirred in some frozen corn and a can of diced new potatoes at this point (I used a canned so I wouldn’t have to worry about them taking forever to cook). Then added my salmon that was diced into small chunks and stirred that in with a good amount of dill. I added enough half and half so that everything was submerged in liquid and left it to simmer for a bit until the salmon was cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste and finish it off by adding the bacon back in and a few squeezes of lemon juice to help cut through the creaminess. YUM.
  4. Wordle. I hopped on this bandwagon a little later than some, but I’ve been enjoying starting my day with the little word game. It’s so simple but still challenging enough to get your brain going. I also find it fascinating how people have independently developed their own strategies for solving. And it is fun to see a small thing that someone made for fun gain so much popularity and love in such a short time.
  5. Theme for 2022. For the past few years I’ve noticed themes come up when I’ve made plans and goals. For 2020 the theme was being comfortable in the gray area between black and white, the uncertainty. 2021 was to be intentional about my decisions and actions. And I’ve been torn between two for 2022…so I might just keep both! This year I would like to be more courageous in saying yes and putting myself out there. But I also want to focus on what is essential in my life. I think these two ideas dovetail nicely into a practice of me identifying what is essentials and then using that as a benchmark for saying yes to more things. For example, helping people is a value I hold very highly and feel I haven’t put much effort towards in recent years. But so far this year I’ve had a handful of situations arise where I had to step out of my comfort zone to help people and I’ve said yes with no regrets.

Authenticity vs. Consistency

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“Be yourself – not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” – Henry David Thoreau

Several months ago I was listening to a podcast that a friend had sent to me. The episode was a conversation between two writers, just chatting about their writing processes and best practices. This was right after I had quit my job and was trying to figure out what it really meant that I wanted to “be a writer.” I had a lot of big grand plans at that point and I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing and following the right steps to get there. (Hello Enneagram 1!)

One of the topics that they discussed was the obsession with authenticity in today’s society. The commentary of these two writers was that authenticity is at odds with consistency. And when readers (or Instagram followers, or whatever) say that they want authenticity, they don’t really mean 100%. Because 100% authenticity would look like inconsistency. And today’s readers, especially on blogs and social media, want consistency from their writers or content creators.

For some reason this idea, more than anything else I heard on that podcast, took roots and has stuck in my brain for the past 6 months. I’m constantly thinking about it. Are authenticity and consistency mutually exclusive? Can you be 100% authentic and 100% consistent at the same time? Or are we less authentic because we are consistent in our writing and delivery?

This internal conversation popped up again today because, while I usually reserve my mornings for writing, I was completely disinterested in writing today and had zero ideas for this blog post. Instead I dawdled and read and then decided today would be a good idea to strip the mildewy caulk from my tub. Now…I definitely needed to get rid of that caulk and I’ve been talking about it for months. But I can’t lie to myself and pretend that doing it today had nothing to do with procrastination of writing.

So I thought to myself, “there I go not being consistent, because I’m being authentic to my desire to do anything but write.” And maybe that was true for this morning. I ignored the voice telling me I ought to be disciplined above all else and decided to go a different direction today. But if I had forced myself to sit down and write, would that have made me more “authentic.”

I submit that it would not. After some thinking, done while I was scraping away in the tub, I think I reject the idea that being consistent makes me less authentic. Or vice versa. I do think that people can use the idea of authenticity as an excuse to shirk discipline. In the same way they can use it to avoid decency and consideration towards other people. But just because I tell myself to sit down and work at a certain time every day, no matter how I feel, doesn’t mean I’m not being true to myself.

Because the true me LOVES structure, right? I think I’ve mentioned my love affair with structure and boundaries before. I don’t think it’s any less authentically me to adhere to a schedule despite my mood, because deep down what I want is to write. What I want is to be productive and successful. If I spent every morning I didn’t want to write doing neglected chores around the house…well, my house would look a lot better than it does right now, but I think in the end I would feel like I wasn’t being the true authentic me.

Thoughts on the COVID 1 year anniversary

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

“Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.” – G.K. Chesterton

Somehow it feels crazy that it’s been a whole year and also hard to believe it’s only been a year since things shut down due to COVID. I remember being in the office with my coworkers last February when this all started making the news. I remember I was in the middle of getting a training set up for some managers in Virginia when we got the news that all non-essential travel should be halted. So then I spent a day scrambling to figure out if we could do the training remotely. Then we started hearing that big groups of people shouldn’t gather together. Given that I was working for a healthcare company who’s patients were in the high risk category for COVID, it seemed prudent to be as cautious as possible with our teammates in our facilities. So we opted to cancel the training all together.

At this point we were all still in our offices together, but on high alert to wash our hands frequently. There were Lysol wipes stationed near the elevators and hand sanitizer at every corner. We would sing together in the bathrooms while washing our hands to make sure we hit the recommended 20 seconds, if not more. There were two kinds of people during that time. Those that still thought this was no big deal and that it would blow over quickly and those of us (yes I’m included in this second group) who feed off of worst case scenario discussions. I stopped going into the office a few days before it shut down officially because my commute was on crowded public transportation and I started to feel exposed and unsafe. I told my manager I would make an effort to drive to the office 1 or 2 days a week, trying to balance being present with the high cost of parking downtown. I was very lucky to work for a team that allowed for this kind of flexibility.

A few days after I made that decision, the city shut down for all non-essential workers. Our company complied and had anyone who could work remotely do so effective immediately. The announcement was on a Friday and I was already at home. I decided not to go back to the office to pick up anything because I basically had everything I needed to work with me already. I was headed up to the mountains to spend a few days with my family, including my sister, her husband and kids who had flown in. There had been some hemming and hawing about whether they should get on the plane but decided the risk didn’t seem high enough to opt for driving.

We all gathered up at the mountain house that Friday night, planning to ski the following morning. Together we saw the alerts that they would be closing the lodges for dining and limiting sharing lift seats. The next morning we woke up to the news that the mountain was shutting down all skiing. The mountain towns had been the first hit with the virus due to spring breakers unknowingly bringing it with them during travel. So these little tourist towns were on high alert. For the next few days we all tried to relax, but ended up glued to our phones and the television as we watched the news get worse and worse. Eventually we all cut our trip short, my sister and her family opting to rent a minivan and drive home rather than taking their return flight.

Prior to going up to the mountains, I had made a big trip to Costco to stock up on food and other essentials. Some people teased me a bit, but it was like a Pavlovian trauma response having lived through a few hurricane seasons. My monkey brain took over and said “something is happening, make sure you have food!” So we ended up working through all that over the next couple weeks without needing any big grocery store runs. By the time we started going back out to stores, everything had changed. And that’s what we have been living with for the past year.

I’ve seen people talking about this being a time for mourning and remembrance of the lives lost this past year. I’ve seen others talking about this being a time to commemorate and celebrate that we’ve made it this far. And I resonate with both viewpoints. We’ve come this far and lost a lot along the way, some much more than others. So make sure you take time to acknowledge those feelings, both of sadness and gratitude. And always hope for what is yet to be.

“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

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

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.

“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.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson

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You ever have a day that just throws you completely off track? That was my Monday this week! After feeling very uninspired last week I decided that I would try out a new time-blocking schedule this week. Instead of breaking up my days hour by hour, I planned a scheduled to break up my week day by day. So rather than writing every day during a set time, I would pick two days to focus solely on writing and the other days on other tasks. Monday was going to be errands and some small tasks around the house, including grocery shopping and prepping some healthy meals for the week. I was very excited to try out this new schedule for a couple weeks and see if it bubbled up some new focus and creativity.

Instead what happened was that my husband came inside as I was getting ready to head out, telling me that we needed to go to the ER. He had cut his hand while woodworking and needed stitches. Because he was using one hand to keep pressure on the hand that was cut, I had to run around and grab two masks, my purse, his wallet, my car keys, and jackets for both of us. Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to rush to the ER but the look on his face combined with the fact that I hadn’t seen the wound under his hand put me into a bit of a panic.

As it turns out the cut wasn’t very deep, just very long and jagged. So he had to get stitches in a couple places, but overall it’s superficial and should heal really easily. But all of that doesn’t make an ER visit go any faster. I think we were at the hospital for 3 1/2 hours, most of which was just waiting. Waiting to be brought back from the lobby, waiting for the doctor to come in, waiting for the numbing medication to kick in, waiting for the person to come do stitches, etc…

At one point, Tyler asked me if I had brought my computer. I looked at him incredulously and said “of course not!” I was barely able to make a coherent thought when we left the house. So any work that I could have gotten done while waiting, didn’t. And the errands and chores I had hoped to get done, didn’t. And those healthy meals? Well, we left the house a little after 11am and didn’t leave until 3pm so both of us were starving. And that led to a trip to Chick-fil-A which, while delicious, was not healthy.

I just let yesterday be a wash. I didn’t try to salvage my trip to the grocery store or even try to make dinner…after eating fast food for lunch we turned around and ordered pizza for dinner. I also didn’t try to squeeze any bit of writing out of myself after experiencing that minor trauma. My mental and emotional energy were spent. So instead of trying to force productivity, we just sat and watched Avengers: Endgame, ate unhealthy food, and went to be early.

So why am I writing about this story? It was a reminder that while I love structure and schedules, I can’t control everything. And I can’t let expectations and plans rule my life. I just decided to wake up on Tuesday and to get done what I could, also realizing that I am going to have a one-handed husband for awhile who will need some help changing his bandage, making breakfast and lunches, and opening jars.

Life happens and we just have to roll with the punches as best we can!

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

~ kofriedery ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been wanting to write a post about the idea of toxic positivity for awhile. I know I’ve referenced it and called it out on previous posts but right now I feel like it merits a more in depth look.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept – think “good vibes only” or “just look on the bright side” type platitudes. To me, it feels especially sinister because of how pretty it all looks. I mean, we all want to be happy positive people, right? What could possibly be toxic about that? The problem comes when this kind of “positive outlook” is promoted in a way that diminishes the real and valid negative feelings that we all experience. I especially hate the phrase “cheer up, it could be worse!” Like me feeling sad about my present circumstances isn’t valid because of some imaginary worse case scenario that didn’t play out.

Toxic positivity shows up in a lot of places. It can be used by Instagram influencers who tell you their success is primarily due to “positive thinking.” It could come from a well-meaning partner who doesn’t feel things as deeply as you do and just wants to help you to feel better. I’ve been told to “just be zen about it” after experiencing verbal abuse in the workplace. While these examples come from a place of good intentions, they can still be detrimental to our mental health and personal growth.

Toxic positivity can also come from those with less-that-good intentions. Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day and social media was plastered with quotes and pictures praising the man for his relentless pursuit of peace. But this year I saw a lot more people posting some of his less with the primary purpose of calling out people who cherry-pick and co-opt the words of MLK Jr to support their message of peace over justice.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” People twist these words to promote toxic positivity. They don’t stop to consider what is meant by “light” and “love.”

Light and Love can show up as righteous anger, which can, and should, be used to call out the darkness of hatred or apathy.

Light and Love can show up when we hold our friends, neighbors, and public figures accountable for their actions.

Light and Love can show up as protests to call attention to injustice.

Light and Love can show up as an investigation into wrongdoings.

Light and Love is what will reveal what is hiding in the darkness. Light and Love drive away the desire to conceal the sickness, the rot, the decay that isn’t immediately visible. And once the light reveals what is in the darkness, it can be acknowledged and addressed to allow for healing. But healing cannot come if we just skim the surface and focus on “good vibes only.”