Monday, Monday, here again so soon! It’s still very much winter weather in NYC but it is finally starting to feel like we’ve experienced the bulk of the cold and snow. We’ll see… Here’s a little look back at some of how I spent my weekend.
These two came to town and stayed with me. So nice and so adorable!
I found myself in midtown on Sunday afternoon. Things were looking pretty grey!
Snapping selfies before eating Shake Shack
Subway sounds
Studio street art
(via saipua)
Some while ago I started this thing wherein when I see someone on the street, or on the train, with a bouquet of flowers, I accept them (in my mind) as meant for me. Once when leaving an event I snagged an extravagant spray made up of gorgeous blossoming peonies, among other buds, and on my way home handed out individual flowers to strangers I caught admiring their beauty. One particularly enthusiastic man, heading out to dinner with friends, proudly adorned his lapel. I linger in the flower section in Whole Foods’ entrance debating how much, if anything, I’m willing to spend on various assortment combinations before I’ve even gotten to my overpriced grocery list. When I splurge and make a purchase, I feel particularly delighted to be the woman on the street with fresh flowers peaking out from my shopping bag. I go months without having any in my home and then
spontaneously pick up a bunch vowing I will always treat myself so well.
This week’s photo round up comes courtesy of our good friend Dave in Denver, Colorado. Thank you, Dave, and a happy week to you all!
F: What are you most looking forward to during the Spring?
L: I’m looking forward to not having the weather almost completely dictate all of my outfit choices.
F: Do you have any vacations planned this year?
L: I don’t have anything set but I certainly have some ideas!
F: What is your favorite song lately?
L: I’ve been binging on the song by James Vincent McMorrow that I posted the other day. I’ve also been reacquainting myself with this bad boy, after being reminded of it in the pilot episode of Transparent that you sent me.
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F: What is your favorite accessory lately?
L: Pretty much the only accessories in my life these days:
F: Wanna share a little bit about LaurenFeighan.com?
L: Well, I hadn’t really planned on it but since you’re asking… Our brother David’s unique Christmas gift to each of us this past year was the purchase of our own domain names. I finally started playing around with my site over the weekend, creating a standard Tumblr page at this point. You can check it out here, if that’s of interest to you.
(image via here)
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“To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology, or in states of mind that allow us to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings.
We may seek, too, a relaxing of inhibitions that makes it easier to bond with each other, or transports that make our consciousness of time and mortality easier to bear. We seek a holiday from our inner and outer restrictions, a more intense sense of the here and now, the beauty and value of the world we live in.”
― Oliver Sacks
Welcome to a new week & cheers to our U.S. Presidents present and past. Below (and here in video) is a bit of what our weekends looked like:
Lauren – New York, NY
Leaving work after a long & snowy week
Color hunting around home
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Farrell – Los Angeles, CA
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The New York MTA has an ongoing “Poetry in Motion” series on the subway that I quite enjoy. As to be expected, I like some of the poems better than others and feel genuinely excited when I’m on a train that has one of my favorites posted. Apparently the program rolls out two new poems each quarter. This one above feels particularly special because of its accompanied illustration of a flying white horse, which has special meaning in our family. Below are my other two favorites.
May today serve as an opportunity to expand my heart through a genuine appreciation for what is.
“…appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others. This ability to freshly appreciate everyday experience [enables you] to derive a sense of pleasure, inspiration, and strength from even mundane happenings.” (via here)
(image via here)
As has been previously mentioned, I finished the 21-day Clean Cleanse last week. I have to admit that it feels like a pretty epic accomplishment (and is actually 24 days, if you include the initial 3-day pre-cleanse). I’ve never been one to set, or follow, rules for what and when I eat, so this part alone was quite a new experience for me. Because Farrell works at Clean and I wanted to see what her job and company are all about, I did the cleanse from the Clean kit which includes shake packs for breakfast and dinner, probiotics and supplements. However, I think it is worth mentioning that anyone can do the cleanse on their own by following the same program which is laid out in the book Clean by Dr. Alejandro Junger. In either case, the idea is to remove common toxins, irritants and allergens (i.e. soy, diary, gluten, refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol, etc.) for a full body detox as well as to better understand the effects these things have on your body when you reintroduce them post-cleanse.
Physically, I felt great almost immediately (minus a full afternoon/evening caffeine withdrawal headache on day 2 of the pre-cleanse). I am a daily coffee drinker and knew this would be one of the hardest parts of the cleanse for me, so I started reducing the amount of coffee I was drinking about a week before I even started the pre-cleanse. I think this was really helpful for me. I never really stopped missing coffee during the cleanse but I didn’t feel a real physical need for it either. The same was true of alcohol. A huge part of my social life includes food and drinks and feeling like I couldn’t socialize in the ways I’m used to was hard for me. I would often walk past bustling bars and restaurants around the city and feel a sort of sad longing for the days when I used to laugh with friends in those settings. Ridiculous but true.
A few other thoughts/reflections on my experience:
– It is nearly impossible to buy food that is made only of ingredients with which I am familiar. Preparing your own food seems to be the way to go if you’re trying to eat clean.
– Doing the cleanse with someone made all the difference. As a friend of mine told me somewhat disgustedly, “You know what they say, a couple that cleanses together…” Jokes aside, this component was really huge for me. The cleanse kind of takes over your life and being able to share that experience on a day to day basis made the whole thing much easier for me than I think it would have otherwise been. Along those same lines, I also submersed myself in all things Clean. Obviously Farrell was a huge source of support. I also listened to all five Clean Program conference calls for people cleansing at the start of 2014. Basically I found that, particularly for the first and second weeks, I needed to focus almost entirely on the experience in order to really do it and all of these supports and sources of information were way more important to me than I would have ever imagined.
– Preparation is key. I have a tendency to wait too long before eating, even if I’m hungry, so when I finally do eat I make less healthy choices. Having food at home that was Clean approved & going out to get lunch before I was starving made a big difference in my days.
– Routine is hard for me & I don’t do well with boredom and monotony. I had a pretty horrific day 14 through 16. The novelty of the program had significantly worn off, my social interactions were at a real low and the January cold was really getting to me. Though I already knew this about myself, I really saw how important it is for me to funnel my energy into exercise and creativity – and how often I forgo those things with other distractions. It wasn’t a fun couple of days.
– I liked doing the cleanse from the kit more than I anticipated I would. Having a physical and material structure was really helpful and kept me on track.
– I want to stay clean! I have to say I felt consistently rested throughout the cleanse. My skin looked and felt good. I never went to bed or woke up feeling heavy, lethargic or groggy. It was great. That being said, I have reintroduced all things back into my diet. However, I’m still trying to make the best decisions I can and am finding that, for me, that means (1) considering how something will make me feel before I consume it and (2) acting in accordance with that. These aren’t easy things and I’m by no means saying I’m doing this successfully all of the time. It is simply my intention and one that I’m going to keep working at.
sisterdisco.com 