Recent Reading, recent Knitting

Spring is on it's way...

Tomato Plants slowly emerging

As if having a job and doing a PhD wouldn’t give me enough to read, I have been reading like crazy during those last weeks. Maybe, because it has helped my dealing with my sugar addiction to read again and again why it is so bad for you and what you can do to eat healthily instead.

One book that was a good read, but definitely no life-changer for me like “Thrive” was “Pretty happy” by Kate Hudson. I have noticed her wellness / health-approaches through all the ads for her company “Fabletics” that was shown to me on facebook due to my interest in Yoga and wellness I guess. “Pretty happy” focuses around self-love and how to attain it. Sports and nutrition are – not surprisingly – two key elements of feeling great for her. Her nutrition is based on some ideas from Ayurveda, the idea of keeping the level of acids in your food low. I do not completely agree with her concept of nutrition, but she basically says what I hold true: eat mostly vegetables, reduce intake of meat and dairy and keep your fingers from processed food as often as possible. Most interesting for me and what I will definitely take out of the book for myself is her inspiration to put your thoughts / progress / ideas into a “drawing board” or in my case, a journal. I used to write into my journal a lot during my teenage years and it has always helped me a lot. Thanks to Kate Hudson I want to make journal writing more of a priority again. I have started to write into my journal again and there are so many topics I still want to cover. Like everything about our LeanIn Circle and the massive development we have seen there... So many thoughts! Journaling can really help you to cluster your thoughts and see connections where you haven't seen any before.

Catching Ball in Grafenberger Wald

The other book I recently bought is “The Stash Plan” by Laura Prepon and Elisabeth Troy. I have always liked Laura Prepon and admired her work. We have a quite similar body type I think which is why her story of finding a good way to eat to help her to feel awesome spoke to me. Her coach, Elisabeth Troy, a wellness coach, something quite unheard of in Germany I think, impressed me with her concept of integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine into our Western world and applying it to all kinds of clients. Some people might believe the ideas of Meridians as energy pathways inside the body to be humbug, but as I have been relieved from my weekly migraine attacks by acupuncture, I cannot not believe in the concepts of TCM. Troy believes the liver and goal bladder to be crucial to our health and it makes sense if you read about the liver’s task in your body. To make a long story short, I recommend you read the book or check out some of the interviews with Laura and Elisabeth on Youtube to get an idea of what the book is about. I have been making my own beef broth only yesterday and I can definitely say that at least one member of the household absolutely loves it, which is Lisek as he gets to eat leftover bones.

We had another LeanIn Circle meeting the other day and this time I had prepared a kind of workshop on attentive listening, which had been such an eye-opener during my mediation course that I just wanted to share this “gift” of listening. People might think it is easy, but if you are a very outgoing person, always used to share a lot about your life, it can be tricky. The “rules” for it are easy enough, (give the other person your full attention; do not interrupt, ask open questions to get a better understanding of their problem, and that’s it. Do not talk about yourself, just listen.) but it can be a challenge, I can tell. It gets easier after a while and last session’s conclusion was: you always have to “tune in” consciously. Do not get used to it and do not do it all the time, or you and your point of you will get lost, but use it as a tool to make others feel better and to relax a situation. I loved how the others reacted to our little exercise and how much all of them also took out of the workshop.

Next to reading, writing, workshops I have also done some knitting. One of my favourite presents of my 30s birthday was definitely the burgundy red supersoft Merino yarn that some friends gave me for it. Up till now I did not dare to make anything from it, as it no project seemed special enough. And you know what I am doing with it? A plain beanie. Dah! I could have started much earlier. 

Don't you just love that colour?

But to have still some of the great looking yarn for more special projects I ordered some online, so that I do not have the feeling to “waste” all of this special yarn. I am crazy, I know.

To follow the pattern more easily, I adjust Washi tape to the part I am currently knitting.

I also started some stockings in a Norwegian pattern, but I just found out that I do not have enough of the same yarn to finish them. I love the pattern though, so I started the pattern anew and took more of the beautiful red merino wool. The pattern takes me some time to knit it, which is why I have only started, but I am looking forward to owning two beautiful warm knee high socks I made myself. 

The first attempt, I didn't figure  I had not enough of the orange yarn to finish at first. Plus, the pattern is not very well distinguishable,,,

So, I went back to the beuatiful red yarn. The pattern comes out much better.