Category: Health & Lifestyle

Health & Lifestyle · Mental Health · Social Media

Winter for a Wallflower

Beth DeFries1 Comment

I have been casually thinking about further minimizing my use of social media and quitting Facebook for over a year now, but I did not seriously consider deleting my account until November of 2022 while visiting a friend in California. We sat in a dive bar in Venice at some late hour of the eastern pacific night, drinking pints of beer and spilling about life.

“I’m thinking of getting rid of Facebook,” I said too loudly with fortified, liquid confidence.

“Yeah; you and everybody’s parents are the only people who still use it,” my friend joked bluntly.

While factually untrue, it did make me recognize how many of my friends no longer use Facebook as a social platform. I felt like a searchlight had locked on me, shining a harsh blue exposure up from beneath my chin, preparing me for some on-the-fly campfire story that I wasn’t even sort of ready to tell. Sitting in that high-top, busted-pleather, half-booth in Venice, my feet dangling above the sticky floor, the seed of an idea germinated and I knew with certainty that someday I would extricate myself from social media’s entangled roots. Two days ago, I finally felt ready to approach that “Delete Account” button, knowing that it was the right move for me.

I prepared for my departure as I saw fit. I wrote down birthdays. I notified my Facebook community of when I would leave the platform, giving family and friends the opportunity to reach out if they wanted to keep in touch. Most importantly, to me, I saved pictures from my account and Mike’s, revisiting old memories that I’d not looked at in years. With my memories harvested and stored away, I felt ready to continue on my journey and leave Facebook behind.

I pulled up the login screen four times on Wednesday, without thinking about it, and it became clear to me that this might be a tough withdrawal process. Social media caused a lot of easy access to distraction for me and I finally felt it was time to fight off that distraction to pursue creative hobbies and make time for healthier physical and mental practices.

Wednesday morning before work, instead of scrolling through my Newsfeed while mindlessly chomping on my cereal, I sat in a chair by the window and watched the sun rise out of pink clouds over the Atlantic, enjoying each crunchy bite. This morning, I felt inspired to do some writing on this post which I have been struggling with for the past couple of days. Already, I am feeling more grounded in my own life. I am happening upon inspiration during times when I would not have noticed it or pursued it due to scrolling on social media, and I am feeling the wispy roots of my creativity beginning to take hold again.

For years, I nourished a carefully edited portrayal of life for an audience of friends, family, and people I’d avoid on the street. I had grown like a flowering vine, clinging to my wall, not easily torn away. But now it is winter with spring in sight, and I am ready for sprays of wildflowers to bloom again.

Cozy Posts · Health & Lifestyle · Minimalism

Too much honey…

Beth DeFries2 Comments

Hello again friends; I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been struggling to get back to writing, unable to give confidence to any particular idea. Right now, I am just typing and sipping a glass of Malbec, hoping that each word (and my grape juice) will help tug me out of Rabbit’s doorway and into a post worth your time and my own. Thanks in advance for bearing with me and I’m sorry if this is absolute stuff and fluff.

I admit that sometimes, even after reducing the amount of items that we have in our home, the laundry basket still overflows, the entryway table hides beneath the camouflage of grocery receipts and sheathed credit card offers, the throw blankets rest in crumpled piles on the new, blue sofa, and there are shoes seemingly everywhere.

No matter how many steps I climb to get closer to my own ideal of cozy minimalism, I think I’ll always gravitate towards a messy reality. I could have three things and at least two of those would somehow find their way to the wrong spot the next day. I need to learn to accept that.

My mind is a curious, cluttered place that doesn’t match my curated home. I struggle to cope with the mental mess a lot of the time, sometimes leaving the door open to too many thoughts and baseless insecurities, allowing them to sneak in amidst the darkness like unwelcome Heffalumps encouraging self-doubt to take the reins and to make the sensible parts of the oversized, aspic-walnut in my head go numb.

Alas, I run on.

When I am down, I am not able to express what I am thinking in spoken words, and words are supposed to be my rescue ledge. Their abandonment is greatly unappreciated. Sometimes my brain thinks faster than my words which leads to stumbling over them and then a deeper lack of confidence. This is why I need to get back to writing. I know that I am capable of intelligence, confidence, and true expression on the page. I can use my own words as a map to navigate my own creative woods.

When there is clutter in my physical environment, it is difficult to decompress, relax, and feel cozy. I crave cozy constantly and when it’s not there, it’s easy to get lost in my composited mind. Cozy wraps me up in welcoming, warm snuggles and tells me, “You can fucking do this.”

I find cozy in empowering conversations with my husband, family, and friends, in warm cups of tea with too much honey, in dry red wine, and in stretched out sweatpants and squashy coral pillows. I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have people in my life who love me and to be able to curate a home that fosters my happiness to the best of my ability. In theory, I should never want for more and yet sometimes, I am an absolute Eeyore. In the words of somebody, somewhere who Mike and I quote all the time (most likely the writers on Psych), “That don’t make no sense.”

So here is my attempt at diving back into my pond of words, hoping for a little black rain cloud to float on by with a heavy rain that will irrigate my potential and grow my creativity. I am sorry if it doesn’t last, but I would like to give it a shot. With my strong support system, I know I can never be stuck for long. “He-ho, e-o, there she goes!“

Grief & Loss · Health & Lifestyle

Turn, turn, turn

Beth DeFries3 Comments

Where to begin. We lost my Nana at 11:58PM on St. Patrick’s Day; my dad’s birthday, her dad’s birthday, and one of our family’s most appreciated holidays. We toasted with Chivas and an Irish blessing and recounted old stories and even some long suppressed confessions that had us reeling and telling each other, “Shh, people are sleeping,” through hysteric laughter (without any enforced change in volume at all).

Collected from her final party once it started to die down, its attendees gone home for a night’s rest to prepare for another day of uncertainty, she left us wrapped in the warmth of her family’s love, snapshots of her incredible life flashing before her – the memories jogged by recounted stories as best could be remembered and shared by her children, children in law, and granddaughters. She held hands with her youngest son and my younger cousin on all of our behalf before going off to hitch a ride home with her sister, her neighbor, and her father. That’s how I choose to think of it, anyway, the idea presented by my aunt and cousin… and I thought I didn’t even believe in that sort of thing anymore. I’ll make the exception for this.

We spent her final day surrounding her in her small, yellow room in suburban Pennsylvania, seated on assorted chairs and stools borrowed from the facility’s communal areas. We were watched over with care by images frozen in the blissful timeline of our own happy family memories captured and command stripped or taped to the walls. We rotated frequently and each held her hands. Some flew from the west, racing against an unknown deadline with all their might, and some said goodbye through others and through phone calls and videos. We all made it in time in that she knew we were each thinking of her. Of that I am absolutely certain.

We told her we loved her so much and that we knew she loved us too even though she couldn’t say it with words. So powerful was our matriarch, even in her final days that she drew us to her like moths to her sheltered flame. Wordless, her energy’s container frail, our need to be near her was so strong. We let her know she made us who we were- members of a family, a close knit tribe unlike any I’ve ever heard of – despite living on split coasts and across different states.

The grief comes in salty Atlantic waves with foamy Pacific crests and words get crumpled up like moist Kleenex sometimes. Tomorrow will be easier and each tomorrow after.

There is a season.

Turn, turn, turn.

Cozy Posts · Nostalgic Posts

The Gathering Place

Beth DeFries2 Comments

I sit on the porch of our family shore house listening to the morning symphony of foam flip flops shuffling along slate sidewalks to the boardwalk, the gentle rumbling of car engines in slow pursuit of good parking spaces, and the sweet-tuned gossip amongst the birds singing the breaking news of summer from the trees lining the street.

The breeze is cool and a cocktail of salty humidity clings to the furniture as the sun spotlights the modernized facelifts of our street’s once Victorian-style dollhouse homes.

I can usually see the ocean from this spot on the cozy wicker sofa, but the hedges around the porch have grown a little too accustomed to a casually untidy appearance which we can all pretty much relate to from living through a worldwide pandemic. I could use a trim as well but that can wait a while longer. These are those lazy, hazy, crazy days of… well you know, after all.

(The birds’ news reel plays on a loop).

I was too lazy to prepare the coffee this morning and didn’t want to wake anyone sleeping on the first floor with the bubbling gasps of the coffee pot. So instead, I gathered my laptop and headed out to the porch to sit in the breeze and be inspired by summer. Not too long after, I am joined by my cousin and her young son and demands for bubble time take priority. Wobbly iridescence floats heavily on the air and splash lands on the floorboards while the writing takes a rest.

Welcome distractions abound in this family-filled old house. These walls tell stories of use and love – of our own contained family history in this little shore town. The rooms are filled with laughter and conflicting TV volume preferences – with movie decision fatigue and lazy mornings sipping coffee. The scent memory of freshly baked Italian rolls and cinnamon sugar crumb cake permeate the dining room and waft up the stairs like a buttery apparition encouraging everyone to wake up in slow procession.

The memories of past experiences and loved ones long gone remain alive in this magical place, preserved like old time postcards in a frame. This house tells us stories and helps us write new ones. It makes us laugh till our bellies and our cheeks ache or even sometimes, till we pee “our” pants (IYKYK). It is where we have gathered for my whole life- where I got to know my family as a whole and I am so grateful for all that it gives us. We try our best to do right by it and keep the experiences going, even when it gets hard or we don’t have a clue what we are doing.

But now it is time to put away the laptop and enjoy the first day of summer – to bask in the salty breeze of the shore, with the only current task at hand of pondering when to head to the beach.

Home and Hindsight
Cozy Posts · Nostalgic Posts

Home and Hindsight

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Exactly one year has passed since we packed up the 15 foot U-Haul that Mike valiantly parked against the curb on Union Avenue outside of our Williamsburg apartment building.

The panic and uncertainty of the looming pandemic shook up the timeline of our move by a week. Fueled by a wild sense of urgency to escape the city and move into our very newly purchased home in New Jersey, we did not know if the growing tidal wave of NYC Covid-19 closures would come crashing down on the shores of Staten Island, barring our escape route if we waited any longer.

Though I had pared down my belongings over the course of the years, the sight of the hastily packed boxes and bags that consumed most of the living room and kitchen still presented a daunting challenge for our time frame.

Exactly one year has passed since adrenaline toughened our muscles and surged through our blood as we carefully and repetitively climbed down the wooden stairs of our apartment building, our arms full of boxes, bags, furniture, suitcases, laundry bags, and loose items – and then up again in what seemed like a Sisyphean effort.

We poured three hours of energy into a grueling operation to amputate the legs of our couch so it would fit through the doorway, the heads of the long screws that connected them to the wooden sofa frame stripped to ragged circles. We earned the rush of victory we experienced when they finally relented only to be gut-punched with a crushing sense of disbelief when faced with the realization that, at almost an inch too wide, the damn thing would not fit through the doorway.

Armed with determination, an incomprehensive tilt, the thought that the furniture movers had somehow gotten it into the apartment, and some aggressive shoves and pulls, we were finally able to get it fully through our doorway and down the steps to the first floor landing, sure to take some of the burgundy paint from the door frame with it, a battle wound tattooed into the turquoise chenille.

Once the U-Haul was mostly packed up, aside from our bed and the items we planned to put in Mike’s mom’s Honda in the morning, we parked the truck under the BQE for the remainder of the night and headed back up to our nearly empty apartment.

Beyond exhausted, covered in sweat, and starting to feel the aches, blisters, and bruises of persistent heavy lifting and screwdriver twisting, we ate plastic spoonfuls of peanut butter straight out of the jar for dinner and drank cups of tap water and Coca Cola. We leaned on the kitchen peninsula for the last time and sat on the cool, brick-colored, tile floor. Dirty and drained, we slept in our nearly empty, sweltering room for one final night, lulled to sleep by the gentle clang of steam pipes and the muted city sounds of early pandemic Brooklyn.

A year later, I sit on the couch with Mike, getting sleepy as I type this post, feeling very much at home in the place where we have spent at least part of every single day for the past year. I am considering grabbing a spoonful of peanut butter from the kitchen before I go to bed and am thankful that there is no U-Haul parked outside hungry to be packed full of all of our belongings.

Embroidered in the Social Fabric
Health & Lifestyle · Minimalism · Social Media

Embroidered in the Social Fabric

Beth DeFries1 Comment

For the past few weeks, I have been considering deleting my Instagram account and last night, with a wave of decisiveness brought on by two glasses of smooth red wine and a discussion about the social media presence of embroidery, I achieved the gumption to clip the threads connecting me to the photo & video social media platform. The decision was easy to put into action after weeks of reflection and consideration, and logging on to Instagram in my web browser and going through the steps of a permanent account delete was pleasantly freeing. While Instagram allows me approximately one month to change my mind before my account is permanently deleted, this is a decision that I do not envision reversing.

For the sake of context, I should tell you that I have only been using Instagram for nine months, so I do not have a strong attachment to the platform and deleting it is not going to bring about monumental change to my daily routine. I created an account in May of 2020 after seeing a friend post on Facebook about an event for a Disney World fireworks show that was going to be aired live on Instagram. Stuck inside for a couple of months at that point due to the pandemic, and remembering how magical I found the Disney fireworks show at Magic Kingdom when I was 16, I thought it would be fun to watch the fireworks again, so I created an account.

After creating my account, I followed a few family members, friends, and topics I found interesting and occasionally posted photos, aiming to be mindful in my content. I mostly posted pictures of views from our home, scenes of local parks, and wildlife sightings- subjects that were pleasing to me, without much regard for what other people might enjoy while scrolling their Instagram feeds. While my Instagram was primarily for my own entertainment, I still could not resist the frequent urge to open the app after posting to check if anyone had liked or commented on a post. This desire for acknowledgement and hunger for attention are the primary reasons that prompted my decision to detach.

Social media can be an outlet for vanity and sometimes influences us to view our own world through the filter of what other people will “like”. I found this to be blatantly evident on Instagram where filters sugarcoat experiences and selfies rule the day. Looking at my feed on Instagram, it was clear how much the available outlets for constant self-publicity have influenced the way people portray themselves to their social circles. They plan trips and activities and pack outfits based on what will look impressive in photos. They show only their best angles, presenting staged snapshots into how they style themselves, their pets, their homes, their experiences, and even their food- living their best life for the gram.

I am not opposed to social media and I know many people who get enjoyment out of Instagram. I hope they will continue using it as long as it continues to bring them joy. Social media has a lot of positives that I embrace. It can foster community, put you in touch with old friends, serve as an outlet for catharsis and a hub for events and gatherings. It is a great tool for keeping in touch, promoting business ventures, and sharing important news. There are truly great aspects of social media that I find valuable and enjoyable, however, Instagram was a platform that I found added little joy to my life and was more of a crutch for me to fill in moments of boredom more so than anything else. I found it fulfilled the same need for connection to the outside world that Facebook already offers me, and felt I gravitated toward Facebook more so than Instagram. While I am not going to delete Facebook, I did delete the app from my phone to discourage mindless scrolling.

It is so easy to open social media apps and just scroll and scroll and scroll (our thumbs never got so much “exercise”). Minimalism has taught me how to put intention and mindfulness into practice. Mindlessly scrolling through Instagram offered distraction from those principles while also playing to another weakness of mine – the urge to shop. This was my next driving reason for deleting my account.

After a few months on Instagram, the ads tailored to my feed became smarter and seemingly more frequent and I’d often find myself going to the online stores for some of my favorite retailers to go “window shopping”. While I do not buy on impulse anymore, I do shop on impulse – if that makes any sense. I rarely buy clothing now and when I do, it is after deliberating on whether I want to add a particular piece or to replace something I own that is too worn to wear but that I get joy or necessity out of. That being said, I’ll still “hunt” for perfect outfits for hypothetical experiences and add to cart, spending valuable time on the activity rather than spending money. Purchase-free shopping is not always guilt-free in my book and I wonder why I chose to spend so much time looking for items that I wouldn’t otherwise have known existed if I hadn’t seen an ad for the store in the first place rather than doing something more nourishing like reading a book, going for a walk, playing a game or doing a puzzle with Mike, or planning a blog post. I do enjoy the act of shopping, but find it is more fulfilling when I am looking for something specific rather than being prompted by a bot on social media that eerily knows my favorite stores.

Ads and recommendations for pages that Instagram thought I would like started to ignore my feedback. When I requested to hide ads from particular stores or identified certain topics as irrelevant, nothing changed. I began to notice the ads and odd topic recommendations more than I noticed the posts from family and friends and found scrolling through the content of my feed to be distracting. When Instagram decided I would be interested in embroidery (thank you Bridgerton? I guess?), and I fervently assured it that I had no interest, my clicks to diminish the topic in my feed were not reflected. The constant bombardment of advertising and Instagram’s projecting were enough to say enough.

I am looking forward to being more intentional with social media and to revisiting digital clutter that can use some intentional care. I am happy to minimize my exposure to constant advertising and my next project will be to tackle my email inbox – pray for me. Until my next post, I challenge you to reflect on your own relationship with social media. Does it bring you joy? Are there platforms you have accounts for that you never use? Maybe consider decluttering apps that you find excessive or that you use mostly when you are bored. Distance yourself from unnecessary platforms that bring you stress and frustration. You don’t have to permanently delete your account, but removing an app from your phone will help you to be more aware of how many times you go in search of that mindless distraction each day.

Six Months of Cozy!
Health & Lifestyle

Six Months of Cozy!

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Today is the six-month anniversary of cozy does it! Hooray!

This is my twenty-second post in six months and I feel incredibly proud of that. If you are reading this as a blogger who is just getting started, I wish you luck and encouragement and urge you not to feel pressured by the blank page. You can do this and you can do this at whatever pace is right for you.

I started this blog as a healthier writing outlet to social media and it turned into something much more nourishing and sustaining for me. I realize now that the title that came to me as I was sipping coffee at our kitchen table early in the morning on August first and the themes of coziness and minimalism have provided me with positive, focused fuel for my writing. I don’t know exactly what it was that ignited the spark in me, a perpetual procrastinator, to sit down and figure out how to start a blog that morning- to purchase a domain name, choose a layout design, and tailor the font to best suit my topic, but I am so thankful. Having a subject matter that continuously feeds my creative energy and urges my flow of ideas each time I am met with a blank page is something I have not experienced in over a decade and it is something that I do not take for granted.

I have self-identified as a writer since I was a little kiddo and this is the first time in a long time that I feel honest in that claim. Writer’s block is a very real struggle that attacks a writer’s confidence, pushes aspirations out of reach, and induces personal anxiety. I am personally familiar with feeling lost on the snowy expanse of a blank Word document and the unsteady falling sensation of slipping around on buttery journal pages. The most useful tools for me, oddly enough, have been to remove the pressure of goal-setting when it comes to my own creativity, and to strip away any expectation of success and go into creative endeavors knowing that I may be my only audience member.

Back on that August morning, I realized that I just wanted to write for the sake of writing. I just wanted to reclaim that part of me for myself and no one else.

Over the past few years, I have occasionally taken part in creative retreats and artist salons organized by other artist friends of mine. I would go to these events, hoping that being an audience member to the mismatched collection of creative contributions would inspire me or instill in me a drive to exercise my creativity. Unfortunately and surprisingly, the events had the opposite effect on me. While they seemed to work wonders for other artist friends of mine who are more deadline-driven and fueled by ambitions of making it professionally, I found that when my turn to present would come, the acid would rise from my stomach to my esophagus and set off cacophonous alarms ringing in my head, pumping a rush of blood to the tips of my ears, unveiling me as an imposter.

In my recent post, Beth’s Picture Show, I wrote a little about the dangers of comparison. When I used to find myself included in public gatherings of artists presenting their work, a quiet ball of jealousy would begin to tumble and grow as I compared my own creations to those of the more talented song writers, painters, illustrators, playwrights, poets, and musicians present. I thought with an unattractive bitterness, why should I even bother?

Other artists reading this may be thinking, well if you want to succeed as an artist, you need to be able to take criticism. Sound familiar to anyone? Anyone? Bueller? They are right, of course, if success as a professional is indeed your goal. But there are other types of success too – smaller, less obvious ones. I acknowledge that editors are necessary to tailor a piece to its best possible version, but for me – at least for right now- it is more important to just be writing. I am talented enough for myself and my talent has different, not worse, actualizations than it does for other artists. The pure and simple exercise of somewhat consistent writing is simultaneously enough and more than I could ever have hoped for these past six months.

I hope no artist reading this has shared my sense of inadequacy while being an audience member to other artists’ work, but the realist in me says that’s probably not the case. Let me be one tiny voice telling you that you don’t need to practice your craft all the time to be an artist. You don’t need to constantly cater to a practice that leaves you feeling drained and insufficient if it’s not coming naturally one day. It is ok to be patient with yourself if you are feeling particularly uncreative for one day, week, year, or decade of your life. Your reunion will be waiting for you somewhere down the line and will hit you smack in the middle of the face with a densely packed snowball or maybe introduce itself more subtly in a sip of coffee on a warm, summer morning.

Thank you for reading today’s post! I realize it strayed from the theme of cozy minimalism, but I am glad you gave it a read all the same. I want to extend a quick thank you to my cozy community. I am so grateful for the handful of family and friends who have taken time to read posts over the past six months as well as to the members of the blogging community who have been so encouraging by choosing to follow the blog or “like” a cozy does it post here and there. I only expected an outlet for my writing in starting this blog, but I am so grateful that some readers have chosen to join me on this adventure. Thank you all and happy reading!

Health & Lifestyle · Nostalgic Posts

Spotlights – The Stuff of Memories

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I have a polygamist set of champagne flutes in a glass-paned cabinet in our kitchen.

One groom was gifted to me on my wedding day as part of a set. “He” was widowed before the nuptials took place, his bride- the victim of a tragic, glassware-slaughter incident at the scene of the bridal “getting-ready” brunch. “She” lay in glimmering shards in a pooling stain of mimosa on the carpet, having been caught up in the avalanche that followed the sudden collapse of the coffee table during the photography session. Her demise was deemed “good luck” by our officiant later that evening.

The groom was joined by a replacement set over a year later and his bachelorhood came to a plural end(s).

—

I keep a tiny, rubber elephant inside my handbag almost all the time. This companion is known as “tiny elephant” (all lowercase) and accompanies me on journeys near and far. tiny elephant is a security blanket smaller than a dime that I adopted from a toy store off of Pioneer Square in Seattle while buying some jigsaw puzzles as trip souvenirs in 2016. My tiny “world’s largest land mammal” makes me smile whenever I see it, providing me with the comfort of accessible joy when I feel anxious, all for the cost of 75 cents and a faint bruise to my self-respect by making the cashier wait for me to retrieve it from the display and gently place it on top of the puzzles with a matter of fact, “… and this too,” before she could complete the purchase.

—

One of these things is not like the others. My desk is topped with a second hand lamp, coaster, trinket box, and a mason jar containing two DIYed wizard wands. The wands, crafted out of wood dowels, drizzled hot glue, and brown paint by my cousin and her husband, came into my possession at my birthday celebration a few years back (maybe even more than a few; time flies faster than a Firebolt, I swear… ok I’ll stop…).

The celebration was one of multiple gatherings at my cousin Mo’s old apartment in Brooklyn, a place rich in my memory with family gatherings. The wands take me back to a time of home cooked feasts, gourmet Brooklyn pizza, plentiful drinks, game nights, movie nights, and walks past the home fronts along Washington Avenue, the luster of their time-full grandeur sheepish in shadow against the glittering backdrop of downtown Brooklyn.

—

These belongings are among the stuff of memories in our home – some of the un-minimize-able prizes- awards of time well spent- of milestone days and past adventures, of good company and smiles that make my cheeks hurt just thinking about them. Some things, while extraneous and meaningless to others, may be integral to the accessibility, reflection, and retention of your memories. The magnitude of their value may not have been recognized at the time they entered your life, but their presence sparks appreciation and joy now and reminds me that not everything must go.

Grim Grinning Ghosts in Turtlenecks
Cozy Posts · Nostalgic Posts

Grim Grinning Ghosts in Turtlenecks

Beth DeFries2 Comments

Happy Halloween cozy does it community! After over a week of constant cloud cover, intermittent torrential downpours, and wind gusts, the sun is peeking through the clouds on this chilly Halloween morning. We missed the vibrant colors of fall while they were still pinned to the tree branches and now the ground is covered with unsatisfying, soggy crunchiness like stale potato chips from a bag you forgot you’d opened and chip-clipped, then revisited a few days later.

As my first fall here was not all I dreamed in would be, I find myself turning to attempts to simulate that crisp coziness I am eager to fulfill. Wooden and fabric pumpkins garnish our white and tan television stand – a little twinkle of autumn hygge added to our regular minimal décor. A mug of chai with steamed milk is never far from reach and a hearty pot roast dinner is curating magically in the Crock Pot as I type by the window in one of our outdoor chairs which has moved inside for the off-season.

Earlier, I announced to Mike that I was going to get dressed after which I changed from my “yoga” pants to different “yoga” pants (I don’t yoga) and a layered turtleneck/sweatshirt combo, a la 1990s trend.

I actually think of Halloween whenever I don an article of clothing over a turtleneck, as I know many other American 90s girls do. As a 90s lady child, the turtleneck was a versatile, core fashion staple in my wardrobe along with “stirrup pants”.

Stirrup pants: leggings that pull themselves down as you move around due to the convenient elastic band wrapped around the arch of each of your feet.

In case you were not aware, the turtleneck and stirrup pants were classic additions to any costume that didn’t appropriately suit an American 90s girl’s age or the Halloween forecast. Princess Jasmine? She 100% wore a white turtleneck under her turquoise bikini top in the movie, right? The Little Mermaid? Even under the sea, the look was all the rage. Ballerina or Sky Dancer? Time to break out the full set: a pink or white turtleneck and pink stirrup pants. Any Disney princess for that matter – I’m sure detailed in their original fairytale version as wearing a white, cotton turtleneck – was fair game with the right staple accessories paired.

In my adult life, Halloween has become synonymous with (family-friendly) spooky movie classics, a la Tim Burton, Harry Potter, or the Disney Channel Original variety. Sometimes I switch it up with a Halloween Parks and Rec or Psych tv episode. I cannot watch movies that are actually scary (here’s looking at you “I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House”). Even the trailers freak me out for days…

No, I’d much rather bake something pumpkin-y or nutmeg-y (or both) and sit back with a nice crisp Sam October. I may take part of this cold Halloween day to read something spooky or magical. I might opt to flip through the crispy pages of a Harry Potter book, jumping straight into my favorite chapters which usually involve time spent at Ron’s family home, The Burrow, or one of the grand and mystical Great Hall feasts, or a getaway to The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade.

It is still fall and while not as colorful, crispy, and crunchy as I hoped it would be, I am determined to bring some coziness to our home and to our activities this season. We have a lineup of jigsaw puzzles in our seasonal dugout and a bright, sunny day to lift our spirits. If you are braving going out for any All Hallows Eve activities tonight, watch out for other spirits lifting as they may not be as cozily intentioned.

Boo!

Sirena
Health & Lifestyle

Sirena

Beth DeFries1 Comment

This morning, it’s time to dust off those keyboard cobwebs and get some words down. Since my last post, the temperatures in our corner of New Jersey have been cooling on a slow simmer, seasoned with a pinch of chill and a splash of crispness. The daylight hours have a bluer tinge and grow more fleeting with late September’s progression. The trees have started pulling out a few of their fall colors from vacuum-sealed space bags in Mother Nature’s walk-in closet and the crowds no longer flock to the beaches down the shore.

When people think of the fall season, I assume many do not associate it with the beach. I, however, do, and am particularly excited to be reacquainted with fall at the shore this year.

Ever since my mom’s family starting renting the family shore house during the off season for the past I – lost – count – how – many years, I have been nostalgic for the empty beaches that result from the change in season, the expansive shoreline carpeted in cold sand, littered with the treasures of washed ashore sand dollars, backdropped by the dunes’ mountainous terrain, a fortress to hold back the salty tides during storms.

The shallows are warmest now, in early fall, after cooking under the hot sun throughout the summer months. Jelly salps dot the shoreline like sparkling, solid bubbles and the towel and umbrella colonies and impromptu nerf football games have vanished until Memorial Day Weekend. The crowds are gone and peace settles heavy on the sand, adjusting the arms of its Tommy Bahama beach chair until the back is at a comfortable angle.

And once fall is settled on the shore and summer put to rest in a storage bin with its corresponding seasonal items, it is time to allow the crash of the waves and whispering pull of the tide to echo as it reverberates off the dunes. It is time to let the sirenas’ sea song surround you, an intimate audience, in a fluid turned dissonant composition, mystifying and overwhelming in its power.