The Happiness Ninja: Five Minute Fixes!! -And giving the gift of homemade-

While moving from my condo (a grown-up clubhouse, really) to the cave with Mr. Bacon, I began to notice a small hoarding problem. Specifically, fitness magazines.
Yoga Journal, Yoga at Home, Women's Health, In-Shape, Muscle and Fitness Hers... 4 years worth of subscriptions. Instead of throwing them away, I always keep them.. hoping that one day the promises on the cover will manifest in my life.

They're always pretty similar tho, yeah?
Great Glutes in 10 days!
Lose 1 dress size THIS WEEK!
5 quick fixes for figure flaws!
10 years younger in 10 steps!

I decided to go through and just pull these specific articles.. if I did ALL of them at once, at least ONE of them would work, right?

4 weeks.
I gained 6 pounds.

This was the beginning of a realization..
But I continued my research.

Get his attention! (and keep it) 5 steps to keep your man satisfied!
Find calm and balance in just 10 days!
Get out of debt! Your 15 step guide to financial freedom!!
Get a raise (and the respect you deserve!) Our get-rich-quick guide

Then I realized why none of them work.
I'm not expected to follow all 10 steps.
I'm not expected to stick with it for a whole week... So the first steps just need to make me feel miserable enough to think it's doing something. The middle step needs to be hard enough to make me quit. They never expected me to realize the last several steps do absolutely nothing.
Because if I had that kind of discipline, I wouldn't NEED to learn 5 steps to fatten my savings account. I would already have my account set up to automatically transfer a percentage of each paycheck into my savings account. (more accurately, I would have the discipline to LEAVE it there once it's transfered...)

And instead of getting out of debt, I'm going to spend $22 a month on magazines trying to sell me debt-reduction.
Send me $29.99 and I'll send YOU my book on how to get people to send you $29.99!!!!

But I AM expected to have an unquenchable desire to better myself.
And I do!
But there's a reason that even after you've bought a subscription, each magazine comes with an insert to subscribe. They're trying to plant seeds.. hoping that you take your magazine with you to the gym and it can drop those inserts and they will germinate in a land of insecurity. Another person will pick it up and see the 5 minute problem fixers and hope that it will be the answer to their prayers.
And when they see what a together, confident, successful person just dropped this insert... Well. Maybe if I subscribe as well, I can have great glutes like You!!

That's how they got me.

Now, I have a 3 step program to get great arms, de-clutter my life, and reduce anxiety and self-judgement!!

Step 1: Lift 4 years of magazine subscriptions.
Step 2: Carry them to the recycle bin.
Step 3: Stop listening to glossy pages. I'm pretty fantastic..

I feel 2 dress sizes smaller already =)

How Scrooge got her Groove back..

My friend LaLa and I use to do our Christmas shopping together. This year.. we didn't. We were both financially strapped. Stressed. Time strained... We use to hang out 4 days a week. This year, maybe once or twice a month. I started really feeling the loss of this friendship this winter as I realized we didn't have any pictures together this year.
And as Christmas approached and I headed to the dreadful mall solo, her absence was palpable. I HATE shopping. But LaLa makes it tolerable..
I re-wrote my list while sitting in Panera. I wrote everyone up for matching dirty looks and a touch of disdain.
I had lost my Christmas spirit. GONE! And worse.. I had lost my self. I'm a positive person.. or WAS anyway.
Then one day, she messaged me to ask which movie she should go to. There was a visually stunning animated film coming out.. and then there was the Lars Von Trier being released one week later.
We made a date to meet some friends for the latter.
We didn't sit by each other. We didn't really talk..
Except when she complained about the new band I had just found and was excited about..
But it was a silly night like a million silly nights..

The next day, I found her the perfect tshirt. It's one of her favorite bands with an outline of a shark jaw.. You'd have to know her to realize this IS the perfect shirt...

And when we exchanged gifts, she gave me a jar of home-made roasted veggie marinara. She wanted to give something thoughtful, not consumerist. She's posting the recipe here this weekend, so check back!! So delicious!!!! It's vegan, so you can serve it to ANYONE.. it's delicious on EVERYTHING. Literally. I put it on more roasted veggies. Meat. Parmesan crisps. EVERYTHING!