Sarah Wilson

loud chewers, dripping taps: coping with what drives us bananas

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This week in Sunday Life I make peace with annoyances

110218 3 600 loud chewers, dripping taps: coping with what drives us bananas
by Neil Stewart

I’m a very annoy-able person.  A lot of things annoy me. Here’s a small sample: sniffing, loud chewing (the type Americans do in sitcoms when in heated discussions at diners), mid-90s ozonic perfumes, when the person sitting next to me on the plane keeps brushing my elbow, people who don’t reuse their paper cup at water fountains and slow walkers on narrow paths.

And that’s just the scab on the wound. I have a deep gash worth of stuff that gives me the irits.

Actually, the word “irits” gives me the irits. In the same way “I’ll do it in a mini” does.

But the most annoying thing of all is that I’m so annoy-able. Such things really shouldn’t annoy me. And this annoys me further. And so down the spiral we tumble.

During the week I chatted with Flora Lichtman, coauthor of the new book Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us. Her pet annoyance is people clipping their nails on the subway (who knew!?). Indeed, having a guy next to her do so one morning prompted the book.

Lichtman identifies three factors that make something annoying. It’s unpleasant. It’s also unpredictable.

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how to see signs

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I’ve been getting a few “signs” lately. I don’t know what you make of signs…

2869069e3752f2ab26619e264d8a45be 3 how to see signs
by Asja Binno (via The Beast)

Me, I think that patterns emerge as we go about life and they bank up – get blocked or layer up. A bit like stuff swirling down a drain; the stuff forms a bit of clump and we need to twirl it with a stick – give it our attention – so it can loosen and continue down the drain.

Everything is a sign, some are just louder than others. Some patterns bank up and they tell us we need to pay attention. Turn a different way, gently move along a different path.

I find signs come in threes for me.

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Gala Darling: “radical self love…it’s a soul salve”

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Continuing with the One Thing series… From time to time I come across humans who just astound me with their whimsy. They do something a bit you’re-not-meant-to-do-that. I’ve noticed there’s usually One Thing that prompted them, or motivates them, or keeps them happy and therefore whimsical. I’m always busting to tap them on the shoulder and ask, “What’s your One Thing”.

Gala Darling: my one thing is ‘radical self love’

 

5107593220 6da8139824 Gala Darling: "radical self love...it's a soul salve"I first met Gala when I was editing Cosmo. I’d seen her blog and loved her writing style and gave her a column in the mag. She then moved to New York, I moved on, but we’ve stayed in touch. She now earns an income from her blog and the related projects she’s involved in via her following.  She’s a very special, quirky!!  person. Who has remained true to her soul. And the world has come to her. When she shares a tip for how she keeps it real, you want to listen up!

Sarah: So, what’s your One Thing?

Gala: Radical self love. It’s my mission, my message, my raison d’être.

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Tuesday Eats: if you’re keen on quinoa…

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If you’re keen on quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), I’ve written a bit of a cheat sheet on how to cook and eat it before, and I’ve also posted additional quinoa recipes here. I’ll be honest, a quinoa post always gets folk going, so I’ve posted some extra recipes…each has a fun twist and all are great for lunch.

26recipehealth articleLarge Tuesday Eats: if you're keen on quinoa...

Tara Parker-Pope recently wrote about quinoa on the NYT wellness blog, and shared some clever recipes from Martha Rose Shulman, three of which I’ve pulled out to share. I love the lentil sprouts and the gluten-free tabbouleh rendition. And the idea of cooking up a whole lot of quinoa and using it for the different dishes over the week. Enjoy!

Quinoa, lentil sprout and rocket salad

(serves 4 – 6)

This recipe uses lentil or sunflower sprouts, which have a peppery flavor. I posted on how to make lentil sprouts the other day.

  • 3/4 cup cooked quinoa, preferably the red or black variety
  • 1 cup sprouted lentils or sunflower seeds
  • 4 cups tightly packed rocket
  • 1/4 red bell pepper (capsicum), sliced thin
  • 1/4 cup broken walnuts
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs, like dill, tarragon, chives and parsley

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how to credit blog images…

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I got pulled up by some of you here on this blog. For not crediting the pics I use on this blog properly. And to be frank, it made me squirm, because I’d kinda known it to be so…but had put the squirming on a shelf until I got my head around the best way to fix things. Time to come clean. Line in sand.

Picture 11
by gomer sasquatch

Where I’ve been able to I’ve inserted a credit. But some of my images get sent to me, or I find them on random email links where the credit has long dropped off. But I’ve been switching my ways…while trying to find the most efficient way to 1. save images I find 2. know which need crediting and 3. credit efficiently.

A few readers have recently sent in some tips as well, so thank you.

These are some of the tricks and tips I’ve discovered to help smooth out this crediting business:

Free Images:

Flickr’s Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright. Users attach the appropriate license symbol – there are four levels of licensing – to their flickr stream, and readers (potential image seekers, ie ME) can easily tell whether they are allowed to use the images, andtrans how to credit blog images... at what level of creditation.

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When I’m shitty I climb a tree

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This week in Sunday Life: I try the “wilderness effect”

On Thursday I woke up antsy. Sometimes we just do, don’t we. It’s the wind, the moon….the half bottle of wine we drank the night before. Whatever.

113125 5 600 When I'm shitty I climb a tree
by RJ Shaughnessy

 

I’d had a cold for days and I felt as stale as a pair of pyjamas that have been slept in too long.  And just to add to the blah-ness I had to go buy eggs. So I fired myself up, tied on my hiking shoes, grabbed $5 and headed bush. I decided to travel the 5km into town (for the eggs) cross-country – through two farms and a national park, which Google Maps indicated has no walking trails or roads.

Which sounds quaintly Famous Five in theory. But things wound up with me stuck in a quagmire. Literally. The trail-less park turned out to be a swamp and about 2km in I was up to my knees in it, lost and stuck. I sunk back on a mangrove tree in a little sunny patch, picked off a few leeches and thought, Sarah, what are you doing?

I can only say I was trying to de-blah.

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because i know you’ve always wondered: the best coloured undies to be wearing right now

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Now this is possibly an overly frivolous post. But, hey, it’s Friday. And, strangely, I do actually care if I’m wearing the wrong coloured undies. A while back reader Heather asked me to do a post on colour…and what they do for our moods etc. So I thought I’d consult a woman who specialises in colour…and coloured knicker readings. Seriously!

74634_1_468cYears ago, when I edited Cosmopolitan magazine, I called in Australia’s leading colour specialist Chris Brazel to do a feng shui/colour makeover of our office. She walked straight into my office and shrieked, “OMG, you’ve got a fire extinguisher in your relationship corner!!!”. At the time I was extracting myself from a very messy relationship. I called the maintenance dude and had him remove it immediately. Seriously! Again!

This time I got Chris to do a colour reading on stuff in my life…as a way of illustrating some stuff on colour. I gave her five images and she went to town:

1. My orange bike (and brown top)

With the brown top it indicates that someone is bogged down and the orange is about change and wanting movement towards balance or a change in direction with work.

mandarin bike
photo by Vanessa Hunter

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so you’d like to be a writer, yeah?

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Since I get asked this a lot – how did you become a writer? – I thought I’d answer in a jaunty post.

The short answer is: I started writing. From a young age. In journals. For the uni newspaper. And I kept going.

Picture 13via pinterest.com

The longer one: I started writing and when I saw opportunities I jumped at them. I did work experience at Sunday Magazine while I was studying a Grad Dip in Professional Writing at RMIT (I also have a BA, in philosophy, half a law degree and did a political internship at Parliament House. Plus a year studying on scholarship at University of Santa Cruz, California – philosophy and women’s studies!). The editor asked what I liked/didn’t like about the magazine. I suggested the food pages needed more oomph. She said, Oh, is that so, perhaps you’d like to suggest some changes? Over the weekend I learned Quark from a manual (this was pre-Google and email) and redid the pages, complete with my own food and wine reviews. I presented my ideas Monday morning. She gave me the job as restaurant reviewer on the spot. From there I started writing more for the magazine – volunteering to do the extra work in my own time. Eventually she gave me a fulltime position as a features writer.

I had no idea what I was doing. So. I studied writers whose work I admired. I poured over their opening paragraphs, analysed the structure of their feature, reflected on what made their writing sing!!  You become a good writer by being a student of good writing.

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some sweet ideas: cooking with natvia

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In my quest to make sugar-free life, well, sweeter, I’ve been scouting different fructose-free sweeteners for you. It’s a minefield. There are a lot of sugar-free chocolates and treats out there…but the sweeteners read like something from a box of Ratsak.  I’ve shared on the safe and not-so-safe alternative sweeteners before. One or two alternatives do exist. One of them being stevia, which is extracted from the leaves of a South American plant.

Picture 13via pinterest.com

It’s a stack sweeter than sugar and is fructose-free. Native Americans used it medicinally as a digestive aid. I first read about it via Donna Gates’ Body Ecology and have been trying it out in a few recipes. It’s great with berries and yoghurt…it has a slight licorice tang to it. Anyway… For this sponsored review, Natvia asked to share three of their stevia recipes. To give you a taste of the stuff. Cut’n’keep!

Natvia is a natural sweetener made from Reb A stevia, and erythritol. Reb A is the purest and sweetest parts of the stevia plant, and erythritol is a naturally occuring nectar in some fruits, such as melons and grapes.

Things you should know about Natvia:

  • it’s 100% natural
  • it has 95% fewer calories than sugar
  • it’s fructose free
  • it contains no aspartame, or saccharin
  • it’s great for baking and cooking

almond Tea Cake Loaf

This recipe makes one tasty, coconuty loaf. It’s made denser with the almond meal.

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