A post in whence I briefly recap the latest goings-on in my life.
Did
So I saw this book, Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles, somewhere and decided to try to attempt every walk in the book. LA has all kinds of public staircases , many of which are seldomly used anymore. There are actually certain residential streets, called walk streets, that are only accessible via these staircases (no cars). Axel and I both love historic homes and architecture and most of the stairs are in very cool old neighborhoods. This past weekend, we did our first walk, which took us through a neighborhood called Highland Park. The walk took about an hour and a half and covered 3.2 miles and 342 steps. We took the book with us on the walk and it felt kind of like being on a scavenger hunt, looking for the next landmark or direction to go towards. Afterward, we had lunch at Din Tai Fung in Glendale and tried the black sesame mochi dumpling dessert (we both preferred chocolate). All in all, a very fun activity to get us outside and exploring LA.
Made
We have some lemon curd that we need to eat so I decided to make my favorite scones to accompany the curd. Usually I make half vanilla, half chocolate chip, but I wanted to try making matcha white chocolate scones this time. I realized too late that I should have added the matcha powder to the liquid ingredients and made sure it was blended in, rather than trying to add the matcha powder to the already mixed dough, so they turned out to have more of a marbling of matcha and don’t have a super strong matcha flavor. But oh well, it’s a lesson learned for next time.
Bought
I’ll take this opportunity to discuss what I haven’t bought instead. I’ve been trying to do a No Buy month every third months (so January, April, July, October), which is something I started last year. Some months go better than others, but generally I try to avoid buying non-necessity items like clothes (my biggest problem area), cosmetics, household decor, etc. I also try to avoid idle browsing and consuming content that makes me want to shop (TikToks that have the word “Essentials” in the title). My goal with doing these No Buy months is (1) obviously to lessen my consumption and decrease the clutter in my home; but also, (2) learn how to exist without wanting to consume things. Shopping is definitely a hobby of mine, whether it be browsing sales online or just walking around boutiques or malls and window shopping. I don’t want to keep falling into the trap of thinking that an object is going to solve some deeper issue in my life and searching for joy through materialism. I read somewhere that our happiness during the process of online shopping peaks right after we hit submit order and goes steadily downhill from there. By the time the package arrives and we open it, that fleeting joy is almost entirely gone. Through this monthlong cleanse of sorts, I hope to rediscover other sources of comfort and stop reaching for my credit card during moments of boredom, stress, or general dissatisfaction with the present.
Watched
The Big Short, which was required viewing for my commercial real estate finance class. While I liked it, I still don’t fully understand what happened in the lead-up to the financial crisis in 2008 to be honest. I have the book sitting on my shelf because my dad gave it to me a few years ago so I think I’ll try reading that soon to try and get into more detail about the loan structures and whatnot that created the crisis.
Read
I haven’t really finished a book recently because I’m currently in the middle of a very long book, but we’re reading Stoner by John Williams for the next meeting of the book club my friend started (a meeting that I will be hosting!) so I’m looking forward to starting that. I have been going through a bit of a fiasco with my library card that began when I returned two books to the dropbox in the library parking lot in mid-December, which were apparently stolen. The library wound up marking these books as lost and charging me for them ($60!) and froze my account so that I wasn’t able to borrow any books. Axel spent about 45 minutes on the phone with various branches of the LA Public Library and finally got it all sorted out, which I am very relieved by; I just didn’t feel right being in poor standing with the library.
