Archive for the 'Life' Category

January 24th, 2019

The KonMari method, part 1

Well, I caught the bug that’s been spreading. You know the one where you watch just one episode of the new Marie Kondo show, and suddenly you want to refold all your clothes and declutter your whole house? Yeah, that’s the one.

Though I knew of Marie Kondo and her popular book before, I had been avoiding it. I wasn’t into decluttering at the time, and then when I finally was, I wanted to do it my own way because I had heard her method was a bit on the extreme side. Her Netflix show piqued my interest though.

What I saw was Marie giving guidance and then leaving her clients to pick what they wanted to discard. The end result were homes that still looked normal instead of the stereotypical minimalists homes you see where they only own like 10 things. Sometimes the house still had more things than I’d be comfortable with, but the owners were happy and that’s what mattered. I realized that her method might be more reasonable than I thought.

From there, I read her book, and it really spoke to me. She wrote about how, in the past, she’d declutter and declutter but never feel satisfied. That’s me right now! No matter how much I’ve decluttered, it’s never enough. I still feel like I live in clutter. She also wrote about how she’d blame her family for clutter but then realized her own room was still cluttered. She needed to take care of herself first.

And so, I’ve decided to use her method but only for myself right now. I told my husband I was going to try it, but I’m not forcing him to nor will I touch his things. I need to do this for myself.

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December 26th, 2018

New beginnings, sort of

Hello and welcome to Paper Stars! Over a year ago, I said that I was going to move my blog, Silent White, to a new domain, and here it is finally. I originally wanted to have this up early this year, but I ended up pushing it off. With all the pregnancy and baby stuff I was dealing with, I sat down and made a list of priorities. Moving my blog was just not at the top of the list nor anywhere near the top.

As mentioned before, part of the reason was to somewhat start anew. All entries from 2017 and 2018 have been moved over. Some entries from 2014-2016 are here, but I deleted many of them. All entries from 2008-2013 have been removed.

I wanted a new domain name too. I love the name Silent White, but I didn’t originally choose it for a blog. It was an art site at first. Silent White is also not a very personal name since I took it from a song title. So, when thinking of a name that meant something to me, I thought of origami – something I’ve loved since I was young. Then I remembered the origami stars that a couple coworkers and I made for our team and how everyone on the team now has a jar of stars on their desk. (The one in the header is mine.) Thus, Paper Stars!

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August 30th, 2018

Welcome to the world, baby Talia

On August 22 at 2:35am, I gave birth to our baby daughter, Talia!

We’re both doing well! The first couple of days were really rough, but the nurses at the hospital were great, and we were discharged on the 24th.

I have to admit that I set my expectations low ahead of time, such that I expected to hate and be miserable during the newborn period. I always hear from other people about how tiring and hard it is, and I knew that I’d have to be breastfeeding every 2-3 hours, which means not being able to sleep through the night anymore.

While some parts are really hard and I am still physically recovering and am definitely tired, I’m not hating it. Seeing Tali’s cute face and little movements just melts my heart. I seriously love her. It also helps that my parents live close by. They’ve been coming over to bring food and watch over Tali when my husband and I need a nap. Plus, my husband has been very supportive and even decided to quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad.

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