What Happened to Starfruit Salad?

Hi friends! It’s been a while.

Now, if you are reading this on my blog Starfruit Salad, you may be thinking, “What did happen to Starfruit Salad? Something, I assume?” And if you’re reading this on my new website, maybe you are wondering, “What happened to the old one?”

The answer is: I’ve been working on a re-brand, if you will, of my online art presence/blog, and I decided to use the name Maria Katharine instead of Starfruit Salad. This has been kind of a long time coming—I’ve been talking to friends for months about how I couldn’t decide whether to use Starfruit Salad, or Maria K. Ramsey, or something else, for the creative work I’m sharing online. I sort of liked them both, but neither really felt right, and it was really throwing me off.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I had the idea for a third option. I wrote out all three of my ideas, checked in with how I was feeling as I looked at them, and my answer was pretty obvious.

Making the Most of Snow Days

Snow days are awesome. I’ve had several in the past week and have been so thoroughly pleased not to have to go to work and teach and be responsible for so many young people. I love these young people dearly…and also it can sometimes be very exhausting to work with them, especially when I’m working with several of them at a time, in a classroom setting.

These past few snow days, however, left me with a sense of not having fully taken advantage of the day. They were pretty relaxing, pretty productive, but somehow they didn’t really feel like snow days. So this morning (yet another snow day!), I thought about what was missing in my current snow days, vs. the snow days of my youth.

The answer: playing in the snow! I hadn’t done that in years. Why don’t more grownups play in the snow? Perhaps because getting all decked out in snow gear is kind of awkward and bulky, and all of your clothes get soggy anyway…and also probably because most of us are not really used to playing anymore. Especially the kind of playing that doesn’t have any particular aim in mind.

My Favorite Resources for People with Uteruses

…or is it uteri? Like octopi? Do octopi have uteri? What about platypi? (I just checked: uteri is in fact the plural of uterus, octopi lay eggs, and platypi is not a real word.)

Discussions of plurals aside, I don’t think we talk about our uteri enough. After all, about half of us have them. And for a lot of us, they impact our lives in a very noticeable way…unlike appendixes, for example. (To clarify: this is really a post about periods, not just uteri. So if you’re past that stage in your life this may not be super helpful.)

Even though we’re very aware of our uteri (at least when they hurt), we mostly try to ignore them. We pretend we don’t menstruate, or wish we didn’t. We take painkillers to manage symptoms so we can function “normally.” How much do we really know about what’s going on with our hormones? And if we don’t really know what’s going on, how do we make informed choices about our bodies and our health? Ignorance is not going to get us anywhere.

Everything is an Experiment

Action is crucial. You can dream about your future all you want, about the awesome person you’re going to become…you know, the one who does all the things you wish you would do…but how are you going to become that person if you don’t start…well, doing the things? What, really, are you waiting for?

Maybe you are waiting for Someday. Someday, yes, you will have more money, more time, more experience, more friends…and then you will write that book or volunteer for that organization or call up that person you’ve been meaning to get in touch with.

Question: When is this Someday you speak of? Is it actually any closer to you now than it was a month ago? A year ago? Two years ago?

If it is closer, that’s probably because you did something that helped you make some progress. If it’s not, then, well, it’s probably time to take action.

November Salad Toppings

Hello friends,
Happy November! Time to share some things I’ve been enjoying lately:

Japanese sweet potatoes
Particularly when they’re roasted in coconut oil.

Oprah and Deepak’s 21 Day Meditation Challenge
I love these! I get pretty excited every time they happen (about twice a year, I think). The first one I did was probably about four years now, and I’ve done every one of them since. Each day Oprah and Deepak start you off with some words of wisdom and inspiration, and then Deepak sends you off with a mantra and some nice new age-y music that is rather calming and also helps to remind you when you start thinking about breakfast and emails and elephants or whatever that your intention is to be meditating. Also, it’s free! This one started last week but you can always join late. Meditate with me??

Adventures in Sleeping, Part II

Last time I told you about some of the strategies I’ve used to get better at sleeping, and I promised I’d share some of the strange inner workings of my sleepy mind. Are you excited??

After I got kind of tired of reading when I was trying to get to sleep, I moved on to writing. I’m a big fan of journaling, of getting my thoughts out of my head and onto paper. Afterwards I often feel a sense of relief, like I’ve acknowledged and let go of these thoughts and can relax, so it has at times helped me in the sleeping department. Sometimes, the words that come out when I journal at strange hours of the night turn into poems. I wrote the following at approximately 4 in the morning sometime last year:

Adventures in Sleeping, Part I

I have never been very good at sleeping. I think nights were pretty rough for my parents for quite a while after I was born. (sorry, Mom and Dad…) I cannot sleep in cars. I cannot sleep in buses. I cannot sleep in airplanes. Sleeping on couches or floors is ok, sometimes, but usually not many hours of sleep happens. What about beds, you ask? I can sleep in a bed if it is very very dark and very very quiet (no fans, thank you very much) and just the right temperature and I am just the right amount of tired. In that situation, then sleeping in a bed is just fine. Probably. As long as you mean my bed, of course…

I’ve experimented with a whole bunch of things to improve my sleeping skills. As in, so many things it would make a really long blog post. So we’re going to cover this adventure in a few installments. Here’s part 1:

Choosing to be Happy

“I think it’s brave to try to be happy. You’ve gotten so comfortable being unhappy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wake up in the morning and choose to be happy?”

This is a quote from one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Pushing Daisies. (It’s a beautiful and inspiring and clever show and I highly recommend it; it’s also very weird and quirky, so be warned if you decide to check it out.)

I have a question for you all: How often do you think of happiness as a choice? Sure, you can let the circumstances of your life determine your feelings. And if your life turns out perfectly just how you planned it and everything’s just like you thought it would be, and it’s raining star fruits and unicorns all the time (and also if you like star fruits and unicorns), then congratulations—you’ll probably be feeling pretty good.

But that’s pretty risky to leave your emotional wellbeing up to circumstance.

September Salad Toppings

Hi friends!

I thought I’d share some more of the toppings that have been making my Life Salad so delectable lately. If that last sentence confused you, check out this post.

Here we go:

Brandi Carlile
Love her! Especially this song. I signed up for a free 3-month trial of Spotify Premium but I think I forgot to cancel it (which is probably exactly what they were hoping for…#oops.) Anway, now I can keep listening to Brandi in the car on the way home from work for another month, so things are all good.

Making Decisions

I have always struggled with decisions. I think I always waffle because I’m afraid of making the “wrong” choice. I worry about the other possibilities, the other things I might miss out on when I decide to go down a certain path. I tend to overthink all of the pros and cons of all of the possibilities, which usually just fuels my anxiety and sometimes prevents me from taking any action at all.

Case in point: When I was in middle school, I had to decide whether I wanted to take French or Spanish. Apparently my parents had to call the school several times because I kept changing my mind—and then I got an extension so I could have even longer to decide.

Recently, I’ve been trying to listen to my intuition, my gut instinct, and trust that it will lead me where I need to go. For somebody who feels the need to thoroughly check out every single option in the store before buying the “best” lip balm, this is pretty challenging. But, I’m making progress! The other day, my mom told me that my decisions have seemed “less traumatic” lately. Hooray! (p.s. In case you’re wondering, I’ve determined that the best lip balm is Dr. Bronner’s peppermint.)