Work-life balance week.

{it is hard not to find very corny images when you Google "work-life balance"- lots of rocks, signs, and elephants balancing on rubber balls...I picked this one because it's pretty, NOT because I hate my office}

Now, I don't claim to be an expert in work-life balance. In point of fact, I'm pretty terrible at it. At my last job, I'd get home in the evening and be too tired to do much of anything beyond plop myself in front of the couch. It seemed to take a lot of effort to engage in any of my previous hobbies or pastimes. I don't like how lazy I became during that time of my life.

Due to my new, longer commute, almost 12 hours of each weekday are dedicated to my job. When I get home, there are so many things to accomplish and too few hours left to do them all: spending time with my husband, working out, catching up on my Google Reader, meditating, spending time with friends, cooking, playing with my cats, gaming, and planning for the following day. Top it all off with attempting to get a good nights' sleep and you have a recipe for a very frazzled Meg. 

This weekend, I've been spending time looking around the internet in an effort to find things to help me transition into a more balanced lifestyle. I'm going to talk about two things that are high on my list to improve: wardrobe planning and commuting. Hopefully the resources I have to share will help me, and you guys out there too! Stay tuned.

what's in a name?

It occurs to me that I've never talked about this blog's title.

I had read a story about tiny whales that day, so my fondness for the word "tiny" was fresh in my mind. I was also thinking about my aims for the blog: I'm a bit of a Renaissance soul, so I knew sticking to one topic was pretty much out of the question. I would just talk about whatever was going on in my life that was interesting me, be it health or fashion or cooking or photography or music, et cetera.

I'd heard people complain that blogs usually only talk about the "good parts" of their writers' lives. We don't get to read about the ugly fight you had with your partner last night or how you screwed up at work this week. I wanted to be different - I want to talk about some struggles (mainly health-related in my case), but I don't want to lay bare my private life for the whole internet to dissect, either.

All I can offer you is tiny glimpses. It's honest as I can be, and I hope it's enough.

a thought.

"In fact, the less I see my own body as a positive asset, the less I have wanted to interfere with what other women choose to do with theirs. If they want to parade in bikinis or shroud themselves in burkas, then so be it. I can see the pleasure in both.

To accuse them - as I used to do - of being the victims of social or commercial or religious control now seems to me to be a fairly cheap hit. How we present ourselves to the world is never a free choice. For both women and men dress is always the subject of social constraints.

The question is how you make those constraints work for you. Take women's make-up for example. It can be the ultimate symbol of an oppressive culture that refuses to accept women's faces as they really are; it can also be celebratory, joyous and fun."

- Mary Beard, "A Point of View: Age, beauty and Miss World"