Links | January 12, 2024
I aspired to come into the year with optimism, fresh with hope anew, and while I still feel mostly cheery (I do!), the first week and a half of January has been a wallop.
Aside from work, which just refuses to go smoothly, I completed approximately zero of the items on my to-do list related to my resolutions, and let Duke eat more Oreos than one with a "eat healthy" goal should feel comfortable with. Meanwhile, I took exactly 0 walks (I had a goal of five, which makes me LOL for real now. Such optimism!) By Friday evening, I acquiesced. You know what, we start fresh next week. Eat the Oreos and the ice cream so that they can be gone. I promise I probably won't buy more. The first week is a trial week. A wrap up of last year's problems week. A get your building blocks in order week. You can start building next week. And so, onward!
In other, more curious news, Duke and Ryan have become transfixed by the Rubik's cube. It's not a recent gift or even a new toy - we've had it for a least six months, maybe longer - and yet the obsession started early last week out of the blue. I regularly come home to find them hunched together on the couch, twisting and chanting things like, "counter, counter, clock, delicious sandwich (?!)." Ryan has it figured out and can solve them quickly now, and Duke is obsessively working towards it. To which I shrug and casually say I always knew he was a genius, but inside I'm like my baby is a genius (!!!!).
Lastly, I'm leaning hard into the idea that January, or winter in general, is for slowing down and resting. I am reading a book just now (not even about the royal family!) about wintering, and one takeaway is this: animals don't fight winter. They prepare for it. And then they sleep a lot. Folks, I am an animal and when it's dark outside, I just want to sleep. I'm not fighting nature anymore to be productive. I'll save that for Spring. For now, I'm laying low, doing a whole lot of nothing (except those walks!) and just trying to eat and sleep. How's that for an achievable resolution?
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1 // ICYMI
A few things I recently published, in case you missed it -
The Best of 2023 - all my favorite bits from the year.
And some specific Best Ofs - Books, Blogs and things I bought.
Christmas Vacation - my high school style photo essay of everything we did.
The last set of links, right before the holiday.
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2 // SHOPPING
I'm still feeling shopped out from the holidays, so all my purchases are groceries or boring functional things.
I did pick up two rugs from the end of year Ruggable sale last week. I have a Ruggable in my living room and it really has been the easiest to keep clean/it hides a lot of sins, but I always wished I'd picked up a darker version. So I found something I liked and bought a second one for the dining room so we have some matchy-matchy cohesion.
I'm on the hunt - like everyone else, it seems - to invest in some organizational things. Something under the cupboard in the kitchen, shelves or bins for the pile of jeans in my closet, etc.
I picked up some command hooks to hang in Duke's room for his assortment of superhero masks. Wall art and organization. I'm patting myself on the back.
One fun buy are these smiley socks in my Amazon cart. Just a little something to let in the sunshine during the wintertime blues.
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3 // INTO IT
Some things catching my eye on Pinterest -
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4 // LINKS
You guys, I have become so obsessed with the New York Times Games. I like the mini-crossword and Wordle the most, and I tell myself they're exercise for my brain and my 80-year-old self will one day thank me.
A January Reminder. I aspire to be the woman of substance that Jen Shoop describes.
Motherhood. Sigh.
72 People Reveal Their Secret New Year's Resolution. RIVETING. And also NSFW because people got weird dreams.
Ha! English Majors unite!
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5 // CONSUMING
Reading: I am finally, for real, not reading about the royal family, but only because I have finished all the books I have about them. I'll always remember the summer of David Sedaris, but Q4 belonged to the Windsors.
Moving right along, I always like to start my year with a non-fiction read, and this time, I'm reading Wintering by Katherine May. I am just a few pages in, so I don't have anything to say about it yet, but I was drawn to the book based on its synopsis: winter (and difficult life seasons) have a purpose and there is real power in rest and retreat to heal. As noted above, plants and animals do it every year and what am I if not a big animal?
Eating: I'm planning a full post (which I did actually write!) to talk about my winter project, but the gist is this: I am cooking my way through a Half-baked Harvest cookbook. So that's what we're eating around here. I started with a spiced paprika chicken recipe that went well, but could have had more salt.
Listening: Two things - a New Year, New Goals podcast about goal planning from ABM, and while I'm putzing around making dinner or emptying the dishwasher, Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, which reminds me of Tom Hanks and Bonnie Hunt dancing in their kitchen in The Green Mile.
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6 // PLANS
Okay, I think I'm finally going to talk myself into going sledding. I've had it on my list of wintertime to-dos for a while, but the weather wasn't cooperating. We got a nice bit of snow this week, eliminating that procrastination technique. Who knows! Maybe it will be fun!
I'm also a big fan of "obligatory weekend fun" which means planning at least one good activity for the weekend, because otherwise I'll lay around, putz around, and do nothing all weekend, only to anxiously wonder where the weekend went on Sunday afternoon. So I think sledding is our obligatory weekend fun, and I also have recently enjoyed taking Duke out for a breakfast or lunch date, just the two of us. He's really very companionable now, and since he goes to school all day, he has his own social life to fill me in on. Can't wait to hear what hijinks Waylon and Zeena have been up to on the playground (kid names, they're so weird, right?).
Happy weekending friends!
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