GOOD THINGS THIS WEEK: Kamala = More Maya, my book from The Bookshelf Shelf Subscription this month is amazing (it’s Hamnet), and I picked some really just absolutely perfect figs off our fig tree yesterday.
Thought we’d do some treasures and then maybe answer a few questions, shall we?
🪑 I listened to Leslie Odom, Jr. on Armchair Expert and LOVED IT. You know when you see someone play a role you love and then you expect them to just kind of be a different version of that person in real life? Well, friends. There’s a reason LOJ won that Tony and it’s because he’s a dang fine actor. I was so impressed with his story about how we negotiated his Hamilton/Disney+ contract the DAY BEFORE FILMING. It’s a long listen, but great.
💃 Something about this excellent movie dancing compilation set to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is just uplifting as heck. And made me really want to watch Singin’ in the Rain.
💒I think I mentioned that the podcast I am on with Knox McCoy and Jamie Golden, The Bible Binge, is now weekly, and our first two episodes are up. This season is all about the disciples, and you can listen to us discuss the Apostle Peter, as well as the first episode of our new current events show, Favored or Forsaken, where this week we discussed if Jesus was white (newflash: He was not) and Rachel Hollis. We also have a lovely little Patreon community, where one of my pieces of content this week was a Bible Scholar Question That Needs An Answer: What’s Up with Ladies in the Bible?
☹️ It’s unfair to me that Kelly Bandas can be funny on Twitter AND Instagram. You have to pick one, Kelly!
Okay how about a few questions, shall we? I’m going to keep it light and rapid fire this week because…well, I want to. I’m just not in a place of thoughtfulness so if you asked a question requiring thoughtfulness, we’ll try again next week.
🛌 Q: Who would be at your dream slumber party? Anybody, living or dead. - @elizabethhomme A: May I be frank and say I do not like slumber parties? I liked spending the night with a few of my friends, but big birthday slumber parties are not my jam. I don’t like sleeping bags. I do not like pranks. I do not want to stay up late, unless it’s with a few of my ride-or-dies and we’re doing a movie marathon, no horror. I don’t want to play Bloody Mary, I don’t want to freeze anyone’s bra. I want to sit under my own vine and fig tree. I know that wasn’t your question, but I really felt the need to make sure you understand I would rather just stay late at someone’s house, then have my mom come and pick me up so I can sleep in my own bed without the fear that the one girl who had an older sister would stick my hand in a bowl of warm water while I sleep. I think I would choose Olive Oatman, Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine (she has to play the role), Vanessa Nadal, Chris Jackson as George Washington, and Serena Williams. But we would just hang out, watch movies, and eat pizza. Then everyone’s mom has to come pick them up.
👶 Q: What were your postpartum experiences like? STRUGGLING over here. - anonymous A: Look, my mom walked into my child’s nursery when I was probably one week postpartum and I was shirtless and wailing. The baby was on the rug where I had placed her with great care as I went full sackcloth and ashes. She knelt down the floor with me and asked what was wrong and I blubbered to her that I couldn’t let the baby sleep in her room alone because wolves would definitely come through the window and take her away and raise her as their own. I legitimately thought this. I knew it to be true above all else. Here’s what’s hard about having a baby in any time: you have never had this baby before. You are also having a baby you’ve never had before in the midst of a global pandemic. SO THIS IS HARD. Really hard. I would pop Percocets and watched Arrested Development and cry about how I could not bond with my child because I HAD to watch Michael Bluth and his shenanigans. So while I was ridiculous and sad and frustrated and lonely, I probably didn’t have full-on PPD. Everyone struggles. It’s absolutely normal, but it’s also 4000% okay to go see someone or talk to someone. Sometimes when we are in the bad place, we don’t really know HOW bad we are. And it’s tricky because…again, you’ve never had this baby before. Also pandemic. There’s nothing to compare it to. When you talk to someone who knows what’s up, they can help you gauge. Maybe you need someone to ask the right questions or maybe you need our good friend Lexapro. A third party is always helpful, especially one with a degree in counselling. I love all you new mommas so much. So much grace for you all.
🤓 Q: VERY best Lazy Genius life hack that has optimized your life? - @britfrey A: Decide once. I made a really big decision last week that felt stupid sometimes, and then felt like the right thing to do. I KNEW it was the right thing to do, but I kept second-guessing myself. BUT Kendra taught me to decide once, and while I rarely trust my gut, I always know if I decide once and move on, I don’t have to. I LOVE decisions when they’ve been made. Also, as a side note, my Lazy Genius routine that Kendra helped me with (we talk about it here) is going great. And even since then, I’ve decided to wake up early and go walking sometimes, but the principle remains. I don’t have to worry about whether or not they are taken care of because there’s nothing my children love more than a screen to sit in front of. They are perfectly content and I can do what I want, whether that’s go walking before the temperature reaches skin-melting points or lay in bed and scroll Twitter. LAZY. GENIUS.
🍗 Q: What is your dream company to have approach you for sponcon? - @lemonadeh A: Bagel Bites or a wings restaurant.
⏰ Q: How far in a book should I force myself to read before quitting? My type 3 hates DNF. - @greycycler A: I think when you start to think to yourself: this has stopped being enjoyable or educational. And just reframe it from not finishing to being more economical and productive with your time. BOOM. HACKED.
🥱 Q: Are you tired? - @greatscott A: Very.
Alright, you crazy diamonds. I cannot wait to see what you’ve been up to this week. May your school reopening plan be thorough, may your cases be declining, and may all your Kamalas be Mayas. Happy Weekend.
Hi! If you like the Swipe Up, will you share the Swipe Up? I sometimes slide into your DMs with a treat, but mainly you get my undying gratitude. Thank you, it means a lot to me when you share with your people. ❤️
I thoroughly enjoyed the Armchair Expert episode with Leslie Odom Jr, however I must say I was unprepared for the snake/butthole conversation in the fact checking section. 😳As someone who is as afraid of snakes as Monica, I will now have nightmares for days.
Now I need to work out how to get my husband to bed and out of the way early enough to watch Flashdance, Singing in the Rain, Clueless, and then re-watch Hamilton... I think that's the right order...Had to have a second MRI in a month this morning, and that dance compilation was *exactly* the medicine I needed to rewind. Thanks for your work as ever Erin
The Lion in Winter mention sent me on two quests last night - to figure how to stream that great film & on some late night baking making my favorite brownies - which are apparently from The Katherine Hepburn. Yes, they are from scratch but super easy and legit the best brownies that have ever graced my mouth. Is it worth it when box mix is so delightful? 1000%. (And this is coming from a girl who did a whole 4H project back in the day arguing why boxed mix made superior brownies). Also there is just that added classy factor because you are making what the great Katherine Hepburn made herself. My winning combo is no nuts but stirring in dark chocolate chips & milk chocolate chips but I don’t really think you can go wrong here. They are the treasure your weekend needs!
📚I’ve been in my classroom this week attempting to set up everything up. It's just plain hard no other words to say for it than that. Heavy Ts and Ps to any other teachers having to do this and parents having to make this choice. Setting up desks six feet away from each other instead of in groups and forgoing my big semi circle table where we gather and laugh and learn makes me grieve a little bit (a lot) for my students. The laughter and family formed around that table is pure magic and we won’t get that same form of magic this year. But there have also been moments of joy and praise dances while doing so (thank you, Maverick City Music). My little classroom is my second home and being able to be back in it and focus on creating a safe and loving community for my little learners is giving me joy in spite of all the unknowns.
⭐️ Hamilton brunch last week was a pure delight. I spent the first several minutes of it just watching my three year old niece be fully enraptured with the singing and dancing - same, girl, same.
📺 I’ve been rewatching Community this week. And it’s just so dang good. Highly recommend.
👟 I know I mentioned last week how exercise is keeping me sane. Well, I took the plunge and ordered new running shoes. They came in this week and have made running so much more enjoyable.
So I’ve subscribed forever and look forward to my email every week, but never have actually clicked through to here. I’m in that weird ‘old millennial’ category where I don’t realize there are things like this. I tried Tik Tok at the very beginning of quarantine, watched myself and promptly deleted it. 😂 But hi everyone!
I have two boys, one in 3rd and one entering kindergarten which makes me sad for him. Husband is a counselor and non profit director, I work in local government doing economic development. We’ve been working from home since March just left our kids with their grandparents for 4 days, and it was amazing and weird and all we did was work, order out, drink wine and watch Netflix. 😂 Also, to whoever posted the comment about watching WWII era things - right there with you. I’ve been reading so much historical fiction set in WWII England and France. It’s strangely cathartic like ‘oh. At least there aren’t bombers flying over my house right now.’
You and my 2.5-year-old would be besties. Her YouTube requests alternate between “watch singin in da rain!” and “watch doompa doompa!” (Oompa loompa). I took her outside in the rain with her umbrella and rain boots the other day and I thought she was going to explode with joy.
Y'all I had some really fantastic thing to share with you... and then I forgot it when I got the email this morning, BUT I just remembered - lucky you! ;)
(Backstory: I have been employed at a hotel for the past 10 years. Enter COVID and a 4 month furlough. I've been back 3 days a week since last month. It's not the best financial situation, but enough to get by as a single lady sharing a house with 2 other girls and sharing costs.)
TREASURE: I got my hair cut and colored for the first time since February. For a thick-hair girl with red bayalage, this is a MAJOR deal! My boss is on vacation next week, so they've asked me to work 5 days (the extra 2 days helps to cover most of the cost of my salon visit)!! Praises for not being a complete financial failure for the sake of good hair!
If you are the praying type, I'm actually working on an application for a new job that would be an automatic pay increase, consistent hours, time off for all of the holidays (being in hospitality you get 6 holiday paid days off), and way better benefits/insurance. My best friend currently has the role within the organization in a different department and everything she has told me about her day-to-day makes me think I am completely capable of doing the thing (legal secretary). However, I haven't ever done a career pivot or really completed a non-hospitality related application before. And have only ever done a handful of interviews. I am 100% psyching myself out before I even push submit. So I guess that's kind of a turdy treasure??
Amen to the greatness that is that dance compilation! That is something we didn't know we needed right now and I will be sharing with my IG friends bc let's not hide that joy.
Good morning...there's four minutes left of the "morning" so I'm still going to say good morning.
*Erin, the dance compilation was everything I needed this morning. Who doesn't love a supercut that includes The Cutting Edge and Troop Beverly Hills!
Treasures: The church I've been interning at for 9 months is starting to feel like home. As I looked out from my make shift sound booth at the biggest group of masked congregants that we've had since we started doing in person service, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and normalcy and goodness. I felt right, normal and good with my church. It's the hardest thing I've done this year to leave my comfy cozy home church to learn and grow at a new church. The moment I had on Sunday was holy and needed.
* I discovered Stephen Colbert's Just One Question and someone asks Hillary Clinton where her keys and another asks her how to fix a toilet...it's comedy gold and not too terribly political
* My sister in law had the whole house to herself last week and texted me questions about Dawson's Creek at 10pm at night. I love the thought of my very together, very smart sister in law having the house to herself with no teenagers or my brother to dictate the TV choices and she chose our beloved Dawson's Creek.
Turds
*I've been diagnosed with uterine fibroids back in October and have been on the journey of curbing their growth with birth control which stops my periods (which has been amazing). But about a month ago, I started spotting and finally got into the doctor yesterday. She recommended going on an IUD instead of pills which is frankly very attractive to not have to remember to take a pill, to have a targeted medicine instead of a pill that is process by my whole system. However, I'm waiting to hear if my insurance will cover it and just the adulting of this whole situation is dumb.
* I've had several very good but emotionally draining conversations in the last week which has left me with what this community so accurately describes as a vulnerability hangover. I postponed a coaching sessions this morning on those grounds which I'm proud of myself for asking for what I need from my coach. Combined with grad school beginning on Monday, I feel...well I feel tired in more ways than one.
I'm attempting to seek out new communities at the moment since my husband and I chose to leave our local church recently. It was a long-time coming, but I don't think either of us expected to reach our breaking points at a time when the risk of isolation is this high. We're both introverted and extremely fortunate to not have been more dramatically impacted by the lock down, but definitely recognize that it's risky to make a shift right now. So, that's my recent turd.
I have been finding a lot of treasures recently, though. A friend of mine turned me on to the British show Taskmaster. The first 6-ish season are on Netflix. They're def NSFJM/NSFKM in later season (they stop bleeping the cuss words), but it's a compact form of absurd comedy that I desperately need these days.
I'm especially pumped for the Faith Adjacent Book Club and plan to read The Dearly Beloved this weekend. I've also got a vacation planned for next week in an Air BnB with a private pool in a town about an hour away. I'm so looking forward to disconnecting and relaxing with a change of scenery.
And probably most exciting at the moment, my husband's friend is spinning up a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign online for us and few of our other favorite people. I'm really excited to get to play again - our last campaign suspended back in January, so it's been awhile. Session Zero is next week!
Thanks for being the best dang community on the internet. I appreciate you all. :)
My biggest treasure this week is getting to read the thread the day it is posted and to comment. May I never take it for granted. The last two weeks were turds b/c of Hurricane Isaias. While the damage was much less than anticipated, my line of work ramps up big time either way. For that reason, I didn't really get to read/participate much and I missed it!
This week is much better than the last two, but I did just look behind me thinking the cat was making a noise when, in fact, it appears to have been my intestines.
2. A change of perspective. There are a few interpersonal scenarios in both my professional and personal life right now that have been really challenging. I've been bringing some baggage to how I perceive/interpret those scenarios that has NOT been Coach, Chanel or Kate brand, and it has been v unhelpful. This week I took the time to do some processing and changed my perspective and it's helped a lot. I'm proud of myself for doing the work and thankful for the shift in my experience.
3. My kitty is snoring and I think it's one of my fav things ever.
Turd:
One of my corona fam and I had a conflict and things have felt off since. I tried to do the right things - listened to what I had done that hurt her feelings, acknowledge, apologize without qualifying. In the process of answering questions she asked me, I said something that translated to her as defensiveness (it wasn't. It was me trying to figure out how I could have avoided the situation and trying to internalize it so as not to hurt her in the future). She confronted me AGAIN on those comments from the original conversation...a month later...after shifting how she is interacting with me.
It all feels very...junior high? Dramatic? And honestly, it feels super crappy when this is my primary outlet for human to human interaction during corona. I'd totally appreciate t's and p's.
This week has been a whole lot of finishing up house projects because on Sunday we're leaving for a family trip and then the day we get back home I'm throwing a very belated baby shower for my sister-in-law and 8-month-old nephew. I had a shower planned for September of last year, but then my SIL had a very bizarre medical mystery that looked a lot like HELLP but wasn't so she was hospitalized for a few weeks and then they wanted to stay close to home (they live 5ish hours away) as they waited for baby then when you have a newborn at the beginning of December you do not go anywhere and then coronavirus... So this is the first time they have ventured down this way in an entire year and the timing just works best that we do the shower at my house within hours of arriving home. 😅
But before I run off to finish painting my dining room and deep cleaning my kitchen, I've just made a very important discovery that I haven't listened to yet but I am **very** excited about. Jill Lepore has a podcast. It's called The Last Archive and it looks very promising. 🎉
I loved slumber parties! I especially loved them when they weren't at my house. Friends' houses were always so much more exciting than my own, ya know? Give me all the junk food snacking, movie marathons (even horror because I'm weird and never really get scared at that stuff), hair braiding, pranking, truth or dare, sleeping bags, girl talk, and staying up all night. This is why I thrived working at a summer camp (however, my late-20s self cannot fathom surviving on that schedule for an entire summer anymore).
Treasures:
-After nearly five years at my job, I FINALLY got a phone in my work space this week (I say work space because I don't have an office, which is a different story). I have only asked for one, oh, about five million times, and I walked in on Wednesday morning to a box sitting on my desk with a brand new phone! Let me set the stage as to why not having one has been such a pain the last five years: every staff office and the welcome center phones are at the front of the building. My learning center where I spend pretty much my entire day is allllll the way at the back of the building. This means whenever a call came in for me, I either had to be paged over the intercom to come all the way to the front to answer it, someone would have to walk back to tell me I had a call, or whoever was working reception would just get confused when they didn't see an extension for me and they'd take a message instead, which would get written on a tiny piece of paper and shoved to the back of my mailbox to be found a week later. So I'd usually end up giving my cell phone number to volunteers and select clients, which makes it very hard to keep boundaries and stick to working during office hours. So, all the praise hands for this one! 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
-The Boy is meeting my family this weekend! I am very nervous for him because, well, I know my parents, but he is confident and I know he'll make a good impression. I'm more concerned for their expectations and critical nature, especially since I've never brought a guy home for them to meet before, but I think everything will be great! My sister and I are close, so she's heard all the details from the start and will be easy to win over, so I'm glad she'll be there too. Also, the Boy and I had a big conversation about the future this week. 😳 This seems crazy to say after being official for less than a month, but my friend keeps reminding me that we're on nobody's timeline but our own, so as long as it feels right, then it's not too soon.
-One more very minor one: Starbucks changed their sippy cup lids to have a smaller drinking hole now, which means no more spilling my drink down my face every time I take a sip too quickly. 😂 (Yes, I know Starbucks is not the greatest company to support, but there are no small local places on my way to work anymore and I was out of coffee this morning and it was very much needed.) It's the little things.
I am currently sitting in my OFFICE and it is so weird. On Friday's just my supervisor and our amazing Admin comes in so I had to come in today and get some things and wow I miss working in my office. However I am missing my furry coworker best friend, Finn.
Dolly is a Queen and I would invite her to my slumber party but I am with Erin on that front. I don't like pranks and such and have just never been the slumber party type. Now having a long dinner with some of the most amazing people I can think of would be glorious.
Joe (the partner) and I have gone down the Osbournes tilt a whirl. We watched a show with Jack and Ozzy and now we are wishing we could watch the original. That fam? Fascinating. Ozzy is a bit of a genius in his own weird way.
I have felt quiet lately but I did some mental health musts and say my psychiatrist and started seeing a counselor because being stuck at home since March was weighing heavily.
I am still stuck on Hamilton. The music is getting me through today. I seriously am a late comer and am not the least bit sad about it.
How I know it’s Friday: Erin’s amazing newsletter in my emailbox and lots of awesome turds & treasures to read! My turd is I was tested for COVID19 on Mon. I haven’t gotten the results back yet. I’ve been having headaches off and on and tightness in my chest since about a week ago. I’m not too scared and self-isolating isn’t hard for me because I live out in the country with just my husband, it is just a little unsettling not knowing yet.
I’ve been watching a bunch of WW2 documentaries because somehow focusing on a different worldwide horror makes today’s troubles seem small by comparison. 🤷🏻♀️ Maybe not, but one can hope!
Dolly announced yesterday that she’s releasing a new Christmas album and y’all I think Christmas 2020 might be saved!
I’ve been feeling some major feelings this week along the lines of March and April feelings. The longer this all goes on the more slothlike my soul becomes but I’m meeting with my youth tonight (I work at my church) and they always lift my spirits!
Okay, first off. Dolly Parton is someone America definitely does not deserve. Queen. Yass! Also I want that quote of white asses as a shirt.
To the momma with postpartum: it is totally normal to struggle! I absolutely abhor that it is not openly talked about how much your hormones are crazy town after birth. I remember for the first few weeks at SUNSET EVERYDAY I would cry, and I then would be crying saying, "why am I crying, I have no reason to cry!" But cry I would and be so sad. It was helpful to me to know this is my body re-regulating from having two sets of hormones inside of me and all the hormones it needs to create a human for nine months. I am coming down the mountain of all that, it will take a bit and that's okay. I would just let the feelings come and as long as I didn't want to hurt myself or my baby I knew I would be good. (Please talk to someone and let them know you are struggling, being less alone is helpful). You will come out of this!
A turd for today: we went camping in Colorado for the past few days drove from Texas. Driving home our car broke down about 10 minutes outside of colorado (8 hours away from home) and 7 hours later we now need a 7k fix on a 2500k car, a rental that has to be taken back to New Mexico and now looking for a new car. We left Colorado at 7am and got home at 4am. Yesterday was dumb. But I listened to the new episode of the popcast at 1am in the middle of nowhere, Texas and that helped.
Yesterday I woke up - grabbed my phone in anticipation- and scrolled email. A promotion from J Crew? A package has shipped? What... where is Erin? I’m upset but then think, you know, it’s ok, she just needs a break.
Two hours later it dawns on me. It’s only Thursday. Well that makes more sense...
Real life awaits! I start back at work Monday. We made the decision to do a nanny share for the baby and daycare part time for the older kiddo. It was a hard decision and I’ve felt judged by another mom recently for it. Sigh. I do think we’re all trying to do our best but the nuances of parenting are already tough and a pandemic makes it even harder. These liturgies and breath prayers are getting me through: https://instagram.com/liturgiesforparents?igshid=wkzyazrfzmlo
I’m anxious for work because a lot has likely changed in the four months I’ve been away. I’m trying to fight fears that I’ve been replaced. I am grateful I’ll be working from home however I do enjoy many of my coworkers and I think it will be deep into 2021 until I see them again.
Someone last week mentioned L.M. Montgomery and so I decided it was necessary for me to read her entire anthology. (Truly a balm for these times.) Before I dive in, I’m reading a sweet biography on her called House of Dreams. Highly recommend for fans.
and p.s. I love Dolly. Highly recommend the Dolly’s America podcast.
- i enrolled my son in preschool this week. i have been having lots of feelings about it, but i know this will be so good for him! he just turned 3 and stays with my in-laws during the week so the social aspect is what will be most beneficial. he can be very, very bashful around others, which i know is typical for his age, but it's so funny to me because the moment he is around people he knows, he is chatty, loud, + always asking questions.
- currently reading: "the good daughter" by karin slaughter. i finished "the glass hotel" by emily st. john mandel earlier this week.)
- currently watching: veronica mars, season three.
- currently loving: watermelon with trader joe's chile lime seasoning. this combo seems odd, but IT IS THE DELIGHT OF MY LIFE right now.
Good morning! My week basically consisted of trying to keep my tiny people occupied and waiting to go into labor... Two weeks until my due date but I am oooooover it.
I just finished that biography of Catherine the Great— it was meant to be my “fall asleep” audiobook but I found the story (particularly in the beginning) so outlandishly ridiculous that I kept extending my sleep timer.
Anyway, my kids are fighting with each other over floor cereal right now and I might go into labor from sheer irritation.
At the beginning of the year, my friend group decided to set a little competition to see who could read the most books and pages, audiobooks don’t count. I’m a full-time working mother of 3 who is in Seminary. I don’t have time to read anything other than school books. (I am also not competitive in the least. In my mind, competition creates conflict and I would rather be friends than have anyone bothered by me winning anything. No joke, I apologize when I win. 🙈) I noticed I started to feel guilty when I would do an audiobook instead of reading, and instead of just sharing with my friends something great I had listened to, I would feel bad for not fully participating. All that to say, my decide once that was made yesterday was not feeling guilty that I just do not have time to read and audiobooks are 100% fine. (In fact, I got almost halfway through The Lazy Genius Way yesterday while doing laundry!) It’s a small thing, but those matter too.
I shared last week that I had a total breakdown over spilled sweet tea (really months of stress, anxiety, and crushing disappointment, but spilling sweet tea opened the floodgates) because this season was just not supposed to be this way, y’know? (I think we all feel that.) I’m getting remarried next month (yay!). And it’s been a really rough road getting to this spot. My first marriage ended really horribly and it was devastating. So this new life and love and the rebuilding of my little family feels very redemptive. (Truly, I get to marry the greatest man.) We got engaged in February and planned our sweet, fun day with all of our friends and family. But lots of constant changes, lots of guidelines to follow, and honestly, a lot of grief that we won’t have the day we were hoping for. We’ve swapped locations, cut down guest list, are now live-streaming, moved everything outdoors, etc etc etc. I know there are so many things going on in the world and God has bigger fish to fry than my one small afternoon, but there is real grief surrounding the unmet expectations too. So with that said, the ray of sunshine is that my bachelorette party is this weekend. 🎉 Definitely looks very different now with all of the things going on, but it’ll be a relaxing weekend in a cabin in the mountains with a couple of my very best friends, and I am pumped. It feels just slightly normal.
First off.....look at all the comments! LOOK AT THEM! *clapping hands with the joy of a child watching something magical*
I needed this.
This week. I'm slugging through. I am awaiting an email from my sons' school district telling us which days my kids will be in school and out. Rumor has it (sung like Adele) they are trying to take into account those families with multiple children to try to make it so siblings are in school the same day and home the same days. Well hall-eh--fricking-loooo-yah. But still I wait. Y'all. Normally by Aug 14 I'd have school supplies labeled and packed in backpacks and back to school outfits bought. So we MIGHT be going school supply shopping as a family on Saturday.
Although
I might buy myself something
BECAUSE I LOVE SCHOOL SUPPLIES.
Okay so my list of the week.
1. My dad came down on Sunday. It was a little bit of a surprise (he told me on Thursday). It was lovely to see him as it always is. So, I classed it up and made mussels -- gang, don't sit on the frozen mussels at Aldi. If you like mussels GO GET THESE. I took a box of those, some tomatoes, garlic, chicken stock and omg it was like we were on one of our food trips.
2. And because I thought of doing this, it forced *twist my arm* me to bake a loaf of bread. Typically I wait until after labor day to make a lot of the No Knead Bread (google it). But the power of bread compelled me. And in my house, that bread DISAPPEARS. My kids know the smell of that bread baking and it was gone by Monday at lunch. So the power of bread is a magical mood lifter.
3. Baseball is OVER. Thank you. Sure. last night at the last official game (there might be a rain make up game but I am not holding my breath) -- NO ONE SAT NEAR ME. Not a single person. In fact one mom came near me, saw it was me and TURNED AROUND. You guys. These are grown @ss women pulling this. OH and did I mention they tried to coordinate a tailgate/potluck before one of the games. And that was the game where there was a massive rainout. It's like the universe was all "no potluck in a pandemic!!"
4. Mascara -- Now I know for many make-up has long since fallen off the radar in the Covid Era. But since lipstick is something I don't wear (unless home haha) anymore at work which is a whole very very very weird thing for me. I would typically skip all/most other make-up but ALWAYS sport a lip. But I have done the Jamie Golden *(Holden?) move of buying the mini/sample/trial size of a couple mascaras off Sephora and this one might be my favorite. https://www.sephora.com/product/monsieur-big-mascara-P419848
It has the right viscosity, it colors my lashes well, it makes them purty without shedding and making me look spent by the end of the day. WIN! What mascaras do you all like?
5. The power of a dream ........ this weekend I had a powerful dream featuring my mom. In the five years since she has passed she has popped into dreams of mine, but its very rare we interact -- she'll be there, but I won't be able to really talk to her. Or the Mel in my dreams knows she has passed but the Mom has not, its all very weird and I know I'm breaking the talk about dream rules....but just hear me out. In my dream, a family friend of mine (we have known each other for 20 years) that I haven't spoken to since....March was there. He and my mom were talking, just having a very casual and comfortable convo. Which is accurate as when he knew my mom they were that way. Now I haven't spoken to this friend as the last time we interacted he lashed out and said some nasty things about our governor and was just a real jerk shooting the messenger and I was all "okay well, you do you, be well" and left it at that -- so in the dream my mom asked me how I was doing and I MELTED DOWN. Basically saying how everything is hard and I don't know what I'm doing and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. And they both listened and tried to console me, but then my mom got up, put her hand on my back and said "you two need to talk, I'm going to let you do that" and she walked away. That's when I woke up. And immediately texted my friend to just say hey, let him know as crazy as it sounded I had a dream where my mom told me to talk to him --- long story shorter, he wrote back and apologized for our last interaction. It totally was unexpected.
Hello hello. A couple of treasures for this 105 degree Friday in Dallas, TX...(that's not a treasure it is a turd, but I know a lot of us here are in the south and miserable too so all the T's and P's to you)
1. I just started re-watching Friday Night Lights on Hulu with my roommate. I never finished it when I watched in college and there's so much I've forgotten that it's like watching a new show for me. I also am not from Texas but have lived here for 8 years (if you include my 4 years in college) and my roommate isn't from Texas either so we feel like it's a rite of passage especially during these ~times~. I actually am mainly only watching old TV shows right now as my escape to the 2020 reality. 10/10 recommend.
2. I'm contemplating a career pivot/pursuing more school or certification. I've been connected to some great people who are in the current career I'm interested in and honestly this networking experience has made me feel some kind of hope in our world. It sounds silly, but I have felt an overwhelming amount of support from my friends and strangers and it's just nice. People sending me articles, book recommendations, Youtube vids, their portfolios, etc. etc... So with that said, if any of you are in the UX design field, or know anyone who is..I'd love to connect and hear about your experience in the job!
3. Watched the Netflix movie "Work It" with Jordan Fischer last weekend...dang I love that boy. This movie is basically a rip off of Pitch Perfect and Bring it On but instead it's dancing but I mean whatever I still loved it...
I have a treasure to share this week - I had my first sale on my very new Etsy shop! Yay! If you're into handmade cards or someone to address your envelopes or write your thank you notes, I'm your girl. "Handwritten by Noel" on Etsy :)
I also am a teacher on week one of professional development on campus and it's going okay!!! I had been so nervous to come back, but we are easing in with just staff for a week and a half and then half the students per day... baby steps...
first of all: We STAN Dolly in this house. "Don't be a dumbass" amen.
second of all: despite hormones doing their best to make me believe everyone hates me (the waterworks this week yall...) there are still some treasures.
-I made it to SIX YEARS of librarianship in the same library! there's days I think I should have moved on and up by now, but most of the time I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and I'm pretty proud of my self for powering through the tough early years.
-Some of my sweet library girls - whose family I immediately bonded with 6 years ago, cause big families understand big families - asked to hang out last night, so we got tea at the local coffee shop and gabbed for ages then ended up back at the family farm where the littlest brothers gave my James a run for his money in the cuteness arena (I was serenaded on piano by the 5 yearold) and I left with grassfed beef from the freezer and an armfull of books to borrow. cause when you're from a big family it aint wierd that you're 10 years older than the girls you're hanging out with cause you've got siblings 17 years younger than you nbd.
- The picture. iykyk.
nahhhh fam. I wouldn't do you like that. Storytime.
So sunday after church I bid my Boy goodbye and left the soundbooth, only to get waylaid talking with friends in the lobby (I usually head straight to the car, cause introvert and covid) Boy is going about turning off electronics around the church, and he stops in the group of our friends to chat a sec then goes on his way. I get ready to leave and am walking away when I hear him yelling for me, so I turn around and head back to the group, where he's like "hey, we're cute. we need a picture." So I grab one of my girlfriends to get a picture for us and DANG YALL WE ARE DANG CUTE. He's not really a picture taker so I haven't wanted to make him uncomfortable, but the genuine smile and his eyes and how we just *fit* together was worth the wait for this picture. am I making too much of this? probs so. Do I have his face at my desk now? HEELLLL YEAH. *all the heart eyes*
Resounding YES AND AMEN to the words on postpartum. It took struggling through severe PPA with three babies for me to realize, “oh, wait, maybe this is more than just regular parenting stress.” For anyone feeling deep in the postpartum trench, talk to someone who loves you. Or talk to me if you feel like your honest feelings are too much to share with your people. You are not alone. ❤️
I swear this week has felt like it's lasted a year. No idea why! Thankfully it's over. But since we’re all living, working, and parenting from home the weekend means nothing any more!😂
Treasures:
-I just discovered The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. GUYS. I love the Palladinos (except for how they ruined my life with the GG Revival). THIS SHOW HAS EXISTED FOR MY CHILD’S ENTIRE LIFE AND NO ONE TOLD ME. Firing all my friends immediately.
-Books books books. As always, reading heals my soul. I'm reading Big Summer and I'm Still Here. VASTLY different books, but both very good. ISH is challenging me in the best ways. Pretty certain it's going to really change a lot in my mind once I finish.
-I’ve got a coupon for a Sonic cold brew for $1 (WHAT?!) and I'm excited to try. I love a good coffee...add in sonic ice and I'm pumped. Has anyone tried it? (PS, download the Sonic app. I haven't pressed the little red button in months and drinks are always at happy hour prices. The best hack ever. If my 65-year-old Dad can do it, you should too!!)
-I found a mom hack to get your tiny person to sleep longer in the morning: if you wake up early to get alone time, they'll inexplicably oversleep for +/- an hour. However, if you don't and try to sleep in, they'll wake up with the sun BECAUSE WHY NOT. 👀
My favorite thing this week is Jami Nato‘s (@jaminato on Instagram) “Fake influencer challenge” - have you seen it?! It’s hilarious. You (a normal person and def not an influencer) act like one and say “so many of you have asked about how I [fill in the blank with a thing you totally do not do, like “clean my fans 3x/ week” or “keep my lawn mowed and edged myself” or “wake up at 5 every morning to wash, dry, fold, and put away laundry in one sitting before anyone gets up” etc]” You act like you’re filming yourself but you’re actually filming your spouse or kids and their reaction to your blatant lies. ITS HILARIOUS. She has a highlight button for it. Please, prepare to cry happy tears as you realize none of us do those things, and at the end of the day, most of us and our significant others are sitting in front of the tv on our phones 😂
Happy Friday, internet friends. I read this voraciously every week, but I don't think I've ever contributed, because I didn't have anything worthy to share. But my friends, in the words of Angelica Schuyler, "I'm about to change your life."
I have found a piece of Internet brilliance that I've been waiting several days to share. I believe in looking for the good in things, so I think the pandemic happened to bring Hamilton to Disney+, and give some random guy the idea to re-create the Hamilton score with the Muppets. Don't believe me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzDP-vQXao&t=1846s
I didn't know I needed "Chef, Refuted" by the Swedish Chef. I didn't know the sheer brilliance of Animal as King George. And I had no idea how the Marquis de LaFozette was going to get through "Guns and Ships."
Please let this video make up for any turds in your life this week. Don't forget to browse through the comments section on the video as well. (And yes, Act 2 is also now available.)
I had a “found myself eating chocolate chips off the pantry floor after the bag split open” kind of week. The good news is that we are about halfway through August (aka armpit month) and I say good riddance to the heat and summer blahs. The best (only?) thing about August is the bountiful produce in the garden. This year my husband surprised me by planting some lemon cucumbers, which were a favorite of mine from childhood. My Dad and I used to eat them together slice after crunchy slice. In this first summer without him, it has been so nice to have a tangible memory of our time together.
My 2.5 yr old daughter has some developmental delays (particularly in the speech/sensory areas) and it turns out a pandemic really doesn’t help with getting the support and socialization she needs. We are so over zoom, but when that is all you have you keep trying. I feel so bad that her world has changed so drastically and I am unable to right for her. I know many of you are dealing with sohpie-choice like decisions for school and you have my deepest admiration and sympathy as you make the best of this crazy time.
📺When my phone died via water baptism and I had to get a new one-Apple offered a free year of Apple TV. There is not much on there, but I have been enjoying the show “Little Voice.” It is about a songwriter trying to get her big break in NYC. She sings songs that Sara Bareilles wrote especially for this show and the music is lovely. The show gives off major Felicity vibes (no surprise as JJ Abrams is involved), but thankfully with a much more diverse cast. With my current pandemic eyeglasses on it is wildly nostalgic to watch people socialize on the show in groups, attend concerts etc.
📚The memoir book “Here For It” by R Eric Thomas was a delight on audio. I always love when authors read their own work (including you Erin!), and his inflections and emphasis on certain parts made for such a fun listening experience. What other book has shoutouts for both Lady Elaine Farechild and Pontus Pilate? Switching to mostly audio has been a game-changer for my reading life. I am slowly creeping up in speed-if anyone has any tips for getting up to 2x speed let me know.
I hope all of your weekends are filled with deliciously yummy things you don’t have to eat off the floor.
I feel bad coming in with turds (I know I shouldn’t, that’s why we’re here) but I’m just sad this week. I lost my cat on Wednesday. We called her my puppy because she was always following me around. She slept next to me every night and sleeping has been hard the last two nights. Also, I live in the Central Valley in CA and the temps are going to range from 100-109 for the next nine days. It happens at least once a summer and it sucks hard. Thanks for listening. As an Enneagram 2 feeling my feelings isn’t easy.
Erin, I never liked slumber parties either. In junior high I would stay the night a lot with my best friend, but never liked the big groups. Always felt stressful to me. And when I was younger I just didn't like being away from home. Anyway..this week has been a weird one. Husband got tested for Covid-19, so he's trying to isolate in our house until we get the results back (he feels fine, but had a sore throat plus no sense of taste or smell so...). Other stuff happened, but nothing major, just stuff that made me feel a little unmoored like I did the first few weeks of the pandemic. I often struggle with negative thought loops, and yesterday it really got me. I ended up abandoning all thoughts of productivity, listened to some soul-soothing Jesus music (Ellie Holcomb mostly), and just read my current fiction read for a couple if hours on my back porch (The Glass Hotel, by Hillary St. John Mandel). Even in the suffocating heat (August! Blarg!) while the kids played with Legos, and it did wonders. Then I played Castle Panic with my almost 5yo and felt even more more like myself. Another treasure this week has been watching Grantchester on Prime. Thank you to the person who recommended it! Sending cool thoughts everyone's way!
Hi all! My only son is grown and gone so the back to school decisions aren't affecting us directly but man, I feel for all of you, parents and teachers alike! Do what you think is right and works for your family and everyone who jumps in to offer their opinion can just be struck mute.
I'm adopting a new kitten today so that's going to make the pandemic much brighter! I am naming him Hamilton and will call him all sorts of cute varieties of that. It's a fact I will sing his name "ALEXANDER HAMILTON" every day.
I have been on Facebook for years but spend most of my time on Instagram. Less uninformed opinions, more cute animal posts! Mostly I just do a quick check to see what my non-Insta friends are up to. I have decided to jump in and start challenging uninformed and blatantly false posts, in a kind and informative way. I just can't sit by when a family member posts that Kamala Harris is not African American because her father came from Jamaica. Let's review history!
I live in Kansas City and our mayor just extended our mask mandate into January. *Insert heavy sigh here. Mainly to ask the Lord to help me deal with the complainers.* I have been making masks for family and friends so I guess I will just go buy more cute fabric and keep sewing. If we have to wear them, we should look cute right?
Erin, did you actually experience sleepovers like the ones described above or did you watch too many sleepover adjacent movies? Because I had A LOT of sleepovers as a kid and almost none of them included pranks and unpleasantness haha. Mostly I spent the night with my best friend basically every Friday night in junior high, to the point at which I kept a toothbrush and PJs at her house 😆 She was an only child and I was the eldest of 4, so it was a mutually beneficial weekly appointment. But I had various sleepovers up into SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL when I invited 10 girls to spend the night and we all slept on the floor of my living room and watched Aladdin... aka we were all dorks in AP English and nearly all my sleepovers stories are entirely wholesome.
My treasure is actually turd adjacent in that I checked the Lazy Genius fb group for the first time in ages yesterday and stumbled upon a potty training post that might be the answer to all my potty training woes — my son is probably chronically functionally constipated and thus cannot tell when he needs to pee. Can’t wait to ask my pedi if we can get an X-ray to check so he can start feeling the need to pee and stop having accidents if we don’t take him to the potty on a regimented schedule! Gah... motherhood is just gross.
Also I have been watching Ozark because I love dark crime TV and my husband does. It understand and sometimes checks in to make sure I’m ok 😆
Lastly I think I need to go on a Facebook hiatus because I went off on an acquaintance who shared one of those posts about “how easy it is for your child to be abducted into sex trafficking because everyone is wearing masks and how will we protect our kids and FACEBOOK TOOK THIS POST FOWN WE’RE BEING CENSORED.” I shared a NYT article about how conspiracy theorists are hijacking the trafficking convo and she told me “I can’t trust the NYT because it’s biased.” And I can’t anymore. THEN WHO DO YOU TRUST?! RANDO KAREN ON FACEBOOK WHOM YOU'VE NEVER MET??? Anyway I feel like that was the last straw for fb and me because it adds basically 0 value to my life except to procrastinate work and work me into an anxious mess because the deep pockets of the internet are evil and duping really genuinely nice smart people... and it promotes meme politics which I realized is a huge problem because it presupposes the other side are idiots rather than having thoughtful meaningful conversations about real issues. Literally the only things good about fb at this point are a few mom groups (one local that is good for local recommendations and news, one relates to my profession that I love nearly as much as your lil swipes), but I think I may need to abandon even those groups at this point for my mental sanity.
Oh and PS I am finally watching Community because it’s literally the last 30-minute comedy that’s highly recommended that I haven’t watched.
Hey friends! Well, we made the decision to keep our kids home for the first 9 weeks of school and then reevaluate. I thought I would feel so much better after making that decision, but strangely I do not. 🤷🏼♀️ But my youngest, who cried real, deep tears when we told her, has plans for PE everyday with 2 friends who are also staying home. That’s a treasure for sure.
On the turd side, my oldest’s girlfriend is going through some really turdish stuff. If you’re the praying type, will you pray for sweet Caroline? It’s breaking my heart. But on the treasure side, he brought her candy and flowers and a card which I was impressed with. I didn’t know teenage 8’s knew how to be sympathetic. 🤣
And I read a good book! The Ten Thousand Doors of January. 🙌🏼
Hi! I am new to this community and so happy to have found it! Actually, my 31 year old daughter shared it with me because I brought her up right and she knows stuff! Here is where my mind has been this week: Sorry I am not sorry that I watched Clueless and Booksmart. Who does not love Cher’s sweetness and huge Paul Rudd fan here! Thanks for having him on your post this week, Erin! Then, on the opposite spectrum, I read Sarah Bessey’s Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. Her writing is a balm for my soul right now. Honestly, weekends are not my fave right now since WE CANT DO ANYTHING! The two days loom large and empty so need help figuring out what to do besides more endless hours of streaming services! Have a great one, and be safe!
Happy Friday everyone! This was a mundane (in the nicest way) week around here. I took my two toddlers to the dentist on Tuesday. Per usual, the three year old behaved like a poster child, and the one year old acted as if an exorcism was necessary. Those first kids really know how to trick you into thinking you are THE BEST parent. The second kids bring you back to reality. We celebrated with a quick stop at a vacant playground and Sonic ice cream, and it was the treasure of my week.
My DNF book rule: if you get to 100 pages and you don’t care how it ends, move on to another one. Sometimes you know at 50 pages, though. And sometimes for longer books you might adjust to 200. Life is too short to finish something you’re not into and there are so many books to read!
We’ve had a long but sorta uneventful week here at Spatz mansion. My 16 year old went to target with the boy she likes, because according to her it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She now what’s to go to his house for dinner and a movie with his family. I told she can go but I’d need a copy of his insurance card, drivers license and credit report. She did not appreciate this.
I was almost attacked by the world largest spider! It was the size of my two years hand with a big ole egg sack on it. But I managed to survive with the help of a paper plate and duct tape. The USDA came to our house to tell us that a very large family of beavers was living in the creek across the street, in our back yard pond and the pond across the street. He put out traps since it was causing issues with the drainage when it rains. He said he was surprised they were an issue since it wasn’t even beaver season. Who knew beavers had a season!!
Apparently I needed to hear “you’ve never had THIS baby before” to validate that it’s okay that WHOA MAMA this postpartum situation is way harder than my other one was... and that’s okay. I’ve been seeing my counselor but I think it’s time to talk more seriously about bringing in the big guns and taking some meds since I keep checking to make sure everyone in my home is still breathing in the middle of the night. Including my husband, who OF COURSE.... is in fact still breathing. Pandemic babies y’all. It’s a time.
Thanks for the virtual thumbs up that even strong, super capable women can need meds sometimes.
First to the momma struggling with postpartum, I had it hard core 4 times. I’ve been deep in the trenches. My therapist had to come lay in the bed with me because I couldn’t even make it out of the bed. I have supported more women through their postpartum depression than I can count because of my own experience. You can reach out to me, via Instagram or if you’d like to talk I’ll give Erin Moon my number. I’ve been there and felt all the feelings.
It's a happy morning when I get to read this while sipping my coffee AND my children are still sleeping :) I would also HIGHLY recommend this/his compilation to Robyn's "Dancing On My Own": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ZRfNHmWR4 . It served as a much-needed emotional release mid-April when things were falling apart.
We got back from our “family trip” (aka vacation with two small people) on Sunday, and I’m hoping that today’s the day we’re finally back into more of our normal routine 🤞A repair man is coming this morning to fix the dryer that broke three days before we left. That man is treasure #1.
Treasure 2: Thank you to everyone who gave me book suggestions! I showed up at the library for my time slot and the librarian informed me that no one else had signed up so I had the entire library TO MYSELF. I told her that this is literally something I have dreamed about and practically skipped through the aisles. I ended up with 4 books, and cannot wait to read all of the other suggestions you all gave me!
Treasure 3: this video of a deer. It is so clumsy and so unphased at the same time. I wish I could recover like this from an embarrassing experience
Treasure 4: my favorite cookbook author (Jenn Segal aka Once Upon a Chef) is releasing a new cookbook and I’m a recipe tester.
Lastly, my oldest is turning 2 in 3 weeks (how did this happen?!) and I am struggling to come up with gift ideas for the family members who are requesting them... my preference is always experiential gifts vs more things, but because many things are still closed/greatly restricted, those ideas are not really feasible right now. Any ideas?
Oh gosh it’s Friday thank GOODNESS. 🙏 So happy to be here with you all 🙃
Two main reasons I’m happy it’s finally Friday:
1) My husband is going to submit his final (yes FINAL, as in the very last one) exam today, which means he is done with his master’s program. PRAISE. He and I have both been in grad school since 2017 & now one of us is finally freaking done. He’s been parading around with my Joanna Gaines “Actually I Can” mug all morning. 😂🙌🎉🎓
2) We leave for the beach tomorrow! 🏖
And here’s my treasure this week. I’ve watched it every day and it is the light of my life right now.
Took last weekend to watch the new season of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone, and I freaking love it (now understand my friend’s fear of cephalopods). Other treasure was getting my hair done - in a touch-starved situation, a head massage with shampoo was v nice. I did go a little HAM on Tiktok this week 😂 without further ado...
I thoroughly enjoyed the Armchair Expert episode with Leslie Odom Jr, however I must say I was unprepared for the snake/butthole conversation in the fact checking section. 😳As someone who is as afraid of snakes as Monica, I will now have nightmares for days.
Now I need to work out how to get my husband to bed and out of the way early enough to watch Flashdance, Singing in the Rain, Clueless, and then re-watch Hamilton... I think that's the right order...Had to have a second MRI in a month this morning, and that dance compilation was *exactly* the medicine I needed to rewind. Thanks for your work as ever Erin
The Lion in Winter mention sent me on two quests last night - to figure how to stream that great film & on some late night baking making my favorite brownies - which are apparently from The Katherine Hepburn. Yes, they are from scratch but super easy and legit the best brownies that have ever graced my mouth. Is it worth it when box mix is so delightful? 1000%. (And this is coming from a girl who did a whole 4H project back in the day arguing why boxed mix made superior brownies). Also there is just that added classy factor because you are making what the great Katherine Hepburn made herself. My winning combo is no nuts but stirring in dark chocolate chips & milk chocolate chips but I don’t really think you can go wrong here. They are the treasure your weekend needs!
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/10782-katharine-hepburns-brownies
A note: a food cocoa powder is key here, personal fave is Rodelle, ditch the Hershey’s. You won’t be disappointed.
Hi fellow Lil’ Swipes!
📚I’ve been in my classroom this week attempting to set up everything up. It's just plain hard no other words to say for it than that. Heavy Ts and Ps to any other teachers having to do this and parents having to make this choice. Setting up desks six feet away from each other instead of in groups and forgoing my big semi circle table where we gather and laugh and learn makes me grieve a little bit (a lot) for my students. The laughter and family formed around that table is pure magic and we won’t get that same form of magic this year. But there have also been moments of joy and praise dances while doing so (thank you, Maverick City Music). My little classroom is my second home and being able to be back in it and focus on creating a safe and loving community for my little learners is giving me joy in spite of all the unknowns.
⭐️ Hamilton brunch last week was a pure delight. I spent the first several minutes of it just watching my three year old niece be fully enraptured with the singing and dancing - same, girl, same.
📺 I’ve been rewatching Community this week. And it’s just so dang good. Highly recommend.
👟 I know I mentioned last week how exercise is keeping me sane. Well, I took the plunge and ordered new running shoes. They came in this week and have made running so much more enjoyable.
So I’ve subscribed forever and look forward to my email every week, but never have actually clicked through to here. I’m in that weird ‘old millennial’ category where I don’t realize there are things like this. I tried Tik Tok at the very beginning of quarantine, watched myself and promptly deleted it. 😂 But hi everyone!
I have two boys, one in 3rd and one entering kindergarten which makes me sad for him. Husband is a counselor and non profit director, I work in local government doing economic development. We’ve been working from home since March just left our kids with their grandparents for 4 days, and it was amazing and weird and all we did was work, order out, drink wine and watch Netflix. 😂 Also, to whoever posted the comment about watching WWII era things - right there with you. I’ve been reading so much historical fiction set in WWII England and France. It’s strangely cathartic like ‘oh. At least there aren’t bombers flying over my house right now.’
Re: singing in the rain
You and my 2.5-year-old would be besties. Her YouTube requests alternate between “watch singin in da rain!” and “watch doompa doompa!” (Oompa loompa). I took her outside in the rain with her umbrella and rain boots the other day and I thought she was going to explode with joy.
Just told my husband yesterday that if I ever left him it would be for LOJ. Can't wait to listen to the podcast! Thanks!
Y'all I had some really fantastic thing to share with you... and then I forgot it when I got the email this morning, BUT I just remembered - lucky you! ;)
(Backstory: I have been employed at a hotel for the past 10 years. Enter COVID and a 4 month furlough. I've been back 3 days a week since last month. It's not the best financial situation, but enough to get by as a single lady sharing a house with 2 other girls and sharing costs.)
TREASURE: I got my hair cut and colored for the first time since February. For a thick-hair girl with red bayalage, this is a MAJOR deal! My boss is on vacation next week, so they've asked me to work 5 days (the extra 2 days helps to cover most of the cost of my salon visit)!! Praises for not being a complete financial failure for the sake of good hair!
If you are the praying type, I'm actually working on an application for a new job that would be an automatic pay increase, consistent hours, time off for all of the holidays (being in hospitality you get 6 holiday paid days off), and way better benefits/insurance. My best friend currently has the role within the organization in a different department and everything she has told me about her day-to-day makes me think I am completely capable of doing the thing (legal secretary). However, I haven't ever done a career pivot or really completed a non-hospitality related application before. And have only ever done a handful of interviews. I am 100% psyching myself out before I even push submit. So I guess that's kind of a turdy treasure??
Amen to the greatness that is that dance compilation! That is something we didn't know we needed right now and I will be sharing with my IG friends bc let's not hide that joy.
Good morning...there's four minutes left of the "morning" so I'm still going to say good morning.
*Erin, the dance compilation was everything I needed this morning. Who doesn't love a supercut that includes The Cutting Edge and Troop Beverly Hills!
Treasures: The church I've been interning at for 9 months is starting to feel like home. As I looked out from my make shift sound booth at the biggest group of masked congregants that we've had since we started doing in person service, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and normalcy and goodness. I felt right, normal and good with my church. It's the hardest thing I've done this year to leave my comfy cozy home church to learn and grow at a new church. The moment I had on Sunday was holy and needed.
* I discovered Stephen Colbert's Just One Question and someone asks Hillary Clinton where her keys and another asks her how to fix a toilet...it's comedy gold and not too terribly political
https://youtu.be/muEwpZ7B72U
https://youtu.be/wdBQKl2W4nY
* My sister in law had the whole house to herself last week and texted me questions about Dawson's Creek at 10pm at night. I love the thought of my very together, very smart sister in law having the house to herself with no teenagers or my brother to dictate the TV choices and she chose our beloved Dawson's Creek.
Turds
*I've been diagnosed with uterine fibroids back in October and have been on the journey of curbing their growth with birth control which stops my periods (which has been amazing). But about a month ago, I started spotting and finally got into the doctor yesterday. She recommended going on an IUD instead of pills which is frankly very attractive to not have to remember to take a pill, to have a targeted medicine instead of a pill that is process by my whole system. However, I'm waiting to hear if my insurance will cover it and just the adulting of this whole situation is dumb.
* I've had several very good but emotionally draining conversations in the last week which has left me with what this community so accurately describes as a vulnerability hangover. I postponed a coaching sessions this morning on those grounds which I'm proud of myself for asking for what I need from my coach. Combined with grad school beginning on Monday, I feel...well I feel tired in more ways than one.
Oh, hey.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster.
I'm attempting to seek out new communities at the moment since my husband and I chose to leave our local church recently. It was a long-time coming, but I don't think either of us expected to reach our breaking points at a time when the risk of isolation is this high. We're both introverted and extremely fortunate to not have been more dramatically impacted by the lock down, but definitely recognize that it's risky to make a shift right now. So, that's my recent turd.
I have been finding a lot of treasures recently, though. A friend of mine turned me on to the British show Taskmaster. The first 6-ish season are on Netflix. They're def NSFJM/NSFKM in later season (they stop bleeping the cuss words), but it's a compact form of absurd comedy that I desperately need these days.
I'm especially pumped for the Faith Adjacent Book Club and plan to read The Dearly Beloved this weekend. I've also got a vacation planned for next week in an Air BnB with a private pool in a town about an hour away. I'm so looking forward to disconnecting and relaxing with a change of scenery.
And probably most exciting at the moment, my husband's friend is spinning up a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign online for us and few of our other favorite people. I'm really excited to get to play again - our last campaign suspended back in January, so it's been awhile. Session Zero is next week!
Thanks for being the best dang community on the internet. I appreciate you all. :)
Hi friends!
My biggest treasure this week is getting to read the thread the day it is posted and to comment. May I never take it for granted. The last two weeks were turds b/c of Hurricane Isaias. While the damage was much less than anticipated, my line of work ramps up big time either way. For that reason, I didn't really get to read/participate much and I missed it!
This week is much better than the last two, but I did just look behind me thinking the cat was making a noise when, in fact, it appears to have been my intestines.
So.
Treasures:
1. Sleep is SO important, and your girl here struggles with light sensitivity. I bought this and after one night was all "I MUST SHARE WITH THE L'IL SWIPES!" b/c it is 100% treasure and is the best light blocking sleep mask I've ever owned: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M9BC1M8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
2. A change of perspective. There are a few interpersonal scenarios in both my professional and personal life right now that have been really challenging. I've been bringing some baggage to how I perceive/interpret those scenarios that has NOT been Coach, Chanel or Kate brand, and it has been v unhelpful. This week I took the time to do some processing and changed my perspective and it's helped a lot. I'm proud of myself for doing the work and thankful for the shift in my experience.
3. My kitty is snoring and I think it's one of my fav things ever.
Turd:
One of my corona fam and I had a conflict and things have felt off since. I tried to do the right things - listened to what I had done that hurt her feelings, acknowledge, apologize without qualifying. In the process of answering questions she asked me, I said something that translated to her as defensiveness (it wasn't. It was me trying to figure out how I could have avoided the situation and trying to internalize it so as not to hurt her in the future). She confronted me AGAIN on those comments from the original conversation...a month later...after shifting how she is interacting with me.
It all feels very...junior high? Dramatic? And honestly, it feels super crappy when this is my primary outlet for human to human interaction during corona. I'd totally appreciate t's and p's.
This week has been a whole lot of finishing up house projects because on Sunday we're leaving for a family trip and then the day we get back home I'm throwing a very belated baby shower for my sister-in-law and 8-month-old nephew. I had a shower planned for September of last year, but then my SIL had a very bizarre medical mystery that looked a lot like HELLP but wasn't so she was hospitalized for a few weeks and then they wanted to stay close to home (they live 5ish hours away) as they waited for baby then when you have a newborn at the beginning of December you do not go anywhere and then coronavirus... So this is the first time they have ventured down this way in an entire year and the timing just works best that we do the shower at my house within hours of arriving home. 😅
But before I run off to finish painting my dining room and deep cleaning my kitchen, I've just made a very important discovery that I haven't listened to yet but I am **very** excited about. Jill Lepore has a podcast. It's called The Last Archive and it looks very promising. 🎉
I loved slumber parties! I especially loved them when they weren't at my house. Friends' houses were always so much more exciting than my own, ya know? Give me all the junk food snacking, movie marathons (even horror because I'm weird and never really get scared at that stuff), hair braiding, pranking, truth or dare, sleeping bags, girl talk, and staying up all night. This is why I thrived working at a summer camp (however, my late-20s self cannot fathom surviving on that schedule for an entire summer anymore).
Treasures:
-After nearly five years at my job, I FINALLY got a phone in my work space this week (I say work space because I don't have an office, which is a different story). I have only asked for one, oh, about five million times, and I walked in on Wednesday morning to a box sitting on my desk with a brand new phone! Let me set the stage as to why not having one has been such a pain the last five years: every staff office and the welcome center phones are at the front of the building. My learning center where I spend pretty much my entire day is allllll the way at the back of the building. This means whenever a call came in for me, I either had to be paged over the intercom to come all the way to the front to answer it, someone would have to walk back to tell me I had a call, or whoever was working reception would just get confused when they didn't see an extension for me and they'd take a message instead, which would get written on a tiny piece of paper and shoved to the back of my mailbox to be found a week later. So I'd usually end up giving my cell phone number to volunteers and select clients, which makes it very hard to keep boundaries and stick to working during office hours. So, all the praise hands for this one! 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
-The Boy is meeting my family this weekend! I am very nervous for him because, well, I know my parents, but he is confident and I know he'll make a good impression. I'm more concerned for their expectations and critical nature, especially since I've never brought a guy home for them to meet before, but I think everything will be great! My sister and I are close, so she's heard all the details from the start and will be easy to win over, so I'm glad she'll be there too. Also, the Boy and I had a big conversation about the future this week. 😳 This seems crazy to say after being official for less than a month, but my friend keeps reminding me that we're on nobody's timeline but our own, so as long as it feels right, then it's not too soon.
-One more very minor one: Starbucks changed their sippy cup lids to have a smaller drinking hole now, which means no more spilling my drink down my face every time I take a sip too quickly. 😂 (Yes, I know Starbucks is not the greatest company to support, but there are no small local places on my way to work anymore and I was out of coffee this morning and it was very much needed.) It's the little things.
No major turds to report this week!
I am currently sitting in my OFFICE and it is so weird. On Friday's just my supervisor and our amazing Admin comes in so I had to come in today and get some things and wow I miss working in my office. However I am missing my furry coworker best friend, Finn.
Dolly is a Queen and I would invite her to my slumber party but I am with Erin on that front. I don't like pranks and such and have just never been the slumber party type. Now having a long dinner with some of the most amazing people I can think of would be glorious.
Joe (the partner) and I have gone down the Osbournes tilt a whirl. We watched a show with Jack and Ozzy and now we are wishing we could watch the original. That fam? Fascinating. Ozzy is a bit of a genius in his own weird way.
I have felt quiet lately but I did some mental health musts and say my psychiatrist and started seeing a counselor because being stuck at home since March was weighing heavily.
I am still stuck on Hamilton. The music is getting me through today. I seriously am a late comer and am not the least bit sad about it.
How I know it’s Friday: Erin’s amazing newsletter in my emailbox and lots of awesome turds & treasures to read! My turd is I was tested for COVID19 on Mon. I haven’t gotten the results back yet. I’ve been having headaches off and on and tightness in my chest since about a week ago. I’m not too scared and self-isolating isn’t hard for me because I live out in the country with just my husband, it is just a little unsettling not knowing yet.
Dolly For President!
DOLLY 2020!
Also.......I think I need this dress that Melanie Shankle highlighted in her Fashion Friday email.......
https://www.target.com/p/women-s-flutter-short-sleeve-dress-universal-thread/-/A-79760506?preselect=79557022&clkid=ff0c2e50N30ba11ea9bec42010a246c11&lnm=81938&afid=rewardStyle&ref=tgt_adv_xasd0002
I’ve been watching a bunch of WW2 documentaries because somehow focusing on a different worldwide horror makes today’s troubles seem small by comparison. 🤷🏻♀️ Maybe not, but one can hope!
Dolly announced yesterday that she’s releasing a new Christmas album and y’all I think Christmas 2020 might be saved!
I’ve been feeling some major feelings this week along the lines of March and April feelings. The longer this all goes on the more slothlike my soul becomes but I’m meeting with my youth tonight (I work at my church) and they always lift my spirits!
Okay, first off. Dolly Parton is someone America definitely does not deserve. Queen. Yass! Also I want that quote of white asses as a shirt.
To the momma with postpartum: it is totally normal to struggle! I absolutely abhor that it is not openly talked about how much your hormones are crazy town after birth. I remember for the first few weeks at SUNSET EVERYDAY I would cry, and I then would be crying saying, "why am I crying, I have no reason to cry!" But cry I would and be so sad. It was helpful to me to know this is my body re-regulating from having two sets of hormones inside of me and all the hormones it needs to create a human for nine months. I am coming down the mountain of all that, it will take a bit and that's okay. I would just let the feelings come and as long as I didn't want to hurt myself or my baby I knew I would be good. (Please talk to someone and let them know you are struggling, being less alone is helpful). You will come out of this!
A turd for today: we went camping in Colorado for the past few days drove from Texas. Driving home our car broke down about 10 minutes outside of colorado (8 hours away from home) and 7 hours later we now need a 7k fix on a 2500k car, a rental that has to be taken back to New Mexico and now looking for a new car. We left Colorado at 7am and got home at 4am. Yesterday was dumb. But I listened to the new episode of the popcast at 1am in the middle of nowhere, Texas and that helped.
Yesterday I woke up - grabbed my phone in anticipation- and scrolled email. A promotion from J Crew? A package has shipped? What... where is Erin? I’m upset but then think, you know, it’s ok, she just needs a break.
Two hours later it dawns on me. It’s only Thursday. Well that makes more sense...
Real life awaits! I start back at work Monday. We made the decision to do a nanny share for the baby and daycare part time for the older kiddo. It was a hard decision and I’ve felt judged by another mom recently for it. Sigh. I do think we’re all trying to do our best but the nuances of parenting are already tough and a pandemic makes it even harder. These liturgies and breath prayers are getting me through: https://instagram.com/liturgiesforparents?igshid=wkzyazrfzmlo
I’m anxious for work because a lot has likely changed in the four months I’ve been away. I’m trying to fight fears that I’ve been replaced. I am grateful I’ll be working from home however I do enjoy many of my coworkers and I think it will be deep into 2021 until I see them again.
Treasures:
Reimagining the endings to childhood books. https://www.topherpayne.com/fixed-it?utm_medium=newsletter-parent_content&utm_source=email “Love you forever & I’ll call before I come over is my favorite” 😂😂😂
Someone last week mentioned L.M. Montgomery and so I decided it was necessary for me to read her entire anthology. (Truly a balm for these times.) Before I dive in, I’m reading a sweet biography on her called House of Dreams. Highly recommend for fans.
and p.s. I love Dolly. Highly recommend the Dolly’s America podcast.
good morning!
- i enrolled my son in preschool this week. i have been having lots of feelings about it, but i know this will be so good for him! he just turned 3 and stays with my in-laws during the week so the social aspect is what will be most beneficial. he can be very, very bashful around others, which i know is typical for his age, but it's so funny to me because the moment he is around people he knows, he is chatty, loud, + always asking questions.
- currently reading: "the good daughter" by karin slaughter. i finished "the glass hotel" by emily st. john mandel earlier this week.)
- currently watching: veronica mars, season three.
- currently loving: watermelon with trader joe's chile lime seasoning. this combo seems odd, but IT IS THE DELIGHT OF MY LIFE right now.
Good morning! My week basically consisted of trying to keep my tiny people occupied and waiting to go into labor... Two weeks until my due date but I am oooooover it.
I just finished that biography of Catherine the Great— it was meant to be my “fall asleep” audiobook but I found the story (particularly in the beginning) so outlandishly ridiculous that I kept extending my sleep timer.
Anyway, my kids are fighting with each other over floor cereal right now and I might go into labor from sheer irritation.
Have a great weekend!
At the beginning of the year, my friend group decided to set a little competition to see who could read the most books and pages, audiobooks don’t count. I’m a full-time working mother of 3 who is in Seminary. I don’t have time to read anything other than school books. (I am also not competitive in the least. In my mind, competition creates conflict and I would rather be friends than have anyone bothered by me winning anything. No joke, I apologize when I win. 🙈) I noticed I started to feel guilty when I would do an audiobook instead of reading, and instead of just sharing with my friends something great I had listened to, I would feel bad for not fully participating. All that to say, my decide once that was made yesterday was not feeling guilty that I just do not have time to read and audiobooks are 100% fine. (In fact, I got almost halfway through The Lazy Genius Way yesterday while doing laundry!) It’s a small thing, but those matter too.
I shared last week that I had a total breakdown over spilled sweet tea (really months of stress, anxiety, and crushing disappointment, but spilling sweet tea opened the floodgates) because this season was just not supposed to be this way, y’know? (I think we all feel that.) I’m getting remarried next month (yay!). And it’s been a really rough road getting to this spot. My first marriage ended really horribly and it was devastating. So this new life and love and the rebuilding of my little family feels very redemptive. (Truly, I get to marry the greatest man.) We got engaged in February and planned our sweet, fun day with all of our friends and family. But lots of constant changes, lots of guidelines to follow, and honestly, a lot of grief that we won’t have the day we were hoping for. We’ve swapped locations, cut down guest list, are now live-streaming, moved everything outdoors, etc etc etc. I know there are so many things going on in the world and God has bigger fish to fry than my one small afternoon, but there is real grief surrounding the unmet expectations too. So with that said, the ray of sunshine is that my bachelorette party is this weekend. 🎉 Definitely looks very different now with all of the things going on, but it’ll be a relaxing weekend in a cabin in the mountains with a couple of my very best friends, and I am pumped. It feels just slightly normal.
First off.....look at all the comments! LOOK AT THEM! *clapping hands with the joy of a child watching something magical*
I needed this.
This week. I'm slugging through. I am awaiting an email from my sons' school district telling us which days my kids will be in school and out. Rumor has it (sung like Adele) they are trying to take into account those families with multiple children to try to make it so siblings are in school the same day and home the same days. Well hall-eh--fricking-loooo-yah. But still I wait. Y'all. Normally by Aug 14 I'd have school supplies labeled and packed in backpacks and back to school outfits bought. So we MIGHT be going school supply shopping as a family on Saturday.
Although
I might buy myself something
BECAUSE I LOVE SCHOOL SUPPLIES.
Okay so my list of the week.
1. My dad came down on Sunday. It was a little bit of a surprise (he told me on Thursday). It was lovely to see him as it always is. So, I classed it up and made mussels -- gang, don't sit on the frozen mussels at Aldi. If you like mussels GO GET THESE. I took a box of those, some tomatoes, garlic, chicken stock and omg it was like we were on one of our food trips.
2. And because I thought of doing this, it forced *twist my arm* me to bake a loaf of bread. Typically I wait until after labor day to make a lot of the No Knead Bread (google it). But the power of bread compelled me. And in my house, that bread DISAPPEARS. My kids know the smell of that bread baking and it was gone by Monday at lunch. So the power of bread is a magical mood lifter.
3. Baseball is OVER. Thank you. Sure. last night at the last official game (there might be a rain make up game but I am not holding my breath) -- NO ONE SAT NEAR ME. Not a single person. In fact one mom came near me, saw it was me and TURNED AROUND. You guys. These are grown @ss women pulling this. OH and did I mention they tried to coordinate a tailgate/potluck before one of the games. And that was the game where there was a massive rainout. It's like the universe was all "no potluck in a pandemic!!"
4. Mascara -- Now I know for many make-up has long since fallen off the radar in the Covid Era. But since lipstick is something I don't wear (unless home haha) anymore at work which is a whole very very very weird thing for me. I would typically skip all/most other make-up but ALWAYS sport a lip. But I have done the Jamie Golden *(Holden?) move of buying the mini/sample/trial size of a couple mascaras off Sephora and this one might be my favorite. https://www.sephora.com/product/monsieur-big-mascara-P419848
It has the right viscosity, it colors my lashes well, it makes them purty without shedding and making me look spent by the end of the day. WIN! What mascaras do you all like?
5. The power of a dream ........ this weekend I had a powerful dream featuring my mom. In the five years since she has passed she has popped into dreams of mine, but its very rare we interact -- she'll be there, but I won't be able to really talk to her. Or the Mel in my dreams knows she has passed but the Mom has not, its all very weird and I know I'm breaking the talk about dream rules....but just hear me out. In my dream, a family friend of mine (we have known each other for 20 years) that I haven't spoken to since....March was there. He and my mom were talking, just having a very casual and comfortable convo. Which is accurate as when he knew my mom they were that way. Now I haven't spoken to this friend as the last time we interacted he lashed out and said some nasty things about our governor and was just a real jerk shooting the messenger and I was all "okay well, you do you, be well" and left it at that -- so in the dream my mom asked me how I was doing and I MELTED DOWN. Basically saying how everything is hard and I don't know what I'm doing and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. And they both listened and tried to console me, but then my mom got up, put her hand on my back and said "you two need to talk, I'm going to let you do that" and she walked away. That's when I woke up. And immediately texted my friend to just say hey, let him know as crazy as it sounded I had a dream where my mom told me to talk to him --- long story shorter, he wrote back and apologized for our last interaction. It totally was unexpected.
Now onto my * above.
So The Popcast is on the Wondery network.
I went to the Wondery page well over a week ago ---> https://wondery.com/shows/the-popcast-with-knox-and-jamie/
I am still in Type 1 hives that Jamie is noted as Jamie Holden.
Is she really Jamie Golden?
What is real anymore?! #freejamie
Laughs
Happy Friday all :)
Mel
Hello hello. A couple of treasures for this 105 degree Friday in Dallas, TX...(that's not a treasure it is a turd, but I know a lot of us here are in the south and miserable too so all the T's and P's to you)
1. I just started re-watching Friday Night Lights on Hulu with my roommate. I never finished it when I watched in college and there's so much I've forgotten that it's like watching a new show for me. I also am not from Texas but have lived here for 8 years (if you include my 4 years in college) and my roommate isn't from Texas either so we feel like it's a rite of passage especially during these ~times~. I actually am mainly only watching old TV shows right now as my escape to the 2020 reality. 10/10 recommend.
2. I'm contemplating a career pivot/pursuing more school or certification. I've been connected to some great people who are in the current career I'm interested in and honestly this networking experience has made me feel some kind of hope in our world. It sounds silly, but I have felt an overwhelming amount of support from my friends and strangers and it's just nice. People sending me articles, book recommendations, Youtube vids, their portfolios, etc. etc... So with that said, if any of you are in the UX design field, or know anyone who is..I'd love to connect and hear about your experience in the job!
3. Watched the Netflix movie "Work It" with Jordan Fischer last weekend...dang I love that boy. This movie is basically a rip off of Pitch Perfect and Bring it On but instead it's dancing but I mean whatever I still loved it...
I have a treasure to share this week - I had my first sale on my very new Etsy shop! Yay! If you're into handmade cards or someone to address your envelopes or write your thank you notes, I'm your girl. "Handwritten by Noel" on Etsy :)
I also am a teacher on week one of professional development on campus and it's going okay!!! I had been so nervous to come back, but we are easing in with just staff for a week and a half and then half the students per day... baby steps...
GOOD MORNING LOVELY HUMANS!
first of all: We STAN Dolly in this house. "Don't be a dumbass" amen.
second of all: despite hormones doing their best to make me believe everyone hates me (the waterworks this week yall...) there are still some treasures.
-I made it to SIX YEARS of librarianship in the same library! there's days I think I should have moved on and up by now, but most of the time I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and I'm pretty proud of my self for powering through the tough early years.
-Some of my sweet library girls - whose family I immediately bonded with 6 years ago, cause big families understand big families - asked to hang out last night, so we got tea at the local coffee shop and gabbed for ages then ended up back at the family farm where the littlest brothers gave my James a run for his money in the cuteness arena (I was serenaded on piano by the 5 yearold) and I left with grassfed beef from the freezer and an armfull of books to borrow. cause when you're from a big family it aint wierd that you're 10 years older than the girls you're hanging out with cause you've got siblings 17 years younger than you nbd.
- The picture. iykyk.
nahhhh fam. I wouldn't do you like that. Storytime.
So sunday after church I bid my Boy goodbye and left the soundbooth, only to get waylaid talking with friends in the lobby (I usually head straight to the car, cause introvert and covid) Boy is going about turning off electronics around the church, and he stops in the group of our friends to chat a sec then goes on his way. I get ready to leave and am walking away when I hear him yelling for me, so I turn around and head back to the group, where he's like "hey, we're cute. we need a picture." So I grab one of my girlfriends to get a picture for us and DANG YALL WE ARE DANG CUTE. He's not really a picture taker so I haven't wanted to make him uncomfortable, but the genuine smile and his eyes and how we just *fit* together was worth the wait for this picture. am I making too much of this? probs so. Do I have his face at my desk now? HEELLLL YEAH. *all the heart eyes*
Resounding YES AND AMEN to the words on postpartum. It took struggling through severe PPA with three babies for me to realize, “oh, wait, maybe this is more than just regular parenting stress.” For anyone feeling deep in the postpartum trench, talk to someone who loves you. Or talk to me if you feel like your honest feelings are too much to share with your people. You are not alone. ❤️
Hi everyone!
I swear this week has felt like it's lasted a year. No idea why! Thankfully it's over. But since we’re all living, working, and parenting from home the weekend means nothing any more!😂
Treasures:
-I just discovered The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. GUYS. I love the Palladinos (except for how they ruined my life with the GG Revival). THIS SHOW HAS EXISTED FOR MY CHILD’S ENTIRE LIFE AND NO ONE TOLD ME. Firing all my friends immediately.
-Books books books. As always, reading heals my soul. I'm reading Big Summer and I'm Still Here. VASTLY different books, but both very good. ISH is challenging me in the best ways. Pretty certain it's going to really change a lot in my mind once I finish.
-I’ve got a coupon for a Sonic cold brew for $1 (WHAT?!) and I'm excited to try. I love a good coffee...add in sonic ice and I'm pumped. Has anyone tried it? (PS, download the Sonic app. I haven't pressed the little red button in months and drinks are always at happy hour prices. The best hack ever. If my 65-year-old Dad can do it, you should too!!)
-I found a mom hack to get your tiny person to sleep longer in the morning: if you wake up early to get alone time, they'll inexplicably oversleep for +/- an hour. However, if you don't and try to sleep in, they'll wake up with the sun BECAUSE WHY NOT. 👀
May I humbly recommend that you slice those delicious figs, swipe some goat cheese on a cracker, and wallow in that snack-time bliss?
My favorite thing this week is Jami Nato‘s (@jaminato on Instagram) “Fake influencer challenge” - have you seen it?! It’s hilarious. You (a normal person and def not an influencer) act like one and say “so many of you have asked about how I [fill in the blank with a thing you totally do not do, like “clean my fans 3x/ week” or “keep my lawn mowed and edged myself” or “wake up at 5 every morning to wash, dry, fold, and put away laundry in one sitting before anyone gets up” etc]” You act like you’re filming yourself but you’re actually filming your spouse or kids and their reaction to your blatant lies. ITS HILARIOUS. She has a highlight button for it. Please, prepare to cry happy tears as you realize none of us do those things, and at the end of the day, most of us and our significant others are sitting in front of the tv on our phones 😂
Happy Friday, internet friends. I read this voraciously every week, but I don't think I've ever contributed, because I didn't have anything worthy to share. But my friends, in the words of Angelica Schuyler, "I'm about to change your life."
I have found a piece of Internet brilliance that I've been waiting several days to share. I believe in looking for the good in things, so I think the pandemic happened to bring Hamilton to Disney+, and give some random guy the idea to re-create the Hamilton score with the Muppets. Don't believe me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzDP-vQXao&t=1846s
I didn't know I needed "Chef, Refuted" by the Swedish Chef. I didn't know the sheer brilliance of Animal as King George. And I had no idea how the Marquis de LaFozette was going to get through "Guns and Ships."
Please let this video make up for any turds in your life this week. Don't forget to browse through the comments section on the video as well. (And yes, Act 2 is also now available.)
Erin I can’t BELIEVE LMM nor Zak Efron made the cut for your slumber party?! Are you ok??? (Fantastic list otherwise 🤩)
Happy Friday Friends,
I had a “found myself eating chocolate chips off the pantry floor after the bag split open” kind of week. The good news is that we are about halfway through August (aka armpit month) and I say good riddance to the heat and summer blahs. The best (only?) thing about August is the bountiful produce in the garden. This year my husband surprised me by planting some lemon cucumbers, which were a favorite of mine from childhood. My Dad and I used to eat them together slice after crunchy slice. In this first summer without him, it has been so nice to have a tangible memory of our time together.
My 2.5 yr old daughter has some developmental delays (particularly in the speech/sensory areas) and it turns out a pandemic really doesn’t help with getting the support and socialization she needs. We are so over zoom, but when that is all you have you keep trying. I feel so bad that her world has changed so drastically and I am unable to right for her. I know many of you are dealing with sohpie-choice like decisions for school and you have my deepest admiration and sympathy as you make the best of this crazy time.
📺When my phone died via water baptism and I had to get a new one-Apple offered a free year of Apple TV. There is not much on there, but I have been enjoying the show “Little Voice.” It is about a songwriter trying to get her big break in NYC. She sings songs that Sara Bareilles wrote especially for this show and the music is lovely. The show gives off major Felicity vibes (no surprise as JJ Abrams is involved), but thankfully with a much more diverse cast. With my current pandemic eyeglasses on it is wildly nostalgic to watch people socialize on the show in groups, attend concerts etc.
📚The memoir book “Here For It” by R Eric Thomas was a delight on audio. I always love when authors read their own work (including you Erin!), and his inflections and emphasis on certain parts made for such a fun listening experience. What other book has shoutouts for both Lady Elaine Farechild and Pontus Pilate? Switching to mostly audio has been a game-changer for my reading life. I am slowly creeping up in speed-if anyone has any tips for getting up to 2x speed let me know.
I hope all of your weekends are filled with deliciously yummy things you don’t have to eat off the floor.
I feel bad coming in with turds (I know I shouldn’t, that’s why we’re here) but I’m just sad this week. I lost my cat on Wednesday. We called her my puppy because she was always following me around. She slept next to me every night and sleeping has been hard the last two nights. Also, I live in the Central Valley in CA and the temps are going to range from 100-109 for the next nine days. It happens at least once a summer and it sucks hard. Thanks for listening. As an Enneagram 2 feeling my feelings isn’t easy.
Erin, I never liked slumber parties either. In junior high I would stay the night a lot with my best friend, but never liked the big groups. Always felt stressful to me. And when I was younger I just didn't like being away from home. Anyway..this week has been a weird one. Husband got tested for Covid-19, so he's trying to isolate in our house until we get the results back (he feels fine, but had a sore throat plus no sense of taste or smell so...). Other stuff happened, but nothing major, just stuff that made me feel a little unmoored like I did the first few weeks of the pandemic. I often struggle with negative thought loops, and yesterday it really got me. I ended up abandoning all thoughts of productivity, listened to some soul-soothing Jesus music (Ellie Holcomb mostly), and just read my current fiction read for a couple if hours on my back porch (The Glass Hotel, by Hillary St. John Mandel). Even in the suffocating heat (August! Blarg!) while the kids played with Legos, and it did wonders. Then I played Castle Panic with my almost 5yo and felt even more more like myself. Another treasure this week has been watching Grantchester on Prime. Thank you to the person who recommended it! Sending cool thoughts everyone's way!
Hi all! My only son is grown and gone so the back to school decisions aren't affecting us directly but man, I feel for all of you, parents and teachers alike! Do what you think is right and works for your family and everyone who jumps in to offer their opinion can just be struck mute.
I'm adopting a new kitten today so that's going to make the pandemic much brighter! I am naming him Hamilton and will call him all sorts of cute varieties of that. It's a fact I will sing his name "ALEXANDER HAMILTON" every day.
I have been on Facebook for years but spend most of my time on Instagram. Less uninformed opinions, more cute animal posts! Mostly I just do a quick check to see what my non-Insta friends are up to. I have decided to jump in and start challenging uninformed and blatantly false posts, in a kind and informative way. I just can't sit by when a family member posts that Kamala Harris is not African American because her father came from Jamaica. Let's review history!
I live in Kansas City and our mayor just extended our mask mandate into January. *Insert heavy sigh here. Mainly to ask the Lord to help me deal with the complainers.* I have been making masks for family and friends so I guess I will just go buy more cute fabric and keep sewing. If we have to wear them, we should look cute right?
Hang in there all!
Erin, did you actually experience sleepovers like the ones described above or did you watch too many sleepover adjacent movies? Because I had A LOT of sleepovers as a kid and almost none of them included pranks and unpleasantness haha. Mostly I spent the night with my best friend basically every Friday night in junior high, to the point at which I kept a toothbrush and PJs at her house 😆 She was an only child and I was the eldest of 4, so it was a mutually beneficial weekly appointment. But I had various sleepovers up into SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL when I invited 10 girls to spend the night and we all slept on the floor of my living room and watched Aladdin... aka we were all dorks in AP English and nearly all my sleepovers stories are entirely wholesome.
My treasure is actually turd adjacent in that I checked the Lazy Genius fb group for the first time in ages yesterday and stumbled upon a potty training post that might be the answer to all my potty training woes — my son is probably chronically functionally constipated and thus cannot tell when he needs to pee. Can’t wait to ask my pedi if we can get an X-ray to check so he can start feeling the need to pee and stop having accidents if we don’t take him to the potty on a regimented schedule! Gah... motherhood is just gross.
Also I have been watching Ozark because I love dark crime TV and my husband does. It understand and sometimes checks in to make sure I’m ok 😆
Lastly I think I need to go on a Facebook hiatus because I went off on an acquaintance who shared one of those posts about “how easy it is for your child to be abducted into sex trafficking because everyone is wearing masks and how will we protect our kids and FACEBOOK TOOK THIS POST FOWN WE’RE BEING CENSORED.” I shared a NYT article about how conspiracy theorists are hijacking the trafficking convo and she told me “I can’t trust the NYT because it’s biased.” And I can’t anymore. THEN WHO DO YOU TRUST?! RANDO KAREN ON FACEBOOK WHOM YOU'VE NEVER MET??? Anyway I feel like that was the last straw for fb and me because it adds basically 0 value to my life except to procrastinate work and work me into an anxious mess because the deep pockets of the internet are evil and duping really genuinely nice smart people... and it promotes meme politics which I realized is a huge problem because it presupposes the other side are idiots rather than having thoughtful meaningful conversations about real issues. Literally the only things good about fb at this point are a few mom groups (one local that is good for local recommendations and news, one relates to my profession that I love nearly as much as your lil swipes), but I think I may need to abandon even those groups at this point for my mental sanity.
Oh and PS I am finally watching Community because it’s literally the last 30-minute comedy that’s highly recommended that I haven’t watched.
Hey friends! Well, we made the decision to keep our kids home for the first 9 weeks of school and then reevaluate. I thought I would feel so much better after making that decision, but strangely I do not. 🤷🏼♀️ But my youngest, who cried real, deep tears when we told her, has plans for PE everyday with 2 friends who are also staying home. That’s a treasure for sure.
On the turd side, my oldest’s girlfriend is going through some really turdish stuff. If you’re the praying type, will you pray for sweet Caroline? It’s breaking my heart. But on the treasure side, he brought her candy and flowers and a card which I was impressed with. I didn’t know teenage 8’s knew how to be sympathetic. 🤣
And I read a good book! The Ten Thousand Doors of January. 🙌🏼
Hi! I am new to this community and so happy to have found it! Actually, my 31 year old daughter shared it with me because I brought her up right and she knows stuff! Here is where my mind has been this week: Sorry I am not sorry that I watched Clueless and Booksmart. Who does not love Cher’s sweetness and huge Paul Rudd fan here! Thanks for having him on your post this week, Erin! Then, on the opposite spectrum, I read Sarah Bessey’s Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. Her writing is a balm for my soul right now. Honestly, weekends are not my fave right now since WE CANT DO ANYTHING! The two days loom large and empty so need help figuring out what to do besides more endless hours of streaming services! Have a great one, and be safe!
Happy Friday everyone! This was a mundane (in the nicest way) week around here. I took my two toddlers to the dentist on Tuesday. Per usual, the three year old behaved like a poster child, and the one year old acted as if an exorcism was necessary. Those first kids really know how to trick you into thinking you are THE BEST parent. The second kids bring you back to reality. We celebrated with a quick stop at a vacant playground and Sonic ice cream, and it was the treasure of my week.
My DNF book rule: if you get to 100 pages and you don’t care how it ends, move on to another one. Sometimes you know at 50 pages, though. And sometimes for longer books you might adjust to 200. Life is too short to finish something you’re not into and there are so many books to read!
We’ve had a long but sorta uneventful week here at Spatz mansion. My 16 year old went to target with the boy she likes, because according to her it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She now what’s to go to his house for dinner and a movie with his family. I told she can go but I’d need a copy of his insurance card, drivers license and credit report. She did not appreciate this.
I was almost attacked by the world largest spider! It was the size of my two years hand with a big ole egg sack on it. But I managed to survive with the help of a paper plate and duct tape. The USDA came to our house to tell us that a very large family of beavers was living in the creek across the street, in our back yard pond and the pond across the street. He put out traps since it was causing issues with the drainage when it rains. He said he was surprised they were an issue since it wasn’t even beaver season. Who knew beavers had a season!!
Apparently I needed to hear “you’ve never had THIS baby before” to validate that it’s okay that WHOA MAMA this postpartum situation is way harder than my other one was... and that’s okay. I’ve been seeing my counselor but I think it’s time to talk more seriously about bringing in the big guns and taking some meds since I keep checking to make sure everyone in my home is still breathing in the middle of the night. Including my husband, who OF COURSE.... is in fact still breathing. Pandemic babies y’all. It’s a time.
Thanks for the virtual thumbs up that even strong, super capable women can need meds sometimes.
First to the momma struggling with postpartum, I had it hard core 4 times. I’ve been deep in the trenches. My therapist had to come lay in the bed with me because I couldn’t even make it out of the bed. I have supported more women through their postpartum depression than I can count because of my own experience. You can reach out to me, via Instagram or if you’d like to talk I’ll give Erin Moon my number. I’ve been there and felt all the feelings.
It's a happy morning when I get to read this while sipping my coffee AND my children are still sleeping :) I would also HIGHLY recommend this/his compilation to Robyn's "Dancing On My Own": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ZRfNHmWR4 . It served as a much-needed emotional release mid-April when things were falling apart.
We got back from our “family trip” (aka vacation with two small people) on Sunday, and I’m hoping that today’s the day we’re finally back into more of our normal routine 🤞A repair man is coming this morning to fix the dryer that broke three days before we left. That man is treasure #1.
Treasure 2: Thank you to everyone who gave me book suggestions! I showed up at the library for my time slot and the librarian informed me that no one else had signed up so I had the entire library TO MYSELF. I told her that this is literally something I have dreamed about and practically skipped through the aisles. I ended up with 4 books, and cannot wait to read all of the other suggestions you all gave me!
Treasure 3: this video of a deer. It is so clumsy and so unphased at the same time. I wish I could recover like this from an embarrassing experience
https://mobile.twitter.com/politelyviolent/status/1291721544196972547?s=09
Treasure 4: my favorite cookbook author (Jenn Segal aka Once Upon a Chef) is releasing a new cookbook and I’m a recipe tester.
Lastly, my oldest is turning 2 in 3 weeks (how did this happen?!) and I am struggling to come up with gift ideas for the family members who are requesting them... my preference is always experiential gifts vs more things, but because many things are still closed/greatly restricted, those ideas are not really feasible right now. Any ideas?
Oh gosh it’s Friday thank GOODNESS. 🙏 So happy to be here with you all 🙃
Two main reasons I’m happy it’s finally Friday:
1) My husband is going to submit his final (yes FINAL, as in the very last one) exam today, which means he is done with his master’s program. PRAISE. He and I have both been in grad school since 2017 & now one of us is finally freaking done. He’s been parading around with my Joanna Gaines “Actually I Can” mug all morning. 😂🙌🎉🎓
2) We leave for the beach tomorrow! 🏖
And here’s my treasure this week. I’ve watched it every day and it is the light of my life right now.
“The next day after watching Hamilton”:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDrGksjDRD1/?igshid=1x6xokyjurhd0
Love to you all! 🥰
Took last weekend to watch the new season of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone, and I freaking love it (now understand my friend’s fear of cephalopods). Other treasure was getting my hair done - in a touch-starved situation, a head massage with shampoo was v nice. I did go a little HAM on Tiktok this week 😂 without further ado...
That Would Be Enough in reality - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6RGRYu/
Meow meows to the next level - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6w7VeL/
Target run - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6jK4Kc/
Dating Apps: Exile - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6Lcy9S/
She’s the Man meets US History - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6BtWnn/
Jane Bennet who? - https://vm.tiktok.com/J64D4LN/
Tight harmonies - https://vm.tiktok.com/J6KJJUF/
Notebook 2020 - https://vm.tiktok.com/JM2owXK/
“He’s not good for you” - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJMHCfH4/