🤝 Lil Treasures #90: We are the Helpers
Plus a celebrity mailman and how to stop doom-scrolling.
Happy Friday to you, my friends! This week has felt like a dumpster fire in every way. There is so much despair happening to our brothers and sisters across the world in Haiti and Afghanistan, and between that, the Delta variant, and trying to navigate the aches and pains of moving, I have felt stuck ping-ponging between rage and absolute hopelessness.
Whenever I find myself feeling like this, I want to be sure that I’m: 1) taking the time to grieve what is happening (thank you, therapy), and 2) looking to see if there are ways where I can use my resources to help. This week’s newsletter is going to include a few places you can pitch in if you are able!
Here are this week’s treasures + some ways you can help:
✈️ Miles 4 Migrants is working to help refugees and asylum-seekers be reunited with their families. Through this organization, you can donate your airline miles, travel vouchers, credit card points, etc to help Afghan families get to safety. Other noteworthy organizations helping our friends in Afghanistan right now are Preemptive Love and Legacy Collective (among others). Also, for any veterans or military families out there (or if you know someone close to you who is), this is a great list of resources for service members. There is so much to grieve and process in the events that have unfolded this week. Check on your military friends!
🤝 Heartline Ministries in Haiti has put together some ways you can help with earthquake relief on the ground in Haiti. Their ministry home base in Haiti came out of the earthquake relatively unscathed, so they are pulling their resources to help those around them who didn’t.
🍎 You guys exceeded my expectations once again, and knocked out the teacher wishlist from last week’s newsletter. This display of kindness is honestly what is getting me through this week! If you haven’t already, go check out the new teacher wishlists tab of the We Got You Club. We have some lists that are so close to being complete and only have 3-5 items left! Also, a extra little treat for all you educators out there, my friend Tara at House Peace put together these helpful tips for classroom organization.
🙅 If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and/or also have troubles with doom-scrolling these days (*raises hand*), this article about Denethor is for you.
✝️ This talk from Russell Moore about integrity and the future of the church is worth a listen.
✉️ Guys, I just read this story about how Mr. McFeely’s real life son is an actual mailman! I’m gonna go cry now.
🎁 The Lil Swipes gift exchange strikes again! If you need a lil boost of happiness right now, you can join the fall version of the Galentine’s Day gift exchange by signing up here. Thank you for setting this up, Jillian!
Now for this week’s Tweets:
Lord, remind me of this truth:
anybody else ever been punked by your kids like this:
That’s a wrap for this week’s newsletter! The world might be in shambles around us, but you guys are always ready and willing to show up and meet a need, and I will never get over that. Mr. Rogers would be proud of this lil group of helpers - I know I am. If you have any other ways we can show up and lend a hand this week, post it in the comments!
Ok so a day late and I haven't been commenting much but today I have time. So.
I feel like a lot and nothing is going on right now. I am currently on a 12 day "staycation" that I both had to take because I accumulated 100 hours of vacation time from last year and I badly needed a mental break from work BS. This is day three and I am already bored out of my mind and very lonely. Tim works on a farm, 6 days a week, 9-10 hour days (guys there is a reason they can't find local people to do farm work the time commitment is insane) so I'm alone all day and just...don't have much to do. And as I mentioned before, I have no friends in about an hour radius of me.
The other big downside is I am really unmotivated to leave my house because the weather feels so oppressive to me. I know a lot of you are from places south of me and I sound like a big baby but it's 90 degrees and humid as all get out in vermont and the thought of being outside makes me want to cry. Also my car has no AC so driving anywhere is like being in a torture box. I want it to be fall NOW.
Speaking of my car - the windshield cracked randomly, both things that hold the back door open snapped off, the AC doesn't work, there is a dent in the back from when I hit a fence 2 years ago...and this is a 2015 car that I bought just two years ago! What a lemon! It's falling apart and besides the dent none of it was my fault! I can't afford to fix the thousands of dollars this car needs and I desperately want to just trade it in but that whole process was so stressful last time that I can't even bare the thought of doing it again. It makes me want to cry. I really want someone to just take care of me, or at least help me take care of me. But no one is going to do that.
Anyway - here is what I really want to talk about. Because I have endless hours with nothing to do I started watching Friday Night Lights. This show started in 2010 when I was a senior in college but it completely missed me - probably because I have less than 0 interest in football and kind of think a whole town being so completely invested in a high school sport is weird (I'm sorry! My high school didn't even have a football team!). But I am really enjoying this show. I loved Scott Porter in Hart of Dixie and he's so cute in this. And if I just zone out while the football stuff is happening it's enjoyable. Anyway, I'm like 10 episodes into season one and it's great. Not as great as watching dawsons creek for the first time over the winter (wow nostalgia) but pretty good.
Last thing, I have a book hangover from reading four really great books back to back: Killers of the flower Moon, project Hail Mary, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and We Were the Lucky Ones. All really different but really good! I have four other books from the library waiting for me to read but I am having trouble starting. Just have to do it I guess.
Books and TV are my companions and my treasures this week.
Good morning to the Saturday stragglers! I feel that Balto tweet in my bones. Get it together, people!
Speaking of vaccines, I emailed my dad a big list of sources detailing why he should get vaccinated. He said he was working his way through it, but I haven't heard anything else, so who knows. I also texted my grandmother to say that I really think she should talk to her doctor about the vaccine and could I help her find resources that addressed her concerns and got no reply. My mom has been working on her for months now to no avail, so I didn't expect a miracle, but I did expect at least a "no, thank you".
My cousin has been in the area for the summer, so of course we waited till the last minute to get together. We had dinner the other night before she heads home this weekend and had a great time.
Ts and Ps for our sweet baby vet. She's had some monster cases the past couple of weeks and is doing a lot better than she thinks she is, but a lot of the first months of practice life is realizing (often repeatedly) that you don't always get a neat answer and you can't always fix it. It's tough for everyone and the only out is through.
Ts and Ps for me, too, because I have about 6 weeks left in my current job and have put basically no effort into finding a new one. I'd like to have some time off in between, but it would also be good to at least have some wheels in motion before I leave my current position.
There was a discussion on here awhile back about our collective regret about not having seen enough of Paul Bettany's catalogue, so I watched Uncle Frank on Amazon and it was so, so good. He is stunning in this movie.
I've also watched a couple of episodes of Paris Hilton's cooking show on Netflix in which I was delighted to learn that Kim Kardashian is very much the responsible mom friend. It's cute and mindless and therefore perfect for weeknights.