Read, Watched, Listened

I love reading just about everything (okay, you won't see any mystery or sci-fi picks on here), watching things that make me think and especially if they make me laugh, and wholeheartedly embrace the podcast. Here's my two cents worth.

When you walk downstairs to find everyone reading and it’s the best thing ever. Wondering how much longer until I can convince them that this is all we should do for a whole entire calendar day.

READ
(Follow the links below or click through to bookshop.org to find all books referenced in this post and past Read, Watched, Listened posts. And here’s your friendly reminder that these are affiliate links!)

All Boys Aren’t Blue
This book of essays, written by George M. Johnson about his experience growing up as a queer black boy, honestly got just too explicit for me. I skimmed through the sex scenes. And yet, I can’t help thinking that for a young adult who may be wrestling with/questioning their own sexuality, those examples could be incredibly helpful. For that reason alone I think the book is important, even if it wasn’t to my own personal taste. And the writing was otherwise wonderful.

Anxious People
I finished this book (after racing through it in a couple of days), set it down, and said to Tyson, “I just finished the most fantastic book.” And he said, “What was it about?” And I said, “The human condition.” That’s it. There’s no other way to sum it up. Fredrik Backman is God’s gift to humanity.

Open Book
Meh? I know people kind of raved about Jessica Simpson’s memoir and I tried to care but just really didn’t. Even when she got sort of vulnerable there was this whole goody-good undercurrent through the whole thing that I couldn’t get over. Maybe you have to be more into celebrity than I am to appreciate this one.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
Another book that was…fine. Gretchen McCulloch walked through how we use language on the Internet and I found some parts absolutely riveting (please tell me all the things to know about memes and also this is a thing you can study?) and other parts much less so (meaning I skimmed entire chapters).

The Art of Memoir
I read this as part of a writing class. It was kind of like the book above: there were some pages where I underlined everything and other parts I skimmed. Honestly, I took a memoir-specific writing class last fall that was like the Holy Grail of Memoir Writing, so anything else is just going to pale in comparison. I think there are better writing books out there but that also feels like an unpopular opinion where this book is concerned, so take it with a grain of salt.

The Color of Compromise: the Truth About the American’ Church’s Complicity in Racism
This book was difficult, important, and also wildly unsurprising in so many ways. I think anyone who is involved, was involved, ever will be involved, or is simply interested in the capital-C Church in America should read this book. Jemar Tisby’s book is difficult to read, not because of the language but because of the subject matter. Parts of this book will (and should) make you feel sick to your stomach. It’s one of those hard but necessary reads.

The Book of Two Ways
People, give me a Jodi Picoult book any day. (Except for The Storyteller which was brutal (like, in a good way) and I can never read ever again.) Egyptology? I’m here for it. Hers were the first “adult” books I ever really read way back in 8th or 9th grade. Yes, they can be formulaic. I don’t care. They’re easy and delightful to read and people might not really talk like that and I just don’t even care. I will read any book she puts out every single time.

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
This book was a delight. Did I finish this book and then find the Josie the Short-Necked Giraffe episodes (which were my absolute favorites as a kid) on Amazon? Did I download them immediately for Nolan to watch? Did the lyrics to the songs come back to me? Yes, yes, and a resounding yes. And as much as Maxwell King tried to emphasize that Fred Rogers wasn’t actually a saint, I couldn’t quite believe him.

What Kind of Woman
Kate Baer is the poet laureate of my generation. That is all.

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as Told to Me) Story
One of the most beautiful books I read all year. What Bess Kalb has really written is a love letter in the purest sense. It’s not romantic but familial; an ode to her grandmother. It’s funny and touching together at the same time. I devoured this book and it ended all too soon.

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
This book was a more literal love letter to the author, Tembi Locke’s husband, who she lost all too soon to cancer. And while it’s about their relationship, it’s about so much more: place, belonging, identity, family. I wavered on this book; at some points I couldn’t get enough, at others it stalled out for me. Mostly, it made me wonder why I hadn’t fallen in love with a Sicilian: her descriptions of the Italian countryside are among the most poignant in the book.

WATCHED
Challenger: The Final Flight
We are here for all the docuseries. Especially when they combine the low-key love in our household for all things space. This one was fascinating but devastating.

America Wrote the Pandemic Playbook, Then Ignored It
A quick watch to fuel your righteous anger by one of my favorite filmmakers, Johnny Harris.

Schitt’s Creek
How much do I love Schitt’s Creek? All of it. I love it all. Except for Roland, who is skeevy as hell. But besides that, I love it. Watching Schitt’s Creek is a journey I love for all of us right now.

Dolly Parton: Here I Am
Dolly Parton is having a moment and I’m here for it.

The Queen’s Gambit
So. Good. I think I want to learn chess now? And if you do know chess, like Tyson does, and if you’re meticulous, like Tyson is, you’ll pause the video to analyze what’s going on during various chess games. Also: the fashion. Can 60s fashion come back please? The shoes. The dresses. All of it. Except for maybe the undergarments. Love. (Also? The wallpaper.)

LISTENED

Nothing new or in particular to say here. Pantsuit Politics and The Popcast have been keeping me sane: one by helping me process through reality and the other by helping me let it all out in laughter. God bless them.

Life Lately

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a low-grade headache more days than not. I’m not sleeping well—or at least, when I am sleeping, it’s full of vivid dreams, reminiscent of pregnancy dreams or those COVID dreams everyone was having at the beginning of the pandemic. I wake up in the darkness (which never helps me at this time of year tbh) and just want to go back to sleep.

Which is kind of weird? Only because I thought I’ve been doing pretty well lately—I’ve had a burst of motivation and energy and can-do-it-ism in the past couple months—and then here’s my body all, “Think again! I’m actually NOT just fine, sucker.”

I guess there’s only so long we can pretend everything is just fine this year.

Our bodies are screaming out to us that they’re stressed, they’re tired, they’re trying to cope with these unprecedented times. (God I’m so sick of that phrase yet what else do you call it?) We’re still mostly at home and trying to order groceries and trying even harder not to be enraged because we can’t get the freaking shredded Mexican cheese we need for dinner curbside and the seasons are changing which always makes my body a little wonky and also distance learning and you know all this so why am I still going on and on?

(Because we’re living through a global pandemic obviously.)

AND ALSO: Hi, we’re less than a week out from the election. I still haven’t recovered from the last one. (Have any of us?) I saw a comic call this “year 6 of the 2016 election” and that sounds 1000% accurate to me. I have no idea what I’ll be writing, thinking, feeling at this time next month. I’m both hopeful and terrified of election night. I don’t even know if we’ll have any answers a month from now or be trapped in a series of lawsuits on top of lawsuits over election results. I’m prepared to not have an answer on November 3rd, which is totally and completely fine. Except I also haven’t thought past November 3rd at all. (Except for the fact that season four of The Crown drops on November 15th and I am thisclose to making a paper-chain timeline to countdown to that.) What does a post-election 2020 America even look like, whoever wins? Like literally, what does November 4th, 5th, 22nd, 2021 even look like?

We’re about to find out.

This photo was taken exactly five days before we were hit with seven inches of snow. Because of course.

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Take Action

Vote.

Get your flu shot.

That’s it.

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Around the Internet

• “But before you take those ideas as ‘simple solutions! Easy alternatives! You lazy bastards are so selfish because you can’t think of something that’s as fun as trick-or-treating without the public health risk!’ you should remember that REINVENTING HALLOWEEN IS WORK, PEOPLE. It takes time, creativity, money, and energy, and find me a parent who’s got any of that shit going begging right now. You can’t. We are alone. Parents are alone.”

• This—about covering our increasingly elderly political leaders—was absolutely fascinating. And also left me angry. How is it that I’m in my mid-thirties and still, so many of the leaders in the very highest levels of power in our country are 50-60 years older than me? Are still 20-30 years older than my own parents? It’s mind-boggling.

• This profile on the actors who portray the newest generation of royals on The Crown. (And speaking of The Crown, Olivia Colman wins for having my favorite Oscar acceptance speech of all time. It’s never not the most endearing thing I’ve ever seen.)

• My new favorite Instagram account is for the guy behind so many of the food and beverage commercials you see. It is endlessly fascinating.

• “And what she says next is maybe the real trick, the truest mystery. How we can be here every day, pay attention as much as possible, yet still feel like we’ve missed something. How their incremental and nearly imperceptible changes add up to new stages and skills and seasons. How we put them to bed one night then wake up in the morning and wonder Where did our baby go? “

• On the youths and how society thinks about aging. The last line is EVERYTHING.

• I have not laughed this hard in a very long time.

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Eating

• I’ve been making this soup for years. It’s cozy and comforting, and like all good soups, the leftovers are even better the next day. A friend once called it vegetarian chowder and that’s basically what it is. Also, I have no idea what sorrel is so I just use spinach and it’s fine. You should obviously be eating this with a warm loaf of crusty bread.

• Speaking of bread, this is the bread recipe I’ve been using forever. I know it looks long, but I promise it requires almost no work. I have the whole thing memorized. The best part is the dough that stays in the fridge—you get to mix up one batch of dough and get 3-4 loaves out of it! you can’t screw it up. I’ve let it rise too long, not enough, formed wonky loaves, and it all tastes DELICIOUS in the end. And, yes, I have my own dedicated bread dough storage container sitting in our fridge at all times.

• These enchiladas are super yummy which you can tell because I’ve made them twice in three weeks. Don’t skip the jalapeno (the cream mellows it quite a bit), and I recommend some shredded lettuce along with the white onion for added freshness on top.

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Fun Things

• I’ve been living in this top paired with joggers. It’s the best kind of oversized fit and the yellow/gold color makes me so happy.

• The kids have been taking virtual cooking classes through The Kids’ Table and I can’t recommend them enough! Every time I post the kids taking a class in my IG stories I get questions about it. (Hi, am I an influencer now?) We just take a class here there. It’ s a good way to get the kids in the kitchen and for me to get some one-on-one time with them.

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I’d love to leave you with something hopeful after my rant of an intro but I don’t know exactly what that is right now. I do know that taking a couple of ibuprofen helps knock my headache out, so there’s that. I know I need to take some time to rest each day (but I’m not always very good at it). I know that both books and Pantsuit Politics are getting me through this year (and every episode of PP is better than the last). I'm knitting more and drinking afternoon tea so I’m basically learning hard into either grandma or British life (or both).

Really, the only way out is through. The election, the pandemic, distance learning, you name it. Books and tea and ibuprofen just help make the interim bearable. That’s probably all we can ask right now.

A Winter Prep List

I am one of the approximately three people who have never watched a single episode of Game of Thrones. (I know.) Yet even I know its tagline: Winter is coming.

Maybe (ahem, definitely) because I’ve seen so many memes based around those now-famous words. Whether you’ve watched the show or not, there’s something about living in Minnesota that makes us deeply resonate with that phrase. This Game of Thrones motto could very well be adopted by our own North Star State. Which of us hasn’t uttered those words, or similar, at some point? They imply something ominous: winter is on the horizon, and we know what that means. It means less time outside, fewer hours of daylight, and way, way less warmth.

Even as someone who doesn’t mind winter all that much, (Unless the snowstorms last well into March and then into April, and even all the way into—God forbid—May, then come talk to me about moving half a dozen states south.) it’s undeniable that winter gets...long. Especially with kids. Even with piles of toys and books and art supplies it’s inevitable they look around and sigh, “I’m boor-ed.” Even more especially this year, as we stretch into months eight, nine, and ten of a global pandemic.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the past couple of weeks about this article. It outlines various ways to prepare yourself and your home for all the time we’re about to spend indoors over the next several months. It could be the type-A planner in me (ahem, that’s all of me), but this sounds like a good, helpful, tangible way to take some control of my life right now.

Read the rest including some ideas on how to prep for winter over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.

Joy, Unexpectedly

Unexpected joy, the prompt said.

Yeah, right. I thought.

I didn’t want to do the blog hop prompt this month because joy—even (especially?) of the unexpected variety—seemed too hard to find right now. Who has time for that? The days are a cycle of wake up (in the darkness), feed the kids breakfast, drink coffee, make sure everyone changes their clothes and brushes their teeth. Some days we’re distance learning and three mornings we’re driving to preschool and two days we’re driving to elementary school and I’m saying “Just click the box with the link right here like you did yesterday” and “Did you remember to hit the ‘submit’ button?” and I’m adding Play Doh to our Target pick up because the preschoolers go through it like crazy. I’m making lunches and adding carrot sticks which is more a hopeful idea than something they’ll regularly eat and trying to work during quiet time and then survive the afternoon when we can’t really go anywhere. I make dinner and we take baths and read books and tuck blankets and go to bed and get up to do it all over again.

There’s a pandemic and an election and have you seen what the president has done now and for the love of God, vote and women are taking on the bulk of the pandemic burden and it’s heavy and people are out of work and out of money and out of time and patience and energy.

I don’t have time to find joy. Even unexpectedly.

Until, that is, an October surprise.

Not the political kind. But a white-stuff-falling-from-the-sky kind.

And I found it.

Joy.

Unexpectedly.

Unexpected joy is a snowstorm in October that would normally drive you crazy but this year feels like a free activity I didn’t need to exert any mental energy to plan or prepare or execute in any way.

Unexpected joy is taking stock of all the kid’s winter gear in September so when an unexpected October snowstorm hits you’re prepared and basically deserve an award.

Unexpected joy is hot cocoa with marshmallows and Frozen because that’s what you do during the first significant snowfall. It’s the continuation of a tradition that you thought would have died a couple of years ago but, magically, hasn’t.

Unexpected joy is a morning cup of coffee where you take a sip to discover it’s been brewed just right.

Unexpected joy is finding them in a giggling pile on the floor and you have no idea why.

Unexpected joy is Halloween candy before Halloween.

Unexpected joy is a new hobby in a year you didn’t even know you were going to need it. And when’s the last time you even picked up a hobby, anyway?

Unexpected joy is two six-year-olds who pick up books to read just for fun at all times of the day. It’s waking up to realize they can read fluently even though you swear, you would swear on a stack of Bibles, that they were sounding out “The C-A-T on the M-A-T” only yesterday.

Unexpected joy is realizing that despite everything, all of it, all the things going on, joy snuck up on you. Because it’s unexpected, dummy. And so you’re forced to write about it, after all.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Unexpected Joy".

The Middle

It’s MEA week. I don’t remember what the acronym stands for (Minnesota Educators A...something?) but that’s not important. It’s our version of fall break. I can tell you what it means for me practically: Nolan didn’t have school at all this week and Caden and Brooklyn didn’t have school on Thursday and Friday. They went to school on Wednesday instead because usually, they’re in-person on Thursdays and Fridays, so there was a schedule change so both the Hybrid A and B students had one day of in-person school this week and if this is all starting to sound complicated that’s because it is.

Tyson took off Wednesday morning and the entire day Thursday because I may have threatened him with “We’re in month eight of the pandemic and now that I’m used to having the smallest amount of time and space from our children you will pry it from my cold, dead, hands.” 

Okay, threatened is dramatic. What we really did was have a regular, civil conversation and he immediately took the time off on his work calendar. Still.

I’m in the middle of a large writing project. I’m maybe 1/3rd of the way done if I’m being generous with myself. I’m taking a writing class and had a conversation with the instructor this week and she said, “The middle is tough.” and while maybe that should seem obvious it struck me so hard I had to write it down in my notebook and then underline it and draw a big box around it. 

Clearly, I needed to hear that.

Wednesday morning, I went through a bunch of emails, sent an email for a committee I’m the chair of at church, responded to things in a couple of Facebook groups, and ordered new snow pants for Caden and Brooklyn. Then I canceled that order because I remembered the kids all need new water bottles (Do anyone else’s children go through water bottles like they’re, well, water?) and I could only order my $26.97 worth of water bottles with an order of $35 or more, so I canceled the original snow pants order and then added them to my water bottle order instead and welcome to my life.

The point is: the middle is tough.

I thought I would spend my time writing on Wednesday morning but I didn’t. At least I told myself I didn’t. I told myself I didn’t do any writing because the story in my head is the list I just wrote out to you above and the only writing that “counts” is the writing that goes toward this larger project. But then as I sat staring at my computer screen I remembered some things that didn’t get included in that first draft of the story in my head:

• I told you I sent an email to a committee (in and of itself an act of writing) but what I didn’t say was that I also drafted a letter for them to review which will be sent out to the entire congregation 

• I told you I responded to things in a couple of Facebook groups, both of which are writing groups, and one of which has my brain churning with a new writing assignment due in a couple of weeks.

• I didn’t mention at all that I made revisions to an essay and submitted it to another publication. It’s already been rejected three times so maybe the fourth time’s a charm. I don’t know why that didn’t make the list in my head at all.

• The snow pants/water bottle debacle can stand as is. The middle is the middle and sometimes things are just that complicated and it truly didn’t involve any writing at all, besides typing “kids water bottle” into a search bar. 

So I actually did quite a bit of writing this morning. If only I remembered more often that revising and submitting and emailing and church letters count. That even if they don’t contribute to the word count of the thing my brain says is the one that “matters”, my fingers are still tapping away at something.

It reminded me of an article I read a few years ago where the author talked about what she was writing when she wasn’t writing. Things like the grocery list or the email to the PTA or the card she mails off to a friend. Of course, I can’t find that article now. And searching “what I write when I’m not writing” gives me about a billion hits on things I can do to become a better writer, and how to tell if you’re a “good” or a “bad” writer and help for if you’re having a hard time writing, and I want to scream, I am, I AM writing, so apparently I’ve overcome the story in my head from Wednesday about how I didn’t write anything at all.

Especially because I am, in fact, typing these words out right here right now.

Which is admittedly a rarity these days. Too often I’m doing the type of “writing that isn’t writing” or writing something that’s on a deadline because I have to and other times I think about writing but then squander more time looking for kids water bottles or long-sleeved pajamas or new nail polish because we all need something fun since we’re still living in the middle of a pandemic. Yet another Middle That is Tough. Any sense of novelty has long ago worn off and yet we can’t quite see the light at the end of the tunnel, though we’re told, maybe, there are pinpricks. 

Instead, we’ll do this dance: me around these words, society around this disease. I’ll do some writing even when I’m not and we’ll do some living even when this is not, could not, would never be what we would have chosen. Of course we will.