Life Lately

My plan this fall was to re-read through the Harry Potter books. I thought I would do this somewhat slowly, savoring-ly, interspersed with other books and library holds as they came up.

People, this is not how it went. It’s been a solid decade since I last read through the entire series and I forgot just how all-consuming they are. I could not devour the last three books fast enough. (Or I should say from the last third of book five on, because the bulk of book five with Harry yelling at everyone is the only one that gets even a little bit tedious.)

I finished book seven on Wednesday, spending the majority of the day doing just curled up in a corner of the couch, because I forgot just how un-putdownable they are.

At the risk of using the most cliche of cliches, these books are, simply put, magical.

I closed book seven, teary-eyed, the very last sentence sending me over the edge (All was well and maybe now I need a tattoo of those words?) and looked at the clock and was filled with nothing but a sense of what on earth do I do with my life now? I wandered around for the last half hour before the kids arrived home from school like a Hogwarts ghost, unable to do much of anything tangible. I felt an enormous sense of loss, almost grief, at arriving at the end. I’d been so immersed in the HP universe that real-life paled in comparison. I messaged a friend and told her I was absolutely ruined for all other books now. How can I read any other book now? It’s like after a breakup, but instead of a transitional boyfriend, I need a transitional book.

It’s not exactly that I want the books to keep going. No, I would rather end with this feeling than to be several more books in and think, well, that should have ended three books ago.

I’ve started listening to the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, am re-watching The Deathly Hallows Part I and Part II, and have even ventured into Harry Potter TikTok. I need these things to help bring me down from this adrenaline high, but mostly, to keep the magic alive. I’m strongly tempted to immediately read book seven again. (For the record, book four is my favorite, but seven is an incredibly close second.)

All that to say, I wrote on Instagram last weekend that I’ve basically turned into a Harry Potter fan account now. You’ve been warned. It was one of my most-liked posts ever so I know I’m not the only one with HP fever. Please come alongside me in my affliction and talk to me about all things to do with the wizarding world.

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Action Item

A friend of mine got in touch with me about collecting items for Afghan refugees who are being resettled here in Minnesota. They expect to be working with up to 500 families over the next several months and the need is enormous. If you’d like to donate, you can view their Amazon Wish List or send me a donation via Venmo @Shannon-Williams-291. I will put any money that comes in towards the highest priority needs.

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Around the Internet

• I don’t even know how to sum this one up. On being a woman and the ways we are trapped and running with wolves.

• What We Ask of Mothers

• I love the Ellyn Satter idea of mealtime “division of labor” between parents and kids, and also resonate strongly with this piece.

• “As schools have reopened this fall, and unemployment has run out, many of us are now trying to find a way back to work. And I wonder how many other mothers are feeling the same way I am: afraid to go back to jobs that left little room for anything else, but also afraid that if we don’t get back on track, we’ll never catch up.”

• In case you’ve noticed all the book blob covers going around, too.

• “I don't have a problem with kids working to earn things. But that's not how this ever shakes out. When opportunities are only frictionless for kids from families with money, those kids are the only ones who get opportunity. The kids who get the opportunity are overwhelmingly white and middle to upper-class. This isn't a problem of work. It's a problem of systemic inequality.”

• And here’s one of those Harry Potter TikToks that amused me more than it probably should. :)

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Eating

• I’ve been making these pumpkin cream cheese muffins as mini-muffins and YUM. I get three-dozen+ from this recipe when I make them as minis.

• I mean, this newsletter just made me want to eat buckets of popcorn. I’ve been big into making my own kettle corn but this made me want to up my savory seasonings game. For kettle corn: heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large, heavy-bottom pot. Add 1/2 cup popcorn kernels and somewhere between 1/4-1/2 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want it). Shake the pot around, removing from heat when there are 2-3 seconds between pops. Pour in a bowl and sprinkle with sea salt. This makes enough for a family-sized serving; cut in 1/2 for 1-2 people.

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Fun Things

• This is an enormous fun thing, but we finally got a sectional from Joybird for our basement and I LOVE it. I’ve been eyeing Joybird pieces for literal years and couldn’t be happier. All the reviews were right: it’s comfortable and my new favorite thing in our whole entire house. (Pro tip: We paid far less than the current list price, so wait for a sale if you’re in the market for anything.)

• If a sofa isn’t in your needs or budget can I recommend to you this mug? I will be drinking out of it for the foreseeable future as my own private little protest against the fact that paid family leave has been completely removed from the domestic policy package.

• Caden and Brooklyn have been really into playing Rummikub lately. I remember Tyson and me having some epic matches before the kids came along. We might need to revive those again. Highly recommend. (Affiliate link.)

• Fall farms and pumpkin patches forever.

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It’s almost November and the colors have peaked, sweaters are in a near-daily rotation, and pumpkin and apple treats are still going strong. All is well.

Books to (Re)Read This Fall

Hello, my name is Shannon. (Hi, Shannon!) I am a serial re-reader of books. I come by this honestly. I was the type of kid who devoured stacks of books at a time. There was no way my parents could keep up with the number of library runs or the sheer amount of cash it would have taken to keep me in a steady supply of Scholastic orders. While I read anything I could get my hands on (magazines, the newspaper, cereal boxes, etc.), having an actual book in my hands often meant re-reading from my own bookshelf. I have distinct memories of sitting cuddled in “my” corner of our brown living room couch, reading the last page of a book, and then immediately flipping it around to the front cover to start all over again.

My love of re-reading hasn’t left me. If anything, it’s grown stronger over the past year and a half of the pandemic. There’s something comforting in visiting familiar characters who feel like friends in book form. When there’s so much beyond our control, it’s soothing to visit an old favorite and know exactly what I’ll find there. There’s no risk (I already know it’s a book I love), it’s fun to revisit favorite pieces of dialogue and turns-of-phrase, and I almost always find something new, even in a book I’ve read half a dozen times.

If you’d like to join me in my cult of re-reading this fall, here’s a round-up of cozy, familiar, comforting (re)reads. These are books I think pair best with a blanket, soft pants, and something warm in a mug, even if you only have five minutes to sneak in as children swarm around you.

(See the (re)reads at the top of my list by clicking over to Twin Cities Mom Collective!

Life Lately

The kids are all in school. I repeat, the kids are all in school. This is not a drill! 

I’m taking a break this fall, as much as I can. Having three kids in two years was no joke. I already felt like I needed a break: throw in a global pandemic for most of the past two years and I definitely need a break.

“Call it a sabbatical!” a friend told me. (You know who you are.) “Pastors get sabbaticals after seven or so years, and damn if mothering isn’t just as hard and holy of work.” 

So a sabbatical it is.

What I’ve discovered, almost three full weeks in, is that I’m not very good at sabbatical-ing.

The first week I was restless. I tackled a bunch of things around the house, from decluttering bedrooms to cleaning out the pantry. (But truly, I would not have been able to properly relax with the state the pantry was in.)

The second week I overscheduled myself. I had appointments or meetings every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. (Though part of that was unavoidable. So much of scheduling appointments is “We can either get you in next Wednesday or not until this random Tuesday in February” and so of course you take next Wednesday, no matter what else your week might hold.) I went from feeling like I had a pretty good handle on things to feeling I had nothing under control because I was hardly home.

Which brings me here, to week three. Really, I keep preaching to myself, give it at least a month to settle in. Life has been the opposite of a sabbatical for the past seven-plus years and it’s absurd to think I can turn it around in an instant.

Still, I find it hard to rest when there is still so much to be done. I’m ordering Halloween costumes and meeting writing deadlines and sending emails and trying to organize a pledge drive for church and concocting a meal plan each week and making up Christmas lists to get ahead of any 2021 supply-chain drama and that means I should go through the toys in the playroom before the influx of Christmas gifts and we basically finished our basement except I never did get around to finding sconces, and, and, and.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. For the past seven years, I’ve done all of the above plus or minus three or so kids around. But when the goal is to rest, it’s hard to sort out, to prioritize, to put it in front of the work. I’m trying. I’ve begun re-watching Downton Abbey in the afternoons before the kids get home from school. I’m reading some. I’ve been knitting a bit. 

I’m also entering this brave new world and trying to figure out what on earth “rest” even means anymore. I hope I get to the point where I really do slow down before figuring out what I want next in life. I hope I get to the point where I watch TV all day (a Ted Lasso re-watch, anyone?) and don’t feel guilty about it, because I’m still worthy and loved right where I’m at, even if I don’t check anything off my to-do list, even if I just sit around on a couch surrounded by snacks all day. That sounds amazing, but right now, it’s much easier for me to say than to actually do.

Stay tuned.
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Action Item

Listen, this isn’t my usual type of “take action” item, but might I suggest to all the parents living in areas where snow is imminent to check your stock of winter gear NOW. Last year I went through all the kids’ winter gear in September and felt like the smuggest of actual GENIUSES when we got a surprise snowstorm in mid-October and I was actually prepared. So: coats, boots, hats, mittens/gloves, snowpants. Multiples of the hats and gloves. Onward!

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Around the Internet

• We Found Rage in a Hopeless Place: “Whatever problems existed before the pandemic, they just seem to have been frozen in time and deepened, along with all the new iterations.”

• “‘How does she do it all?’ society muses while staring at the bedraggled mom-author clutching her book in one hand and her baby in the other. By having no work-life balance or boundaries. Losing sleep. Hiding in pantries. Getting increasingly angry by the lack of support. By nearly drowning.”

• “If the old ‘mommy wars’ pitted working mothers against the ‘stay-at-home’ kind, then the new mommy war should be mothers banding together against an indifferent government and the forces of capitalism that seek to economically marginalize all of us.”

• For any parent who feels like they need to consult local case rates, the vaccination status of everyone and their brother involved in a given activity, their horoscope, and the weather forecast before doing virtually anything.

• “And just like that, all three of my kids are finally in school at the same time. I have three glorious hours to myself—arguably, all I’ve wanted for the past year and a half. I should be a walking meme right now, twirling through the aisles of Target with an iced coffee in hand, perusing the clearance candles and admiring fake plants I do not intend to buy. Instead, I go home. I walk into my empty, quiet house. I take a seat at the kitchen table and burst into tears.”

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Eating

• These sausage and cheddar stuffed onions take a little bit of effort but spend most of their time in the oven and come out tasting like fall. I served them last weekend with cornbread and brussels sprouts.

• As far as I’m concerned, September is for baking with apples. My first foray into fall baking this year was this apple cake which pairs perfectly with an afternoon cup of tea. Or breakfast. Or the last thing you eat before bed. You get it.

• “These aren’t addicting,” she says, as she eats three more from the package before tucking it back in its hiding place in the pantry.

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Fun Things

• Nolan is playing soccer and while he’s never played before, he’s actually pretty good! It’s the first sport I’ve seen him truly embrace and, most importantly, all that running is REAL good for him.

• I haven’t worn it yet * shakes fist at 80+ degree weather * but this cardigan is soft, snuggly, and definitely going to make my fall cozier.

• I ordered these chairs for the kids to use around their art table. Inexpensive, stackable, and they might be white, but they wipe down easily with a Magic Eraser. If you’re already going the IKEA route, I’m also loving this pegboard.

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“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” is the only possible way I can end this newsletter on the eve of the month filled with things that truly feel like fall. Here’s to finding our own sort of rest in the Octobers in front of us.

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.

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.