We’ve had a bout of stunning fall afternoon light. (Ignore my weird smirk and just look at the light hitting the top of these trees!)
I hope you’ve had a generally good long Thanksgiving Weekend! My holiday was blissfully low-key – my family brought food to my house, and we all sat around and enjoyed ourselves.
Blast from the past: This weekend my cousin Dan and his (awesome) wife Jasmine were visiting from Seattle with their kiddos, and it was nice getting to spend some time with them. I got to be auntie – which includes things like being a human jungle gym – which is delightful. We went through a box of old photos and here I am with my cousins Dan (right) and Mike (left) wearing one of my favorite ever party dresses.
December Intentions
Still feeling like I need to recuperate from the shift in daylight hours, I’ve been working on adding intentional Joyful Activities, Self Care, and Good Things into my day to day. I’m hit or miss when it comes to working on my monthly intentions, but this week I actually sat down to do them in advance.
I don’t think of these as “to-do lists” more like “options”. Here’s my first stab.
Out and About
Movie Theater (with Popcorn) on $7 Tuesday • SOWA Winter Market • The Holiday Market at Snowport • Burdick’s Hot Chocolate and a winter chocolate box • High Tea (at BPL?) • Quick trip to NYC to see a friend visiting from Luxembourg • M+J’s yearly holiday party • Dog Walks with friends • Movie Night at Home with Popcorn • Winter at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • Sargent exhibit at the MFA
Self-Care List • Massage • Charcoal Face Mask • Eye Masks • Stick on Nails until you can get a manicure again • Find a new TCM/Acupuncture/Acupressure person • LMNT order
Move!
Lift (Weekly Lifting 3x) • CRAW • Run the Firehouse! (10 miles from Heartbreak Hill Run Club) • Yoga (weekly Ompractice) • Pilates (Reformer?) • I’ve already signed up for the Needham New Year’s 5k
Update Lists
Inputs List (Podcasts, Reading, Watching) • Recipes to Cook • Cooking Projects 2024 • Bean of the Month • Hobonichi Prep for 2024
Create
2024 Calendar • Sketch in Sketchbook • Winter Good Things Guide
Home
List 5 things to giveaway on Buy Nothing • Figure out what you would outsource 3 hours of at-home support (Cleaning blankets? Dog beds? Body Doubling?) • Research options for said support • Updated addresses for New Year Cards • Ask Keren for her recommendations for Fancy Candles (now that you’ve broken the seal with the Voluspa Gilt + Pomander candle
This Week in Good Things:
Good Listening: this week the most interesting podcast episode I listened to was Huberman’s on ‘A Science-Supported Journaling Protocol to Improve Mental & Physical Health’. The concept is around journaling specifically about past difficult experiences in a particular protocol format in order to provide therapeutic relief. I found the notes about the science to be fascinating, and I’ll be trying this method myself.
Healing Touch: this week I had my once (quarterly-ish?) massage. There was a time in my life where I was going regularly to acupressure, but stopped. Getting body work done has a clear positive impact on my day to day mobility and my ability to do sports, so one goal I have in the new year is being more intentional about figuring out advance scheduling (but not too frequently!)
Nailed it. I’ve learned over the years that I need to keep my hands manicured regularly or I will destroy my nails. The past few weeks have been tough on my hands, so today I slapped on some Kiss IMPRESS press-on nails, and the first person who saw me in the wild complimented me on my manicure.
Who do you outsource decisions to? I’m trying to update my Movie list, and asked a few cinephiles to add their contributions to my list. This got me about 50 new films to add that I haven’t seen before. (I also use Letterboxd, which is like GoodReads, but for movies.)
Coffee with Friends: a thing I’d like to do more of in the new year. I’ve been trying to figure out which coffee shop is my favorite in the neighborhood for a casual beverage. (The answer is that they are all packed – so the best option is to take a coffee to go and go for a walk and talk with a warm drink in hand.)
Party-Watching the Loki finale. I’m a big fan of watching shows with friends. (Even though Disney got rid of the party-watch feature) and now we have to go ‘3, 2, 1, PLAY’ and pausing for bathroom breaks is more of a challenge.
Dog Walks with Friends. Last week I traipsed around the neighborhood with Bertram and his Corgi friend Sawyer (and her human, Summer). This week we met up with Guinnevere and her Frenchie, Sylvie.
Acquisitions of Note:
I try to keep spending to a minimum on Black Friday, but my local shoe store (The Barn Family Shoe Store) did have a fire sale on my regular shoe (the Brooks Glycerin 20), beyond the 25% off that Brooks had on their own website, so I picked up three pairs. In normal season, I pick up pairs at Heartbreak Hill with my Heartbreakers discount!
Tis’ the season to buy yourself a waxed Amaryllis bulb. (It’s worth it!) Seven dollars at Trader Joe’s and it provides day by day excitement and you don’t need to water it.
I upgraded two substack memberships to paid: Austin Kleon and The Handwriting Club (I’m a long time fan of her blog Shutterbean!)
Good Things to Think About
🌨 How do I make my personal templates/checklists more accessible for the weeks that I have low energy? One conversation I had this week was about how to design for different energy levels. One of my systems that works the best each week is my “Friday Reset” which is a checklist that lives on the whiteboard on my fridge. It’s really simple: laundry, trash, dishes, shower, boxes, restock stuff, meal plan. Ordered roughly in the order I’d like to get things done. There’s a space for one or two other things (like “blanket/sheets”) I’ve been trying to think about how to re-create this for other aspects of my life – like workday needs.
👋 I’m thinking about Connection: meaningful ways to stay connecting with friends and family members (without necessarily spending more in-person time together). Things like nice notes, little things in the mail, meme trading, notes around meaningful dates, party watching, Zoom dinners, reading the same book with or without a book club. What do you do to stay connected? (Soliciting ideas!)
Other Good Things
📺 Watch: was sad about this week’s Bake Off contestant leaving! Also, here’s a ridiculous recreation of the Great British Bake Off tent… with snails.
👅 Good Tastes: I had Noma Pickled Chanterelles on a rice bowl this week, and the world is sleeping on pickled mushrooms.
📖 EatYourBooks (the website I use to organize my cookbooks) has a list of upcoming cookbooks to look forward to for 2024.
The many names for Sneks. You think dog show people are intense, have you seen cat show people?
I absolutely loved this clip with Tig Notaro on Colbert about her kid heckling her at her standup show.
The Weekly Meal Plan:
One of my more enjoyable (for me) end of the year retrospective activities is going through my list of meals over the past year. I think the past year has been a little thin on creativity, so for 2024 I’m going to pay a little more attention to a list of a dozen or so dishes I can eat on repeat that are outside of my current usuals. Bean of the week: Rancho Gordo large white limas.
Saturday: Takeout from Grandma’s Kitchen, a truly delightful Taiwanese restaurant around the block from my house.
Sunday: Leftover’s Shepherd’s Pie with ground beef, gravy, mashed potatoes
Monday: Tteokbokki with chicken thighs
Tuesday: Butter beans with parmesan (or possibly with miso and tomato)
Wednesday: Fish night, rice bowl, nori, cucumbers, pickled ginger (this was the most eaten meal of my year)
Thursday: Soba noodles with tofu, tahini lemon dressing
Friday: Pizza night (either Cape Cod or Tenderoni’s)
Lunches: Leftovers (including baked beans and quite a bit of cheese), TJ’s lamb vindaloo with yogurt, assorted TJ’s bean burritos, TJ’s breakfast burrito.
Buds. This week saw several pup-walks with our friend Sawyer the Corgi, and our friend Sylvie the Frenchie.
👀 This week I started my End of the year Retrospective Process. It’s something I really enjoy doing in downtime over the last few weeks of the year. I’ve written about this before in some detail here.
Usually, I’ll go through my calendar, my photos – 12k this year so far, my emails, my writing, journals and notebooks, and anything else that can help me to get a better picture of my life in the past year.
It’s quite a fun process – I get great satisfaction in looking back and re-living things!
And then over the next few weeks I’ll update some of my regular life-binder lists: my movies/shows to watch, creative adventures, purchases I’d like to make, creative inputs (podcasts, etc.), Goodreads, etc. I’ll review my financial plans and finish up my taxes early.
At the end of the month, I’ll update my intentions for the new year, and pick a new word of the year, so I can set off with fresh ideas and inspiration.
I’ve been loving the light hitting the tops of the trees this week on our late afternoon walks before it gets dark.
This Week in Good Things:
Food Memories: I boiled a chicken. And then when it was almost done cooking, I some farfalle noodles to the stock, and served myself a soup with chicken, pasta, and a lot of lemon, just like my dad would when I wasn’t feeling good.
Sometimes Self Care is.. doing nothing? I had my quarterly-ish facial with Lily. Upon observing my skin, she mentioned that whatever I was doing with my skincare I should do more of. I didn’t tell her that actually, I went down a rabbit hole of finding the best products over several months, acquiring them, and then never using them. My skin just likes being ignored, almost criminally.
Change of Scenery. My neighbors are re-siding their house, which is noisy. So I picked up and went to work at the coffee shop a few times this week during the mid-day. It reminded me that I still haven’t gotten my pre-pandemic coffee shop routine back, and might want to figure out how to do that again.
First Snow (that wasn’t.) Well, it was supposed to snow, but ended up being a bit of a dud. That said, I decided to celebrate with chocolate mousse. I pulled in my dahlias (the tubers need to be split and saved this week.) The following several days we had un-seasonally warm-ish weather.
World Adventures: Our Battle Ducks team made it to region 11 of CRAW, the circumpolar race around the world. We’ve been going for several years now! This region is from the top of Alaska down through Canada to the Border of Montana. Early days I used to write a weekly re-cap of where we are in the world – I think I’d like to bring that back!
Good Snacks: Light Rye Wasa Crackers, Trader Joe’s Pavé Cheese, Kalles, and Topaz Apples.
I acquired one of the most unique cookbooks in my entire collection from one of our neighborhood little libraries: Sharing the Table With Your Bird: Recipes for people and parrots!
I had a great time watching The Marvels. Is it the best Marvel? No, but it has one of the most purely enjoyable Marvel fight scenes that I’ve seen period. The magic systems are interesting. And the new world locations that we visit are delightful. Also, I got myself popcorn, which I never do. (I also learned that Majestic has brought back $7 Tuesdays, and you can still reserve your seat on Atom. So I think I’ll be doing that again.)
Good Things Elsewhere and on the Internet:
I’ve been trying not to go down too many rabbit holes this week. (Although Sam Altman being outsted from AI has definitely been one of them.)
Age is a number. Statistics-wise, Lebron James is having the best season of his career. This is his 21st year in the league, and he’s about to turn 39. He’s also the oldest player right now in the NBA.
Taylor has her Disney Prince (with a good voice, too!) Swifties then proceeded to help him get to number one on the charts.
Are the 90s a lie? I’ve not been able to look away from the TikTok’s of Enrique Iglesias singing poorly at live shows. (Sadly, I feel like there’s something that has happened to his voice. Also, in contrast, Nepo babies crushing it: check out Emily Estefan on Instagram.
Local History: For those of you who know anything about Massachusetts Geography, I live right around the corner from the Star Market over the Mass Pike. Enjoyed this article about it’s history.
Maybe you need some Squid Facts. The nice thing about this is that it asks you to prompt it any time you’d like a fact, and doesn’t send them aggressively.
The Weekly Meal Plan:
This week I’ve been going through my meals in 2023. Every year I make a big recap list, and it’s always fascinating to see what kinds of foods I’ll eat for weeks at a time, and then… forget entirely.
Sunday: Meatloaf, mashed potato, steamed broccoli with blue cheese and balsamic
Monday: Chipotle Pulled Pork Chili, leftover mashed potato, green salad
Cross-Posted from my Substack. (Please subscribe if you’d like this in your weekly inbox!)
I pulled out the good camera. As much as the best camera you have is the one that you have on you, the DSLR in fact does produce better images than my nice iPhone.
This Week in Good Things:
This week felt like an “I made it through the week!” week. If it felt that way for you, solidarity! I felt a sudden strong onset of seasonal affective disorder, spent the first several days of the week absolutely a mess, and have been working to turn this frown upside down.
Bertram got nose butter and didn’t complain about it. This stuff works magically. Also, in the cold weather he becomes a morning snuggler.
I voted. While I’m proud that Massachusetts makes it easy to vote by mail, I still roll up to my polling place. The best part about voting in person is that you get a sticker.
I got an icing cookie with little ball sprinkles from Arthur’s Montreal. (Thank you, John!). And a Walker’s Shortbread Advent calendar. (Yes, I’m Jewish, but everyone needs a box of seasonal treats in the winter.)
In, things that went comically badly but I turned around: I was supposed to go to one of my favorite 2x a year Wellesley club of Boston events: Authors on Stage. It’s an excellent event with three authors, each sharing not specifically about their book, but more of the behind the scenes of writing the book. This one was with Carl Safina, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Virginia Pye. On the morning of, the temperature had dropped, and when I went to turn on my car, my battery was dead. Instead of hopping in an Uber, I went upstairs, poured myself another coffee, and cried. (Thankfully AAA does battery replacement. So now we have a fresh one. If you don’t have AAA, it’s always worth it.)
I succumbed to “bro-science” and ordered a box of AG1 (athletic greens powder). When it arrived, the box was weirdly damaged internally. I dropped a note to support and literally before they responded they sent out a replacement.
Working on the porch in the afternoon before it becomes too cold.
I got to hang out in a semi-empty Museum of Fine Arts after hours for an event. I won’t lie, getting to wander through galleries without stepping around people, pretending that I’m spending a night at the museum is probably my favorite way to experience art.
Pumpkin waffle with crunchy Biscoff Spread.
We’re over 100 people registered for the Ompractice Slow Down! (First live class is Tuesday.)
I got to take home two more free bouquets of flowers from events (making my current household total six fancy bouquets.)
All hard weeks are solved by purchasing paper products and planners you will use approximately 30% of. I snuck over to the Paper Mouse to grab myself a Hobonichi Techo!
Tackled nagging tasks: finished cleaning out the car. Went to the Container Store for a drawer organizer for jewelry and other little things, and some baskets to keep my daily fitness clothing a little bit more organized.
I finally broke the seal and started my first Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn while patiently waiting for Iron Flame to come out.
I giggled watching Joy Ride. The Marvels is out, with a new box office weekend low for the MCU, but I think honestly it’s because I saw ZERO marketing. I will be going to watch it.
I ordered a Lisa Congdon “Live Your Values Card Deck” (affiliate link) in anticipation of my yearly Retro and Goal Setting. I keep my personal values on an Apple Note called “2023 Habits” which I read every day.
Mostly (NSFW – not safe for work), I can’t stop listening to Troye Sivan’s One of Your Girls. (Where can I find Marabou in the US?)
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
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