It’s Monday afternoon and I’m sipping a watermelon beer between bites of Caprese sandwich and potato chips with house made sour cream and onion dip. I just left spiritual direction. My kids are home with our nanny and my Costco order is currently being shopped by an Instacart shopper named Anthony.
This feels like a reckless level indulgence, the height of privilege. If I’m honest, I feel guilty about it. Not just about this specifically but about so many ways I’m privileged in the face of unimaginable suffering all around me. Parents are grieving children who will never grow up to be who they might have been. Mine are at home playing in the driveway with a nanny they love and who genuinely loves them. Families are being ripped apart by war each day. And I’m… what? Drinking a beer at 2:00 on a Monday afternoon with a leisurely lunch? Paying extra for someone to do my grocery shopping while another mother in another country is praying her children will survive the day?
And at the same time, does a hungry Ukrainian mother want me to go hungry, too? Or does she want me to notice the meal in front of me, notice the full pantry, the soft cheeks of my well-fed children as I tuck them into bed? I can’t say for sure. And maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the privileges of my life are not “bad” in the same way that her suffering is not “good”. I know this, but I don’t always believe it. I have let myself live inside the belief that it is this privileged life I live that disqualifies me from writing anything worthwhile. It’s easy to write about abundance when you have 5 bottles of ketchup in your mostly organized walk-in pantry.
Wow. So that was a tangent. But this is, after all, a post about life lately and these are some things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Is there a graceful way to segue from existential guilt and imposter syndrome into book recommendations? If there is, I haven’t found it. So, umm, here we go?
READING
For book club, I re-read Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb and it was just as good the second time around as it was the first. Everyone who finished it loved it and we hada pretty in depth conversation about it, which is…unusual for us to say the least.
I started Book Lovers by Emily Henry the day it released and I absolutely adore it. I will read anything and everything Emily Henry puts into the world.
I listened to The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich and The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. I enjoyed all three but was glad I got from them from the library.
The kids and I have been reading Our Shed written by Robert Broder and illustrated by Carrie O’Neill, Madeline Finn and The Shelter Dog by Lisa Papp and Dream Machine by Joshua Jay and illustrated by Andy J. Pizza.
WRITING
I started out strong with Laura Tremaine’s One Day May, but fell off the wagon about halfway through the month when May really got hectic. Jeff and I had a weekend “away” downtown and then we celebrated my sister in law’s bridal shower and brought home Scout (!!!) and, well, life got wild in May. In my May newsletter, I shared that I had bought a pair of AirPods and this farcical review of them was fun to write.
LISTENING
Sam Smith’s new song Love Me More is beautiful. These lyrics, in particular, just *chef’s kiss* “So I tried every night to sit with sorrow and eventually, it set me free.”
This Girl Power Anthems playlist has been THE MOST FUN at the gym.
This episode of What Should I Read Next and this episode of the Coffee + Crumbs podcast have done seriously dangerous things to my wallet and my summer reading list.
This episode of Born of Wonder and this episode of Raising Good Humans were both encouraging conversations about what it looks like to thrive and be supported in motherhood.
EATING
When Jeff and I were first married and even after Lucy was born, I used to make a big breakfast on Saturday or Sunday. Jeff really loves breakfast and in those days, eating a big, late breakfast paired perfectly with a lazy day close to home. And then things changed and that doesn’t work anymore. I don’t want to be preparing a big breakfast while everyone else snuggles on the couch watching Daniel Tiger. I do want to have a big, delicious, breakfast sometimes, though. So this past weekend I prepped this Pull Apart French Toast Bake the night before along with a sheet pan full of bacon covered in plastic wrap. In the morning, I started the oven on my way to the coffee maker. I uncovered the French toast and bacon, popped them in the oven and 30 minutes later, breakfast was served, with basically no mess or effort. We’d been at a party with the kids the night before and while I wasn’t super stoked to prep brunch after bedtime, I’m so glad I did. It was worth rallying for when I could just chill the next morning.
Now that summer’s here, meals look different in our house. I don’t want to spend as much time in the kitchen in the summer. I want to be outside while it’s easy to be outside, so I plan our meals accordingly. Lots of grilling, “snack dinner”, ordering pizza at the pool, sandwiches at the pool. Basically, whatever we can eat last minute, preferably poolside or on the front porch. I love cooking and that doesn’t change in the summer, but it does look different and I’m embracing the break from the prep heavy meals of fall and winter.
Buying
Jeff and I went to see Ben Rector downtown last month and we bought concert t-shirts which we both wore this past Sunday. My shirt says “living my best life” which makes me think of this song every time I wear it, which paired with the memory of singing at the top of my lungs next to Jeff, brings a smile to my face all day,
Contemplating
My friend Catherine came over a couple of weeks ago with her kids. She asked how things were going with the puppy and I told her that I contemplated calling the breeder and taking him back several times each day.
She told me that when they got a second dog, a friend of hers shared this quote from St. Josemaria Escriva:
“Do not say: this person gets on my nerves. Instead think: this person sanctifies me.”
This puppy is sanctifying me. Motherhood is sanctifying me. My marriage is sanctifying me. My work is sanctifying me. The person who cut me off only to go 10 mph UNDER the speed limit is, whether I choose to believe it or not, sanctifying me.