Five Things: Issue 210
Six weeks left of grad school
This week in non-suffering suffering…
I decided to log out of Instagram and Twitter for Advent, I don’t even use Twitter, I just check it a lot. You would have thought I gave up carbs all together, the way my body is just thirsting to scroll Instagram. My main problem isn’t even people I follow, it’s people I don’t know in real life, don’t follow, but just have this compulsion to check on. Which is why it’s probably good I gave it up. Anyway, here are some photos I would have shared this week:
The most precocious 5th grader helped us pick up what I can objectively say is the best Christmas tree, Balsam baby!
This week I found out the boy is passionate about Connect Four, and very good at it. He was playing chess, I was playing checkers. Also we both wore #13 jerseys to the KU game, which is one of those dorky things that makes me roll my eyes while also melting inside. Kind of like playing giant Connect Four, which I really cannot overstate how talented this guy is.
Lastly, I am grateful that Greg’s music beat out my 3OH!3 phase on the Spotify wrapped:
Here is my Nuuly referral link. My Outdoor Voices link. And a tender reminder that you can support this newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber.
Number One: Trader Joe’s Frozen Mochi
Trader Joe’s Frozen Mochi is my favorite freezer sweet treat right now. It’s refreshing, it’s sweet without being dairy-heavy. The mochi are individually wrapped. Nom nom nom nom.
Number Two: Tish Harrison Warren and JMC
This week on The Toast, they were talking about stories Claudia tells all the time. And my version of Kennan Thompson’s Uber drivers is meeting Tish Harrison Warren at a kid’s birthday party in Pittsburgh. Throw a rock in our diocese, hit a person who has met Tish, but I still feel special about it. I met her one time, a kid’s birthday party at Frick Park in Pittsburgh, and thought, “Anglicans, hmmm.” Maybe one day someone will say the same thing about me.
I digress, my friend Colleen brought my attention to a podcast Tish was on with John Mark Comer. And it’s worth the listen. One, Tish does a great job of managing John’s interruptions - she just let’s him talk, doesn’t interrupt back, and then glides back into what she was saying. Two, I really resonated with what she said about growing spiritually beyond just growing in “being right.”
I was formerly a little anti-JMC just because he’s a sexy fonts guy, and as I learned in a personality profile this week, I’m a “debater,” or as one co-worker put it, “an opposer,” some might say, “contrarian.” But I’m coming around on it, I listened to a podcast where he talked about driving the speed limit as a spiritual discipline in patience, and it’s been good for me.
Number Three: Staging areas
Lately, I’ve really been embracing the idea of “staging areas” which is really just semi-organized piles that will get moved soon. My mom used to put stuff on the stairs that was ours to take up, and it drove me crazy as a kid. But as I’ve been in a get rid of stuff/let me finally organize this zone of the house phase, I’ve come to really love the “take this stuff to the basement pile,” which I call a “staging area.”
My basement right now is 50% staging area, but there’s a plan to make it not that way.
Sorry to all you Texans who don’t have basements! Bet you wish you had a state income tax now!!
Number Four: The Rats are Going to Hate This
I just love a woman working in city government who has a sense of humor about how her kids’ names rhyme. This was a fun profile about NYC’s new sanitation commissioner. NYC pals, chime in the comments about how you feel about the new trash schedule! Everyone else, chime in about how you feel about trash pick up where you live! This is one of my favorite party chat topics.
Number Five: If nothing else, this newsletter is a news aggregator for my local YMCA
The Hunt Family Foundation (people who own the Chiefs) and GEHA (people who own naming rights to the Chiefs stadium) paired up to provide 650 people with swim lessons through the Kansas City YMCA. They’re specifically targeting underserved populations, and it’s pretty cool how five different Y locations are taking 5 approaches to reach people.
I taught swimming at KAA for two summers, and it made me low key passionate about swimming lessons. It’s such a privileged thing to learn how to swim, but it shouldn’t be!
GEHA puts their money where their mouth is about addressing inequity in healthcare - in 2020 they endowed a scholarship at KUMed for eight full ride scholarships for black students at KU, and then funded three more in 2021. They’re also a health insurance company, and my other favorite party chat topic is how health insurance is a scam, so they have the money for it.
Swim Co forever and ever <3