Five on Friday
Hi friends! Happy Friday! Thank you to the sweet friends who all reached out to let me know you missed my posts the last two weeks—those comments meant the world! Traveling and then the absolute dog days of summer fell upon me this month and it’s been rough to find the motivation to do much of anything these days if I’m honest. I feel like we’re turning a corner though, as school starting is only a couple weeks away and I thrive much better in the rhythm and routine of the school year. I’m still trying to soak up slower days and time with friends, but the long hot days are starting to wear me down! Lets dive in and see where these ramblings take us today!
**ONE**
I’ve had a few conversations lately with friends who are in their forties and older about finally feeling like we are far more comfortable and confident in the things we love and find enjoyable than we were when we were younger. If you think about it, so much of your 20s and sometimes even 30s are spent often doing things, participating in things, wearing things or believing things that those around us do because we are searching for where we fit in and belong. If there was something we loved that didn’t seem like the “cool” or “popular” thing to do, I think a lot of us were tempted to hide those things, whether a belief we held or a hobby we enjoyed. In our 30s with many of us having kids and beginning the journey of parenting, that brings a whole host of other ways to compare ourselves and our kids to others—how is that friend disciplining her kids? How is that one feeding hers? I do it really different, but if I say that out loud will someone judge me? I know there are some who are just born not caring what others think or who don’t ever think about impressing others, but I think many of us struggle with where can we be our true selves when we are a bit younger.
I had been told by several different women I listen to regularly on podcasts and in their writing who have all said something changes in your 40s. It’s like we settle into who we actually are and find a confidence in how we want to be in the world. It wasn’t something I was all that conscious of, but over the past few years I have found myself becoming more and more comfortable in who I am, what I believe, and being honest about those things without fear that someone won’t think I’m “cool” enough (whatever that even means!). I don’t like staying up late. I used to feel so embarrassed and ashamed about this when I was younger, even in high school I liked going to bed at 9 and was mocked for years for this. I don’t watch TV, and haven’t for about a decade—all those new shows people are always talking about? I haven’t seen them, but I read about 80 books a year, so it’s all a trade off. I don’t know a lot of newer music, except for Taylor Swift music, but I can quote most any 90s country song and anything off a Broadway album. All these things that make us unique that might have made us stand out in the wrong way when we were 16 or 24 are such beautiful things that make us who we are. And I am a big fan of a decade of life where being settled in what we love is far more accepted and celebrated than when we were younger!
**TWO**
Speaking of leaning into and embracing the unique ways we move through the world…one of my random traits is that I get a little anxious if my freezer isn’t well stocked with meals ready to go. A bunch of frozen, raw meat doesn’t make me feel better, I have truly gotten into the rhythm in the past few years of doing huge cooking weekends and stocking the freezer for the next 2 or 3 months. I know I’ve written about this in the past several times, but it’s on my mind because I did my fall freezer restock this past week and over the course of 3 days put away 35 dinners ready to go for our family. With leftover night, the random eating out, and nights I’ll decide to cook something fresh that night, these 35 meals will easily last us two months, getting us through the busy start of school season. I make a huge variety of meals, so we aren’t eating the same thing all the time—and some go on the grill, some in the crock pot, and some cook in the oven. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it is always always worth it to me. Even if a meal is still raw and needs to be cooked, all the prep work is done and it’s ready to go. I love following all kinds of folks on Instagram who do a lot of freezer cooking as well, but my new favorite follow is a woman named Robin who approaches cooking a lot like I do—prep and freeze the protein and add in the vegetables fresh on cooking/serving day to avoid things getting mushy. If you’re heading into a busy season, maybe take an afternoon and make even a couple of meals to stash for a busy night, your future self will be so thankful!
**THREE**
For years now I feel like we’ve all been in a fairly constant battle with our phones and the distraction they provide. I swear getting a smart phone has changed a lot of things in our lives hasn’t it? And don’t get me wrong. I love the convenience and even fun it provides. But I also know I am so prone to getting sucked into apps that end up wasting so much time. About six months ago I discovered a tool that has become quite popular lately called a Brick. So I bought one. And it’s been a huge game changer. It’s a plastic magnetic block that you attach to somewhere like the refrigerator and it pairs with the Brick app you download to your phone. When you want your phone to basically become a “dumb phone” and shut down all the distracting apps, you tap your phone against the brick on the fridge and it makes them completely inaccessible. No entering a code to bypass it or anything, to unbrick your device you have to return to the fridge and tap your phone again. If I’m cozy on the couch reading or in bed and feel the urge to scroll, I’m absolutely not interested in getting out of bed, walking to the kitchen and unbricking my phone just to be able to open Instagram. So it truly has kept me reading books in the evening and off my phone. You can set schedules in the app that automatically cause your phone to go into “Brick Mode” so mine is set to basically deactivate all the apps at 8 pm and not turn them back on until 6:30 in the morning. If there’s truly something I need to do I can always tap it on the brick device but I love that starting at 8 I can’t just spend my evening scrolling anything. If spending less time on your device is a goal for you, this has been a game changer for me!
**FOUR**
I mentioned awhile ago I was working on reading my way through American history in honor of our 250th year using historical fiction novels this year. I selected novels for each time period and have been making my way through the decades since January. It has been the most fun! And goodness I have come to appreciate the strength and resilience of the people who came before me. This past month I read my 1920s book and chose one called The Trade Off. This was a fascinating novel centered around Bea, a young woman in New York who is brilliant with numbers and loves watching the stock market. She understands it and sees patterns in the daily reports that most people can’t. Her dream is to be a stock broker but that wasn’t something women were hired to do. So she convinces her twin brother to become one and she goes to work for him as his secretary. What people don’t know is that she’s the one who is doing all the picking and choosing of what to buy and sell for his customers. The story is told beginning three years out from the crash of 1929 and it works towards that day when everything changes. This was a fantastic look at the way the market impacted lives in the 20s.
**FIVE**
Speaking of books, this month I also read a couple others that deserve a mention here. If you haven’t read anything by Jeff Zentner, let this be your sign to pick up some of his work. The man is an incredible writer. My favorite of his was In the Wild Light, but this month I read Colton Gentry’s Third Act and very much enjoyed it. He’s a poet at heart I think which makes his writing so beautiful. I read Katherine Center’s new book The Shippers in one day this month, which was such a laugh out loud fun rom com. (Also, to sit and read all day, what an incredible gift and a delightful thing to do every now and then!). I finally read Hello Beautiful which was everywhere a couple of years ago, and I ended up really enjoying it. All three of these are very different in tone from one another but all were great stories to dive into!
How about any of you? What books have you read lately that we all need to put on our lists?? Thanks for reading my friends and we will see you back here next week!
