Summer Awaits

A few weeks ago my son and I followed my husband on a photoshoot to Kauai. It was my first time to Kauai as well as my first trip since before COVID, and it was magical.

I was so out of practice packing for a trip that I felt rather inept in figuring out what I needed to bring. Thankfully, packing for Hawaii is a good way to get back into practice as all you really need are shorts, a swimsuit, flip-flops, and sunscreen. And in our household, an Aerobie Superdisc…

As summer approaches here in the PNW, here’s a short list of some of my favorite summertime necessities, starting with sun protection.

A hat is always a good idea, (I prefer a ball cap). And definitely sunscreen. I wear sunscreen on my face every day, even in Seattle in February. I like a tinted one as it doubles as a sort of foundation. I love this SkinMedica Essential Defense Mineral Shield Broad-Spectrum SPF 32…

I also really like this EltaMD UV Clear Broad-Spectrum SPF 46 which is the one I brought to Kauai. It comes in an un-tinted version if you prefer.

This All Good tinted sunscreen has been my favorite high-zinc formula the last several years. It doesn’t feel impossible to rub in like so many other zinc sunscreens and it doesn’t leave a white cast. (You can also find it locally at Pharmaca and PCC.)

We mostly used this EltaMD UV Sport Broad-Spectrum SPF 50 when at the beach and swimming. But when I’m home and just working in the garden, or I’m going to be out in the sun all afternoon wearing non-beach clothing, I prefer this EltaMD UV Lotion Broad-Spectrum SPF 30 Plus that has a thin consistency, rubs in like lotion, and doesn’t leave a residue on my clothes…

I often get heat rash or eczema around my neck from too much heat and sun. I like to wear a linen shirt with the collar up at the beach or tie a scarf around my neck. Eczema or no eczema, my favorite body lotion that I use daily is this Aveeno Eczema Therapy. It isn’t greasy, rubs in great, is easy to find, and is also affordable…

There are so many cool things from Baggu right now that are great for summer, the beach, or just home…

This puffy cooler being one. We have the smaller lunchbox version…

These are great beach/pool towels…

I have this Cloud Bag which is a fantastic beach bag. It has a large capacity but folds up small, is lightweight, washable, and it zips. The Travel Cloud Bag is an even bigger version…

The OG standard Baggu is great for everything from hauling groceries, snorkel gear, and sandy beach toys…

Or get the Big Baggu for hauling wet towels…

I personally enjoy a solid, romantic beach read and Emily Henry’s delightful Book Lovers ticks that box and then some.

April 28

I’ve been occupied the last few months with a little expansion project: I opened a second Pilates studio in my neighborhood. It has been wonderful splitting my time between the two spaces, seeing my longtime clients at my original spot, and teaching brand new faces only a ten-minute walk from home. Each space has its own different but equally lovely vibe and moving between the two each week feeds my creativity and excitement about teaching.

With the new space so close to home I’ve been spending a lot more time working on my own fitness and these Alo high-waisted 90s capris are my most favorite for moving. (These Lululemon Align High-Rise ones in black camo are great as well.)

This Buck Mason slub cotton muscle tank has also become part of my uniform…

The hand wash I have in both studios and love is this Grown Alchemist sweet orange, cedarwood, and sage one…

Another favorite soap that I use daily in the shower is this REN Kelp and Magnesium body wash…

As I’ve chosen to prioritize teaching and moving right now, I’ve consequently chosen to devote less time to meal prep and being in the kitchen. The cookbook I’ve been reaching for most these days is Dawn Perry’s Ready, Set, Cook. It is a fantastic book and a good fit for my life when I need something healthy, delicious, and quick.

One of my favorite non-alcoholic beverages right now is Ghia’s Le Spritz in ginger. I love their whole “clear-eyed and high-minded” vibe.

For years I suffered from pretty major cystic acne. Paired with intense seasonal allergies and a number of food sensitivities it became clear through lots of research (and the help of my doc) that the root cause of all these “unrelated problems” was an imbalance in my microbiome. It was a lengthy process getting it all back on track and ever since I have made sure to really prioritize my gut health and take a proper daily probiotic. My preferred one is made by Seed.

They just came out with a pediatric version that my son now takes…

I wrote about Susan Cain’s amazing book Quiet EIGHT years ago. Eight. I’ve gifted that book a number of times and read it twice myself. Her newest book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole resonates just as much.

We watched 14 Peaks on Netflix last fall and I wrote down this quote in the film by the legendary climber Reinhold Messner that I keep returning to…

“Most of us are forgetting that from the beginning of our life we are approaching death. Life is absurd. But you can fill it with ideas. With enthusiasm. You can fill your life with joy.”

— Reinhold Messner

Mid-Winter

“If you’re going to live a deep life, the ultimate original commitment is, ‘I’m going to commit to discipline in the sense of things I am going to do on a regular basis, because they matter, even if I don’t feel like it.’ And that is the biggest binary zero-to-one flip that happens in crafting a life.”

— Cal Newport

…from Cal’s excellent conversation with Tim Ferriss.

This week is my son’s mid-winter school break so I am enjoying being home from work and hanging with him. It is actually snowing at the moment but the last few weeks we’ve had some consecutive dry and even sunny days which allowed for some time in the garden, doing a little cleanup and cutting back grasses. Those little green shoots and signs of new life never cease to bring me joy…

My raised garden beds have reached the end of their life and we will build new ones next month. Inspired by my friend M’s thriving small compost/worm bin, I’ve added my own in the form of a Subpod Mini. (I ordered my worms here.)

I have a new pair of glasses from RŌKA that I love…

This Jones Road Miracle Balm in bronze is adding a little life to my mid-winter complexion. Plus, it feels wonderful pressed into the skin…

And if your feet need a little TLC, this foot file and balm from Bare Hands is incredibly simple, elegant, and effective….

Most of my meals these days are hearty soups. Even for breakfast, it’s what I crave. This week it is Pamela Salzman’s kale and white bean minestrone. I also love this lentil, sausage, and chard one from Smitten Kitchen.

I just checked out Bittman Bread from the library and am enjoying playing with his technique this week…

Lastly, my sister-in-law turned me on to these super cool posters from Sandgrain Studio. My son has a Dune one in his room but I think a whole grid of them would look rad in the basement…

Pay Attention

Happy New Year!

We closed out 2021 with two peaceful weeks at home. A proper winter storm blanketed Seattle with snow that stuck around for several days. We got to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law who live out of town and met my three-month-old niece E for the very first time.

My husband and I traded off walking with her in the Baby Bjorn. There’s nothing like that feeling of a tiny being asleep on your chest and it is one of the things I especially miss from when my son was a baby. It was the most enjoyable stretch of days I’ve had in a long time, just being together with nothing to do, nowhere to go, relishing in each other’s company.

One of my favorite January rituals is the purchase of a fresh, new paper planner. For years I’ve used the classic Moleskine daily planner but I changed it up this year and got the Appointed 2022 Year Task Planner…

We have a new duvet cover from Rough Linen that I’d been wanting for two years. It was well worth the wait and it fits perfectly with our Wool Room comforter…

Every January we send out a New Year’s card. I really enjoy the hand-addressing part so I often don’t have the envelopes pre-printed. However writing our return address over and over feels tedious. This year I ordered this custom return address embosser. Problem solved.

My husband and I aren’t drinking but he just celebrated a birthday and I wanted something to pop open to mark the occasion. I found this incredible non-alcoholic Copenhagen Sparkling Tea at my favorite neighborhood coffee shop, Sound & Fog. (They also have a fantastic selection of natural wines.) Grab a bottle if you ever see it, it really is remarkable…

The Metropolitan Opera has a wonderful podcast Aria Code and this week I revisited my favorite episode - Puccini's final opera, Turandot (season 3, episode 1). In each episode the guests explain what the aria is about (so it’s great if you’re like me and know nothing about opera) and then finishes with a live performance of the aria. This one features legendary Italian tenor Franco Corelli singing “Nessun Dorma” in a Metropolitan Opera performance from 1966. Crank it up…

And because it feels so good to watch someone who’s at the top of their game work at their craft, watch Jonas Kaufmann sing the same here…

Just before Thanksgiving, I checked out Jenny Odell’s excellent book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy from the library. In fact, I still have it at home because I’ve renewed it three times.

The book is slim but vast in scope. There are so many important things she writes about, making connections to a number of ideas that might not seem related upon first glance.

“…the need to periodically step away is more obvious than ever…we absolutely require distance and time to be able to see the mechanisms we thoughtlessly submit to. More than that, as I’ve argued this far, we need distance and time to be functional enough to do or think anything meaningful at all…By spending too much time on social media and chained to the news cycle…you are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else.”

So often the conversation about how to avoid digital distraction or how to better manage our relationship with our devices and content/media consumption focuses on some tool or “hack” that helps us create boundaries - like instilling tech sabbaticals, keeping our devices on do not disturb, not sleeping with our phones on the bedside table. But Odell explores “the relationship between discipline, will, and attention” and how “if we’re to truly encounter anything outside of ourselves, we have to want it.” And we have to do the work of it.

“Civil disobedience in the attention economy means withdrawing attention…A real withdrawal of attention happens first and foremost in the mind. What is needed, then, is not a “once-and-for-all“ type of quitting but ongoing training: the ability not just to withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity. ..I am less interested in a mass exodus from Facebook and Twitter than I am in a mass movement of attention: what happens when people regain control over their attention and begin to direct it again, together.”

“If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in its living ongoing events. To choose the world is…an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, in history and in time. In my time, which is the present.”

— Thomas Merton

Beautiful Gifts

‘Tis the season for gift giving. For me that involves lots of homemade things - a favorite granola or an excellent box of cookies. For this year’s gift idea list I’m only including things I already own and love that also happen to make really great gifts…

This gray H&M linen tablecloth is a beautiful shade and of nice quality especially for the price…

This Lunya washable silk slip dress makes for one gorgeous nightgown (look at the back!)…

I bought myself the Oura sleep tracking ring early 2021 and it has had such a positive influence on my life. I’ve always prioritized sleep but the tracking has encouraged me to make small changes that have a big impact - being thoughtful about what and when I eat dinner, not drinking alcohol and embracing an earlier bedtime…

This gorgeous Ode Brew Grinder from Fellow is also fast and super quiet…

I love all of my Heath Ceramics but I think they look especially good mixed with other ceramics like these Hasami mugs…

And these minimal pasta bowls from Convivial…

My old Instant Pot kicked the bucket a few weeks ago and I replaced it with this new “pro” version. The much improved steam valve and the interior silicone handles are worth the upgrade alone…

For all the smaller people in my life I like to give books. A favorite is Big Ideas for Curious Minds from the brilliant people at The School of Life. It’s a wonderful one to read aloud with kids as the concepts apply equally to us adults…

This new Kids’ Encyclopedia is going to all of my nieces and nephews…

I’m giving The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Elements to my son…

Finding Muchness is really sweet…

Here We Are…

and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse…

This Strawberry Lemon-Ginger jam from Alchemist’s Jam in McMinnville, OR is my son’s very favorite. He’s giving a jar to all of his teachers this year…

The spices from Spicewalla are so good and the little tins are adorable. They make perfect hostess gifts and stocking stuffers…

Lastly, my lovely client T gave me these beautiful chocolates from Morito Chocolates in Brooklyn. Holy smokes they are so good that I’ve hidden them from my family and will not share. Not exactly the holiday spirit but they are that good. (Aaron if you are reading this, I love you and I apologize.)

Begin Again

Hello at long last.

My son started school last week. For the first time in 17 months he will be in school full-time, in the building and out of the house. Closures, quarantines, and remote school are still a possibility as we move along, but I am so grateful to have rediscovered some time and space for myself nonetheless. My brother has started taking long solo walks while his kids are in school. It feels like such a gift to care for ourselves as individuals once again.

We enjoyed a very low-key summer here at home. We bought a hammock.

I turned 40 and hosted a small dinner party. It felt so wonderful to cook for friends after such a long hiatus…

As a birthday gift to myself I bought two of these beautiful Convivial minimal pasta bowls that fit right in with all of my Heath coupe dinnerware…

After a very dry summer (and a record heatwave) the temps have started to cool here in Seattle and it feels like fall, still my favorite season - a good time to regroup and begin again.

I’ve been reading a lot and am fully engrossed in Sally Rooney’s latest, Beautiful World, Where Are You. She is a master and I can’t put it down…

I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’s conversation with neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman. They talk at length about optimizing sleep, using our body to control the mind and reduce anxiety among other things. I learned so much and highly recommend it…

Via Tim Ferriss

I also just revisited the endearing film The Lunch Box. It is a special one and you can rent it here.

Just as I sometimes still feel a bit awkward socializing and carrying on a conversation these days, I feel a bit out of practice writing here after so many months away. But it feels good to return to this space.

A parting quote I’ve been thinking about:

“The habitual tendency when things get tough is that we protect ourselves, we get hard, we get rigid. But…that’s the time to soften and see how we might play or dance with the situation.
”

— Jeff Bridges

Creativity + Ego

“Creativity and ego cannot go together. If you free yourself from the comparing and jealous mind, your creativity opens up endlessly. Just as water springs from a fountain, creativity springs from every moment. You must not be your own obstacle. You must not be owned by the environment you are in. You must own the environment, the phenomenal world around you. You must be able to freely move in and out of your mind. This is being free. There is no way you can’t open up your creativity. There is no ego to speak of.”

— Jeong Kwan

Netflix

I have watched Jeong Kwan’s Chef’s Table episode three times over the last year. She is so calming, wise, and inspirational.

I made Samin Nosrat’s speedy and delicious spinach and cilantro soup for lunch today. I prefer it a little thicker so I use one cup less stock and start with less salt since my stock is already seasoned. If you have some leftover rice in your fridge add that to your bowl…

Photo by Ty Mecham via Food52

The Everlane Perform Bra is my new favorite…

I’ve been reading Big Ideas for Curious Minds with my son and it is wonderful. It’s from the folks at School of Life who do such great stuff…

It is filled with important little essays and delightful drawings and is equally appropriate for adults with things like ‘Learn to Say What’s on Your Mind’…

And ‘Why it’s Hard to Know What to Do With Your Life’…

Pomofocus is a cool tool.

And I think this shirt is made for me…

Wintering

Good Sunday morning. We got 8 inches of snow at our house yesterday. It’s rare that we get snow in Seattle so it’s such a treat when it does happen. The last time we had a big snowfall was almost exactly two years ago. It just started snowing again this morning, candles are flickering throughout the house, my son is still sleeping, and everything feels quiet. The rain will return later this evening so we will savor it while we can…

A few weeks ago I listened to Katherine May’s wonderful On Being conversation on ‘Wintering.’ I loved it so much I listened to the unedited version as soon as I finished the first. From Krista:

“In so many stories and fables that shape us, cold and snow, the closing in of the light — these have deep psychological as much as physical reality. They draw us, even force us, to do what Katherine May calls deeply unfashionable things: slowing down, resting, retreating. This is “wintering,” as she illuminates it in her book of that title — wintering as at once a season of the natural world, a respite our bodies require, and a state of mind. A cyclical, recurrent weather pattern, if you will, in any life. It’s one way to describe our pandemic year: as one big extended communal experience of wintering. Some of us are laboring harder than ever on its front lines and also on its home front of parenting. I don’t know a single person right now who isn’t exhausted, almost as a state of being. It feels like Katherine May opens up exactly what I and so many need to hear, but haven’t known how to name.”

Katherine’s book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times is just as delightful as her talk with Krista.

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

“It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential. ”

February 11

Listening to birdsong is one of the most delightful and calming things I can think of. Until their joyful chatter returns to my yard in abundance, I am happy to have discovered tree fm which is kind of magic. It is especially lovely to listen to while soaking in the tub…

Speaking of birds ornithologist Drew Lanham’s words in his recent On Being conversation really resonated with me:

“In that moment of that little brown bird that’s always so inquisitive, that sings reliably — in that moment that I’m thinking about that wren, I’m not thinking about anything else. That’s joy. And so sometimes I think we have to recognize the joy that the world didn’t give us and that the world can’t take away, in the midst of the world taking away what it can.”

I added his book The Home Place to my reading list. Listen to him read a short excerpt here:

I read Sally Rooney’s wonderful book Normal People cover to cover one Saturday a few weeks ago and am still thinking about it. There is also a 12 part series on Hulu which was exquisitely done…

I am a consummate list-maker of all things and these free downloads from Appointed make me happy…

I have been back in the studio teaching which also means I’ve been getting to play and work on my own Pilates practice which is one of the most joyful things I get to do…

This gorgeous painting below is not a two-dimensional scene but a real person painted by the artist Alexa Meade. It’s worth listening to her short TED talk if you need motivation to step off your current path but feel too invested to make a change. She graduated with a political science degree and a dream to work in government only to be moved by a curiosity that compelled her to return home to her parents’ basement where she taught herself how to paint by painting the shadows on the ground, on her face, on her food…

Along similar lines, Seth Godin’s recent blog post struck a chord especially after living and working through this year of the “pivot.”

“Is ‘nimble’ a good thing? Should we seek to be flexible, resilient and quick to be able to shift and adapt?

Because often, it seems as though we work to create an environment where it’s difficult indeed to be nimble. We buy expensive assets, lock into long-term systems and fail to ignore sunk costs. We set foundations in concrete instead of using a lightweight tent…”

It’s hard to choose a favorite time of year in my garden, but when new green shoots start to emerge from the dirt it always feels like a miracle and I’m surprised every time it happens. These chives are making a go of it…

And the quote I’m taking to heart these days…

“You don’t always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that’s enough.”

— Alice Walker

All Hallows' Eve

It is a gorgeous cool and bright Halloween here in Seattle, perfect weather for trick-or-treating in any other year. Tonight we are just hanging at home, hiding Twix, Reese’s cups, and Sour Patch Kids in the backyard for my son and sitting by the fire.

I made chocolate cake this morning in my skull cake mold…

I’m really in the baking groove and might make this Apple Cider Doughnut Loaf Cake from Bon Appetit tomorrow…

Photo by Laura Murray via Bon Appetit

Tomorrow with the daylight savings change, the sun will set at 4:51pm. My plan to usher in the darkness is to sit by the fire and finish Case Histories, the first book in Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series. It’s so good…

I spotted this Everlane oxblood sweatshirt today which is going on my wishlist…

Also these Trader Joe’s freezer to oven croissants are a wonder and I’ve been making them for my son in the mornings. You don’t have to proof them overnight (you don’t even have to preheat the oven!) and they’re ready in 28 minutes…

It’s going to be a wild week with the election. Remember to breathe and abstain from doomscrolling. And if you can, find ways to laugh. My favorites this weekend were found on McSweeney’s…

A few favorites: In This House We Believe, Captions From My Parents’ Museum of Conceptual Art, and Horror Movies for Toddlers.

Or you could just go all in and watch Dave Chappelle’s latest on Netflix…

Also, On Being continues to be a bright light in my life. I never listen to an episode while I am doing something else (besides driving which isn’t as much these days). So if I’m at home, I put headphones on and sit quietly so I can take it all in.

Her lead in to the most recent episode…

“This is always a starting point for meaningful change inside ourselves and our families and communities: We pull up stories we’ve been raised on in the light of what we know now. We see what was not being said, hear the questions we scarcely allowed ourselves even to think. We recover lost chapters. My colleague in radio and podcast, John Biewen, has been doing this with the interwoven questions of what it means to be human and what it means to be white. In a series called “Seeing White,” to which many people have turned in 2020, I think John has modeled something. As a documentary investigative journalist who’d covered race with the best of intentions and rigor, he realized he’d been turning to others — people of color — to be searching about racial rupture and healing. He then turned the lens back on himself.

So that’s the conversation ahead between me and John Biewen. It starts simply — tracing the racial story of our time through the story of a single life. It’s an exercise each of us can do, beginning with a curious eye on our childhoods and hometowns. And if we do this searchingly, it becomes a step towards a more whole and humane world, starting with ourselves.”

And later on this…

Tippett: Do you know Ruby Sales? She’s a civil rights elder, theologian; wonderful, one of the elders who’s with us. And she said to me in 2016, “There’s a spiritual crisis in white America”; that it was a crisis in white America. And she said, “There’s nothing wrong with being European American. That’s not the problem. It’s how you actualize that history and how you actualize that reality.” And she said, “It’s almost like white people don’t believe that other white people are worthy of being redeemed.” She was looking at our electoral — because this has real world political consequences, especially in our current political crisis. I also think of James Baldwin writing that “white people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other. And when they have achieved this, which will not be tomorrow” — this was in The Fire Next Time — “and may very well be never, the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”

Biewen: Wow.

Tippett: It actually is a truth of life, if you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. And if white people can’t figure out how to care about each other’s well-being — that that’s part of this reckoning, as well.

Listen to the whole conversation here.