Weekly Jetsam 5.21.23

reads about money, creativity & monsters. podcasts about nature, bodies and eggs.

It’s May 21st. There’s 1 month until the summer solstice.

Let me tell you I am feeling that transition big time. In a way, it feels like nature and I are walking alongside each other right now. My winter and early spring were spent planning, planting seeds, amending soil, and now it’s show time. I’ve bumped into a lot of “energetic lint”, as my CHANI horoscope dubbed it. The good news? I’m the proud owner of many different style lint rollers now. Is anyone else feeling those vibes?

It’s been two weeks since I had a Sunday post. I enjoy writing them even as keepsakes and reflections on how I’ve spent my time, so I’m glad to be back at it.

Baby geese. Oodles of postcards. Baby swans.

Personally, aside from hanging out with my “lint”, I’ve spent lots of time watching baby animals (shocking, right?) moving super slowly in the mornings, consuming a lot of audiobooks, and dusting off some old friends from my bookshelf. There’s been whole days spent brainstorming business ideas, and lunches & dinners with friends. Also, I’ve been creating, just for the sake of creating. After I moved last year it took a long time for me to set up my office/craft space in a way that I felt some semblance of ease. I’m happy to report, that for right now, I’ve found that and as a result, my Cricut and I have been happily (and sometimes frustratingly) reacquainted.

A few weeks back Jess (

The Write Up

) shared thoughts about describing our lives as full vs. busy.

Right now mine feels full.

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I’ve been jumping in & out of a lot of reads lately. Here’s a handful.

The Soul of Money-Lynn Twist

A few friends were reading this one, so I jumped on board #unofficialbookclub. The first few chapters were tough for me, but there are a lot of gems in here about scarcity vs. abundance (what she calls sufficiency). Here’s a quote that I latched onto:

When you make a difference with what you already have it expands.

Coming to Our Senses- Jon Kabat-Zin

I’ve been listening to the abridged version on Audible. It’s a quick one. It was my first exposure to the Buddhist word, duhkha. Jon Kabat-Zin explained that ‘duhkha’ encapsulates, “suffering, anguish, stress, malaise, dis-ease, or unsatisfactoriness”.

What a word, right?!

On Substack, my creative mantra-

Mari Andrew

Remember my ‘energetic lint’? I adore this post by Mari. I’m no longer scared to notice my monsters, but it is certainly another thing to hangout with them for a bit, but I think it’s exactly what’s on tap for me! Mari also made me chuckle when she reminded us that “monsters are often very funny”. I think it’s true. Most of mine probably look closer to Sully and Mike Wazowski.

Whichever monster you dialogue with inside, whichever monster wants to face off with you in this moment: Bring the monster from the shadows into the light.

Make the monster vulnerable and feeling. Give him likes and dislikes, a distinct personality. Give him a motivation and a fear. Then write him.

You know when a podcast just gets it? These two podcasts came out within days of each other and it was like a little elf had crawled inside my mind and recorded so, so, so many of my thoughts. They also provided me with some really powerful affirmation. I really recommend that you listen to both of them.

Last share! This one is purely for fun, but also a little bit of WTF. The whole premise is that David Farrier is a New Zealander living in America creating audio documentaries about American things (rabies, Waffle House, The Villages etc.). In this episode David attempts to discover why American’s refrigerate eggs when the rest of the world doesn’t. He encounters so much red tape & very few answers.

Linesbyloes

Linesbyloes on Instagram: “About happiness. Olympic athlete, poet, and filmmaker Alexi Pappas shares some great advice in her book Bravey, it is called The Rule of Thirds. When she was facing a difficult training period before the Rio Olympics, her coach told her not to worry, this was simply The Rule of Thirds. He told her: “When you’re chasing a big goal, you’re supposed to feel good a third of the time, okay a third of the time, and crappy a third of the time...and if the ratio is roughly in that range, then you’re doing fine.” A great reminder that progress is never linear. And it is ok to feel crappy parts of the time. As long as you know what your goal is, you’ll be fine. Embrace this rule of thirds. And keep going! #visualreminder #linesbyloes #growthmindset #happiness #roadtohappiness #innerpeace #quotes #happyquotes #visualquotes #succes #successful #howtobehappy”

May 13, 2023

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My journal, Lessons from Nature is now out. You can find it here.

Follow me on Instagram to see what I’m up to between newsletters.

»Don’t be the Kool-Aid Man

»BLOOM (Read & Reflect #24)