Hey there,

Just so you know, as I type this I have our new cat Violet resting her head on my wrist, rendering her a bobblehead as I move my fingers across the keys. She’s entirely nonplussed and happily snoozing. I want to be annoyed, but then I look at her tiny pink nose and find it impossible.

Speaking of new animals, we also just added four new young chickens (pullets-almost-full-hens, basically) to our backyard coop — fingers crossed for eggs by Easter! Sadly, the neighborhood nemesis raccoon recently made a feast of our previous girls. Kyle has since double-downed on our coop security, making me wonder if I’ll actually be able to retrieve said eggs once they’re available. It looks Ocean’s Eleven-esque.

A man walks through the snow in Muswell Hill in London, England. #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. Today, Seth & I talk about the thing we often think of as extra or "nice to have" but isn't essential — yet we both have found otherwise. (So have other smart people throughout the ages, so we're in decent company.)
2. Pair the episode with this piece on why beauty is not in the eye of the beholder — “A society that can’t talk sensibly about beauty will inadvertently condemn itself to ugliness.”
3. I love these thoughts on why sea shanties are so popular right now.
4. I’ve started doing the 5-Minute Journal this year, and so far it’s weirdly effective (and I had my doubts). Here are the questions included, if you want to give them a go.
5. And finally, I recently chatted with Jesse Carey on his show List It, where I ranked the five small, daily habits that give me the most bang for their buck. It was fun!

Currently Reading 📚

Work Optional, by Tanja Hester

Quotable 💬

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

― Mary Oliver #

Elsewhere 📍

Have a good weekend!

xo, Tsh

p.s. Still doing this ten-minute quick yoga (or ‘quoga’ as I call it) almost every morning, and three years later it hasn’t steered me wrong. In case you need an easy excuse to move.

5 Quick Things #176 😻