Hey there,

Well, goodness gracious — what more is there to say about this week? I was born in Austin in the 70s and have lived all but ten years here, and I’ve never seen weather like this in this neck of the woods. The same is true for most of my neighbors, seeing as a storm like this hadn’t graced its presence here since 1949. This week reminded me of deep winter in the Central Oregon mountains, where we used to live, except without the infrastructure to handle it. Gratefully, our family only lost power for three hours but we had many friends and family who went for days. Some are still without, and many still don’t have water and are boiling snow to keep going.

Much, much love to everyone near and far. Take care of yourselves, and if you’re in our general vicinity, the forecast is looking considerably warmer in the next few days. If we can walk to you, let us know how we can help (Kyle’s been a genius at getting people’s water running again). I can make a good soup!

Basically, the weather is drunk here.

Yep, the weather here is decidedly un-Texas-like this week. #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. It took us a while to record because of my electricity + Seth never could get to his microphone he left in his office, but when we finally did, we talked about what this snowpacalypse (and even the overall pandemic) is teaching us about both survivalism AND thrivalism.

2. “At this point, it’s clear that algorithms are remaking our culture.” Yep. Would love to see more done about this by people who know what to do.

3. What do you talk about with the people you live with? Enjoyed the comments section here.

4. Four habits of truly self-aware people — I’d say I’m pretty good at the first one, but the following three are good reminders for me.

5. And finally, I shared with my paying subscribers some news about my family’s faith journey. I’ve decided to make it public so everyone can read it — but I do hope your response is charitable, regardless what it is. There’s a doc mentioned in the piece full of links that might interest you, if you’re curious (or if you’re simply like me, and realize how misinformed you’ve been about this most of your life). I’m grateful for all the many, many goodhearted, kind responses! Thank you. 💛

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 🎧

• WandaVision on Disney+ (it’s so fun and confusing!)

Quotable 💬

“The world will be a quieter, less hostile place if we replace the desire to shout with the desire to be heard, if we replace the desire to win the argument with the desire to move the person who wants to argue, and if we reserve for ourselves some of the toughest questions we can conjure up.”

― Trey Gowdy #

Elsewhere (by someone else*) 📍

Megan Menchaca @meganmmenchaca

Texans! Are you looking for warmth during the storm? or do you want to give help to other Texans? Here's my guide for @TexasTribune on organizations providing resources — and what you can do to help! How to help and get help in Texas as the winter storm causes power outagesLocal organizations are providing warming shelters and resources, while nonprofits are asking for donations and volunteers.texastribune.org

February 16th 2021

414 Retweets393 Likes

*Because I’m not on social media much these days while I work on another writing project. But I agree with these wise words. 👆

Have a good weekend!

xo, Tsh

p.s. I’m slowly building the playlist for Bitter & Sweet as I write it (it’ll have daily song recommendations just like Shadow & Light!). Here it is if you’d like to see me create it in real time.