5 Quick Things #198 👀

noticing, aging, eating, and outsmarting

Hey there,

I’ve got an unusually full Friday today (I do my best to keep these days light), not least of which is meeting with some students who want to pitch to me a travel idea, followed by driving eight hours to pick up a kiddo from her week at a new-to-her camp and bring her back home.

So, let’s not dilly-dally — on with the letter! 💪

A woman stands in a lavender field in Sale San Giovanni, near Cuneo, in northwestern Italy. #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. 👉 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 👈 Noticing beauty is a habit, and it’s also not really optional if we want to live a sacramental life. In this episode, Seth and I share specific examples of beauty we’re currently witnessing — and you’re invited to nod along and notice your own as well.

2. I like these simple ways to “take a vacation” from home. (We’ve been playing a lot of bocce ball around here lately…)

3. Aging is inevitable, so why not do it joyfully? “What if instead of seeing aging as something to defeat and conquer, we were to embrace what gets better with age, and work to amplify these joys while mitigating the losses of youth?” I feel this in my bones.

4. Finding it hard these summer days to get necessary things done? Me too. I like these three simple tricks to outsmart procrastination.

5. And finally… I love this guy’s enthusiasm for learning about the world, and he’s right — most countries are better at doing breakfast than the U.S. Naturally, I’m quite partial to the third one; I didn’t even know not everyone ate these weekly until I met my Oregonian husband.

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

• This is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever you Are, by Melody Warnick

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Quotable 💬

“Rub your eyes and purify your heart — and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well.”

—Aleksander Solzhenitsyn #

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From inside The Commonplace 🏡

We had a delightful live chat this past Monday evening, and I’ll post the recording next week for subscribers! In the meantime — there was a request to do another book club in the fall, and I’m open to it… so long as it’s one of the books I’m also teaching my students. Interested in a classics book club? Want to reread a book you last opened in English class and see if you feel differently about it as an adult? Let me know if you like this idea and we’ll take it to the next step!

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Elsewhere 📍

Tsh Oxenreider ☕️ @tsh

One of my favorite things in life is witnessing other people do their *thing* well and with abandoned joy. Whether it's woodworking, writing, nursing, parenting, baking bread, or whatever — it's a gift to the rest of us that you love what you do and what you're good at.

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Question For You to Ponder… 🤔

As you look at your to-do list for today, what’s the one overarching thing you’re actually trying to accomplish?

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Have a good weekend!

xo, Tsh

p.s. What a great hive-mind list.