5 Quick Things #209 🍂

workshops, farms, iced coffee, & saints

Oct 08, 2021

Hey there, and happy world-of-Octobers-on-chalkboards-and-letterboards month! I do love me some October, even if it’s still summer-like temps in my neck of the woods for a few more weeks… This weekend we’re going to bedeck the porch with pumpkins and string up the bat lights in an effort to will autumn temps to stay.

The past few days there’ve been some fantastic saints’ feast days on the liturgical calendar. Even though my Anglican side has long recognized the calendar, since becoming Catholic I’ve been made more aware of just how many greats throughout history have gone before us. Two weeks ago we remembered St. John Henry Newman (one of my faves as a former Anglican), last week was St. Jerome followed the next day by St. Thérèse of Lisieux — two amazing people who could not be more different, and earlier this week we recognized my main man St. Francis of Assisi.

(If what I just said sounds to you like Charlie Brown’s teacher and yet you’re curious, I find this simple calendar helpful, and the kids and I will listen to these episodes in the morning — they’re around two minutes long.)

Boys dive into water on the outskirts of Bangalore, India. #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. 👉 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 👈 Seth and I continue our chat about screens with friend Erin Loecher — what does it look like in our homes to live sacramentally in a culture immersed in the digital world? There’s no one easy answer.
2. I’m enjoying the ongoing converation Leah Libresco Sargeant is hosting on her newsletter about work and what it means in particular to women. What if we add value to our work by making it visible? What do we say about our work when rooms like our kitchens are intentionally set up like workshops?
3. I’ve long been fascinated by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of flow. Here’s a nice primer + 8 things to do to increase your likelihood of working in a flow state.
4. Orange cardamom iced coffee. Yes, please.
5. And finally, for whatever reason I am captivated by these deep dives into the Edwardian years — such as how they prepared their farms for winter.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📺

The Great British Bake-Off is back, and already I want the win to be a tie between Jürgen and Giuseppe…

Quotable 💬

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk—and to act.”

— André Malraux #

Inside The Commonplace ✍️

This week I shared a piece on skinimalism — and this morning I made it public so all of you can read it:

“Over the years I have scratched my head at the wonder of how modern society has lured many, many a smart woman I know into the belief that she needs a million potions and elixirs to be viewed as passable in public.
…We’ve become a culture where we’re defined by what we consume, use, endorse, and spend our money on, and I’m afraid it’s left women bereft of everything that’s better.”

I then share my oh-so-simple minimal skincare routine — head here to read the rest.

Subscribe to The Commonplace