5 Quick Things #352 🪄

caffeine overload, tiny decluttering, misplaced magic, & weird fish

Hey there,

This week we had ice and “snow,” just enough to close schools for the day — the one day I happen to teach. So, it ended up being a week of cozying up at home and staying put, and I have to admit it seemed to be just the thing our household needed. There’s little else more delightful in our modern world than a string of calendar squares with almost nothing on them… It so rarely happens, it seems.

Our weather would have probably made those of you north of the Mason-Dixon Line roll your eyes as you’d put on your shorts and enjoyed a brisk morning walk here. It’s all good, because we do the same to you when you complain about your summer temps… In all love, I hope you’re all staying warm and safe whatever’s going on outside your windows. —Or if you’re in the southern hemisphere, that you’re cool and safe in the summer blaze.

The Church in Nuenen in Winter, by Vincent van Gogh (1883) #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. ICYMI, my daughter Tate shared her first letter from Austria, and I was as charmed as you all were: “I’ve come to recognize in the past few days that God truly is everywhere. In the beautiful architecture of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, in the moonlight while trailblazing a hill, in the children stuffed into winter garb toddling alongside their mother, in the old woman half my height sitting with me in Mass, in the food and drinks served in the Mensa, in the people laughing so hard you feel it in the floor, in the pain, sorrow, and darkness, in the love, peace, and light.”

2. I’ve declared this year to be a year of massive decluttering in our household — I’m ready to get us fully from temporary-renovation state to this-is-how-we-live-here state, even if our house is a forever fixer-upper (which is life in an old house). This week I was reminded how to best declutter when you’re a working homemaker spinning 17 plates: a little at a time. In 15-minute little increments, I’m choosing to declutter a spot in our home as little windows in time open. If I wait until I have an entire Saturday clear for this task, it’ll never happen. But while dinner’s in the oven? I can tackle a shelf in the bathroom.

3. Andy Crouch is one of my favorite current thinkers, and he recently wrote some excellent food for thought in another current favorite thinker’s newsletter, Jon Haidt’s After Babel: “Instant, effortless, impersonal power is now all around us, and it is not going away. But we have let it colonize places where not only is it of no use—there is no magical way to raise a child—but where it actively displaces and undermines the essential process of personal formation. We have let the magic of technology into the formative stages of life—infancy, childhood, adolescence—so that from very early on, many if not most children experience the seductive power of instant, effortless results delivered through screens and digital devices (and many battery-powered toys as well).”

4. The past few months I’ve seen an uptick in my caffeine sensitivity, so I think I’m nudging more and more towards a decaf life (as I write this I’m sipping my first morning coffee and already feeling the buzz). I’m going to transition slowly, of course, perhaps with just one cup of “normal” caffeine and then half-caf for my second, moving eventually into full decaf. The trick is finding genuinely good decaf beans — very few indie coffee shops around here roast decaf beans and our grocery store is bereft of quality options. …Time to do some research. Ideas welcome.

5. And finally… fish are indeed weird (agreed, Spencer Klavan). As is much of creation.

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Signs of Life, by Scott Hahn

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Quotable 💬

“Have patience with all things — but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You are a valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. No amount of triumphs or tribulations can alter that.”

― St. Francis de Sales¹

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What do you have at home? 🐶🐱

For whatever reason, I was sorta surprised at these results; I imagined more of us were ‘both’ households. Maybe it’s whatever your normal is, is what you assume to be the case of others.

…In case it’s not obvious, we’re a ‘both’ household here.

• Neither: 42%

• Dogs: 28%

• Cats: 17%

• Both: 12%

Find next week’s poll here.

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This Summer’s Pilgrimage ⛰️

Friendly reminder to join us this summer as we float along the Rhine River! Activities include cheesemaking in Amsterdam, witnessing marvels such as Cologne Cathedral and the abbey of St. Hildegard of Bingen, walking through iconic villages like Strasbourg, getting a behind-the-scenes look at cuckoo clock-making in the Black Forest region, taking a train through the Swiss Alps, and more. I’d love to have you join us!

A View of a Town along the Rhine, by Cornelis Springer (1841) #

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Quick Links 🔗

• 📐Create your own Rule of Life

• 🎧 Listen to A Drink With a Friend

• 📖 Read my books

• 🛶 Join me along the Rhine River: Summer 2025!

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Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

Where has your mind been focused recently — on your past, your present, or your future? Why do you think that is?

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Have a great weekend,

- Tsh

p.s. - The delight of a rare snow day.

1. Today is his feast day!