5 Quick Things #372 ☕️
summer reading, cold brew coffee, future scandals, and smartphones (again)
Hey there,
I’m over jet lag now, thankfully, and I’m feeling a bit more “all here” than I was earlier this week, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say getting back to the ol’ grindstone has been a bit of a mind warp. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for the work I’m given to do—these days are spent furiously writing my next book while gratefully allowing my daughter to clean the house and my elder son to do the nerdy Church history research needed for my chapters. As for the youngest son, I’m driving eight hours total today to pick him up and bring him back home from summer camp. I’ll have to double up on book writing tomorrow.
A few days ago on our morning walk, I was trying to describe to Kyle why I love summer so much. It’s certainly not the weather around these parts (although I do prefer it warm over cold), and it’s not exactly the activities available due to said weather (although I do like those a great deal). I think it’s simply the pace of life. As both a teacher and a homeschool mom, I love the slowed down rhythm of summer mornings, the wide-open afternoons, and the light-night evenings of getting things done, sure, but with less of a forced timestamp. I know that much of that is now available because my kids are all older, but I’m also bluntly aware that there’s only a few years left with them in the house. Summer days feel flat-out sacred these days. May I (and we) learn to savor them.
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. ICYMI, earlier this week I shared a photo-heavy recap of our Rhine River pilgrimage: “Places matter. They shape us more into who we are, telling us where we belong now and simultaneously from where we find our ultimate citizenry. Places whisper certain truths to us we’d otherwise never hear in our own backyards. It is indeed worth the effort to leave our armchairs and go on adventures, even for us Bilbo Bagginses.”
2. Nicole M. Roccas shares a few good novels for summer reading, and I’ve heard of only a few of them—I put one of them on hold at my local library. She also waxes poetic just-right about another beauty of summer—I feel this, too: “Summer itself feels like a threshold. It’s liminal—a space between things: between school years, relationships, jobs, selves. …It holds memory and possibility in equal measure.”
3. Summer is the season for a continual supply of cold brew in the fridge. It’s easy-peasy: I do 1 cup of coffee grounds to 8 cups of filtered water, using one of these filters in a wide-mouth half-gallon mason jar (though lately I’ve been halving this whole thing in order to have a smaller, 32-ounce jar in my already-full fridge). Let it first steep overnight, roughly eight hours minimum. Then, simply remove the filter, pour some coffee concentrate into a drinking glass, add some ice and a bit more water (because it’s a concentrate), and if I’m in the mood, a splash of heavy cream. Done and delicious.
4. matthew pierce announces his future scandals, and his formula is so on-point that is speaks something eerily deeper than his surface humor relays (I’m sure entirely on purpose): “I will steal ideas, themes, and even the fake anecdotes that are like housewife catnip in evangelical bestsellers.”
5. And finally… All my friends and I talk about is getting rid of our smartphones — a thoughtful poem by this is going somewhere: “but what if we lose our way / what if someone dies / what if I see something / beautiful?”
Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚
In This House of Brede, by Rumor Godden (finally! But very slowly, due to aforementioned book writing)
Quotable 💬
“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
― Henry James
What's your favorite summertime activity? 🍉
I honestly love all these options, and like most of you nerds, reading is usually my top-tier pastime. But I’m gonna go with my honest answer for this summer, which is travel, followed by generally not being beholden to a school schedule, followed by reading. All good choices here.
Reading: 28.1%
Traveling: 22.2%
Swimming: 16%
Generally not being in (or taking people to) school: 12.8%
Camping: 10%
Enjoying the A/C: 6%
Grilling: 4%
Find next week’s poll here.
Quick Links 🔗
Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔
Which particular roses should I stop and smell these days?
In a few days I’m beginning my annual summer screen sabbath! For the next six weeks, I’m going radio-silent in order to focus on book-writing and generally enjoy the world around me. It’s a thing I’ve done since 2010, and I recommend some version of it on a regular basis to everyone.
This year I’ll pre-schedule a shortened version of my weekly 5 Quick Things, similar to what I sent while on our pilgrimage. But before I do, I hope to send you one last short essay as we wrap up June. Look for it soon!
Have a great weekend,
- Tsh
p.s. - Feed me.
I'd be curious to hear about screen sabbaticals from people with corporate jobs???? I work in HR supporting 800+ employees. My company frequently does acquisitions for which I help integrate 50-200 new employees into a new company they didn't choose to join. I also support employee benefits and this is the primary reason I'm not comfortable abandoning my phone altogether. If someone has a major health event and needs help maneuvering insurance, it's important that I'm available. But I also HAVE to be on screens for at least 8 hours a day.
I've given up social media for Lent a few times and it's fine, but I don't feel some back-to-the-world connection from doing so. I do feel like a better human, though. I will also add that I live on 20 acres with my husband (no kids), have 6 dogs, 2 horses a cat and a pony. I ride pretty much every day. I take riding lessons every weekend. I mow a LOT of grass. I do a lot of tending to the health needs of critters. Maybe this is part of why I don't feel like I need the cleanse as much as others do, but help a girl out. How does this work with a demanding corporate job? I will also add that I LOVE my job. Love. Love. Love it. I love supporting and helping leaders. I love problem solving. I love talking to people and learning about them. My employees are spread from California to Virginia and I'm based in Texas so I do travel a fair amount for work.
Thanks for the link to the book recs! Added lots of them to my "holds" list at the library! Question about your tech/screen break for summer- When you take off the internet, does that include not checking email at all for the whole month/break? Does that also include not online shopping and not researching things on the internet? I am intrigued and want to try it this summer!
My husband and I just returned from the Netherlands two days ago, and during the first couple of days I tried not to use my phone when I wasn't on Wifi because I didn't want to pay the fee per day for using it in a foreign country. But alas, I finally had to use it for maps and also the train app. Ugh. I did not enjoy having to use it for all of that, but it seemed almost impossible not to use the train app to get around.