5 Quick Things #397 📚

book stacks, step stools, growing older, and real happiness

Hi there,

It’s wild that not too long ago we were in an ice storm, because the past few days and for at least the next week, we are in the midst of gorgeous weather… Since it’s around my oldest’s birthday I’m always aware of weather around now (on her first birthday we weren’t sure whether we’d get a snowstorm or a warm day at the park)—you truly don’t know what you’ll get during mid-February in central Texas. Right now, it’s day-at-the-park weather, and I’ll take it.

In unrelated news, that daughter’s fiancé has officially moved to Texas this week! I’m so thrilled that they’re no longer long-distance. With a little more than three months until the wedding, it’ll make all the things so much easier for them, not least of which is their actual relationship. Kyle and I did long-distance for a brief stint of our dating stage, and it was wildly challenging.

Oh, and in still more unrelated news: today is my family’s five-year anniversary of coming into the Catholic Church! It’s been such a great grace, and from that movement God continue to surprise me daily. Absolutely zero regrets.

All in all, it’s quite the busy season around here: wedding planning, book edits due in a few months, our class registrations for the next school year opens next week (how?), pilgrimage planning and praying… Just so much. But as I was reminded of this morning, they are all things that ten years ago I was merely praying I’d get to one day have on my plate. I’m so grateful to be asked to juggle it all.

Poppies, by John Singer Sargeant (1886) #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. If you’re a leveled-up subscriber of The Commonplace, don’t forget to add your current book stack to this month’s book chat—readers (and me) are sharing what they read last month, what they’re currently reading for February, and what they’re getting started sometime between now and next month. I love reading about all your piles! I see some trends on repeat: The Correspondent, Emma M. Lion, Stunned by Scripture, and the latest for Well-Read Mom, to name a few.

2. Speaking of books, I’m thinking through what I’d like to read over the next few months… I’ve got an essay in my head swirling around about this, but until I actually get it written, here’s a shortlist of my criteria: a simple, straightforward, living-simply leaning personal finance resource (I’ve already read a lot of them, but I’m curious if there’s one I’ve missed—this is both to teach my own kids and for a class I’m teaching next school year); fiction or nonfiction about Scotland (I love to read from where we’ll be traveling this summer!), and newer books that read like classics (sounds weird, but most of my reading hails from at least a hundred years ago). If you’ve got any recommendations, I’m all ears!

3. Dixie Dillon Lane has been lately championing making third places family-friendlier with simple additions like stepstools in bathrooms. I enjoyed her recent piece on her Step Stool Revolution of 2026: “Big interventions, however excellent, can sometimes seem overwhelming, but a little idea—the kind of small change that individuals can make—can go a long way in making people feel more welcome and supported.”

4. I’m just a tiny smidge younger, so I really appreciated my long-time pal Shawn Smucker’s latest piece on what it’s like to inch closer and closer to fifty: “Each loss, small and large, becomes a constant reminder of mortality, a sign that, while The End may or may not be quite near, it is certainly on its way, no matter how loud you scream or protest. But is this long, slow process of becoming less actually a negative thing? Does it have to be an experience we enter into kicking and screaming? Or is there a gentler, more peaceful way to grow older?”

5. And finally, these two men are some of my favorite current living thinkers and teachers, so I absolutely loved this recent conversation of theirs. (I’m gonna try to listen to it a second time this week.)

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

The Natural Order of Money, by Roy Seabag (a re-read; see above)

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Quotable 💬

“There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.”

- G.K. Chesterton

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If you could take a high school class again, for fun—this time as an adult—what would you take? 🎒

I asked this question a few years ago, and I believe I answered ‘foreign language.’ …It’s still my same answer; I love learning new languages but flat-out don’t make the time for it. I’d love to dust off that skill and learn more: French, Latin, and Italian, to name just a few.

• Art (of all sorts): 38.6%

• Foreign language: 18.9%

• History: 18.7%

• English: 13.1%

• Math: 4.6%

• Science: 3.7%

• Sports: 2.4%

Find the next poll here.

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Come to Scotland: July 18-28, 2026 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Travel is one of the most formational activities we can do here on earth; one of the few activities that, for the most part, is worth the money spent—especially when it’s invested in something that pays dividends in our souls for years afterward. That’s been the case with pilgrimages for me, and it’s one of the reasons I love, love, love leading them.

I’d be honored if you prayed about joining us in Scotland this summer, where we’ll walk through the rugged highlands and listen to God’s voice on the Isle of Skye, in the halls of medieval castles, walking through historic St. Andrews, and more. And if you sense through prayer that this pilgrimage is meant for you, I’ll join you in prayer that God will provide all you need to go.

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Quick Links 🔗

• 📐 Create your own Rule of Life

• 🎧 Listen to A Drink With a Friend

• 📖 Read my books

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Join the next pilgrimage: Scotland!

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Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔

Where would you choose to go for an afternoon if you had to walk there from your front door?

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Have a great week,

- Tsh

p.s. - Solving three mysterious with an old-timey pipe.