Hey there,

How’s your week been? Can we all agree that (at least in the northern hemisphere), mid-August to mid-September is just nuts? Whoever decided it’d be a great time of year to toss my birthday into the mix? I told Kyle that after this year, we are officially celebrating my birthday on either July 26 or September 26 (it’s August 26) because it never fails to be swamped by all the rigamarole and chaos of a new school year. There were many childhood years when my birthday was literally on the first day of school.

I’ve been sitting on a big reason why this month has been nuts for me, aside from the usual… my next book, Shadow & Light, officially releases in TEN DAYS! And yep, I’ve hardly said a word about it — not because I’m not excited for you to read it, but because it’s about Advent, and what sort of crazy person talks about Advent in the heat of late summer when so many of us are focused on the wildness of this fall?

But I’m happy to finally share this with you, as well as some things I have for you as a thanks for ordering the book early, long before the holidays begin. Early book sales matter in particular for holiday-specific books, because they tell bookstores to have enough when the holiday actually begins.

Take a look! I hope you love it as much as I do.

The fourth stage of the Criterium du Dauphine cycling race in France. #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. Today on the pod I’m starting a three-part series about the fogginess of this fall, and what we can do about it (end even beyond the fall).

2. My lovely friend Meg (and long-time former AoS contributor!) shares with us five affirmations for troubled times. It’s good to read her words again.

3. Continuing our countdown of the most popular posts of all time on AoS, this one at number 5 is completely irrelevant to me now but it makes me super nostalgic.

4. Toward a Zoom agreement. This little statement is healthy, and I may just use it (or create a version of my own).

5. “Bless this holy inconvenience” — gah, I love this. (And I love hearing AoS contributor Katherine’s voice!)

Quotable 💬

“Second only to a soul that will not repent, I wonder if the scariest thing in the world is a heart that will not break.”

― Tyler Blanski

Time Machine ⏰

Two years ago, Holly wrote about how she’s learning to listen to herself.

Elsewhere 📍

Tsh Oxenreider @tsh

A day in the life of parenting a literal kid: I asked him to wash a load of towels. He didn’t know I meant dirty towels. So, he tossed the clean, folded towels on the shelves into the machine & pressed start. I forgot to add the crucial adjective "dirty." Bless him. 💛

1:26 PM ∙ Aug 21, 2020

Have a good weekend,

xo, Tsh

p.s. My usual artist book-cover-illustrator-in-crime Connie Gabbert designed Shadow & Light — didn’t she do a fabulous job once again? Thank you, Connie! (fun fact: she also did my tattoo…)