5 Quick Things #395 🥶

dress better, read East of Eden, bring a friend coffee, & put away your gross phone

Hi there,

It’s been another full and busy week, but we’ve also shifted to spending the past twenty-four hours or so prepping for Texas’ next Snowpocalypse (actually more ice than snow around here, sadly). Nothing has happened yet as I write this—I wore shorts two days ago and barely needed a sweater yesterday, but that’s winter in Texas for you. It’ll change on a dime.

This weekend we may or may not have power, but we do have groceries thanks to my battling at our neighborhood HEB yesterday. …The lines were absolutely insane; I’ve never seen anything like it, even before Thanksgiving. Kyle plans to work on home renovations as usual, but stands at the ready to help with frozen pipes in the neighborhood like he did five years ago. Sometimes it’s handy being married to an Oregonian.

Winter, by Vilhelms Purvītis (1910) #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. You should spend more on clothes according to Evan Amato, and I tend to agree. I admittedly used to be more conscientious about this, but reading this has relit a fire to prioritize thrift shopping and a less-but-better closet: “Learning how to spot quality allows you to navigate the marketplace with tactical precision: you get in, take what you need, and leave while avoiding the pitfalls created to sell you cheap stuff.”

2. Joel J Miller is right; I do count East of Eden as one of my all-time favorite novels, and he does an excellent job unpacking what makes it so special: “All these people and more ricochet off the walls of the novel in ways that echo the narrator’s contention that every story amounts to the contest of vice and virtue, explicitly grounded in an exegesis of the story of Cain and Abel.”

3. Yes, yes, yes—being on your phone while you’re with other people isn’t just sad or a ‘sign of our times.’ It’s rude. I’ve felt this way for a long time, but I’m with Katherine Martinko; I’m less and less inclined these days to put up with it. “Put the gross little thing away and leave it there. Let your descriptive words, your body language, your scintillating personality shine instead. Save the device for when you’re alone, then go nuts, if that’s what you want.”

4. Speaking of which, here are seventeen ways to be hospitable that don’t require a clean home from Liturgy in the Home with Maria—I love the framing that these ideas are forms of hospitality. And I genuinely enjoy doing #16 when I can: “If you’re in the same part of town as a friend, tell her you’ll stop by and drop off a coffee or her favorite chai latte on the front porch. If she’s able to step outside to talk, that’s wonderful! If she’s able to ask you in, that’s even better! But if all you do is drop it off, you’ve shown her that she is loved.”

5. And finally, oof…. What a fantastically depressing (but absolutely worth a read!) short story from Ellis Elms. I thought about it for hours afterward.

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📺

The newest season of All Creatures Great and Small!

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Quotable 💬

Reporter: “What makes you tick?”

Tolkien: “I don’t tick. I am not a machine. If I did tick, I should have no views on it, and you had better ask the winder.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien to Harvey Breit, New York Times Book Review, June 5, 1955, quoted in Letters, 217-18¹

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How do you usually wake up? ⏰

About five or so years ago I started waking up early without trying, and I haven’t stopped since—not because sleeping in every now and then doesn’t sound delightful, but because I literally can’t. I now wake up anytime between 4:30-6:00 a.m. without fail, and whether it’s light or dark out. If I do miraculously wake at 6:15 or so, that must mean I’m either sick or really need sleep.

I hadn’t really heard of waking up to smell before, but I did add my own answer to this reader-submitted poll question: my own natural circadian rhythms. Seems like I’m in good company.

• Alarm: 47.3%

• My own circadian rhythm (even if it’s still dark out): 36%

• Child: 10.3%

• Sunlight: 4.1%

• Music: 2.2%

• Smell: 0.0%

Find the next poll here.

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Scotland! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This summer’s family-friendly pilgrimage is the historic Highlands of Scotland — we’ll explore the Isle of Skye, attend the Highland Games, wander through castles and farmland, and more. I’d love you to join me and my family!

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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… 🤔

What’s one thing you can do at the beginning of this weekend to make your end-of-the-weekend self happier?

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Have a great week,

- Tsh

p.s. - What a combat roll.

1. One of my favorite quotes, recently reminded of by Tessa Carman.