november 2020: what I’m learning and loving

A friend and I were talking the other day, and she said she didn’t know what happened to October or November. It’s like this #covid19season is both the longest and the shortest season – everything feels the same, and nothing feels the same. It’s weird. All four of us tested positive for Covid on November 9th, so November was spent mostly in quarantine together at home. We are feeling better finally. I’m going to save my lessons from Covid for a separate post, so here goes my normal WILL post for November:

What I’m loving

Cereal for dinner. My mom and dad both had demanding jobs throughout my childhood, so once or twice a week, especially as our schedules got busier as we got older, I remember my mom would just call for “cereal for dinner” nights. I honestly forgot about this until earlier in #covid19season when, despite my love for cooking, if I had to make and clean up from one more meal I WAS GOING TO LOSE MY MIND. Anyhoo, I had somehow buried this ritual from growing up and have pulled it out several times in 2020. We only eat cereal for breakfast about once a week anyway, so the kids get extra excited when I call for a “cereal for dinner” night.

Ted Lasso. Grant and I binged this election week – and then were so mad at ourselves for not savoring it. We both loved every bit of it, and Ted’s ubiquitous optimism is just what this Covid winter ahead calls for.  (P.S. you could easily sign up for a free week trial of AppleTV, binge all of the episodes, and then cancel).

Otis Moss III. I had never heard of Rev. Dr. Moss until listening to this wonderful episode with him on On Being, which led to me going down the rabbit hole of his old sermons – and everything I’ve listened to so far has been SO GOOD. If nothing else, at least listen to his On Being episode!

These fire starters. We have a wood burning stove, so as soon as the temps drop below 40 degrees, it is on all day everyday. Typically, Grant makes the fires, but if he has to leave early, I do it. And I’m really, really bad at it. He has given me all of his tips, and I’m still terrible. Until these things. They make me look like a professional fire starter.

Cocktails with Suderman. I signed up for this newsletter on the advice of Megan McArdle (Suderman’s partner). I actually don’t even really like hard alcohol; I rarely drink it, but I’ve discovered that I really enjoy making cocktails for other people since making some fun simple syrups for the DrinkMate and thanks to Suderman’s newsletter. His Thanksgiving sour recipe had me going out to buy Brandy for the first time ever (it was magical by the way), and I’m just really enjoying the craft of mixing the different flavors together. Grant, who is the one drinking all of my concoctions, seems to very pleased by this new interest of mine! 

What I’m learning

CTRL+Z. On most Windows applications, CTRL+z is the shortcut for undo, so even if the website or application you’re in doesn’t have an obvious “undo” button on the menu or via the left-click of your mouse, you can still undo. How did I learn this you ask? Because I deleted about 70 percent of a newsletter I was working on and freaked out because there was no undo!

I wash my clothes way too much. I follow a few ladies on Instagram who did a #100daydresschallenge sponsored by the company wool&. I was motivated to wear the same dress for all of about five minutes (now, give me a #100dayleggingsandtshirtchallenge, and I’ll be all over THAT!), but in those five minutes, I learned a lot about how our clothes’ materials and how we care for them make such a difference in terms of their durability – and therefore their environmental impact. This led me to research how often I should be washing our clothes. Real Simple has these guidelines, but I liked this article too. This year has been weird because, honestly, I’ve mostly been wearing workout-type clothes every day, but even those, I think I’ve been washing too frequently. My clothes will last longer, and I feel better about my energy use if I reign in the washing a bit.

One easy thing I’ve been doing to help lengthen the time between washes is to use an apron every night while making dinner instead of just on those big cooking days. The apron takes the brunt of any spills or splashes, and I wash it every other week or so, buying my regular clothes more time between washes.

Prevention > catching up. We try to do more homeopathic and natural remedies as anyone who has been here awhile knows. However, the more natural remedies work better in a preventive or right at the onset of illness way versus something like Sudafed that is like a sledgehammer after you already have lots of nasal congestion, for example. When we all tested positive for Covid, I looked back at the week that we likely got infected and noticed that it had been really stressful: Grant and I didn’t sleep well, we had all skipped our vitamins because I slacked on filling up our little containers, and we didn’t get outside as much as we normally do. I’m not blaming myself for Covid, but it was just a good reminder of how much the Grandma habits (and sticking to them) matter.

It also translates to lots of other things: it is better to prevent the problem in the first place then have to deal with it after the fact. 

Your turn – what are you loving and learning lately?!