life

What is Saving My Summer Life 2026

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As summer deepens with the beginning of July, here are some of the sun-bright glimmers that are saving my life and refreshing my soul.

🫰🏽Pursuit of Jade (2026, Netflix)

Based on the popular Chinese historical romance web novel Zhu Yu, written by Tuan Zi Lai Xi, Pursuit of Jade is a sweeping, elegant, costume drama that dropped onto Netflix back in March. There are 40-episodes in this story, which I finished less than 24 hours ago as of the time of this writing. I have to admit that I have never—and I mean NEVER—watched anything as romantic as this series, with the exception of the gorgeous anime My Happy Marriage (which is its own enthralling, beautiful love story). Pursuit of Jade is brilliantly acted (Zhang Linghe’s subtle yet powerful expressions make me fall in love every time he’s on screen, and Tian Xiwei is the most stunning woman I have ever seen in her ability to portray both outward and inward beauty and warmth); gorgeously set and dressed (I have seen full-budget films that weren’t half as beautiful and detailed); and full of characters that you love and love to hate, along with plot twists that will make your head spin. I have always loved wuxia (martial heroes) epics, ever since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ushered in a beautiful era of Chinese film on the American markets. Among my favorites are: Hero, Fearless, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower. So, if you are looking for an at-home cinematic experience this summer, I highly suggest that you invest the time and effort into Pursuit of Jade. Trust me, subtitles are not that scary. And they are worth the story.

🫰🏽Extended Friend Time

For two weekends in a row, I was able to spend time with two besties that I absolutely DO NOT get enough of. Allison—a dear friend of fifteen years—stayed over while she was participating in a Disney’s Lorcana TCG tournament/convention downtown, and it was brilliant to get to indulge in extra-long couch time with her over those days. I also got to rejoice with her in her game goodies, autographs, pictures, and loot haul from the tournament, which is ALWAYS a good time!

The following weekend, Michele, another bestie (former teaching colleague), joined me for not one but TWO k-pop events. If you do not know what k-pop is, Google is very helpful. ^_~ Thursday night, we couch-rotted, caught up, and watched the Kingdom: Legendary War Korean music survival show (watching a bunch of talented men cheer and encourage each other on in their art/passion/careers was so very healing!). Then, early Friday morning, we trekked out to Barnes and Noble for a pop-up event for the release of Ateez’s new mini-album “Golden Hour: Part 5”! It was so very much fun to meet other fans in line, hear their stories, get our merch, and then sit down in the cafe with other fans to unbox and trade/share all our goodies. The excitement and joy were just palpable, and it made my heart so happy to be in the midst of it! Exuberant things like that are what the world needs more of. I got utterly lost in the wondrous chaos both in person and online surrounding the album release, and it was the greatest of highs! 

The following day, we ventured to another pop-up store event. We weren’t entirely sure that we had the right place at first, as we got there early and it was a beauty supply shop. But as soon as it turned 9am, my Kiddo leapt out of the car, hurrying us adults up with, “It’s open! Let’s go!” So, of course, in we went. The pop-up was indeed there, and it was awesome!  We were the first ones in the door and there was so much stuff to browse through! I built up my Ateez photocard collection a bit more, and the Kiddo started their own collection of photocards with some of their favorite groups, along with getting some BTS Jimin/Chimmy merch. The Korean gentleman running the pop-up was so fun and very kind! He spoke to everyone, danced with people, and was giving great discounts and “sneaking” us freebies with a wink and a “Shh!” like he was everyone’s Ahjeo-ssi (“uncle”) giving us candy.  Needless to say, those were two very stupendous and deeply-needed weekends! More of that joy, please.

🫰🏽Fangirling

Both categories so far have hit on this, but I shall say it plainly: I am loving being a fangirl again! I am loving diving into fun things, beautiful stories, amazing music, and stunning (and stunningly-talented) people. It is different now than when I was a teenager but I am having a stellar time nonetheless. Also, it is good for me!

In the abstract to her paper Fantastic: Exploring the Intermedial Productivity of the Fangirl, Innes Seggie of the University of Edinburgh presented the following to The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture in 2024 (definition note: “affect” in this context refers to an observable emotional response or outward display of feeling): 

“Fandoms serve as a rich site to examine intermedial play in modern culture, with fans engaging with and creating new, media-hybrid products that honour, subvert, and/or expand source material. While the body serves as both site and tool for this work, such productivity is only considered valuable and legitimate if conducted by a certain type of body – one detached from emotion and non-threatening to white, heteronormative, ableist, patriarchal society. The fangirl has long been condemned as a bad cultural producer with bad taste, too emotional to engage with or create worthwhile products. However, I argue that the fangirl’s productivity challenges the assumed hierarchical divide between logic and emotion that dominates Western theory. Using my own affected [emotionally impacted] responses as a starting point and focusing on fan edits, choreography videos, and concert films in the BTS and Taylor Swift fandoms, I combine personal experiences of fandom with academic research to examine the impact intermedial play has on the fangirl as both consumer and creator. My approach applies recent intermedial theory to current fan studies research and feminist analysis in order to understand the 21st century viewer from a more encompassing, multimedia perspective. Additionally, this autoethnographic method demonstrates the value (and presence) of affect in academic work first-hand. This exploration ultimately concludes that the fangirl actively uses affect in fan productivity to articulate identity and build community and thus demonstrates the value of emotion and affect in rational thought as it is a fundamentally embodied process.”

So, if you find my fangirling offensive because I am apparently a whole grown woman in my forties, then, darling, I might dare to suggest that you stop finding me. Much love to you!

Otherwise, rejoice with me! It’s not just “fangirling” that is good for our collective well-being, development of self and community, and productivity, but fan engagement of any sort and by any gender. Example: my darling Ben is currently reliving his glory days of Nintendo with our new Switch 2 and his GameBoy-style emulator. I am encouraging it, because it brings him joy in a world that can so often grind him down. And, as I said before, we need more of joy. So go enjoy what you enjoy, love what you love, and fangirl away!

🫰🏽Gym Days

The Kiddo decided that they want to build their upper-body strength this summer, and, as they are now old enough to come as a guest on my membership, we have been making trips to the gym together about three times a week. I am also working on my health and fitness so it is nice to have a partner in that, at least for the summer months. We shall see how the Kiddo feels about continuing once the school year starts back up. But, for now, it’s great.

One day is for cardio, either on the treadmill at the gym or walking around the neighborhoods if the weather is good. Then, the other two days are for strength training. Kiddo has their favorite machines they like to work on, but I am also teaching them how to/making them use free weight exercises, as well as some machines that are very much not their favorites. It’s all a process, but I am glad to go on this journey with them with whatever guidance and partnership I can offer.

🫰🏽Mood Reading

I have been very “bouncy” with my books of late, shifting from one to another as my mood shifts. I’m usually reading two books at once, sometimes three. Right now, I am reading: The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, Behind Five Willows by June Hur, and Break My Rules by Siena Hart, and they are all very different books. The first two are, funnily enough, both inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one literally being a sequel of sorts to the story and the other a tale of censorship and social expectations set in Joseon Dynasty Korea. But I am enjoying giving myself permission and freedom to float around in my reading. I am not putting too much stock on how many books I finish this summer, but, rather, trying to just enjoy the ride of each day. If I read a lot, great. If I read a little, that’s also great. It is an enjoyment, not a job. A delight, not a designated task. I am trying to concentrate my summer days on relaxation and rejuvenation, not bragging rights. So far, that’s proven to be the right path for me. So I think I will walk it a little while longer.

As the summer deepens with the oncoming holiday and hotter weather, may you find those golden hour glimmers that are saving your lives, dear ones. And if anything I have noted here might be of help or joy to you, please feel free to steal it for yourself. Whatever enables you to live joyfully and presently in this world, enjoying what happinesses you can find for just what they are. As Becky Chambers wrote in her beautiful novel A Psalm for the Wild-Built: 

“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to just exist in this world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live.”

🫰🏽 I hope that you can just live this summer, darlings. Take that drive, take that nap, enjoy an hour with your book or game or TV show, linger over that lunch or dinner with a friend, go see that movie you’ve been looking forward to. Just because it makes you happy. Go save your life this summer. 

What is Saving My Spring Life 2026🌸💮🌸💮

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As Spring traipses on its merry way, there are a number of things that are making it a beautiful new season for me (besides all the colors, of course).

🌸1.) Cherry Blossom scented anything. I totally forgot to go to the local Japanese gardens for the sakura blooming, but I am fully in love with anything that smells like cherry blossoms. I love the way the clean laundry fragrances rooms when I use the Downy Light Cherry Blossom scent booster in the wash. I adore how sweet the Forever Cherry Blossom body spray and lotion from Bath & Body Works makes my skin. I am enamored of just how springy a scent it is. It is like what the color pink would smell like, and I love it!

💮2.) Cups of coffee on a lazy Saturday morning. I adore mornings where I can wake up on my own and then take my slow, sweet time with my coffee and a book while the rest of the household sleeps or hurkle-durkles. I love letting my mind rouse itself with a good story, waking up my spirt as well as my body.

🌸3.) Handwriting. I have been re-discovering some of my favorite types of pens (currently, the Uniball Air and Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens) and writing longhand (such as the first draft of this post). One of my colleagues took a page of notes that I had taken during a meeting and said that it was like I had written her a missive from the Civil War. 😊I love my handwriting, personally. I adore how elegant it looks, smooth and fluid, unique even, and how delicately it suits my personality. It is really rather beautiful, if I do say so myself, to see my thoughts pour out onto paper so prettily through my pen, like my own special form of art.

💮4.) Using my local library resources, primarily the Libby app for digital books and audiobooks. I am very much enjoying getting books and audiobooks through Libby and supporting the resources of our local library. I am grateful to all the amazing librarians who give of their expertise and passion to share knowledge and imagination with our communities.

I also love sharing book recommendations with friends and colleagues. We have our own little bookish community at my school, and we spent a whole late-start free-meeting time recently talking about books, sharing recommendations and (in my case) physical books, and enjoying time together. I was surprised, stunned, and delighted to see that there are indeed so many of us bookish people in our school, beyond the obvious culprits, of course. It made me very happy to put three books into the hands of colleagues that day for them to enjoy over Spring Break. I feel such joy and pride when someone enjoys my recommendations, like I did something good for their heart and mind. My first compulsive book recommendation was Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel The Night Circus. It is still a book that I try to put into as many hands as I can, always having an extra copy to lend out or give as a gift. Along with this at the top of my list are:

  • Sue Monk Kidd’s The Book of Longings
  • Evelyn Skye’s The Incredible Kindness of Paper
  • Jaysea Lynn’s For Whom the Belle Tolls
  • Hwang Bo-Reum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
  • Ann Liang’s A Song to Drown Rivers
  • Lisa See’s Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
  • India Holton’s Dangerous Damsels and Love’s Academic series

I love sharing the joy of reading with others and showing them how amazing, enchanting, and soul-soothing and life-saving stories can be. It fills my soul as much as I hope it does theirs.

🌸💮🌸💮 As Spring moves forward, I am trying to concentrate on these beautiful glimmers of life and how much they fill and sustain me. I want to continue to embrace softness and gentleness while remaining strong, remembering that I–as a woman, as a person, as a being–can, and do, hold infinite worlds within me.

And so, too, do you, dear heart. 🌸💮🌸💮

What is Saving My Winter Life 2026

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Books (as always) ~ ~ Stories are my constant companions, and I do my best to end each day with some quiet, relaxed reading time before laying myself down to sleep. Lately, I have been enjoying shorter literary adventures, such as Cinder House by Freya Markse, The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang, and The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura. These books are all around 200 pages but contain stories that are enchanting and soul-soothing, reminding me in the midst of all the sharp edges of the world that there is still good and sweetness, hope and compassion. That is not to say that I have given up on longer novels (Heaven forfend!) but reading these sweet shorter ones has been not only fun but has offered a surprising sense of accomplishment in finishing and, sometimes, passing on these stories to students and friends. I am keeping my eyes open for more startlingly delightful little reads as I move throughout the year.

Kpop/Ateez ~ ~

Like a good deal of the western world, I was thrown full throttle into kpop this summer with Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters and my child’s obsession became a shared one. I had been aware of kpop before then, of course, but I really did not listen to music beyond musicals often enough at the time to become a fan. Now, though, I proudly call myself a baby Atiny (a fan of the kpop group Ateez). Having grown up a loyal devotee of the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, it’s FUN to be a new fangirl again! I’m enjoying learning songs and dances and watching way more videos and footage of the group than I ever had access to my first time around the fangirl circuit. The music, the dancing, the energy, and the sweet humanity of the group–along with one of my besties’ love for them and her enthusiastic feeding of my interest–makes me happy in a way I well remember from my teenage years. I love it when music makes me dance in my seat or bounce down the sidewalk, and Ateez definitely does that. So, thank you, Mingi, San, Hongjoong, Wooyoung, Yeosang, Seonghwa, Yunho, and Jongho, for such tangible and visceral joy in these dark winter days. May this new Lunar New Year bring you blessings, joy, and prosperity as you move forward on your paths, whatever they may hold. 🧧

Naps 😴 ~ ~ You probably know by now that I am in a committed relationship with naptime. I absolutely cherish stretching out on my couch with a calm ambiance video playing in the background and my cat Jack a reassuring weight on my legs. I love putting my book down to doze off, so relaxed that it just feels like the logical next step. That blessed sense of being safe and comfortable, being able to let my guard down and set things aside freely for a while to refill my body’s cup and energy with the rest that I need. Speaking of which…I think my couch is calling me again.

I wish you a cozy rest of your winter, Dear Ones. 🩷

Inklings of Coziness

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As we linger in this bone-deep cold of early 2026, the calendar about to turn its page into February, I find I am treasuring the concept of softness and cozy more and more. I personally refuse to complain about winter being cold (it would simply be hypocritical of me), but that does not mean that I cannot appreciate my spaces of warmth and safety.

I do believe, however, that I have always desired hygge and coziness. As a child, I can recall trying to capture those idyllic, cozy atmospheres that I found in books like Eight Cousins or Anne of Green Gables.

I loved swirly skirts and my lace-up ankle boots, circa 1996. I felt very Victorian when I wore them together.

When the electricity went out, I would “play Jo” and journal by candle and moonlight at my desk.

I recall “having teatime” all by myself with a lovely cup of hot chocolate and some bread and butter (originally inspired by the tea-party-on-the-ceiling scene in Mary Poppins).

I’ve also always loved to make my spaces comfortable. In graduate school, when my roommate moved out, I rearranged the room to create more of a lounge area. I took the extra bed and turned it into a lounge/couch of sorts where I could sit and read or watch TV. This way I did not feel like I had to be either at my desk working all the time or sleeping.

I suppose I have always been chasing cozy, to be able to feel utterly at home: in my own space, in my own clothing, in my own skin. It has been the work of almost 43 years but now I can truly say that I am utterly enjoying the journey.

Currently bows are my entire personality. Book, cup, headband, hair clips, sweater, dress…if it has a bow on it, I want it. To me, it feels like the ultimate expression of the femininity and girlishness that has always been a core part of me, even when I tried to bury it oh so deep down. Now in my feral forties, I am ecstatically embracing my “soft girl era” (which has, honestly, always been there) and giving that side of myself all the love that it so richly deserves.

And everyone around me (including my poor students) will just have to live with it. 🎀

Art by Vienna Sydane — https://www.instagram.com/houseofsydane?igsh=YnI4NjhzdHVhNW5p 

Advent 2025 ~ Home

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Week 2 ~ Home

As Winter breathes her cold blessing over us, showering us with snow and ice, the silvery white of it makes the dark night glow and spangles the daylight air with diamonds. As beautiful as that all may be, however, there is something that many may consider even more so: the inside of their warm domicile. As winter settles in and makes herself comfortable, we in turn snuggle deeper into our spaces–our apartments, our houses, our homes.

Is it the warmth alone, though, that makes these spaces home? 

This is a question that I recently posed to my middle-school students, my Heroes as I call them: “What makes a place home for you?” The answers I received were very interesting.

For some, home is simply the place they live, the house or city they currently occupy,  the familiar and everyday.

For others, home is someplace else: a camp or a grandparents’ house where they always have a good time.

For others still, home is no one place. Rather, it is anywhere that they feel loved, accepted, and comfortable. Sometimes that home is a person or group of people with whom they can always feel safe and utterly themselves. No need to be perfect or strong or the life of the party. Home is where they can simply be.

That last type of answer is the one that resonates the most for me. I did not learn until I went to college that home for me is not a place. When I went off to school, I came to the realization that, yes, I missed the people that I love, but, no, I did not really miss the area that I had grown up in. And this is still true. There are things about Indiana that I vastly prefer to my Caribbean beginnings, such as the changing of the seasons (and no hurricanes). But, on the whole, I have come to learn that what makes places feel like home is the people that they hold for me. People who love me and whom I love. People who accept me but challenge me in the same turn. People who welcome me with love and laughter and to be fully myself. People who share and encourage my faith. People recognize that, though I choose kindness and softness, I am not a weak flower. I am a being with light under her skin.

Home is where that light glows warm, safe to blaze bright and brilliant. Home is the presence of those who have helped me find and cultivate that light and my sense of self. And I thank God for that every day. Home is a beauty and peace of feeling, of knowing that, with these souls, I matter, am significant, and belong. 

I hope you find your home this Holiday season and are able to rest in its beauty, comfort, and peace.

Advent 2025 ~ Quiet

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Advent 2025

Week 1 ~ Quiet

December is only a week old, and Winter has arrived to wrap her frigid arms around our state. We have had a couple significant snowfalls already, with icy patches still left over from Monday night’s snow. And I am loving every moment of it!

Twenty-five years ago this winter, I discovered that there is no quiet so profound as that of snowfall and a world covered with a fresh, white blanket. I walked my college campus in the fluttery snowfall, astounded at how silent everything had become, no sound except for the crunch of my boots as I made my mark on a fresh, new world. I saw snow for the first time when I was nine years old, but that was all excitement, novelty, and play. I know for a fact that I didn’t appreciate this particularly beautiful aspect of winter at that time. Now, whenever the snow is falling, I try to step out onto the porch or into the doorway to listen as it hushes the world. I listen as it muffles the rush, quiets the hustle, and silences the busyness. We are forced to slow our cars, our steps, our plans. When we slow down, we can also quiet down.

I love the deep emptiness of snowfall-quiet, like the whole world is asleep and I alone am awake to witness its secret beauty. It softens the world, smoothing the rough edges and lines into graceful curves. The snow seems to gentle the harshness, reflecting even the light pollution back into the darkness in a starlight blue so we can see even in what should be the deepest of shadows. And isn’t that what we all need most in this season? Softness and light, gentleness and moments of stillness? Sometimes it makes me wonder if the “silent night” the songwriter describes is not indeed a night of moonlit snowfall.

In that snowy quiet, I am reminded that we are given a gift–the gift of Presence, where we are welcomed into Jesus’s arms and lap. A place of rest, reassurance, and recovery in the hollow of His presence and memory. That silent space where His love softens the edges of existence. As we move further into this Advent and winter season, may we slow down and submerge into the quiet. May we let it soften our moments, calm the crazy, and hold the precious close. Stand in the quiet, sink into the silence, and slow the rush. Maybe snowfall-quiet is here just so we can remember what it means to exist in heavenly peace.

What is Saving My Autumn Life

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Fall Romance Novels ~ I have fallen absolutely in love with Autumn-set romances and romantasies this year. Over my Fall Break week, as I healed from a wisdom-teeth surgery, Lyra Parish’s Fall I Want became everything to me. All I wanted to do was curl up in the recliner with my pumpkin blanket, a cup of coffee, and my cat Jack and read this heartwarming, sweet love story. Fall is my favorite season, and the warmth that exudes from these books is such a soul-soother. Also on my TBR this season are: Must Love Libraries and Libations by Maisy Magill, The Autumn Leaf Bookshop by Kay Michaels, Kindling by Bonnie Woods, and Uncharmed by Lucy Jane Wood.

Kpop Music ~ Thanks to a dear friend and the sheer golden enjoyment that is Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters, as well as my existence as a lifelong boyband girl, I have fallen in love with Kpop music. My particular group is Ateez. Their songs make me bounce and sing and smile, and that is always something I treasure. I love to sing, I love to dance, and I love when music makes my body so happy that I just have to bounce. It has been an absolute mood-saver throughout my healing process.

Fall-scented Candles ~ I always stock up on my fall candles, and my house constantly smells like pumpkin-something these days. It is part of my transference routine when I get home, lighting a candle before I head upstairs to change clothes. That way, when I get back downstairs to settle on the couch, the air is warm and sweetly-scented, and I know that I am home.

Romanticizing My Fall Wardrobe ~ I have begun reimagining my fall outfits: pairing sweaters and flowy skirts, cardigans and dresses, tights and over-the-knee socks with my ankle boots, over-the-knee boots with my jeans. A sunflower-crown headband here and a bow at my temple there, letting the lightning streaks in my curls shimmer and shine in the autumn sunlight. As I told a coworker, I am happily in my soft girl era, and I will not be taking questions or commentary on this issue. In my off hours, I am wrapped in warm, cozy comfies, sweet pumpkin slippers, and two of the softest, most deliciously comfortable blankets I have ever owned! I am hoping for a nice, long autumn to glory in.

Craving the Change (Again!)

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I have lingered in the longering days and now I am craving again. The meterologists say that it’s our first “false Fall” of the season, with temperatures starting to dip and mellow out. They say it won’t last, but I do not care if it is “false”. Gimme! Give me cooler days and much cooler nights. Give me fall-scented candles and cozy cuddles under blankets. Give me bonfires and fireplaces, flickering warm light in the soonering dark.

I have lingered and now I am craving change. I am craving the season when home becomes more and more the primary locale. I am craving the gathering in and cozying down to prepare for rest in the long dark of winter. I am yearning for the physical trappings of hygge, of shifting the decor of my home into warm sunset colors, tempting aromas, and comfy textures that encourage you to burrow in and snuggle down. I’m excited to add fall touches to my pastel classroom, a new shade of Autumn. I am looking forward to redressing my tree (which has stayed up all year, true to my word) with golds, bronzes, plums, and maroons, for pumpkins, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums to bloom all over my little hobbit hole.

I am itching for the shift, not only in season but in mindset. Autumn is for gathering together, for sharing time, love, smiles, and laughs. I want my home to warm and welcoming, smelling of sweet things that make you want to, yes, linger…stay. I miss and want my dear ones. I miss their hugs, laughs, and snuggles. I want nostalgic movies that we can all quote by heart and know every note of every song. I’m ready to live in my hoodies, bundle in my knits, wrap up in my shawls, and flounce about in my long flannel skirts.

I am ready for change. I am simping for slow. I am craving cozy.

Fall, you are welcome for as long as you want to stay.

What is Saving My Summer Life

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 June is done (uggggggh!), and I hate the idea that summer’s almost half over. But here is what is saving my life in these summer months.

  1. Dresses – I am a deep lover of flowy, graceful dresses. Stores like Altar’d State and JessaKae were absolutely made for my aesthetic, if not my wallet. Dresses have always helped me feel my glorious as a feminine figure. Over the past few years, I have leaned into my cottagecore joy with long, full skirts, gauzy sleeves, lots of ruffles, and all the pastels, lacing a romantic air through the most mundane of daily tasks: getting dressed. I recently cleared out several old dresses that were being kept more for nostalgia’s sake than actual wear, reminisced about how pretty they had made me feel, and then packed them up with a whispered blessing for the next girl who finds her glorious in them. Then I coordinated and organized my remaining dresses so my side of the closet is now a gorgeous riot of fluttery rainbow color. I’m still squee-ing about it!
  1. Reading/Books – I am continuing to gobble up stories as fast as I can. I feel bereft if I do not have something to read, to fill my mind with “voices and stories and friends as dear to me as any in the real world” (Little Women, 1994). So far this summer I have devoured seven books, mostly fantasies and historical fiction with a splash of romance for good measure. It is so fun to read things that are unserious and just for the pure enjoyment of the act. Last night, I laid in Spare Oom (my cottagecore-inspired space/guest bedroom), lying in the bed with my mother while she watched old reruns of Archie Bunker. I had my book, she had her show, and we were just laid there together in companionable silence, occasionally broken by one of us making a comment to the cat, who had of course made himself exceeding comfy (belly to the sky) between us on the bed. I have found myself more drawn to my books than my TV shows of late, content to sit in my bed or in the companion recliner in my husband’s den and just inhale story after story. Quite a few of the books I have read have been debut novels, and I am doing my best to make sure that I leave good reviews for those authors so they know how much I appreciate their work. As it is, I post on social media and tag them whenever available so they know just how their hard work is paying off and touching souls. I am also obsessed with pretty books, the ones with gorgeous covers, endpapers, illustrations, and beautiful sprayed/stenciled edges. They are works of art that simply cannot be overlooked. **Side note: if you ever want to give me a gift, give me a book with lovely, stenciled edges. I honestly do not care what the book is; that is utterly beside the point.
  1. Fans – I love to collect hand fans. Carved, lacy, silk, paper, small and soft, large and loud…it doesn’t matter. I love them! They are a beautiful nostalgia for the Sunday evenings when I would sit with my grandmother in church and she would fan me with her gorgeous lace fan or even (gasp!) let me hold it and fan myself. My collection started with a gift from my mother’s coworkers for my college graduation (a genuine fan from Hong Kong) and has just grown from there. I cannot pass up a pretty fan! Recently, I have started taking them everywhere with me. My bag or purse almost always has a fan in it. I even keep one in my desk drawer at work, just in case the unthinkable happens and my always-cold classroom crashes out. It also feeds into my love for the classic feminine aesthetic. Knowing me, my next collection will be parasols.
  1. Water – I hated drinking water as a kid; it tasted like nothing and therefore had no interest for me. Nowadays, through fervent re-conditioning of myself, I cannot cope without a cup of ice water close to hand. I will choose that over just about anything else when it comes to beverages, and I have finally discovered the truth to my mother’s lifelong claims that nothing can hit the spot like cold water. I now have my own collection of pretty tumblers and water cups so that, no matter where I am (home, work, gym, car), I have water close to hand. I am working hard to remember that I need to treat myself like the lovely flower I am and water myself regularly.

As we enter July, I really hope that you find some things that can help to save your life this summer. Things that give you hope and joy, even if they make sense to no one else but you. You deserve that. Always. Meanwhile, I’m off to be a public nuisance at the bookstore with my big-skirted dresses and fans.

For the Love of my Forties

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I recently became the “answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”! In other words, I turned 42, and, once again, Jen Hatmaker was right!

I find that I am still fiercely in love with my forties. I cannot fully explain just why I love it so much, but I do believe that part of it is that there is a freedom that I feel in being in my forties.

A freedom to do as I want, to speak up for what is right, to enjoy what I enjoy without any need to explain myself to anyone.

A freedom to remove things from my balance beam that do not serve me or bring me joy.

I do not mean that I am avoiding hard work (I do plenty of that), only that I am practicing more discernment over how I am spending my energy and who/what I am spending it on. I do believe that it is helping my anxiety, thankfully. I only wish that we could see a direct correlation between laughter and its efficacy on one’s health. If it were so, I and several of my dear ones would be damn near medically perfect after a recent get-together. There was so much happiness, such a sense of joy and, for me, comfort in laughing belly-deep with some of my favorite people for hours. I shall definitely have to do that again and soon. It was simple, it was fun, and it was just what I wanted.

It was the most perfect celebration of a joyous birthday. I look forward to learning more and more as I go, for the love of my forties.