Weekly Good Things 2024 - Week 25
Good Things, and the Weekly Meal Plan.
Hello! Hello! Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
Happy Week to you!
We’re just a week until the midpoint of the year.
This is frequently a week where I try to close loops – there’s something nice about starting each season with less on the plate.
To that end, I spend an aggressive amount of time this weekend doing errands which I suddenly found myself with the energy to do, as the heatwave just slightly relaxed by the weekend. When I have the energy, I seize the opportunity!
Some of the accomplishments (I have to give myself a gold star where I can!):
Cleaned and swept the porch, wiped down chairs and tables, wiped down the walls (pollen-city still!)
Vacuumed the stairwells to the basement
Put some of my sneakers away from the main hallway area (this is a bigger project, when you do aggressive milage you.. have a lot of dead to running shoes)
Sharpened my knives with my new TriZor (local friends, feel free to bring me yours)
Restocked: Ordered screen repair tape for the window screens, and another waterhog mat for my back door, detergent and Affresh tabs for the laundry
Pumped the air in my tires
Sorted through the books, papers, and assorted notebooks next to my office couch
Deep Cleaned and organized the freezer – this was a big project – and catalogued my freezer items!
👋 If you are new here, welcome! I try to fill these newsletters with a little something for everyone. (If you are just here for the food, it’s at the end! Feel free to scroll, I won’t judge!)
ΔThe Delta Between Now and Great
A few months ago, I had a conversation with Ryan, our executive coach at work. I’m proud of the work we get to do at Ompractice, but I’m always trying to do better.
What would Ompractice like look like, if we could improve our work, our processes, our communication, and collaboration – with ease?
We’re working with Ryan through the Traction model (Entrepreneurial Operating System), and he comes in to facilitate our group quarterlies, and helps us 1-1.
One of the questions we noodled on: ‘What is the delta between now and feeling incredible?’ (I’m paraphrasing).
It’s a useful exercise for anyone: if you actually sit down to write out what you realistically need to get to a better place, things immediately start feeling more realistic and infinitely more possible. (You also start to notice the things that you might actually be able to implement.)
For me, feeling incredible would look like getting more support at home to maintain my energy levels, and increasing the expenses on things that I already do and value (money dials):
a modest (for tech) take home pay salary increase - about $3500/month more (I’ve worked in relatively high-pay industries and self employment – I understand the privilege of suggesting that this is ‘modest’). (The we’re doing it in style number would be an extra $14k a month more.)
cleaners coming to my house every week
a few hours a week of household management: specifically, someone to wash my blankets/sheets and strip and replace the bed, wash dog beds
a personal assistant helping me 5-10 hours a week with personal care tasks, body doubling home projects, and running errands
two days a week of personal training with Ryan at Ankfit
more spent on recovery: massage every other week, weekly manicures, and acupressure
setting a travel minimum and making better time for rest and recharge, spend more time with friends and family
Notably, it’s *not* about working less – I absolutely love what I get to do. I just want to have more energy that’s not zapped to do the work I know I can do.
One of the things that doing this exercise reminded me of is that the personal helper a few hours a week is both doable and something I can specifically organize for and implement now.
To that end, I have a summer project creating a better “Life Binder”: a physical and digital binder to keep the lists that run the ship so to speak. I’ll keep you up to date as the project rolls along!
Good Questions: What’s ONE thing that you could do now to make life easier for yourself?
Drop it in the comments!
Good Things This Week:
1. Getting to celebrate my friend Courtney’s birthday, boxing-themed. We’ve known each other for almost 25 years now – which is just wild to me. I’m always a little anxious to show up at a party where I know nobody but the host, but I was very surprised to see another high school connection I haven’t seen in years! Because we’re all of a certain age, there was a lot of conversation about nature and birdwatching. Including participating in bird counts, counting plover nests, and learning new wildlife skills. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, all of the folks working in mental health ended up sitting together and going down rabbit holes: longevity, state of health insurance billing, Psilocybin and resistant depression treatments, and more. I also got to see a light phone in the wild (it’s an e-ink and limited in features, but not quite a brick).
2. Summer Solstice Workshop with Reggie Hubbard. I love that we have annual events on Ompractice that I look forward to participating (as a participant!) Reggie has been healing from a stroke, and I feel deeply thankful that he was able to host this again this year. There were babies, animals, friends sitting together outside, people from all over, nurses, fellow teachers, my own best friend and her baby across the country. “There’s spiritual efficacy in community contemplation.” – Reggie (I felt it.)
The experience: People shared truth, fears, resources, acknowledgment, witnessing. Folks listening, journaling, crafting, drinking cold beverages, meditation, and the gong. How I want to experience #summervibes the rest of this good summer.
3. Pruning my text messages. I hoard text messages (which is great to look up a conversation from a decade ago, less so to stay organized in connecting with friends and loved ones. I spent some time deleting the spam texts, delivery notifications, 2FA, and more, so I could actually see when the last time I connected with each person I care about was.
More Good Things This Week
🛍️ Good Acquisitions:
After years of coveting and borrowing from friends, I broke down and purchased a Chef’s Choice Trizor 15XV knife sharpener (affiliate link) which in five minutes made my culinary life improved.
This Spanx tunic while it was on sale. I love the AirEssentials fabric which is wildly soft.
Dazzle Dry (it’s the best nail polish) in shades of nude; because I’m very mature: sending people pictures of my nail polish “check out my nudes!”. (Here’s a discount code.)
🔎 Good Inputs: I read this piece on the power of cataloguing your creative influences, and thought I’d work more at doing that.
// Diane Sanfilippo’s journey to being a ceramic artist (those mugs!) // announcing her retirement from the blog – what a RUN! – if you need a creative infusion, dive into her pinterest
Slow Drip Gardening
This week, the hydrangea has been DOING it’s thing!
Last year, I had a single fat bloom on the hydrangea, and this year it’s completely covered.
I have a backlog of garden tasks (including planting some sunflower seeds) this week that I managed to do none of. I also need to remember to spray the flowers, as the rabbits destroyed two of my dahlias.
I’m trying to get in the habit of actually cutting some of my plants and flowers, so I brought a pair of scissors to live by the door to easily grab herbs or trimmings of things on my way into the house.
What are you planting?
More Good Things:
📖 Reading: In my “Year of Sanderson” we’re on to the Rythym of War (I’ve also downloaded Tress of the Emerald Sea to listen to). Working my way slowly through: William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, and David Burns’ ‘The Feeling Good Handbook’. And starting ‘This is your Brain On Music’ by Daniel Levitin.
🎧 Listen: I’ve started making myself an end of June playlist which is currently a lot of popular music, and not a lot of variety. I want to dive back into the art of making a great playlist for myself each month.
🌻 Flowers of the Week: week 3 of the peony share, and a bouquet of sunflowers that was a gift!
🚶🏻♀️Let’s Move + 🐶 Dog Walks with Friends: Month 2 of GVRAT. Hot hot hot! Got out and about. Goblet squats at the gym. Ran a 93 degree hot 5k listening to this podcast episode on cooling strategies. (The strategy? Go slow!)
📺 Watching: Bodkin on Netflix: podcasters hit a small Irish village to solve a true-crime cold case mystery that isn’t actually cold. I tried to get into the TikTok dance documentary, but couldn’t. I watched (and enjoyed) Hit Man on Netflix. It’s been a slow year for tv and movies for me!
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: Katy Perry’s new song is.. not getting rave reviews (my favorite current descriptions are “a song you would sing to your cat” and “a charmin ad” and “a tampax ad” // I’ve been loving the video clips of the VIP booth at Wembley for Taylor Swift (including Travis Kelsey, Hot Priest, Greta Gerwig, Tom Cruise, and Prince William on a balcony going wild)
The Weekly Meal Plan:
Why do I do this? I’ll note, my meal plans tend to be more of a directional support for me than what I actually end up eating in my week. (I think a lot of people who do meal planning feel obligated to actually eat the things they come with rather than just using as a placeholder/inspiration. I do not feel so constricted.)
🍒 Good Eats from this Past Week:
In my meal prep last week, I made some potato salad with some gold potatoes, and a little bit of Trader Joe’s shallot vinaigrette with an extra splash of red wine vinegar. It was great to have throughout the week!
Best meal: Rice noodles with chicken and peanut sauce.
It’s a miss! I had a lackluster delivery from Nagomi Izakaya (teriyaki steak ramen (the arugula was… odd, broth was *delicious*), and a torched toro and uni handroll that didn’t travel well (I should have known). I’ll still try again because I have heard good things! The delivery soup container was ingenious though separating toppings from broth.
Best dessert: I just love the Trader Joe’s S’Mores bars in the freezer case.
Drink: Iced tea with a splash of lemonade
Snacks: some Pete’s Smoked Meat with sauerkraut
✍️ Every week I spend some (more) time working on my "Let’s Eat” kitchen organization spreadsheet. This week I updated my “Things I love at Trader Joe’s Tab” where I keep the things I buy regularly organized roughly by store location, and enjoy seasonally that I want to keep an eye out for.
Bean of the week: Rancho Gordo Large White Limas
Weekend prep: I did a deep clean of the freezer, so I ended up taking out some chicken legs and pollock to defrost in the fridge. I made a batch of gazpacho (my grandmother used to make it all summer long!)
Sunday: Pizza Sunday (from Max and Leo’s) with prosciutto, pear, and ricotta (and some of their chili), a Ten One Yakult lemon slush
Monday: Hodo Tofu, steamed zucchini, egg, and peanut sauce with lime
Tuesday: Red’s Best Pollock with lima beans, herbs, cabbage salad, chopped mango, and shallot vinaigrette
Wednesday: Roast Chicken with tomatoes, oregano, beans, pita, and yogurt
Thursday: Beef taco salad with lots of fixins and avocado
Friday: Lamb stew with lima beans, tomato (probably eaten cold)
Saturday: Out!
Lunch Options: Gazpacho. Lima beans. Salmon with marinated artichokes and beans. Lamb vindaloo with yogurt, tadka dal and yogurt. Greek chickpeas with cumin. Coconut chickpea curry. Trader Joe’s Kimbap. Montreal bagels. TJs Jumeokbap. 🦞 A lobster roll off the summer list.
Snacks: 🍒 Cherries. Blueberries. Strawberries. Yogurt and berries, yogurt with lemon and nuts, eggs, cottage cheese, cheese sticks. Turkey Chomps. Spindrift Lemon.
Treat options: Apple Tartines. Key Lime Pie. Trader Joe’s S’Mores in the freezer section. TJs dark chocolate mint cremes. Samoas in the cabinet. Popsicles. Dark Chocolate covered pistachios. Chocolate Lava Cake.
What are you eating this week?
Previous Years:
Something I really enjoy doing is flipping back in my journal or my blog to the week of the year over the past several years. When I write it out in a list like this, it feels like a nice accomplishment!
Observing the data this week: I cook more around this time of year!
2016: The Weekly Meal Plan, The Weekly Meal Plan and a Walden Haul
2014: Wednesday Pictures
2013: Sunday Catch Up (and the weekly meal plan), Summer Mornings and supporting creative pursuits
2011: Huckleberry Buckle
That’s all for now! Hope you have a great week!
xo, Sam
Those soup delivery containers are the best! I first experienced this at Santouka ramen in Harvard Square, works great (and I recommend if they deliver to you!)