Weekly Good Things 2024 - Week 20

Friendship, Velveeta, 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.

Neighborhood Oasis.

Happy Weekend!

👋 A warm welcome to those of you who are new here. I’m thankful for anyone who comes to visit my small corner(s) of the internet!

After more than 29 years of connecting with people online, I’m still always *vaguely shocked* when people stumble upon my writing who I haven’t met in person – and even more delighted when we become friends!

These days, I know that it’s not random chance – I’m forever grateful to the wonderful people who support me – the connectors who bring people together and the champions who encourage us to keep showing up.

I also aspire to do the same for others: if we haven’t met, I’d love to hear about your passions, projects, and things you are proud of!

I’m equally as interested in the challenges you are having – if I can help or connect you to a resource, or just lend an objective ear, it’s one of my love languages to help.

Those of you who are my friends IRL: well, the same goes for you. And you know I love email from real humans in my inbox!

Topics on my mind:

Just a few of the things I’ve been thinking about this weekend.

🗑️ The Quarterly Kitchen Purge: every quarter, I have a kitchen purge on the calendar, where I do a little extra maintenance: tossing condiments that have reached the legal voting age (I kid, sort of…), doing some extra cleaning or organizing projects, or catching up with my semi-out of date pantry inventory spreadsheet. I’ll be slowly doing this through the coming week!

🫂 Supporting Grief: at a conference this week, I sat in on a panel about grief and loss in the workplace – a common life experience, and yet only 5% of managers have received any training in supporting a team member who is going through grieving. The topic came up again in a completely different context, around the deep grief we experience through loss of a beloved pet, and how many people lack support to get through difficult times.

✍️ User Manual for Life / Life Kit / Life Syllabus: One of my current side quests. I’m fascinated by resources of any kind for better living, and I’m deeply curious about the different formats people take for pursuing lifelong learning this way. Formally or informally. (I’m always looking to learn from professors who make really amazing syllabi for courses of any kind: knowledge assessments, designing great reading lists with learning objectives, and activities for integration.)

On Connection:

I’m re-reading the book Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues. (I’d strongly recommend!)

I had a conversation with (one of those exceptional friends) about friendship this week. We discussed different ways to think about fostering and maintaining friendship. A few of the themes that came up:

• What personal values do we hold? How do our friends and acquaintances share (or not share) our values?

• How do we maintain friendships and relationships in light touch ways? Particularly when limited by time or energy.

• Different types of friends filling different needs: What’s the best way to interact with different friends and acquaintances? Who do you go for x, y, and z?

• How do we articulate our own needs to our friends? What does good communication look like?

• What kinds of boundaries are helpful (or not?) with friends?

• How do you identify when relationships are evolving?

• How do you identify when you or a friend has been putting in more energy and effort into relationship building? Or address an imbalance?

• Identifying Concentric Circles: bringing together friends and acquaintances with great group dynamics.

Field Fun with Bertram. He likes to roll in the grass.

This Week in Good Things

1. 🍳 This week was my birthday, and I asked friends for meals and recipes they love so I can cook them. One thing I’ll note that was curious, is that I got the most comments on the topic… on LinkedIn. Another reminder of the deep wisdom of the TikTok meme: “Say the weird thing. People are desperately seeking realness.” Shout out to Rick’s Liverwurst, Velveeta, and Hellman’s on white bread, which I will be trying.

2. 🐾 On my birthday, I coordinated a Pet CPR and First Aid class hosted by

   Michele Pfannenstiel DVM
   (my favorite Vet Vet and neighbor!) There was cheese, lemon cookies, and great conversation about emergencies and what to do in all kinds of situations (bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea, you name it.) Also, did you know that your animal likely needs sunscreen in the summer? I did not!

3. 👋 Work-Related Good Things! The Ompractice Community Corner is live, where folks can sign up to take a free community class each week without a membership. Upcoming? Find relief in those Tight Shoulders and Necks on 5/21!

4. 🚶🏻‍♀️Let’s Move: Week 3 of GVRAT going strong! I’m just past 131 miles in May (not including today), and enjoying my summer quest. I also had a good lifting session at AnkFit, the cleanest gym with the cutest french bulldog (still chipping away at Hip Thrusts as one of my primary lifts. Up to 510 pounds two weeks ago!)

Afternoon Naps.

Good Questions

I responded to this question about running, but thought it might be applicable to anything in your life that isn’t bringing you joy right now.

"After a long career in running, I just had my first ever race where I didn't finish. It wasn't due to injury, but because I mentally checked out. I'm struggling to find joy in running lately. Has anyone else gone through this? How did you overcome it?"

I always like self-check ins during moments like this - what would good look like with my running in this season of life? What would good FEEL like?

Do you need to take a season running without racing?

What if you were to not train at all?

What kinds of running brings you the most joy? Do you need to do shorter? A season of just Z2 [zone two, slow and sustained running]?

A running quest?

Community? Form a new running group?

Pick a book series that you only listen to on runs?

Switch to trail running?

Pick up a new sport where running takes a little back seat?

There are so many ways to enjoy running for a lifetime that don’t require racing!

PS: As someone who doesn’t ever really quit - until I DNFd [Did not finish - dropping out of a race], I was always a little worried that if I did DNF, it would give my brain too easy an out the next races. Fortunately, I’ve found that this wasn’t the case. If anything, DNFing made me realize that it’s okay to listen to my brain and body? Sometimes stopping is the right choice. We are in it for a lifetime, not any single race.

One of my neighbors grows a singular perfect dahlia in her front yard.

More Good Things:

• 📖 Reading: (Still) working my way through the 1200+ page book series The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I’m on Oathbringer, now about 600 pages in! I toggle between reading and listening with Whispersync which keeps your place between e-book and audio book. Listening to: Funny Story by Emily Henry (Julia Whelan is one of my favorite audiobook narrators.) Re-Reads: Connect; Dorie Clark’s Stand Out.

• 🎧 Listen: I thought I might make myself a weekly mixtape of songs I enjoy that I’ve heard on TikTok (where I’ve been discovering music lately), but to not re-invent the wheel, I found that Billboard actually has a TikTok Billboard Top50?! Not everything is on there though. This week’s earworms brought to you by: Finance. TrustFund. 6’5”. Blue Eyes., Casper Walsh Simmer Down (you fell in love with a menace) - NSFW, and the kid in the back here is hillarious. Chappell Roan H.O.T.T.O.G.O.

• 🌺 Flowers of the Week: I went to Trader Joe’s hungry, which is usually when I buy too many plants instead of just too much food. This week we went for two colors of purple mums, two large succulent containers, and a venus fly trap.

• 🛍️ Good Acquisitions: I took to the internet to buy some washable couch cushion covers for my dog’s ottoman.

• ✅ Tackle a Nagging Task: I’ve self diagnosed with De Quervain’s which is causing me some nagging but inconsistent wrist pain due to cell phone usage. It’s been a few months of half-ignoring it, but I finally pinged my doctor to make a plan of attack.

• 📺 Watching: Pacing myself with the new episodes of Bridgerton, and trying to avoid reading too much about them on the internet, but I’m fully here for “Polin”. I’m also enjoying the new episodes of Dr. Who, with Ncuti Gatwa, the new doctor. I think it usually takes a bit for a new actor to settle into the role, but I’m enjoying these out of the gate. (And I’m looking forward to watching American Fiction on Amazon Prime.)

• 🐾 Dog Walks with Friends: The neighborhood is out and about this week! We said hi to Jojo, the lab pup. We stopped by Liv the Frenchie’s house. We went to Newton community day with Aleka and her kiddo and family! (And got lots of pets from all different people.) And we had several Gus the pug encounters.

• 🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: NYTimes article (gifted) about pets crashing sporting events. // I keep track of new items at Trader Joes on Reddit. // bro do u want to be seen or not // The reporting and commentary on this is both sexist and ageist, be warned, but this incredible fetal cardiology nurse just swam a 30 mile record route from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farralon Islands!! Holy smokes!

Breakfast Sandwich: of middling quality, but it looked pretty.

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: Birthday salmon caviar from H-Mart. Indian delivery gift with kheer and gulab jamun. Mini mint ice cream sandwiches from Trader Joe’s. The last bites of Tokyo Gateau. Cherries for dinner. Mixed bag takeout from Cafe Landwer - however the soft pita was *incredible*. A house latte from Tatte (halvah). Leftover garlic naan with cream cheese and smoked salmon. A crab roll from Legal Seafood. (The secret to good delivery fries is to crisp them up for a few minutes in your air fryer.)

Didn’t love: out of desperation, ate a freezer-flavored Honey Pot Hill cider donut (usually incredible.) I think the Japanese Souffle Cheesecake from Trader Joe’s is fine. We had a sub-par takeout dinner from Cafe Landwer – normally great. The chicken hummus was bland, fattoush undressed, everything needed a strong dose of lemon.

✍️ This week I spent some time working on a spreadsheet to expand this list (1000 fruits and veg to try).

Bean of the week: Cranberry Bean backlog!

• Sunday: Turkish Eggs. Either memenen scrambled with tomato, or çilbir (eggs over yogurt). With some quick-pickled beets.

• Monday: Quick cooking Chicken paprikas over beans because I find myself with a glut of paprika, and some farm share chicken breasts. (Usually I’m a thigh fan.) And some thoughts from J.Kenji Lopez-Alt.

• Tuesday: Very green spring soup. Using up leeks, onion, zucchini, broccoli, beans. Parsley. Lemon. No real recipe, just layering flavor and a little time.

• Wednesday: Pasta with lemon, crab, and chilis. If I don’t want pasta, it might turn into a crab salad night: cucumber, tomato, avocado, and crab with a bright lemon dressing.

• Thursday: Roasted carrots ‘Carriage House Style’ with tahini yogurt and lemon vinaigrette. I ate this last week at the restaurant and it was so good I want it again. Will pair with some leftover protein in the fridge.

• Friday: Something to delight a new eater. My BFF arrives with her 7.5 month old who has been learning about all kinds of food for the past few weeks with *glee*.

• Saturday: Out. Wellesley Reunion (not my reunion) means meals out in the ‘ville for nostalgia: Alta Strada, Linden Store sandwiches, The Cottage, and Tatte are all in the running.

Lunches: An artichoke. Bean backlog. Salmon with red peppers and marinated artichokes and beans, lamb vindaloo, tadka dal and yogurt. Trader Joe’s Kimbap. Smoked Salmon and Montreal bagels. TJs Jumeokbap (Korean rice triangles).

Snacks: 🍒 Cherries. Yogurt and berries, yogurt with lemon and nuts, eggs, cottage cheese, cheese sticks. Turkey Chomps. Tart Cherry Juice and Spindrift Lemon.

Treat options: Mini mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches from Trader Joe’s. Apple Tartines. Rancatore’s Chocolate Shake for Dinner (On a warm late-spring night if I’m so inspired.) A lone pretzel bread pudding. Samoas.

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: we had more cookbooks, and more inspiration from amazing women! (Also, it’s odd reading back in 2020 – life was changed, trying to grapple with things in my writing.)

• 2020: Good Things Week 20

• 2015: A Few Good Cookbooks (Anna Jones - still great! Steeped

  Annelies Z
  !)

• 2010: Cheese at Omnivore Books (Laura Werlin! Gordon Edgar!), Influential Women at Omnivore: Victoria Wise (First chef at Chez Panisse.. at 27)

• 2009: Ina Garten’s Herb Baked Eggs

That’s all for now! Hope you have a great week!

xo, Sam

PS: an extra thank you to

Melissa Joulwan

, Amy (

chatterbox

) and

Amy Cleary

this week.