Weekly Good Things 2025 Week 21

Finding Purpose | Spring Vegetables and 30 Plants | The #ReverseCommute

May 26, 2025

Hello! Hello! Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things – your guide to living intentionally and more fully one good thing at a time! I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.

Hello Hello!

May is doing it’s thing in New England. Which is to say: 20 degree temperature swings between one day and the next, and rain every weekend. Right now, it’s flipping back and forth between rain, odd moments of sunshine, and who knows what. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s getting a little bit draining. I want my sunshine back!

*I wrote this yesterday. Today we have blue skies. Sunshine. Whiplash.

I’m am a sucker for New England weather memes. And really, general New England memes: Dunkin’ memes. Storrow Drive memes. And anything with a lobster on it. Really, I love meme-ification of anything [hyper-local] and I suspect we all get a little thrill from this kind of content:

On Wayfinding: Finding Purpose in Community

This week, I had a few conversations with good friends about finding purpose. I generally feel lucky in this regard because my day to day work generally aligns with my personal sense of purpose. But what do you do if you are feeling lost? How do you engineer purpose? How do you figure out what kinds of things will light you up and give you energy? How do you fight the impulse to dis-engage?

The answer, I think, is to start small on several fronts in your direct community (outside of your work life):

What kinds of things can you do to help your neighbors that you enjoy doing?

This was a fascinating bit of research from Pew: “How connected do Americans feel to their neighbors?” Most people say they’d be willing to do various things for neighbors, but assume neighbors are not willing to help them. (I suspect we are also out of practice asking for that cup of sugar.)

I think it’s important to think about **what you actually like doing to help people** so that you can match your efforts to your interests and actually create an easier positive feedback loop.

It’s worth the thought exercise, precisely because we are so out of practice in how to be a good neighbor. Maybe it’s pulling in the recycling bins, or offering to pick up groceries, or checking in on an older neighbor once a week.

I keep a list of people and their dogs on my phone.

What is *one thing* you can do on a seasonal basis in your community?

Maybe it’s helping with the annual pancake breakfast, or participating in a local park cleanup. If you have kiddos, there are opportunities of all kinds to participate in age appropriate community activities, and I think it’s a great thing to match community service to each child’s unique interests so they can learn early that community service can be fun and match your values. (As a little kid, my brother used to play chess at the local senior center.)

I’m still thinking about a panel I went to a few weeks ago at the GBH Media Summit about getting young people involved in civic opportunities.

“Children are not citizens in training. Children are citizens.”

What is *one thing* you can do on a weekly basis in your community?

You might not be in a season where you can give an extra hour of your time. That’s okay! But it’s worth figuring out what’s happening in your neighborhood that you could ramp up on when you have a little extra time to give. Maybe it’s chipping in on meal delivery, or volunteering for a shift at the food pantry.

Get informed: Sign up for your town newsletter, your local library newsletter, and if you live in a place with local journalism, the local blogs/websites. (Increasingly, I’ve been surprised at how much I’m finding out about what is going on from local community instagram pages, and hyper-local TikTok!)

What are small causes that you can champion on the local level? Who is doing good work that you can support either monetarily or with a little bit of your time?

Reminder for most of you: you don’t actually have to be the one always organizing the thing! You can actually just show up and help people who have been doing a particular thing for a while!

Have you considered participating in a civic role?

Sitting on a town committee? Running for something? I’ve been showing up informally every month to our town’s council on aging, and it’s been illuminating. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is how many great resources exist that people do not know about.

Low hanging fruit for digital natives: I think there is a real opportunity for people to give back to their community by just learning about what is happening and helping to spread the word in online groups or with your fellow community members.

As someone who very much likes helping by answering people’s questions on the internet, I love when I can connect folks with vetted local resources.

Do you have a particular cause or community activity you feel particularly connected to? I’d love to hear about it!

Cinnamon Roll Beauties at Flourhouse Bakery

👋 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!)

Good Things This Week

⚾️ Baseball season is in full swing here. I get the pleasure of heading to Fenway Park more frequently than most, thanks to my sibling who is a superfan with a diamond pass. Last weekend I went to see the Braves, and yesterday I went with my mom to the Orioles. I appreciate that the pitch clock has made the length of game time manageable. I think the MLB marketing has done a great job building out heritage and specially themed fan nights all season long to bring new people into the park, with merch giveaways, enticing existing fandoms to enjoy baseball. Yes, I will be going to Fourth Wing Night to get my flight jacket.
This week’s #ReverseCommute (where I take public transportation away from my house in any direction and then run or walk home), I took the train out to Natick, and tacked on a few extra miles to head down Pond Road in Wellesley for a total of 10 miles run (and 15 for the day). Highlights included: stepping off the train a few towns away where we have an elder day program next to a pet groomer next to a gun shop, and an unexpected parade complete with the Aleppo Shriners driving mini trucks, and people in revolutionary dress (I think it was the Wellesley Veterans parade…)
Spring Produce and “30 Plants a Week”. Unsurprisingly, I’m excited about spring produce. I’ve had several recent conversations with friends about the difficulty of eating vegetables. As someone who is passionate about food, I too find myself having trouble fitting in variety unless I do it intentionally. One friend mentioned that she writes down her variety on a little whiteboard each week following the “30 Plants a Week Movement” Somehow I hadn’t heard of the 30 Plants a Week, but it seems like a fun little challenge to get in some bio-diversity with a little gamification. I ate a little more than half that without trying last week, but will see what I can do to increase my variety! Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, etc.

I keep a spreadsheet of seasonal fruits and vegetables (because of course I do), and this is May:

New England: asparagus, garlic scapes, greenhouse tomatoes, mushrooms, salad greens, scallions, spinach, sprouts
France: Red and green peppers, purple artichokes, tomatoes, bulb spring onions, peas, broad beans and snow peas, baby turnips, green asparagus, baby spinach and arugula, fennel, cucumbers
California: amaranth, apricots, apriums, artichokes, arugula, asparagus, avocados, beets, blackberries, blueberries, bok choy, broccoli, broccoli rabe, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cactus pads (nopales), cactus pears (tuna) cardoons, carrots, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chard, cherimoyas, cherries, chicory, collard greens, cress, dandelion greens, endive, fava beans, fava greens, fennel, garlic, herbs, horseradish, kale, lambsquarters, leeks, lemons, lettuce, loquats, mache, mandarins, mushrooms, mustard greens, nectarines, nettles, onions, orach, oranges, parsnips, pea shoots, peaches, peas, peppers, plums, pluots, purslane, radishes, raspberries, rhubarb, romanesco, scallions, shallots, spinach, sprouts, squash blossoms, strawberries, turnips

Mixed Media:

📖 Reading: I’m in a down week, so we’re reading brainless series right now until I pick which good book I want to read next. (Right now it’s the Witch Walker series which is entertaining low effort reading.) Non-fiction up next is The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad about journaling.
📺 Watching: the new season of Andor. I also sprung for BritBox so I could watch the absolutely lovely show Ludwig about a twin puzzle designer who has switched places with his police detective sibling. (Highly recommend.) I also watched ‘I, Jack Wright’ which was a fun several first episodes but ends with almost every part of the ending as a cliffhanger and absolutely nothing resolved, with no guarantee of more episodes, so watcher beware! (Next up: Murderbot on AppleTV) // I went to my first summer blockbuster of the season: Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning: the campy moments and Tom Cruise action scenes are great… everything else is a slog!
🎧 Listening: I’ve been listening to Hank Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis.
🎬 A Youtube Video: I’m such a fan of folks going on long walks/hikes/quests. I’m excited to follow along Mak’s journey on the PCT this summer, and watched for 22 rapt minutes as she walked through her packing for the trail.
🤣 Memes and randomness of the week: what every sports interview is like. // Marcella Hazan had *2 PhDs* in biology and natural sciences and didn’t really start cooking until she moved to America and became a stay at home housewife cooking her husband’s mid-day lunch. In 1997 she got a $650,000 advance from HarperCollins for Marcella Cucina.

Butterfly Ranunculus for the last week of Early Spring Flower Share

Slow Drip Gardening:

I’ve put my dahlia pots back outside. My dahlias are part of my Lazy Gardening Strategy™️, where I don’t bother pulling up the tubers but leave them to over-winter in their pots my front entryway, and then see what happens.
I waited to get flowers and plants because of the cold snap, but am looking forward to a trip to a garden center where I part ways with all of my money.
Lettuce is lettucing! A few weeks ago I picked up some lettuce starts from someone in the neighborhood whose hydroponics set up had failed. I put lettuce in a few areas (back plot with limited hope), and in my front planters. The ones next to the steps are doing grand. Now I need to remember how to actually harvest lettuce again.
The Back Plot: this year the parsley has come back strong, as did my hostas which I transplanted from my mom’s front yard. I’m waiting for the cold snap to end to get some fresh starts this week. One challenge in the back is that I’m not particularly likely to remember to water every day. The other is that the plot is still partially shaded.
Birds doing their bird thing! Lots of birds I haven’t seen in a while this week! (I love the Merlin app to identify birdsong and track what I’m seeing.)

Weekly Meal Plan:

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 the Past Few Weeks:

Crab Pasta: a little garlic gently heated in some cream, a few tomatoes, add the crab to the warming cream, tossed with thick linguine.
Shrimp pasta rosa with zucchini loosely adapted from Giuliano Hazan’s 30 minute pasta book
Unlimited Lobster Salad at Fenway Park in the Vinyard Vines club (I ate two platefuls.)
Good Eats in DC I’m still thinking about: the deeply flavorful bread and iced coffee at Seylou, an octopus taco at El Sol and their plantains, Pepin Guatemalteco de Res at Benitos Place, Tim’s beef stir fry (and asparagus!), SnakYard quail eggs (the stewed ones)
A Mike & Patty’s breakfast sandwich from Flourhouse bakery (and their English Muffins)
Berryline (the best frozen yogurt) with oreo
From Trader Joe’s: the Whipped Feta spread is BACK! As it their peaches and cream cream cheese which I enjoy.

This week’s meal plan:

Monday: burgers, baked beans, lemon chicory greens
Tuesday: a riff on Ali Slagle’s tortellini pasta salad, steamed leeks
Wednesday: Nigel Slater’s Creamy Coconut Dal with Spring Greens
Thursday: Greek monkfish with tomato and potato, artichoke hearts and peas with dill
Friday: chicken thighs with creamed mushrooms and scallions with parsley and dill, marinated carrots
Saturday: clean out the fridge post Beserk Viking Festival

Lunch Options: Lamb vindaloo. Marinated calamari. Blueberries. Tuna with lemon potato salad and mint.

Snacks: Yogurt and passion fruit granola (or chocolate coffee granola). Cheese sticks. Chomps. Steel Cut Oatmeal. Cream of Wheat. Aggressive amounts of fridge-cheese. Cottage Cheese. Sophia’s Honey Yogurt.

Treat options (mostly in the freezer): Dandelion Chocolate Tokyo Gateau (been cutting off a slice, heating, and topping with seville orange marmalade). TJ’s Passion Fruit Tartelettes. Trader Joe’s Brownie Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches. Apple Blossoms. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Cheesecake Bites.

What are you eating this week?