👋 Hello everyone!
How are things? Life in Esquiville is quite lovely, with pancake dates and coffee walks and jazz brunches and primrose paths (we actually have primroses lining our walkway to our door). It’s always amazing to me when the fog clears and I’m able to see just how charming life is.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of good things that happened in the past few weeks:
We filed our taxes, and we’re getting a huge (to us) return
We booked a lake house for a weekend this May to spend with my family
We finally found a money app that works well for us (Rocket Money!)
We’ve enjoyed lovely weather, leisurely strolls, patio time
I found a new cold brew brand I really like (Grady’s!)
I’ve read several books, including audiobooks (I am not the best at podcasts/audiobooks, so this is a big deal)
It’s clementine season
I climbed out of The Hole and am basking in the sun
What are you up to? I’ve been…
🍊 Eating
Takeout from Sugar Pine—I cannot get enough of the katsu pork dipped in curry sauce.
Alllllll the clementines, plus my Saturdate notebook (which I made out of an old romance novel).
Takeout from Dosirok, my new FAVE spot. A dosirak is basically a Korean lunch box or bento box, and these come stuffed with the BEST banchan, plus galbi jjim for me and spicy pork bulgogi for J.
Using up things in the fridge/freezer: rice topped with bok choy, enoki mushrooms, carrots, spicy chicken patties, and perilla leaf, with a spicy sesame sauce and double kimchi.
Tuna mayo avocado gimbap and spicy tuna gimbap for lunch.
Some new kind of “tangle” ramyun with rice cakes added, plus a cherry no-jito.
I eat this most days—fruit and yogurt (Fage this time!) plus homemade granola, mini-chocolate chips, random seeds, and cinnamon.
Late lunch at Easy Tiger: bratwurst, waffle fries, half a BLT, and a delicious kale and crispy chickpea salad.
Coffee and sweet potato bungeo-ppang on the patio.
📚 Reading
I watch the “Skip the Line” section of our library app like a hawk, and snatch up anything that looks interesting. That means I read a lot of really random things. Recently:
Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life. This was fine. I got tired of the author constantly reminding us that she knows Oprah. “You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe you’re worthy of: in life, in love, in friendships, in your career, and in your hopes and dreams.”
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Also fine. Lots of anecdotes saying the same thing. “If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed. We can’t pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.”
Thorn (Dauntless Path Book 1). Also fine? I seem to have read a lot of just fine books lately. “Perhaps I cannot fix everything in this moment. But I can do this: start somewhere and keep going.”
Big Bad Boss: Midnight (Werewolves of Wall Street Book 1). Random find that you should read if you enjoy wolf shifters, badass assistants, and sex. No quotes from this one, it’s just cheesy sexual tension.
Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections. So glad I randomly found this one! It’s focused on sex in long term relationships, but there are SO many good general therapy nuggets in it. “Your task, as a partnership, is to explore ways to co-create a shared context—a shared life, a connection, a state of mind, a way of being together—that makes pleasure easy to access.”
😂 Laughing
That’s it! Thank you for reading—hit reply and tell me what you’re up to.
--Crystal