A few years back, I learned the easiest way to achieve a goal is to make it not something I should do, but something I WANT to do. So when I started to think about a 30 day challenge in April, I knew that it wouldn’t be “eat a salad every day” or “delete all social media”, but something that lit me up. I’ve brainstormed a list and narrowed it down to things I know I’ll delight in doing every day for a month.
Once a top 10 list, but in the typing process some didn’t feel very delight-y, so here we are:
- Make just for the fun of it art
- Meditate
- Walk outside
- Read
- Organize, purge, spring clean
- Knit
- Photograph
- Stretch
I don’t know which one it will be.
We’re almost done with the bathrooms. We have some bits, bobs, and fiddly things to take care of, and plenty ahead in terms of staircase and what not, but we’re settling in and it feels lovely.


I have things I would do differently with the information I have today, but who knew that the toilet I really wanted with the a 12 month lead time would have been a realistic choice back when I was deciding those things?!? This remodel was almost comically cursed, but Violet and Abram were wonderfully good, we survived, and c’est la vie. I’m enjoying the process of slowly unpacking and moving back in, daydreaming about the details of organizing and decorating.
Outside of my little corner, I am sad and angry and frustrated. I wrote a whole thing about genocide, and Nazism, and how I remember being in 4th grade and thinking Mr. Wyns was wrong when he told our class that despite thinking we would stand up to the Nazi’s, most people actually wouldn’t. Then I hit publish, panicked, and am publishing this instead.
We’re watching how a genocide happens in real time but if you say that out loud, at least in certain places, you’re deemed uncredible. And so I’m scared and sad and angry and frustrated. While also being joyful and hopeful and silly. Feeling all of that is a lot. So I’m exhausted. I’m scared and hopeful and sad and joyful and angry and frustrated and silly and exhausted. That’s a lot, but I can handle a lot.
And while I want my family and friends to feel joyful and and hopeful and silly and happy, I need them to feel sad and angry and scared at what they are seeing. AND I need them to speak to that (and vote against it). Because what’s happening is hurting people I love, while other people I love are staying silent, which means I feel joyful and sad and scared and hopeful and frustrated and angry and silly and exhausted and alone. And that…that alone part? That is too much.