Cross-Posted from my Substack. (Please subscribe if you’d like this in your weekly inbox!)
I pulled out the good camera. As much as the best camera you have is the one that you have on you, the DSLR in fact does produce better images than my nice iPhone.
This Week in Good Things:
This week felt like an “I made it through the week!” week. If it felt that way for you, solidarity! I felt a sudden strong onset of seasonal affective disorder, spent the first several days of the week absolutely a mess, and have been working to turn this frown upside down.
Bertram got nose butter and didn’t complain about it. This stuff works magically. Also, in the cold weather he becomes a morning snuggler.
I voted. While I’m proud that Massachusetts makes it easy to vote by mail, I still roll up to my polling place. The best part about voting in person is that you get a sticker.
I got an icing cookie with little ball sprinkles from Arthur’s Montreal. (Thank you, John!). And a Walker’s Shortbread Advent calendar. (Yes, I’m Jewish, but everyone needs a box of seasonal treats in the winter.)
In, things that went comically badly but I turned around: I was supposed to go to one of my favorite 2x a year Wellesley club of Boston events: Authors on Stage. It’s an excellent event with three authors, each sharing not specifically about their book, but more of the behind the scenes of writing the book. This one was with Carl Safina, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Virginia Pye. On the morning of, the temperature had dropped, and when I went to turn on my car, my battery was dead. Instead of hopping in an Uber, I went upstairs, poured myself another coffee, and cried. (Thankfully AAA does battery replacement. So now we have a fresh one. If you don’t have AAA, it’s always worth it.)
I succumbed to “bro-science” and ordered a box of AG1 (athletic greens powder). When it arrived, the box was weirdly damaged internally. I dropped a note to support and literally before they responded they sent out a replacement.
Working on the porch in the afternoon before it becomes too cold.
I got to hang out in a semi-empty Museum of Fine Arts after hours for an event. I won’t lie, getting to wander through galleries without stepping around people, pretending that I’m spending a night at the museum is probably my favorite way to experience art.
Pumpkin waffle with crunchy Biscoff Spread.
We’re over 100 people registered for the Ompractice Slow Down! (First live class is Tuesday.)
I got to take home two more free bouquets of flowers from events (making my current household total six fancy bouquets.)
All hard weeks are solved by purchasing paper products and planners you will use approximately 30% of. I snuck over to the Paper Mouse to grab myself a Hobonichi Techo!
Tackled nagging tasks: finished cleaning out the car. Went to the Container Store for a drawer organizer for jewelry and other little things, and some baskets to keep my daily fitness clothing a little bit more organized.
I finally broke the seal and started my first Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn while patiently waiting for Iron Flame to come out.
I giggled watching Joy Ride. The Marvels is out, with a new box office weekend low for the MCU, but I think honestly it’s because I saw ZERO marketing. I will be going to watch it.
I ordered a Lisa Congdon “Live Your Values Card Deck” (affiliate link) in anticipation of my yearly Retro and Goal Setting. I keep my personal values on an Apple Note called “2023 Habits” which I read every day.
Mostly (NSFW – not safe for work), I can’t stop listening to Troye Sivan’s One of Your Girls. (Where can I find Marabou in the US?)
Every year I scratch my head at why we are still doing Daylight Savings. I’m not quite ready to prepare for a long winter.
Cross-Posted from my Substack. (Please subscribe if you’d like this in your weekly inbox!)
This Week in Good Things
I feel like I’m perpetually saying “I’m not sure how it’s… (insert the day/month here) already!” – but truthfully, I’m not sure how it’s November 5th already! Here are some of the highlights from my week!
🦹🏻♀️ Ask your friends what they think your Super Power is. Go ahead, text them right now. This week I was heading on a podcast (Becoming You with my friend Rebecca Cafiero!), and to pump myself up, I asked some of my friends to text me what they thought my superpowers are. What I received was honestly the greatest gift. Some of the highlights – not because I’m trying to brag here, just because I felt so SEEN:
“Fuckin joy with intention in everyday things!!!!! And sharing and organizing that experience. You are an amazing resource for me because of how you live your life every day and how you want to share everything. You’re like having the no 1 lifestyle magazine for a friend 😄” [Editors note: I *do* aspire to live life as incredibly as current Martha Stewart]
“Finding systems where things seem mis-aligned.”
“Productive directness, really helpful feedback, and x-ray vision.”
“I can’t say it better than productive directness! And concrete, authentic discussion and strategy. OH! And genuine curiosity.”
✨Find the opportunities to see your closest friends in their element! ✨ I got to sneak into the Business Leadership Council at Wellesley to see my bff Heather speak on an AI panel. Biggest takeaways? How do we regulate AI without stifling innovation? (It’s okay for legislation to be *behind* – so that we don’t over-regulate.)
🖼 I also got to see Diana Greenwald, curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner interviewed by my fellow Wellesley alum, Rudina Seseri (founder of Glasswing Ventures). I took pages of notes from Diana’s talk. Some of the more interesting themes: museum spaces providing consistency in a world of chaos and: how is this art making me think vs. providing a purely aesthetic experience? and AI forcing new points of creativity in the arts (as a good thing!) and also ISG’s brilliance forming a unique endowment structure for her museum, which would provide for a strong director, weak trustees, and no more than a 5% draw.
🐾 I also just noticed that Diana has written a book called Isabella Stewart Gardner: Dog Lover, which I shall be acquiring for myself. On that note, I’m starting to think about signature holiday gifts. I love the idea of passing along something special that you really love to all of your friends.
✅ Tackled a nagging task: had an extra key made (in about 3 minutes at the Ace Hardware.) It’s been on my to-do list for months – one of those things that takes no time at all when you actually set forth and do it. On Saturday morning, Heather was up to do errands with me, so we knocked it out!
Bonus: I got to leave an event with several bouquets of flowers! Perks of being a local!
Interesting Ideas:
The difference between reporting the weather, versus being in the weather outside. (A metaphor for logical mind vs. feeling your feelings.)
Good Things in the World:
Reading. Stephen King’s newest book, Holly. And finally kicked off Sanderson’s Mistborn series. A few hundred pages in, I’m generally enjoying it, but I’m not sure what I’m in for!
Down time. Been watching Loki on Disney+, and the Great British Bake Off.
Perfect bites. If you are every in the Wellesley area, a sandwich at The Linden Store.
Organized life. I’ve been eyeing hobonichi yearly planners from the Paper Mouse.
Now and Then. I thought it was odd that the Beatles would release a song that was on John’s cutting room floor. But it’s cool that it was recorded over the span of almost 50 years.
Hate to love. A month in, I reluctantly will tell you that my (refurbished) Dyson air wrap hair dryer pretty darn magical. It dries my foot and a half of hair in about 4.5 minutes. I was secretly hoping I’d hate it.
Emotions. Watching Dan Povenmire call his daughter at school to tell her she has been nominated for an Emmy. (Cue the tissues.)
Good Words: Phoenicopter. What I will be calling flamingos from now on.
The week of the quarterly shipment boxes! I’m expecting my quarterly Noma box, by Rancho Gordo Bean club box, and I got my Burlap + Barrel Spices this week.
Sunday: Pasta with pork shoulder, cauliflower, cheddar
Monday: Chicken thighs with Floyd Cardoz Kashmiri Masala
Tuesday: Hodo Tofu, broccoli, DashiRX
Wednesday: Dinner at an event at the Museum of Fine Arts!
Thursday: Big salad with fridge scraps.
Friday: Pizza night (mushroom Cape Cod pizza with added pepperoni); big crunchy salad with red peppers and blue cheese
Lunches: Lamb Vindaloo, cold tofu with peanut sauce, pumpkin samosas from Trader Joe’s, Bambino Pizza.
Treats: I’ve been thinking about making a sweet custard like chawanmushi in my Anyday bowls. Dole Whip (the kind at the store, not at Disney, alas!)
👋 Greetings! I’ve just returned back from a few energy-infusing days in San Diego. Ironically the weather was significantly warmer in Boston the entire weekend, but I always love a good excuse to go West!
I was going to push this off to tomorrow morning, and then I remembered that I value both consistency and connection with humans. And I reminded myself that we don’t need to wait to say the perfect thing to reach out and say hello. So, hi!
This Week in Good Things
This felt like somehow both the longest and shortest week. Here are some of the highlights:
Revolutions start at the dinner table. 🍽 A dinner party! My friend Daria brought together 8 women from different parts of her life. None of us knew each other particularly well. Her invite, which I loved, promised: “This is an intimate dinner for remarkable women who are my friends and colleagues in the tech world. Come as strangers, eat delicious food, and leave as friends.” It delivered!
Note to self: find more opportunities to get together with amazing people at the the dinner table. I’d love to host something like this once a quarter!
Going home feeds the soul. I have many homes, but one of them will always be Wellesley. I was so thrilled to have an Ompractice booth at the employee benefits fair at the college. (Employees have free access, so this was extra fun because all I had to do was have wonderful conversations with some amazing people (including so many people who have been working there since I was a student almost 20 years ago!)
On Thursday at 5am, I hopped a flight over to San Diego, to experience (and speak!) at Weekend at the Pitch Club, surrounded by incredible women leading mission driven businesses. I’ll be sorting through my 27 pages of notes this week, but here were a few things I noticed.
Rituals make life feel more meaningful. I experienced my first cacao ceremony. As someone who both loves the taste of good chocolate, and finds myself particularly moved by taste memories, this was a wonderful experience. Looking forward to bringing more small rituals like this back into my day-to-day life.
Good spaces drive good ideas. I had a half day workshop in an inspiring work space in San Diego, in the San Diego Made Factory. I always find that ideas come when I’m surrounded by plants, incredible people, and good architectural bones.
The water is my happy place. In San Diego, before each full conference day, I spent each day running on the water. My two favorite things: coming across the Saturday morning fish market where the fish were *massive* compared to any East coast catches, and people were walking off the dock with trash bags filled with a 40? pound fish they were carrying by the tail. And then seeing the Star of India this morning with people all over the rigging, ready to drop the sails for a special week!
Good Things in the World:
A week where I had curiously little consumption, I still bookmarked a handful of things, finished some good books, and made note of things I appreciate.
V.E. Schwab’s new book The Fragile Threads of Power (this is the first in a series, but not the first in the world. If you haven’t read A Darker Shade of Magic, I’d start there!
I watched a single episode S1 E1 of Vanderpump Rules, and I’m debating whether or not to take the leap in order to experience the ultimate reality television cultural phenomenon. (Or so I’ve been told.)
Chicken Katsu Curry. I used to eat this quite a bit in California, and it’s hard to find on the East Coast (unless you make it yourself!)
I got to actually see and hold one of my friend Jennifer’s Meemzy Magic Sensory Toy boxesin California! (I got the dinosaur one! I also got to give her a hug for the first time in about a decade! On that note, I got to give my friend Traca a quick drive-by hug while we were serendipitously in the same country and location on the same day. (Hugs are great.)
Rewatching the Wednesday Adams dance to get into the spooky season mood. The whole series is worth a re-watch.
This incredible home studio. How do I fill my home with more like this?
The Weekly Meal Plan:
After a long weekend of travel meals (some of them quite delicious!) I’m looking forward to being back in my own kitchen. And vegetables.
That said, one of the excellent things I ended up doing before leaving was eating down much of the fridge (the other excellent thing was a very good deep clean before travel). So I’m looking to restocking tomorrow night – usually I go straight to my “anytime shopping list” and go from there.
Sunday: Shakshuka (handed to me in a warm bowl when I returned from the airport)
Wednesday: Fish Chowder. (Sam Sifton’s no-recipe recipe.) I found a handful of good Red’s Best fish in a freezer drawer I had forgotten about this week.
Thursday: Dinner at a work-related thing!
Friday: Pesto pasta, before all my garden herbs are totally frozen.
Lunches: End of the chili, tofu, pumpkin samosas from Trader Joe’s (still in there!)
Snacks: overnight oats, Topaz apples from Volante.
That’s all for now! Hope you have a great week!
xo, Sam
PS: Tomorrow morning, I’m going to clean my computer keyboard. (On the off chance that you need to do that too, consider this a fortuitous reminder!)
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
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