march and april 2021: what I’m learning and loving

March and April have been weird. I don’t know if it was the year anniversary of the pandemic, the trouble I tend to have with the winter to spring transition season, or what. Regardless, reflecting back on what I’m loving and learning helps ground me before turning the page to the months ahead, so here is my March and April list:

What I’m loving

Soccer season. Jasper is playing on a new soccer team, and they’re legitimately fun to watch. It’s been nice to have an excuse to sit outside and watch good athletes, one of whom happens to be ours. It’s also nice sitting with Grant instead of him sitting on the bench like he does all basketball season.

This hair mask. I saw this when I was at a CVS at the last minute trying to find something for the kids’ Valentines. I’ve never used a hair mask before (and it was definitely under $10 at CVS versus that Amazon link), but I’ve noticed that my hair gets buildup after awhile, or at least doesn’t feel super clean. I mostly use a DIY Dr. Bonner mix as shampoo – half Dr. Bonner/half water, so it lasts for so long, is pretty green, and winds up being super cheap. I’ve been using the Raw Sugar hair mask about once a week for two months now, and I love it. It helps me use less shampoo as an extra bonus.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. I wrote about my biggest aha about this book in the newsletter, but I really think this book should be required reading for all of us. We need to learn to “embrace the joy of being wrong” for the sake of humanity’s future.

Hibiscus tea and simple syrup. I bought this to mix with some of my medicinal tea blends that I had planned for the spring (the hibiscus can mask some of the stronger tasting herbs), but then I decided just to make a pot of only hibiscus tea and was obsessed. Turns out, hibiscus tea has a whole bunch of benefits on its own. I prefer it iced, so it’s perfect for spring/summer and it’s so pretty as a bonus. I’ve also made some simple syrup, which Grant made into some old fashioneds and which I added to several rounds of soda water with our Drinkmate.

What I’m learning

Salt your eggs before cooking. I read this in an issue of Bon Appetit while I was waiting at the dentist, but now I can’t find it on their website so maybe it was from a very old issue? I don’t remember the science exactly, but the BA test kitchen said that if you salt the fat/oil in the pan before you put your eggs in the pan, it better distributes the saltiness to the egg. Since we eat eggs most days of the week, we are here to report that the Bon Appetit people know what they’re talking about.

How badly women are underrepresented in medical studies. I knew that women were underrepresented in many health studies, but I didn’t know until last month that women didn’t have to be included in studies until 1993. I am still trying to wrap my arms around the amount of data that we go around spouting off or living by each day whose effects were probably only ever studied on (mostly white) men. Think about the ramifications!

This [waves her hands around erratically to indicate everything] is a lot – name it and allow it to be what it is. Grant and I have been so tired these last weeks. Some of it is having a new puppy who is very cute but also a little exhausting. But, on one of those mornings when we woke up already tired for the tenth day in a row despite getting 8-9 hours of sleep, eating our vegetables, moving our bodies, and doing all of those things you’re supposed to do when you’re feeling worn down, Grant asked me “why am I still so tired?!” and I rattled off the following:

We are approaching 600K deaths in the US from Covid. That is devastating by itself and who has the space to mourn?

On top of the pandemic, we’ve lived through:

• Leadership failures at nearly every level during the pandemic
• Continued expectations that we work and produce as much as or more than pre-pandemic times
• Many, many weeks of educating our children while also holding down jobs
• A racial reckoning and a collective waking up to the trauma our Black and brown neighbors face all the time in America
• The most contentious election in our lifetimes
• The president of the United States lying to the American people about the outcome of said election for months and calling for his supporters to overthrow the democratic process at the Capitol
• Continued gun violence and no real steps to do anything about it
• Continued police escalation and violence
• Seeing how so many people, especially people who would call themselves Christians, who have refused to do simple things to care for – or even acknowledge – their neighbors

Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be reading about most of those things above in their history classes. We are living through some significant history in a short amount of time.

Of course we’re exhausted!

Here’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself and my loved ones and even strangers at yoga class: this is A LOT. If you’re not feeling some level of exhaustion or grief or sadness, you’re probably numbing or tamping down your feelings in some way. By acknowledging the enormity and the trauma of what we’re facing, we’re naming the problem(s), which is a huge and necessary first step. But then we have to allow ourselves to feel whatever it is that comes up. We can’t should ourselves or rationalize that others have it worse than us. We have to allow it to just be.

For more on this, listen to this lovely podcast episode. 

Your turn – tell me what you’ve been loving and learning lately!