Coffee & Things

/got the idea for this from Daria - thank you Daria!/

Hello there,

Sit down, make yourself comfortable. How about a cup of coffee? Or, perhaps, tea? I've got a full drawer of tea: green, black, and everything in between.

How is September treating you? Do you also have the whiplash feeling of things spiraling out of control? Yeah, same.

It's busy but it's also fun. That said, I need to be mindful of the every-day mayhem and where it's taking me. A year or two ago, I felt like driving the kids to different activities/meets/music lesson multiple times every single day was something to hold on to and enjoy - because in just a few years, they will all be grown up and off doing their own grown-up things. So, of course I should lean into spending as much time and effort on the day-to-day life with them as possible. Except, after a few months, the burn-out set in and I started feeling grumpy and resentful and angry.

So, on one hand, I need to remind myself - they are growing up so fast! - lean in and enjoy the mayhem and the crazy tetris of activities. But on the other hand, I also need to remind myself - leave time for the quiet solo walks, the reading, the daydreaming.

Speaking of reading... I've been in a bit of a reading slump. Life has been stressful (and not just because of kids' activities: there's my parents' health stuff, there are some hard choices I need to make about work, there is the world-at-large) and I just haven't been able to escape into books. 

I am still reading - just not much. I finished Katarin Kariko's autobiography "Breaking Through: My Life in Science". It was a good read: inspiring and thought-provoking. It avoided the "me, me, me" pitfall of some of the autobiographical works. It was about science, it was about family, it was about hard work. 

But that's pretty much it for what I've read in August and September. I started "The Murders in Great Diddling" by Katarina Bivald - I remember enjoying her other books - but reading is feeling more like a chore and less like and escape (and this is not the book's fault!).

How about you - any interesting non-fiction reads? What about fiction? Have you encountered anything that you feel is turning your life upside down? I love books like that - but you have to be in the right mindset for that sort of thing...

Oh, my coffee is getting cold.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend. I hope you find balance for all the "must-do's" and all the "want-to-do's" and also the "let's do nothing-do's".