A QUOTE
The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.
– Laura Ingalls Wilder
A LIST OF LESSONS LEARNED IN 2020
Inspired by Amber’s list, a handful of lessons from last year:
- Living in terror/constant anxiety/fear is a choice.
- If you live in a manner that makes you ready for death (at any time in any form), there is even less need to fear or despair.
- Abandonment to God’s will is not as excruciatingly hard as I imagined it to be.
- God is merciful, but He is also just.
- Being unable to attend Mass and receive the Eucharist was profound suffering. I now pray often for the underground church around the world and hope to never take the Sacraments for granted again.
- Getting out in the sunshine is good for the body and the soul.
- Hard physical work is good work.
- Watching things grow from a little seed is incredible and awe-inspiring.
- Man is not an island. We need each other.
- My husband and children are my greatest blessing.
NEW GOAL: HAVE A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NEWS
I gave up publicly posting/interacting with social media back in 2019 and haven’t looked back. It was never a good use of my time and I hated that I always had my phone in my hand. Unfortunately, with so many unknowns and changes in 2020, I returned to bad habits, but in a new way: I turned into a news reading fiend! And you can’t read just one source because there’s always a bias, so I’d read articles from all over the map, digging out what possibly were the facts and trying to sift out the rest. And then I’d listen to a variety of commentators on Youtube explain their opinions on the news. Yeesh. It’s too much and I’m now convinced that man was just not created to ingest that amount of information. So for 2021, I’m trying something new. Keeping up to date with what is happening in the world is important, but it doesn’t need to be a constant part of my day. I think I’ll check a few sites in the morning (before we start school) and then keep my phone tucked away in my bedroom until late in the afternoon. Two days in and so far, so good.
WINTER WEATHER FAVORITES
Winters are generally pretty mild in Virginia, so it took me a long time to invest in quality winter gear. I’ve occasionally gotten lucky with secondhand pieces (and continue to check in every so often on ThredUp, Ebay and Poshmark, just in case!) but less so as the kids get older. I always wait for sales and choose simple colors (like blue or black) that anyone in the family would be comfortable wearing. A few of our favorites are L.L.Bean snow pants and boots, Love Woolies wool mittens (a small business) and – new to us this year – Carhartt jackets.
THREE GOOD THINGS
bright red sunsets peeking through bare trees, another order from my favorite soapmaker (affiliate link), and a mind bubbling with creative ideas (SO welcome after a year of dryness)
I read The Skimm, which is a daily newsletter sent to your email inbox. I like that it’s not *too* biased, that it doesn’t deliver the news in a heavy-handed way (and often tries to inject humor where possible), and that it gives national AND international news updates. There are still days when I just delete it without reading (because my brain can’t handle anything else), but it’s a good and easy way to stay relatively current without being weighed down by it all.
I read a similar email that combines the news with things going on in the Catholic Church. I’m usually good about just reading the headlines, but I still sometimes fall into the rabbit hole!
I like the email newsletter 1440. I’ve found it to be less biased than The Skimm.
I’ve never heard of that one. I’ll look into it, thanks!