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On Monday, we woke to the first snowfall of the season. As soon as the sun started peeking through the trees, we were up and at ’em with morning chores and shoveling out our long driveway. The world was so quiet. It was so incredibly beautiful.
Since 2020, I have filled my head with a lot of negative things: arguments from all sides about all the things, war and rumors of war, just general bad news. It’s taken me awhile to realize that this behavior is not sustainable. Our souls crave the good, the true and the beautiful. We cannot ingest a steady stream of negativity and expect it not to affect our everyday life. So in 2024, I am fighting to include as much beauty into my day as I can muster: life giving books, time outside in nature, and spending time with my husband and kids. For every minute of real world “ick,” I want to counter that with another minute of something soul-filling and good.
The soul craves beauty and I am passionately focused on seeking it. (I think this weekly blog post will be helpful in this endeavor!)
Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!
Around here, abundance looks like…
+ having all hands on deck to keep the animals fed, watered and warm. We aren’t used to this kind of cold here in Virginia!
+ starting a new compost pile. Compost is an important part of the garden and since I need so much, it can get expensive fast. I hope to make a little dent in that by starting a pile of my own. This week, I scavenged around and found some toilet paper rolls, a few kitchen scraps and egg shells.
+ renewing a new mission I started last year that l call “Seeking Beauty on a Budget.” I want to fill my home with beautiful things, some purchased and some I make myself. This week’s addition: we went to our local used bookstore and I found two gorgeous volumes of the Harvard Classics series for $3.99 a piece! There are fifty books in the series and I’m going to see if I can slowly collect them over time.
+ working on winter emergency car kits for my husband and my teenage son. I put everything in inexpensive backpacks that will live in their trunks. Hopefully they will never need them, but better safe than sorry. Items below in bold are the ones I’ve checked off the list so far:
- booster cables (need one more)
- flashlights and extra batteries
- blanket
- local map
- hats, gloves, socks
- snacks and water
- can of fix a flat
- ice scraper
- reflective vest
- tissues, chapstick and toilet paper
- hand warmers
- first aid kit (need one more)
- lug wrench (need one more)
+ selling five unneeded items: two tops, two books and a new pack of boxers that were the wrong size and I never returned. After shipping and fees, I made $35.28!
Reading //
- What Are You Sacrificing to the Algorithm? by The Examine // Thought provoking. I liked this paragraph about a reader of his who has a special kind of art project:
This ongoing project (as of the writing of her piece in 2022) is a sort of analog resistance, an act of anti-algorithmic art that’s quiet, non-monetized, and connective. It’s a human endeavor, one that doesn’t rise and fall on the whims of a sponsor, tech company, or subscriber base. It’s not likely to end up in a gallery, not likely to be as widely known as Wyeth’s Soaring. But does that make it less important? No. I might argue it’s more important given our current cultural context. Why? Because it’s an intentional act of human creation in opposition to a world driven by the machines.
- What Happens When a Community Works Together by The Rabbit Room // So inspired by this.
- It’s Time to Dismantle the Technopoly by Cal Newport for the New Yorker //
This emerging resistance to the technopoly mind-set doesn’t fall neatly onto a spectrum with techno-optimism at one end and techno-skepticism at the other. Instead, it occupies an orthogonal dimension we might call techno-selectionism. This is a perspective that accepts the idea that innovations can significantly improve our lives but also holds that we can build new things without having to accept every popular invention as inevitable. Techno-selectionists believe that we should continue to encourage and reward people who experiment with what comes next. But they also know that some experiments end up causing more bad than good.
Watching/Listening //
- Happy Bach // I had this on in the background as I did my computer work this week.
- Floriani Sacred Music Chant School // Continuing on with lesson three and Ave Verum.
- Episode 1: The Trigger Effect of the 1970s documentary series, Connections by James Burke // This was a recommendation and I liked it! Excited to watch more.
Loving //
- reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the kids again
- this cursive workbook
