The news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is weighing heavily on me this week, as I’m sure it is on you. It’s hard to feel light in times like these, and one of the goals of this weekly post has always been to focus on and highlight the things that brightened my week. It’s impossible to find joy in this senseless, heartbreaking aggression, but I do have a lot of gratitude for the organizations and people that are working to bring relief to the people of Ukraine. Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen is particularly inspiring, providing meals to refugees at the Polish and Romanian borders. If you want to help, please consider a donation to one of these organizations (source: NPR).
Notes From The Week That Was - February 19, 2022
Notes was on hiatus last week, and it won’t be the last time that a week gets skipped here or there. I’ve been simultaneously extremely online for client work and offline for my personal work. It’s not the balance that I ultimately want to achieve, but one of my goals is to better respect the ebbs and flows of the demands on my time. No one who knows me well would describe me as easygoing, so this more of a challenge for me than it sounds! Wish me luck.
Here are a few of the things, both offline and on, that I’ve been thinking about this week.
A favorite image from recent weeks.
Zillow, but better
I recently developed a new scrolling obsession, this one feeding my love of beautiful residential spaces and my love of England. The image galleries on Inigo, an English estate agency for historic homes, are what my interior design dreams are made of. One of my Instagram friends, Paul Whitbread, shoots for them, and I would like very much to be his assistant, please.
And speaking of England …
… my husband and I can’t wait for the second season of Starstruck, which is now streaming in the UK and hopefully will be available to those of us in the US soon. Catch up on the first season on HBO if you are in the market for a fun romantic comedy.
Books, books, books
My streak of reading some rather disappointing books was thankfully ended by The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. While it is quite good, I think what I liked the most about it were the books that get referenced and recommended throughout the story. I had already set my mind on reading Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads next, but then I’m going to dig into the main character’s list of “short perfect novels”—I haven’t read any of them!
Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabel
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Sula by Toni Morrison
The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad
The All of It by Jeannette Halen
Winter in the Blood by James Welch
Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Fire on the Mountain by Anita Desai
On parenting
As I think about how to keep my daughter entertained during next week’s school break, I’m reminded of this quote that I came across recently. Parenthood is certainly more than this, but I’m stealing the term “bureaucracy of parenting” for future use!
