What I’m Into: April 2018

Main Events:

Easter is becoming one of my favorite holidays as I get older, so it was a great way to kick off April! I hosted my parents, Taylor and his parents, and Brandi and Ashley for the meal, and we all had a great time. My church is observing the whole Easter season this year and I’m loving getting to exclaim “He is risen” for more than the one day.

My older niece is about to turn six. Debra and Lance threw a fantastic Moana birthday party for her last weekend. Six feels like a turning point – closer to ten than to babyhood! I feel like I’m getting my first glimpses at the amazing woman she’s going to become. Her fashion sense also remains impeccable.

I enrolled in Hannah Brencher’s spring writing intensive after the sudden death of a co-worker made me think about my legacy (or lack thereof). I concluded that the only lasting thing I have to give is my words. I finally feel well enough to start tending to them again, but apparently, I need a lot of help getting back on the horse. I had to make a decision a couple of years ago to set writing aside and focus on improving my day job situation. I’ve changed a lot since then, but my approach to writing is still stuck in the same rut. The intensive refreshed my perspective and made trying again seem a little less intimidating. It was also somehow revelatory to be told I should be scheduling regular time to write… something I haven’t done since high school, and don’t know how to do now. Even after deciding that my words matter, it still feels uneconomical (and dangerous) to make time for them. Small moves, I guess.

 

Reading:

If you love nature and Anne Lamott, you will love Debbie Blue’s Consider the Birds. I bought it at the 2016 Festival of Faith and Writing and just read it this month, but as often happens, I think present-me got more out of it than past-me would have. She describes and shares folklore of various birds, mentions their Biblical references, then suddenly throws out related observations about Jesus that hit you right upside the head. Amazing.

I picked up the novel The President’s Daughter, about a teenage girl whose mother becomes the first woman President, in a Kindle sale. This is worth mentioning because it was originally published in 1984!! I had NO IDEA, and was shocked to discover readers my age reminiscing fondly about it on Goodreads. Upon reflection, there was no internet in the story, but I skimmed right over that because everything else felt current. If you read this and/or the sequels as a kid, please share your take!

 

Listening:

I’m having a moment with the On Broadway channel on Sirius (making me want to go to NYC even more). My current loves are Dear Evan Hansen, Anastasia, and for no apparent reason, “Impossible” from Cinderella. (It’s inexcusable that no soundtrack was ever released for the Brandy/Whitney Houston version.)

As always, you can hear my 2018 playlist so far on Spotify.

 

Watching:

I never finished the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so I’ve been catching up on the elliptical. I also started Can’t Cope Won’t Cope, recommended by a blogger I follow. It’s a short series about two best friends in Dublin just reaching the age where partying and making bad decisions really isn’t cute anymore.

 

Tech:

I’ve been exploring what’s good in the phone app world. Thumbs up: Clue for all my health tracking needs, Forest for concentration and productivity, and the basic Reminders app for lists and to-dos. I also tried PaperKarma to make my junk mail stop, but found out you have to pay a monthly fee after the first ten or so stop requests. (Having a monthly bill for everything in the world is one of my biggest pet peeves lately. Not so long ago, you could pay once for an app that did a thing, and be done with it.)

 

Around Town:

April 3 was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination right here in Memphis. People came from all over the world for MLK50 events and observances. I got to go with some co-workers to an exciting luncheon with former Attorney General Eric Holder (new Senator Doug Jones, Jesse Jackson, past and present Memphis mayors, and U of M president Dr. Rudd were also in attendance). I couldn’t make it to the bell ringing at the Civil Rights Museum at the time MLK was shot, but Taylor and I walked over later and paid our respects. In a weird way, I’m thankful to live in a city that forces me to wrestle constantly with racism and injustice. You can’t avoid it here without really willful ignorance. I want to continue growing in awareness and becoming part of the solution.

On a lighter note, I went to another Ignite event (like 5-minute TED talks) all about Memphis food. My middle- and high-school BFF, Amy, was in town and went with me. She visits her mom here a couple of times a year and we always hang out. It was fun to do something different out on the town!

Brandi and I checked out the opening of Hopdoddy, a new burger place from Dallas. We had several new restaurant openings in Midtown this month, and as a city we usually have zero chill about these things. But I’ve been trying to go later and give places more time to work the kinks out. I still love the first-week excitement, though.

I hadn’t attended a Friends trivia in a while, but last week some friends and I finished just short of my third championship. We were tied for first, but lost a tiebreaker about the number of episodes before Gunther spoke. (It was episode 33!! You’re welcome.)

Technically from March but still worth mentioning: I went to a Leslie Odom Jr. book signing at the Orpheum! He read from his book (which is wonderful), did an extended Q&A, sang a song from RENT, and ended with Wait for It. I cried. So inspired by his story and talent.

 

At Home:

My patio plants took a while to come back to life (we’re having a cool, wet spring), but they’re perking up now! Having determined that my butterfly bush was dead dead, I uprooted it and hit the Botanic Garden plant sale for something to go in its place. I’d spent a few weeks admiring Japanese maples all over town, so when I saw one, I decided to go for it! It’s settling well and now I need to learn how to tend it properly. I’m also happy to report that despite losing limbs and looking raggedy all winter, my two camellias are still alive.

With some help from an interior designer at church, I finally chose tile for my bathroom remodel. One step closer! Fingers crossed for finding a contractor, scheduling the job, and getting a new bathroom by the end of 2018! #whyisthissohard

 

Making:

I had an urge to letter this month, so I got inspiration from Jessica Hische’s fantastic book about lettering and had fun with my Sharpies. All I’ve really produced so far are my two mantras for 2018… although I also lent some skills to a co-worker’s brainstorming project. She was happy to have pretty signs, and I was happy to get to draw in a work meeting!

 

Wearing:

In celebration of this excellent moment in Tiger sports (our football and basketball coaches are recruiting out the wazoo), I bought some Tiger blue kitten heels! As we move out of boot season, I may pick up another pair or two from this Journee Collection. Their shoes are comfortable, moderately heeled, and come in a lot of colors.

I got my second StitchFix. This time I kept a navy polka-dot wrap top and some Sputnik-y Kate Spade earrings. Every top and dress they’ve sent me so far has been wrap, so I had to leave a note requesting a little variety.

Revlon Colorstay is officially my go-to polish now. This is What Happens in Vegas. LOVE.

 

Beauty:

Brenda’s Skincare Reboot, Month 4: A photographer at work told me my skin was beautiful – moment of triumph! But it still has plenty of non-triumphant moments. This month I ran out of Keeva tea tree night cream. Being more educated now than when I started this rodeo, I decided to upgrade to a tea tree retinol serum. It’s very strong and apparently I also need a moisturizer to balance it? I might just get another jar of Keeva and alternate the two. This routine is starting to feel out of hand.

After asking around about a good eyeshadow blending brush, I went with Morphe 331 and have been using it every day. It gives a nice diffuse effect in the crease.

 

Random Happiness:

April marked three years in my Midtown home! Crazy. I celebrated by going to my first HOA board meeting – I’m on the board now because if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Every year some yellow-crowned night herons nest in the same yard less than a mile from my house. I’d never managed to see them, but this year I spotted them early and go by frequently! I usually see between three and five herons. They’re hard to photograph with a phone, though.

 

Wellness:

A few co-workers invited me to a lunchtime Pilates class near our office. I hadn’t done Pilates in about 15 years, but it didn’t kill me and worked all major muscle groups, so I’m going to start going once or twice a week. The reformer machines are cool!

My late yoga studio now has a Facebook group with updates on where everyone is teaching, and I’m hearing about a lot of cool things. One is a paddleboard yoga class, which I went to last week and really enjoyed.

One of my main takeaways from the Hannah Brencher writing intensive was that I have to cut back the media/social media noise in my life. It’s something I was already thinking about a lot. We’re living in a historically unstable time while hooked up to devices designed to work like slot machines. Much of the time I spend scrolling feeds or listening to news leaves me anxious, upset, and/or exhausted. I need space to think and exist without anything yelling at me. I think it would be unwise to disconnect completely, but I’m trying to be a lot more mindful of my habits, more deliberate about my sources, and more quietly present in my life. For years, I felt like the internet was another place I had to be some Liza Minnelli version of myself in order to catch the right people’s attention. Now I have what I was looking for and don’t have to perform anymore.

 

Your Monthly Rufus:

Rufus looks innocent here, but in April he had one mission: get over the brick wall surrounding our complex. He has now succeeded multiple times, and once it took me twenty minutes to extract him from the neighbor’s plants. He meows continuously for at least an hour a day to let me know he wants to go out. I don’t know what to do about this situation. I can’t get comfortable making him an inside-outside cat here because of the heavy traffic, many large dogs, and many places he could get stuck. I’m fondly remembering the days when he could calmly enjoy the outdoors with me on our patio for hours.

 

Quote of the Month:

 

Good Reads:

♥ If you want a basic guide to travel hacking, my friend Bethany is here to hook you up!

♥ Lisa at Beauty on the Backroads: Why I Run in the Rain

♥ Melissa Hawks at Sinners and Rebels: Fix Your Own Mug

♥ Rachel Jepsen at The Cut: Tattoos Are About Change

♥ Kris Gage: How You Know If They’re “The One”

♥ Addie Zierman: Psalm for a Snowy April

♥ Susie Meister: How I Almost Became Tomi Lahren

♥ A powerful story about gender imbalance in China and India: Simon Denyer and Annie Gowen in the WaPo: Too Many Men