four things for February

what I'm learning and loving lately

Back in my blogging days, I used to do a “what I’m learning and loving post” every month or season. It was such a great practice for me, but I’ve found it hard to keep up with in the midst of…life. I’m going to see if limiting it to four things helps me actually do the thing. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from living seasonally is how, despite how much I would like it not to be so, that I do in fact need a container or limits in order to live as fully as I would like. It’s so annoying.

So four things I learned and loved in February:

Great narrators. It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve listened to audiobooks, but 2023 was the year I got fully on the train. I typically prefer non-fiction on audio, but an internet friend kept raving about how good Tom Lake was on audio, so I decided to try it. It’s narrated by Meryl Streep, and while I’m sure I would have loved the actual book too because I’ve read everything Ann Patchett has written, Meryl reading it to me made it An Experience. After that was so good, a few friends had recommended the narration of Remarkably Bright Creatures too, which was almost equally as amazing. I checked them both out from Libby and Hoopla via my library, which is where I get most of my audiobooks.

For all of human history, stories have been an integral part of our lives together, and it is only just recently that most of us could read on our own instead of relying on the local storyteller to recount our community’s stories around the fire. Getting into audiobooks over the last few years has made me curious of what we’ve lost collectively by no longer actual listening to stories. 

Fun romance. I don’t love the Hallmark-ification of Valentine’s Day, but I love a day set aside for love. We all make each other hearts with things we love about each other on them and put them on each other’s doors. We make heart-shaped pancakes, and I eat my weight in conversation hearts. I also read a lot of fun, light romance because what else is February for? I particularly loved discovering Catherine Walsh last month. I read most of her back-log, but her Christmas series were my favorites (maybe save them for December to get you in the holiday spirit though!). I’ve loved Sarah Maclean for years, and her Hell’s Belles series is so fun. I think the newest one is the best of the bunch, but they’re all worth reading. 

In my middle age, I have fully embraced my lifelong love of romance novels, not as a guilty pleasure because that phrase should be erased, but as something that I just enjoy reading for no other reason than I LIKE IT. That alone feels like a feminist act or at least a middle finger to the patriarchy. Everything feels very heavy (I was going to say “at the moment,” but after saying that pretty much since 2016, I think it kinda loses its meaning), and we all need to find healthy ways to escape for a bit. Romance novels do that for me.

Pomodoro method. Maeve loves to bake, but she doesn’t always stay focused on the timing of things, so I bought her a small countdown timer that she can keep with her when she is making something to stay on track. I didn’t realize when I bought it that there were two of them in the package, so I put the extra one on my desk. I started using it to practice the Pomodoro Method for writing and at work. The Pomodoro Method is basically 25 minutes of work followed by five minutes of rest/play. After four sessions or so, you’re supposed to take a longer break. It is especially helpful for people with ADHD, but most of us have trouble with focus and attention these days so I think everybody should probably try it at this point. The nice thing about it being a small little digital clock versus my phone is that I don’t have to touch my phone, or, even better, I can place my phone in the other room, which alone has been proven to help people focus. And not just focus, Dr. Adrian Ward concluded in a recent study about phone use that putting the phone in the other room actually makes us smarter:

We see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more noticeable, participants’ available cognitive capacity decreases. Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smartphone, but that process – the process of requiring yourself to not think about something – uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. It’s a brain drain.

Dinner candles. I bought myself some candlesticks at a recent visit to Goodwill for our dinner table, and then I bought some tall taper candles to go in them. Now every night at dinner, whoever’s turn it is to pray before dinner lights the candles. It is a simple way to remind each of us that dinner is the sacred time that I’ve always considered it. I wish I would have started this practice years ago, but better late than never.

Honorable mentions. Things I loved this month but didn’t warrant more words: One Day on Netflix (I was not prepared despite having read the book). I’m doing much better with mindless scrolling this year thanks to the Clear Space app, which will likely make it on my top things of 2024 list. However, I do check Gabrielle Blair’s Twitter feed because she curates such good stuff, and I do still learn things from people on Twitter despite Elon’s wreckage. Lastly, I’m not sure I loved

Elise Loehnen

’s newsletter on “ending the manel” but I do know that everyone needs to read it.

So here is the fun part: it’s your turn to share something(s) you’re learning and/or loving lately, so we all get to share in the fun.