Hello friends,

I am writing to you from the Census Designated Place where I grew up. We are spending more time here than I have since I left for good over 15 years ago, all five (??!!) of us here for an extended stay while parts of our house are painted. The baby isn't sleeping well and the kids are a little oversugared and at least one is bordering on feverish, or at least suffering from fever dreams throughout the night. But I took more PTO than I ever have this time of year, and we've got family around and cozy beds to sleep in, when sleep is available to us. Beautiful views of pastures and mountains, fencerows and barns.

Still, I'd rather be at home. Perhaps I am by the time you are reading this. If so, know that I am relieved. This year has contained more than I could absorb, and this forced pause away from home is uncomfortable.

Anyway. Here are some things I’ve been into/spending time on/thinking about lately.

1. I've become interested in fixing my attention this year. I've been listening to The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource and enjoying it. I'm not a big audio book person, and I kind of feel like I want to peruse this one in print when I'm done. Data mining isn't news to me, but the book is a little more expansive than I expected.

2. Trader Joe's Chocolate Covered Gummy Bears. I took my youngest two kids all the way to State College by myself while the oldest one convalesced. My 4yo and I stood in awe at the candy barrels. Somehow these landed in my cart. Are they good? Are they gross? I really can't decide, but if I hadn't told my family I purchased them, I would have eaten the whole bag myself.

3. "But your attention is, on a foundational level, all you have. This is why it feels worse than bad to waste it. It feels annihilating.”

4. Feist’s Metals (2011): We're feeling a shift towards the analog this year. I wanted to make our 7yo a mixtape for Christmas, only to discover we no longer have the tools to do so. Chad asked for an ebay sourced old fashioned radio/CD player/cassette player for Christmas, and my brother found one for him. It's the only device we've played music on this week as we're hiding out in this narrow valley, and the only music we've played has been from CDs we found buried in the CRV. Metals is a winter album (specifically post-solstice, we're talking January/February, when the light is starting to creep back but winter's just winding up and it feels like it will never be not-winter again), one I haven't listened to in years. I have been immediately transported to 2012: my commute from West Chester to Valley Forge for a job I didn't last a year in. I didn't cry on the way to work, but I did sometimes on the way home. I learned to appreciate the light in January on those drives through the woods, the sun already setting when I was leaving. The ice on the trees, the shifting bruised but glowing colors of the sky through those frozen branches. Here, in 2025/2026, there's a crust of snow outside and a more rural kind of beauty than Valley Forge, but still. It's an echo of a past life on really shitty speakers.

5. Ugly But Good Cookies. I started making these for Christmas when a family member stopped eating gluten, and now I need to make them every year. I think they might be my current favorite Christmas cookie.

Stay light, stay warm,

Lisa

Quote credit: Feist