sunday edition no. 3: bare minimum monday

belated bonus issue, featuring my perfect holiday brunch menu, the two shows I can't stop watching, and where i'm doing my last minute holiday shopping.

Allow me to wish you my personal favorite holiday of them all: bare minimum Monday.

Today, for many of us laptop gremlin folks, is the last working Monday of the year for 2023. I can’t be the only one who, every year, believes the myth that December will “slow down” as everything winds down, only to be met with a punishing cadence of last minute, extremely high priority things at work and at home that leave me absolutely wrecked. This year is no different, only compounded by the fact that adults in the US have significantly worse mental and physical health in 2023 than before the pandemic. All this is also combined with the odd, unspoken requirement for holiday magic that suddenly blankets new mothers; the pressure of “imagined future nostalgia”, and the performance of it all on social media.

Said better than I ever could: It feels insane to experience joy amidst the horrors playing out daily on the news. 

This year, I’m finding the impact of all this *gestures around wildly* is a steady erosion of the standard self-control and discipline I normally have towards my schedule. I am a morning person. The bonus issues of this newsletter (for paid subscribers) are typically sent on Sundays, where I imagine you have the opportunity to leisurely read them while you lounge and drink a coffee after sleeping in, or whatever else people do when they don’t have a one year old that wakes up singing every single day at 7:54 am on the dot. This week, I had this newsletter generally written and then instead of QA’ing and adding in all the photos and links and such, I simply closed my laptop and joined my husband in taking our son to the park. Afterwards, while he took a nap, *so did I*.  I was told repeatedly when he was born to “sleep when the baby sleeps”. I haven’t done that since March, but happy to report that it’s still an excellent strategy.

With that in mind, today’s belated bonus issue is a small endorsement of the gentler path: of matching your effort with ease, when and how you can. I may not be your manager, but I’m someone's manager, and in honor of bare minimum Monday, I say go ahead and take that coffee break and take a skim. As the song says: Someday soon we all will be together / If the fates allow / Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow.

I’m playing with the format of these bonus issues until I find a few I like. This one is basically an expanded/categorized version of the “snooze button” section you might be familiar with, interspersed with more casual life updates and behind the scenes. As always, love and welcome your feedback on what you enjoy seeing here!