Eye to Wonder

     Loving:  Cooking on the weekends, walks around frozen lakes, warmer days where we can spend time with friends outdoors, marking shabbat each week and setting aside screen-free time to connect as a family and with our family's Jewish identity, and moving in some way almost every day.      Listening to:  The Good Ancestor Podcast   (especially the most recent episode with Christine Platt),   The Creative Classroom  (which makes me feel inspired and creative professionally even in a topsy-turvy teaching year).      Reading: I've been reading a lot this month! Some favorite reads this month include: The Warmth of Other Suns, The Mothers, The Unhoneymooners, Transcendent Kingdom, and When the Stars are Scattered.      Watching: The Queen's Gambit, His Dark Materials, and Bridgerton.      Grateful for: Time spent walking around the neighborhood and reading with Avi. Thinking through par...

My current TBR shelf       At the end of the year, I loved reading all the best books of the year posts and reading round-ups, and I've also enjoyed seeing all of people's lists of books they want to read in 2021. I'm always tempted to make my own reading plan, but I tend to be more of a mood reader. I have eclectic taste in books ranging anywhere from sci-fi to literary fiction.       When I'm stressed I gravitate towards fast-paced mysteries or romances with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. I almost always have a nonfiction and fiction book in progress at the same time. If I make a list of books to read, it often feels more like homework or a to do list for me. Normally I love to do lists, but for me I like feeling the freedom of choosing exactly what I'm in the mood for (or I need to read before it's due to the library or my book club meets).      Yet, if I don't have any plan at all, I can get out of the habit of reading because I ha...

      I've been really enjoying the monthly review and overview pages in the  Wonderland 222 . Many thanks to Sarah's recommendation on her podcast  Best Laid Plans  because I don't think I would have picked it out myself, but I've been really loving it.      I enjoyed filling out the review pages with monthly highlights, habit reviews, and favorites! December was bittersweet for me--lots of holiday festivity and fun memories, but also a bit lonely being away from my extended family and all the traditions. Looking back at the highlights made me realize how many positive moments we had together as a family this month even if there were hard moment where we hit the wall too.      This month, I want to focus on one of my 21 for 21 list items that I think may be the hardest and most challenging: experiment with shutdown rituals and less distracted parenting. Going back to work with all students back to in-person learning (and the ...