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 parenting inspired by Montessori without getting to caught up in doing it perfectly. Presi

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 have no good books cued

      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 various safety protocols that accompany thi