Issue #02: How I stay sane during busy weeks

Plus grandma hobbies, nervous system literacy, and a TV show and podcast worth a binge

To my new paying subscribers: thank you. I truly didn’t expect that, this early. Your support is the kick in the pants that I didn’t even know I needed; I spent the weekend making a content calendar and deciding on “brand colors” (a designer will be the first thing I pay for when there is a little extra) and drafting posts that have been living in my mind as headlines for months.

Not a subscriber yet? Well, here you go! Field Notes is a newsletter about wellbeing, exploring and the messy business of living an aligned life.

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Left: Utah bars thwart a rule that they must sell food by pricing a Cup O' Noodles at $15. Right: My poor car.

This was one of those weeks when, one minute, you’re chuckling at how SLC bars subvert the state’s restrictive liquor laws and, the next, you’re filing a police report in a parking lot.

I’m fine, everything is fine. But those two hours, on a Wednesday night, when I was enjoying a local art market at a brewery with friends one minute and sucking glass out of my car the next, felt like a perfect metaphor for the week.

It was one of those weeks that was crammed with so much stuff — wrapping up a five-month project, getting three proposals out, working on this newsletter, coffee chats, attempting to bake bread for someone in a rough patch (when I’m still not great at baking bread), prepping for a trip to New York and DC — that you need everything to go according to schedule.

But, of course, it won’t.

In fact, this week inspired a whole post on the tools I use to stay grounded!

But since it was that kind of week — and this newsletter is just starting — I’m filing that in drafts for now and sharing a handful of small joys that helped me get through this week. Think of it like a preview.

A caveat: I was not perfect at this. The habits that help most are, ironically, hardest to hold onto when life gets hectic. That kind of pretend perfection is one thing that bugs me about a lot of wellness-y newsletters. My hope is to remind you that no one is perfect, to try to make space for what helps anyway, and to maybe inspire you to try something new.

Read on for:

• My favorite workout apps

• A five-minute breathing exercise

• A peek at my morning routine

• The podcast series that I binged

• A very good, slightly health, very easy dessert