March R.E.S.E.T

What I'm reading, eating, shopping, embracing, and transforming these days

I am a fair-weather writer, friends.

I like to write when I’m feeling happy, confident, and energetic. It’s harder to make myself write something shareable when I’m feeling burdened in some way.

I have not written as much in the past few weeks as I did in the beginning of the year because somewhere in February, everything just started to feel hard. But now, even though everything still feels hard, I am finding that I miss the regular posting, and I miss the time that I spent preparing the posts.

So here I am, easing my way back into sharing by borrowing the R.E.S.E.T format (a post that shares what the writer is Reading, Eating, Shopping for, Embracing, and Transforming) that Kate Eskuri uses for some of her Substack posts.

Reading

Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson

Photo from Goodreads

This is required reading for everyone in my life now. Before reading this book, I already knew that I enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s writing and that his world-building skills are beyond impressive. Something about Tress felt even more special than the other books of his that I’ve read. Perhaps it was the gorgeous illustrations? The wisdom woven so naturally into the story? The voice of the character who narrates the story- alternating between philosophical and humorous? A lovable and relatable main character? It’s probably all of these things combined. If you are new to the fantasy genre, I think this would be such an enjoyable beginning read.

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Photo from Rakuten

I hardly know how to describe my feelings for this book. The characters were so strongly developed and the settings so vivid. It’s one of those rare stories that gives you a glimpse into a truly different world- in this case, Ethiopia and political turmoil and the world of a surgeon. The story follows the journey of a surgeon (born in Africa) and the people around him, including his twin brother. That sentence is dreadfully inadequate to describe the story, so you can read a more detailed summary here, if you’re interested. If you’re squeamish about the kind of work that surgeons do, it may not be the book for you, as it does talk in detail about the work that goes on in operating rooms (and hospitals in general). Also, if you prefer your books to have zero sexual content, you may want to opt out of this one. It’s not done in a gratuitous way but does include what I’ll call the “sexual awakening” of some of the characters as they grow up. The story is a difficult one, but also contains beautiful moments of nuanced redemption. So basically… my favourite sort of story.

Eating

Ricky and I dabbled in some vegan eating habits for several days. It was supposed to be ten days, but turned into eight because, alas… we were hungry for gelato and it was a beautiful, sunny day.

Also, we were just plain old hungry.

Here are some of the delicious things we ate along the way.

We took this opportunity to visit a vegan fast food restaurant called Oddburger. It was delicious!

We kept eggs in our diet. We ended up eating many variations of these egg and bean corn tortillas.

This vegetable and lentil curry was delicious! I’ll be making this one again.

These fresh spring rolls were perfection. They had a strip of sunflower butter in them that added such a nice soft texture to the crunchiness of the veggies.

Shopping

We purchased a dehumidifier to help manage the perpetually humid state of our bathroom, and it brings us great satisfaction to peek into the water tank and reflect on how that water would have rested on our walls as condensation if we had not purchased this dehumidifier. (Is my enthusiasm for our dehumidifier related to the fact that I recently turned 30? Am I a grown up now?)

I also bought a new pair of glasses for myself!

Awkward trying on glasses selfie!

Would you believe me if I told you that I chose this pair of glasses in under half an hour? I tend to struggle with decisions, but am trying to struggle less. I felt quite proud of myself for the clarity that I felt as I made my glasses choice.

Embracing

I am embracing the formula for prayer that Emily P. Freeman shared in one of her newsletters. The formula is as follows:

Write an address to God

Unfold the address

Make one request

Unfold the request

End with Amen

I was a little resistant to the idea of a formula for prayer, but since trying it out, I find that it’s easier to maintain my habit of morning prayer. And of course, I’m still free to pray however else I want to, whenever else I want to. This formula just gives me a helpful starting place.

Here is one of those prayers that I wrote this month:

Dear God,

God who shows himself through children,

May I see you today.

May I see you, and love you, and be gentle and wise with you.

Amen

Transforming

I don’t know what I am transforming these days.

I would like to transform myself into a person who can run 5 kilometers, but that seems like a lot of work, even though Ricky so kindly printed out a plan for me that meets every single one of my very specific requests and it’s been sitting on our dining room table for weeks…

Or perhaps I should just transform into a person who accepts that she isn’t cut out to run 5 kilometers at a time.

Maybe I’ll report back to you in a month or so regarding my progress with this particular transformation.

Maybe.

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What about you? I’d love to hear what you are reading, eating, shopping for, embracing, or transforming these days!