Finding Peace Through a Stress To-Do List
How to reduce stress by making a list you can cross off in real time
Dearest reader,
Happy Tuesday! We’re coming off a long weekend where we stayed at Holiday House for the first time after renovating it for close to four years. It feels surreal to actually be at this stage after working towards it for so long. At some points during the renovation, it truly felt like we might never get here because there were just so many steps and hurdles and contractors and setbacks. But they’ve all led up to this past weekend and it feels AMAZING to be finished!
Well, almost. We still don’t have all the furniture we need and we’re missing things like cookware and a bed for us (we slept on a mattress on the floor) and I think having those (and more, like internet!) would make Holiday House feel more like home, but overall it was such a joy.
If you want to see a tour of Holiday House, we just uploaded a new YouTube vlog where we take you room by room, and you can click here to watch, if you want.
Another milestone we celebrated this weekend was the third anniversary of the adoption of our children!!! On August 31st, 2021, we officially adopted our kids after fostering them for two years. It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years, but like I always say, it feels like it’s been much longer. It’s hard to remember our lives before we were parents, and I can’t imagine not having our family of five. We’re smack dab in the middle of parenthood, and we are loving every minute of it (even the stressful parts, which there are plenty of).
You can click here to watch the video we made of our entire foster to adopt process, including the moments when we fostered our kids, when they then went to live with family, when we got them back, and finally adopted them.
Also, we’ve spoken to different publications over the years about our foster care and adoption journey, and I thought it would be fun to put them all in one place for once. Warning: We may repeat ourselves in some of these interviews, so apologies in advance!
Okay! Let’s get to it
Watch: A Quiet Place: Day One
We, like everyone else, loved A Quiet Place when it came out in 2018, and then we watched A Quiet Place Part II three years later and loved it, too. So when we heard there was another entry in the franchise, we couldn’t click play fast enough. Turns out, this one is also just as entertaining and watchable! Lupita Nyong'o remains a force onscreen as she takes you through the very beginning of the alien invaders’ attack on Earth. It’s thrilling and the human element is there to make you feel for these characters (and the cat). It’s a super fun popcorn movie to curl up on the couch and watch on a weeknight.
You can watch A Quiet Place: Day One on Paramount+
Read: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Doomed Presidential Campaign Condensed Into One Sentence
I just love AirMail. Do you subscribe? I found one of their recent articles wildly entertaining this week, where writer George Kalogerakis takes you through the bizarre presidential campaign (and life) of RFK Jr. in, you guessed it, one very long run-on sentence. Highly recommend giving this one a read because it really does make you wonder how this man made it this far in the race. I guess his last name?
Click here to read the full article.
Listen: Cheers to the Fall
Every fall, I listen to a few albums on repeat to get me in the mood for the season. One of them is Andra Day’s debut album, Cheers to the Fall. It’s filled with silky smooth jazz-inspired songs and Day’s sky-high vocals. It’s sexy and fun and classic, and I love giving it a re-listen every year.
You can listen to Cheers to the Fall wherever you get your podcasts.
Finding Peace Through a Stress To-Do List
Life can feel like a whirlwind sometimes. Between work, family, our jobs, the farm, and the various houses we’re renovating at any given time, it’s easy for us to get overwhelmed on a daily basis. But what if there was a simple way to bring a little more calm into your day? Something that could take the edge off that overwhelming feeling. Well, friends, let us introduce you to the idea of a “Stress To-Do List.” PJ wrote one last month after feeling stressed out to the max, and decided to do something about it by getting it all out on paper. He immediately felt better after doing it, and wanted to share this idea with you because it really did help.