It was a GREAT month for reading, watching. Not sure if it’s coincidence to my commitment to regain focus, it was such an enjoyable creative month.
Books: I read 5 fictions, such a rare event for a non-fiction fan. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the journey. It’s also the first time I tried audiobook for fiction and it also worked well.
Wellness: I didn’t know what the book was about. I only knew that Sarah likes it, Lisa likes it and found it a bit too long. I picked it to be my first fiction audiobook experience and it was great. The narrator was fun, the plot complex, multi-topics (marriage, family heritage, parenting, wellness, relationships of all kind (with family, with other parents, with spouse, with people from work, with oneself)). I agree with Lisa that some parts are too detailed, maybe necessary for the point, but could be condensed somehow. I kept thinking this is a great mockery of modern life. I choked many times while running. It was fun, sad at the time, enlightening, and made the reader reflect and relate. A fun and intelligent book.
The Wedding people: this is a fun book, with flaw and humane characters. I like the plot and find some tidbits of wisdom here and there, which is what I like about reading fiction. I can imagine all the characters, how they would look like, except Phoebe. I can’t visualize her. isn’t that weird?
Mouth to mouth: this is a quick read, entertaining but not satisfying. I kept waiting for something unexpected to happen but it didn’t.
The bear. It is an odd book. Not sure if it’s futuristic or just fiction. It’s about human need for connection, family, resilient, self sufficiency in the wild world. An enjoyable ride but not as woooo as I expected.
Stolen focus, the only non fiction this month that started me on the journey to regain focus.
Reading 5 fictions in a month made me find the joy of reading fictions. I realized that I could immerse to the story, think about the characters when I’m not reading, imagining decisions I would have made in their shoes, how would the characters look if it’s made in a movie. I enjoy realistic fiction as it comes with some themes that I like to learn about, reflect on, through the story. Most importantly, I find joy in finding unexpected wisdoms in the books, written to the precision and beauty that makes me smile for a long time.
Articles:
Accurate description of Capricorn and Virgo, me and Sofia.
Decoding your wife’s question.. hahahah
TBR list inspired by NYT list.
Roots, or lack of for people like us. Maybe it is troublesome for some people but it never did for me and I hope it won’t trouble my girls.
I learned that preemptive nostalgia exists. I am constantly feeling it when I’m with the girls, when I’m not with them, when I read things about other parents with college age kids.
Tips for mindful media consumption. I especially like #2 and #6, be selective about what I subscribe to, and be “proud” of not knowing many, or most of things, news, trends.
More tips on phone usage, many of which I practice. My phone is in DND most of the time, and by evening and weekends, all the apps except few are blocked. I can still open them if I want with a password that I know, but it adds an extra layer and forces me to pause to decide if I really need to open it now.
choose the hard things, so everything else becomes naturally easier. It doesn’t mean to always choose hard things, I am not masochist. But I do try to hard things in certain areas to push be out of comfort zone from time to time.
I can relate so much to this feeling, although I am 7 years away from it. It reminds me every moment with the girls counts. Even when they interrupt me when I’m doing something, I get reminded that it’s okay to be interrupted when they need me. Even when Sofia wakes me in the middle of the night when Lizzy is crying for no reason. Although I can’t do anything about it, Lizzy doesn’t even remember the next day, I don’t get mad nor annoyed with Sofia for waking me up because I want her to know that she can always come to me, no matter what time.
Running is my therapy, is my drug, it makes me a better person, more patient and kind mom and wife. Maybe because running makes our mind more resilient to stress.
All the reasons I need to run most of the days and feeling so grateful that I can.
Movies/TV
Presumed innocent. What a great show and ride for the viewer. The plot is simple but the acting is spectacular (Jack). The topics are complex (marriage, parenting, love, passion, infidelity, family, camaraderie, self doubt, what one is willing to do to protect a family, how far would you go to pursue passion/love). I watched 2 episodes first, and then 6 episodes in one afternoon. Days after I watched it, scenes continue to come to mind, noticing things that I didn’t notice before, realizing its greatest that I didn’t realize at first. The ability to make something simple so complex, intelligent, is beautiful, it’s art in a way.
3 Body Problem: I know this series has been a big hit for a while but I’m not a science fiction fan in general so never thought to watch it until Tim mentioned it in 5 bullet Friday. I gave it a shot. The first episode was okay, I was lost, not sure what was happening. The second episode I was intrigued, by end of second episode, I didn’t want to stop. I watched the whole season in 2 days. It’s well done, futuristic yet humane. I will definitely watch when season 2 comes out. Husband has watched the chinese version which is 30+ episodes long. I’m nudging him to watch the Netflix series to compare and tell me which version is better.
Wamsley : This is a documentary about running the UTMB. I watched it in those days that I as to run on treadmill. I find it inspiring and the scenery is beautiful. I doubt I will ever do a trail race of that kind, mostly because I’m very prone to fall given ankle weakness. But maybe one day, once I accomplished my goal of finishing all the marathon majors. One can always dream.
Blackpink documentary. Girls and I are big fan of black pink. It was nice to learn each of the singers, where they come from, the training they went through to get them there. I hope one day we get to watch their concert. It’s so nice to have a shared hobby with the girls.
Our New Journey 
I loved Sandwich, and I also read Wellness – it was SO LONG. I mean, it was good, but it needed an editor badly.
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Hi Coco, I am curious why you picked up Stolen Focus for the writer, Johann Hari is a highly polemical journalist who has been accused of plagiarism (he accepted he stole from other people) and distorting his interviews for years. He seems dishonest and opportunistic.
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I didn’t know about his polemic background. I like the book for the points made, regardless whether those are his points or others, which I think he often said it’s from others and he was experimenting them on himself. I picked it up for the topic, not for the author, because I want to be more focused on things that matter to me and less distracted. He makes good points and have many concrete things to do. Some are too drastic like storing your phone in a box that can only open by breaking the box, but other tips are less dramatic and one can adapt to our own life circumstances. have you read it?
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I am glad you had a good month for books/media consumption! I had a great reading month, too. We have a hard time finding shows that we like to watch, though. I watched the first 2 episodes of the Simone Biles doc on Netflix which I really enjoyed as I am a huge fan of her! Now we are watching the show ‘alone’ which is a show about 10 people dropped in a remote area of Canada and the person who lasts the longest wins. It’s so interesting to watch as the contestants are so industrious. I could never do what they are doing (nor would I want to).
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Someone was talking about taking their 9-year-old to a Post Malone concert and putting fake tattoos on their face and neck. I suggested that the fake tattoos were probably not the biggest issue, but taking a young child to a Post Malone concert. Then I had to admit that I didn’t really know who Post Malone was. LOL. Am I proud that I don’t know about music/pop culture trends? I don’t really know.
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I love reading fiction! I really should read more non-fiction, but I’m always so engrossed in whatever fiction I’m reading, I don’t want to read anything else. I haven’t read any of your books, but I’d like to read The Wedding People.
That article about The Leaving Month!!! It’s so, so hard to let your kid go. I’m still sad every time I say goodbye to my son, and I’m hyper aware that I only have three more years with my daughter at home. Yes, every moment with them counts! I really think about that if something starts to annoy me- someday she’ll be gone, and I’ll miss this time.
I want to see Wamsley!!!
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