Season 12 (2022)
HOME + TRAVEL
“Travel is like leaving a window open in everyday life.”
- from Hamimommy YouTube video (*link has sound)
We spent last week at the beach enjoying some downtime as a family in Encinitas, California. Our days were spent walking or zooming around on the e-bikes supplied by our AirBnB host while trying every last coffee shop, local restaurant, and ice cream spot we could fit in before the sun set. In the evenings we would make our quick walk to the cliff side to watch the sun dip down to past the horizon as dolphins jumped and played in the surf. Leaving that bit of paradise after such a magical week made us all long for more time in Encinitas in the future.
Our favorite spots in Encinitas:
Encinitas Farmers Market (be sure to stay for lunch!)
Nectarine Grove (a gluten-free paradise with amazing butter coffee)
The Taco Stand (our favorite tacos were the pescado, shrimp, and al pastor)
Q’ero Peruvian Restaurant (the best meal from start to finish)
Himalayan Kitchen at 1337 Encinitas Blvd., Encinitas, CA 92024 (no working website that I could find)
Valentina (Kumamoto oysters so clean and briny we couldn’t stop eating them, sea bass with perfectly crisp skin, and cremé brûlée that might have been the best I’ve ever had)
East Village Asian Diner (didn’t have a chance to visit this one, but the menu looked great!)
Lotus Cafe and Juice Bar (healthy mid-week stop)
Little Fox Cups and Cones (ice cream tacos!)
While not in Encinitas, Balboa Park in San Diego is just a short drive away and a must-visit in my opinion. We bought tickets for the Cherry Blossom Festival this year, but when we arrived at the park, the line was incredibly long. We toured other areas in the park instead that day. We returned to the park a few days later to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom and smiled with delight as the delicate cherry blossom petals swirled around us.
GARDEN
Our tulips from Red Shed Garden* are blooming in our rolling container garden on the porch. The live oak trees are shedding last year's leaves, and the leaves are fluttering around our yard like a second fall (and far less beautiful than the cherry blossoms we watched flutter on vacation). Wildflowers are popping up in the Hill Country. Spring is here!
WELLNESS
The Hidden Brain podcast episode “You Can’t Hit Unsend” with host Shankar Vedantam caught my attention this week. The story follows a recent high school graduate as he makes a series of decisions that change the course of his life. When we make decisions or the universe makes them for us, we are left to mourn what could have been. Do we as individuals and a society hold true to the same values, honesty, and vulnerability behind a screen that we would in person? Are we all aware of the permanence of comments we make and images we share as they relate to our permanent internet history? The podcast episode prompted me to have yet another technology-related conversation with my son on sensitivity, honesty, and ethics if and when he engages in social media.
“We are not idealized wild things. We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.” -Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking*
CREATIVITY
My best ideas come to me when I’m completing chores around the house, walking around the neighborhood, playing in the garden, or taking a moment to be still. I related deeply to this quotation shared in the most recent Her86M2 Channel YouTube video (link has sound):
“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence, or a vice: it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition of standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration - it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. “
-Tom Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing*
BOOKSHELF
Celebrate spring’s arrival with your kids by reading one of these gorgeous books about seasonal transitions and transformation.
COMMUNITY
“It may not be my book, it may not be your book, but it could be someone else’s book and we have no right to take that book away from them,” Suzette Baker said in the article “Llano Librarian Loses Job After Not Removing Books”
How a book is made. Fascinating!
Enjoy your weekend!
Get involved in your community. VOTE. Speak out. Volunteer. Take action.
“Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” -Desmond Tutu