Five Favorite Things of February

1. My Creative Goals Group!! Wow, if you can get a group of fabulous ladies to cheer you on via Zoom and email every month, please get one. Shout out to the people who motivate me to keep writing, who I thought were the only people reading my blog until they shared my posts and then I saw I have 55 readers from the month of February! Wix keeps telling me my goal is 250 monthly readers which used to seem impossible but now I wonder if maybe someday I can get there.

2. The Finch app. My therapist mentioned this briefly as something she has been using, and it didn’t seem like she really thought it would resonate much with me, especially because I make it a point to try to do things on paper instead of on my phone, but wow I love this app. It’s a self-care-focused goal-setting app that actually pushes me to get up and do things that I know are good for me that take thirty seconds yet I usually don’t feel like putting even the smallest amount of effort towards them. The premise is that you have a little bird that you make happy by doing self-care, and you get rainbow stones you can use to buy your bird outfits and birdhouse furniture when you accomplish goals. Nothing has got me out of bed to wash my face faster than knowing I can get in exchange some bird currency to buy this little guy some overalls and a house plant.

   

   I mean COME ON, is that not the cutest thing you have ever seen?? He has a pet star!!

3. Sharpie gel pens, 0.7 mm. One of my students left one of these behind, and the next day I bought a whole box. They just make you want to write and write and write. And I have been doing such consistent morning pages since I told myself, as Gretchen Rubin says, “spend out” and just use the nice pens instead of the crappy ones with logos of business you have never patronized or even heard of before you just found this very mediocre pen somewhere.

4. THE LET THEM THEORY by Mel Robbins. Ok, I read about the plagiarism from the poem. At first I felt like the phrase “let them” is too generic and people were mad over nothing, but then when I read that she also took “let me” from the same place, I started to feel less fine about it. But whatever Mel Robbins did, this book still lowkey revolutionized my life. I feel guilty recommending the book, but I really do because it's given me a lot of peace. There are a lot of nonfiction books out there that really seem like they should have been an article, but this is one where I finished it hoping for a sequel.

5. Wearing a mask when sick. Can we please not forget about this as a norm in society?? I started to feel sick last week on Thursday, which was completely panic-inducing given that I have a 5 month old child who takes a daily inhaler. I wore a mask in the house until I felt better and unbelievably, he never caught my cold despite having a very weak and vulnerable immune system and not being able to avoid me. Please mask up if you are sick, and if you are a human leaving the house right now, I feel as though you probably will soon if you haven't already. Pretty much everyone I know has.

Happy March everyone! Spring is in sight!