bits and bants vol.21
quick check-in, frustration, The Crown
Coming to you from an oddly still brown November day in the north, the kids have officially started to complain about lack of snow, but I’m glad to be able to still get outside without bundling. I remember that the November my second son was born we still didn’t have any snow when he was born on the 27th. Weird how childbirth makes you vividly remember some things like the weather. But late winters (relatively!) do happen even up here.
I intended to write more this week and somehow the week got away from me. With appointments, the usual busy-ness of kids, and then school completely frying my brain I just didn’t make writing happen.
I get so frustrated by my own lack of productivity and I know that this isn’t necessarily healthy, so it’s hard to keep in check. This week I just heard mention offhandedly on a podcast another talk referring to the difference between fruitfulness and productivity which really sparked a lot of thoughts for me. I want to try to track the talk itself down, but it really is a key difference that I’m sure applies to every type of work, but is felt especially keenly to the stay at home mother. We are tormented by productivity, yet don’t easily see the fruitfulness of our daily work. I spend a lot of time questioning if fruitfulness is even happening which in itself is not helpful, fruitfulness is a much more passive quality compared to productivity which is completely in our control and power. And as almost everything in life is teaching me, I have a much harder time with things as soon as they are framed as outside of my control.
In other words, frustration abounds this week, but tomorrow is another day.
bits:
This is an amazing panel of some of the most brilliant women and I can’t recommend it enough. Erica Bachiochi, Abigail Favale, and Leah Lebresco Sargeant on the New Feminism as well as sharing their own conversion stories which of course, is fantastic to hear.
I am a Julia Child fangirl so I really loved Julia’s notebooks as shared by
this week. I need to make more mayonnaise and asparagus.- continues to put such thoughtful work towards the proper understanding of homeschooling today and in the past, and I appreciate her thoughts on the ongoing (weird) coverage by The Washington Post. Nadya Williams had another article on coverage which was also very good. While homeschooling isn’t perfect, for it to be treated in such a suspect fashion only belies the bias of those writing.
A very thoughtful piece on Sofia Coppola’s new film on Priscilla Presley.
I cannot recover from how wonderful and lovely everything
creates for the liturgical year is, and we all know I basically go to no special liturgical year effort past St. Nicholas day, but my goodness this is delightful.
reading, watching, what have you:
I’m almost done Fourth Wing. Am I proud of myself? No. Is it as bad as I thought it would be? Probably not. I had very, very low expectations. It’s taken a hard nosedive in the last hundred pages of the book, but I’m surprised it took that long. I like to keep my toe in the cultural zeitgeist and frankly, just because a book is popular, and kinda bad, doesn’t mean it’s a complete waste of time. Being entertained and diverted by a book is still better than being diverted by TikTok! I’m sure I’ll reveal all my opinions in the fullness of time.
Watching this week has been light because I’ve been out or watching sports with the boys, but yesterday the long awaited sixth season of 'The Crown’ appeared on Netflix. I am insta-story-ing my thoughts as I watch each episode as I’ve done for each season, so if you want to follow along catch me over there @christyisinger on instagram! I have made it through the first episode so far and it seems extremely heavy Diana to no one’s surprise and Imelda as the Queen is still completely unlikable, wooden, and cold. I wonder if Peter Morgan still has a poster of Princess Diana in his bedroom? I wouldn’t mind so much Diana if they actually did something with the material! So far it literally is just tabloid headlines acted out. I would love to be moved with what was happening behind the scenes, show me something I don’t know already! And we all know this show makes up quite a lot, so why not make up interesting and engaging behind the scenes of the tabloids scenes?? This is the richest drama source you could imagine and yet it’s almost as if the show is going out of its way to make it tedious and tired. I’ll stop here, but I obviously have thousands more words on instagram!
And that’s it for me, I’m off to get a couple more things done before the weekend hits and maybe outside to enjoy what could possible be the last nice, above freezing day of the year??
long live Claire Foy,
Christy
I'm looking forward to the second half of this season of the Crown. It was just awful watching the first four episodes already knowing exactly what would happen and having a high suspicion of what the narrative emphases would be. What the rest of the season will be is a little more mysterious to me!
And thank you for sharing my essay!
I have so many thoughts, all chaotic and frantically-typed because I'm having big reactions! haha. But - the productivity dilemma is SUCH a monster, and I fight it hard too. Today, I decided to can for the first time in months - and wound up with 3 small jars and a mess. It felt very illustrative of my struggle with productivity. (Is it an idol to me? Yikes. I like this fruitfulness path).
And yes, long live Claire Foy!! I may need to get back on IG just for the sole purpose of watching your stories on the new season - we haven't dug in yet, but I've been nervously awaiting this. We also need to watch All the Light We Cannot See, so I think it's gonna be a heavy November!
And finally...gosh (or "gorsh!", as my kids would quote Goofy), thank you so much for your incredibly kind words and for sharing my little ramblings! I'm so thankful!