bits and bants vol.31
eastertide chocolate consequences
Happy Eastertide!
It’s snowing again.
It is a real trudge to get to true spring around here but I won’t bore you with my daily complaints about the weather, it’s Easter!
I love the idea of keeping eight highly festive feast days to make Easter the true, most festive time of the year but I am probably maxing out on sugar. I’ve mostly not eaten large amounts of sugar since last summer, and with various health things going on I’ve eliminated it completely since January, but of course I said to myself, “A few pounds of mini eggs are celebratory. So celebratory that there will be no physical consequences!” And I then proceeded to eat mini eggs for five days straight.
Of course my sleep and anxiety are the first victims of sugar consumption, yet I spent most of this week going through my days wondering how and why I could be so tired?! Yesterday I finally put it together. Could it be the pounds of sugar I’ve consumed since Sunday? Yes, Poirot, it definitely could. And then I ate some more chocolate.
It’s really a lesson in proportionality. I most probably could have a lovely dessert and not notice a difference. But random amounts of straight candy eaten throughout the day for days on end will definitely cause havoc. There are just better decisions I can make when it comes to celebrating with good things to eat! Just like I believe strongly in drinking actual cocktails or wine or whiskey instead of wasting calories, sugar, and terrible alcohol on those awful hard sparkling water drinks. Drink the real alcohol, eat the real dessert. It’s better for both taste and enjoyment but also your health. You obviously heard it here first. I am a very trendsetting influencer here.
Other than my sugar bender things around here this week were very regular. Which again, makes me wish there were extravagant Eastertide festivities every day of the Octave! But do I want to plan them and do all the work of festivities? Also, no. It’s a real catch-22. I love Easter for its focus on the actual liturgies and not the million and one things moms are supposed to do to get ready for the holiday. I want that on the record! I think things are all feeling a bit trudge-y right now. The gosh forsaken in-between-ness of the seasons, school school and more school that is feeling like a slog to get through everyday, and the sugar probably not helping this feeling at all come to think of it…
bits:
This was such a fascinating conversation of conversion and seeing the world from the very fascinating Paul Kingsnorth of
on Honestly. Really worth listening to in its entirety.I really liked
‘s thoughts on pursuing post graduate studies in the humanities. I have a lot of opinions on the humanities and how needed they are today more than ever, and even more opinions on the fairly ridiculous college education system, but Dixie’s are smarter!I think about this topic quite often because our weird, modern society has such a distorted view of risk and life, so I found this to be a thoughtfully written article. And living in the jungle is such a thing to imagine!
You’ve probably already read this but just in case you haven’t
‘s beautiful essay on the home made me cry and I think I’ll just reread it once a week for emotional calibration.
reading, watching, what have you:
I had a great reading month in March, polishing off five novels and a couple non-fiction books. But now I have the awful situation of not having an immediate stack of what to read next. None of my library holds are even close to coming in, and I just don’t feel a direct pull to anything for some strange reason. This happens so rarely to me it’s very odd! Usually I have five books I want to get to next!
I finished Willa Cather’s One of Ours last weekend and was surprised with how much I enjoyed and appreciated it. I guess I was just expecting not to enjoy it because it’s a book about one man’s experience with fighting in World War I. But there is no need to fear because Cather’s writing is just exquisite when it comes to describing the inner life of a person. Her perspective on the individual in the War and their virtues was so humanizing I found it quite unique. Still thinking about it.
I started the new Netflix series Ripley last night based on the Patricia Highsmith masterpiece, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I had time for about 20 min of the first episode so I really can’t say if it’s going to be a good adaptation, but the first 20 minutes was beautifully filmed and Andrew Scott is fantastic. I’m also very excited for Johnny Flynn, and pretty petrified about Dakota Fanning. I don’t know if the novel is enough to carry 8 episodes, however. I think it’s best at film length and with Jude Law, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise. I’ll report back.
And I would love for you to come to Ireland with Katie Marquette and I this coming October! It’s going to be an amazing experience of the culture, faith, and beauty of Ireland.
Here is the brochure for all the details.
I’ve got a lot to do this weekend, a flowery workshop to attend, and a crazy week next week. So I will make sure to start things off with a bang and tackle my twenty loads of laundry and absolute disaster of a kitchen to clean. I hope your weekend is celebratory and springy to the fullest!
half chocolate, half woman,
Christy
"half chocolate, half woman" - great sign off :)
Christ is risen! I love your point about "Drink the real alcohol, eat the real dessert." 100% YES. This is honestly the hard part about taking our kids trick-or-treating for Halloween. I love taking them to engage in this beautiful event with our neighborhood community, but even though we only hit a couple houses each year, they come home with tons of cheap candy that we and they never eat. (and I really don't like throwing away "perfectly good candy," so it just sits up in our cupboard for months because I never get my act together to donate it somewhere before it goes bad) We really don't eat candy in our house often; if we have treats, it usually takes the form of a carton of ice cream or an actual dessert that we've made to enjoy together.
Also, a couple years ago my husband struck upon a great way to keep the octave very festive without us having to plan elaborate activities: He saves up PTO at work so he can take the entire Octave week off! It's a great way for us to celebrate and have family time to pray, attend daily Masses or Adoration, and just do fun family stuff together like video games or go out to eat. It's become one of our favorite weeks of the year because it's so low-key, fun, AND it's Easter :)