Weekly roundup: February 16, 2024

Weekly Roundup: February 9, 2024 Weekly roundup: March 1, 2024

Weekly roundup: February 16, 2024

Happy Friday! I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day if you celebrate. I didn’t used to care, but now I have a daughter who cares, so now I care. All that talk about seeing things through your child’s eyes is right on. I don’t have a romantic partner, but I have so much love in my life and I’m cool with dedicating a day to honoring that. I’m very lucky. On to the roundup!

Quote of the week:
“None of us understand what we’re doing but we do beautiful things anyway.” –Allen Ginsberg

What I’m reading:
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. My book club selected this one for our next read. I went into it completely blind and I’m liking it a lot so far.

What I’m listening to:
Just started Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein. It’s hard to quickly summarize this book but it’s so interesting. I’ve been thinking a lot about online personas and how they can conflict with reality. What’s even real anymore? The book explores this.

What I’m watching:
The Tourist on Netflix. It’s a good watch.

Interesting things I learned this week:

A stingray in a North Carolina aquarium is stumping scientists by getting pregnant in a tank with no male stingrays present. Immaculate conception?For Valentine’s Day, Pizza Hut delivered “goodbye pizzas” with breakup messages as part of a special promotion. Harsh. This Super Bowl was the most-watched program EVER (123.4 million viewers!)Scientists have found that women carry in their bodies fetal cells from every pregnancy…forever. This hit hard with me as I lost four babies before having my daughter. It’s comforting to know they are still with me, quite literallyA poll found that American women have become more liberal over the past two decades, while men’s ideological views have changed littleClinical trials have begun for the first anti-aging pill for dogs. The company that produces the pill, a startup called Loyal, hopes their drug can extend puppy lifespan by at least a yearIn other dog news… A Harvard psychiatrist specializing in dreams says that dogs probably dream of their owners

Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“What is the new car smell.” We all know that smell, but what IS it? From googling, I learned this: “The classic new-car smell is a byproduct of a chemical process known as off-gassing… The root cause is attributable to the many plastics and adhesives used in a modern car’s interior… These combined materials generally emit a ‘gasoline-like’ smell, for a relatively short period of time.” Given this explanation, it’s weird we find this smell so appealing.

What I’m grateful for:

My daughter’s happiness about Valentine’s Day. She had her first school dance this last Friday (with me as her date haha) and she was very excited to pass out her cards in classCelebrating my ex-husband’s birthday. I’m so glad we’re able to continue celebrating each otherGuinea pigs! We’ve added to the mammals in the house with two guinea pigs–Domino and Tiger. Their little chirps are so cute. They’re super shy so we’ll see if they warm up over timeFun outings—dinner with mom-friends, “Alice’s Wonderland” play with my daughter, Super Bowl party (my daughter was actually into the game due to the Taylor Swift appearances)4-day weekend! My daughter and I are headed to see Beyond Van Gogh today, the Lion King musical this weekend, and a gymnastics competition on Monday. Nothing like having a social kid to curb hermit tendencies

Snapshots:

You can see the dog is very excited about the guinea pigs.

This “Live & Grow” puzzle made me want to shrivel up & die. I usually save puzzles in case I want to do them again, but this one is going in the trash. So frustrating.