Plot Points #54 💌
Tybee Island, fun history, digital liturgies, and shingles
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Hi friends! Happy Friday to you all.
Forgive me if this email is a bit short today; we just got back from the beach on Wednesday, and Thursday was a full day of cleaning, unpacking, and folding laundry. Oh, and also trying not to throw up from the medicine I’m taking due to a *drum roll please* shingles flare up???
That’s right, folks. I have shingles on my eyebrow and it itches like a mother. I’m guessing the deep clean I had done at the dentist before we left last week—where I enjoyed two numbing shots to the gums and a generous amount of nitrous oxide—triggered the virus in my nerves, which apparently just hangs out in your body for decades after having the chicken pox. So much fun. Doesn’t hurt at all.
Anyway, the beach was amazing. Another red-letter Tybee Island trip for us girls! There was much laughter, sarcasm, delicious food, and sunbathing, and Lucy and I finally climbed the lighthouse, twenty years after I first set eyes on it as a college student. Always a blast!
Until next time, Tybee! 🌊
I hope you all have a wonderful, shingles-free weekend 🙃. Thanks for sharing some of your time with me!
Point #1: “You don’t have to support, like, or even a respect a particular politician in order to feel a grief or even outrage on his behalf.”
I loved this list from of ten things to keep in mind right now. We need more of this perspective as we approach what is certain to be a hectic, polarized November.
Point #2: This is the first interesting story about a vice president I’ve ever heard.
No, really. I love stuff like this. How much fascinating history exists in the world, just waiting to be told? The end of this particular tale is bonkers.
Point #3: “…these things may rock your world, but they cannot harm your soul.”
Point #4: Plant scraps for the win!
PlantYou’s channel is one of my favorite food inspirations on the internet. I made this sparkling pineapple juice drink after slicing up some fruit for the kids and WOW. So good. No more four dollar Ollipops for me!
Bonus Point: I love my legs and my compassionate heart.
What’s something you love about yourself? (Read the comments! They’re so good!)
Word of the Week ✍🏻
Kairos: (n.) the perfect, delicate, crucial moment; the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words, or movement.
Receipts from a No-Buy Year 🧾
I stuck to my one-buy goal over vacation and only purchased a tiny souvenir for myself: a delicate (cheap) ankle bracelet we all got to match one another. Lots was spent on food, coffee, and beach umbrella rentals, but those fell into my vacation budget, as did the money allotted for Lucy to spend and the two small gifts I bought for Theo. I didn’t really want anything else except for an adorable sweatshirt, but my big sister surprised me with it because she’s sweet like that. She also gave me one of her purple Stanley cups and then my little sister showed me how to do my makeup in a way that legit changed my whole confidence level, so, honestly, what more could I ask for?
When I got home, Pierce surprised me with my birthday gift a month early (we’ve never made it to the actual day in our entire fifteen-ish years of marriage)—a walking pad, which I’ve wanted for the last year. Now I can get my steps in with gentle, not-horribly-sweaty movement. Hooray!
Reading in The Nook 📚
I started reading a few books at the beach, but haven’t finished any of them just yet.
I’m working on Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me, which is interesting, sometimes terribly sad, and a much-deserved avenue for the global superstar to speak about what she’s endured over the years. The writing is pretty plain, a bit boring at times, and it jumps through major milestones in her career, such as her first two world tours, with little more than a few paragraphs. But I’ll tell you what: Justin Timberlake was a real jackass and she deserved so much better.
I’m also reading Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife by Francine Prose, which is a fascinating account of the different versions of Anne’s diary (the original, the edits she made in hiding, and the final print version her dad compiled). I became a writer because of Anne’s work, so I’ve been enjoying this intimate peek into how her words eventually became the life-changing book I read over and over as a teen.
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“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
—Lemony Snicket—
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