Plot Points #71 💌

Lucy's book review, dedicated devices, fairy tale language, and reading slumps

Feb 28, 2025

Plot Points is a weekly newsletter where I share my favorite books, links, words, and more. If you enjoy what you find here, please consider subscribing or buying me a coffee.

*The Vegetable Garden* by Gwen van Knippenberg

Hi everyone! Happy Friday to you.

Spring is peeking around the corner here in Georgia, and I can’t wait. Last Sunday, we spend the afternoon prepping the yard and garden beds for planting and it was such a beautiful day. I’m hoping to cultivate a large, healthy garden this year, with vegetables, herbs, and fruit aplenty (I’m nothing if not overly optimistic!) and bring more pollinators and birds to the yard. I’d also like for us to preserve some of our harvest, but first I need to learn how. A trip to see my grandmother is long overdue.

In other news, our daughter read my first novel this week and gave it the following Goodreads review:

What else could a mother/author want??? Okay, maybe I’d like five stars instead of four, but she was mad about the end. Credit to her for not playing favorites 😂.

Thanks for spending some of your time with me today, friends. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Grace + peace,

Wendi

Word of the Week ✍🏻

Tacenda: (n.) things better left unsaid; matters to be passed over in silence.

Point #1: Take off the jeans for a bit.

My personal style ranges from a nineties sitcom character to Diane Lane’s comfy writer uniform in Under the Tuscan Sun to a homesteading tradwife, and I have to admit that there is nothing like a pretty dress—even a simple one—to automatically make me feel more put-together. As this short piece so thoughtfully notes, women’s bodies change constantly because of our cycle, and too often we feel like shit in our clothes because we’re dressing for style when we should be dressing for comfort.1 Here’s to wearing what our bodies need, when they need it!

Point #2: “It’s one of the best ways of creating a life for ourselves that’s Right-Side Up.”

As language shifts and the meanings of words become more and more relative, I love what this post has to say about how fairy tales can teach our children—and us!—a way of speaking that grounds us in reality.

Point #3: Every kid needs something different.

We’ve really enjoyed our homeschool co-op this year, but in many ways it functions more like a part-time private school than a homeschool support. While Lucy LOVES being there, Theo needs a different approach. Classical home educator, C.S. Lewis enthusiast, and mother of three Autumn Kern has been a fantastic support for those of us who want to “come through the classical Wardrobe” and dive deep into the poetic, interdisciplinary mode of home education. I can’t recommend her YouTube channel + podcast enough!

Point #4: “Dedicated devices are the vibe shift we need.”

Last month, I finally took the plunge: I bought the Light Phone II. It won’t be here until May, but I’m thrilled to get back to the basics, so to speak, and have a phone that just…functions like a phone. I have no judgment for people who love their smart phones. They are, without a doubt, brilliant and incredibly useful machines. But, as

Talia Barnes

wrote in a recent post—and to quote one

Katie Marquette

—the “fractured attention” of our modern age urges us to reconsider how we can return to single-purpose devices for the sake of our brains and our hearts.

Bonus Point: A podcast, a literary magazine, a vintage shop, sourdough bread…

I’ve found my people.

Reading in The Nook ✍🏻

After weeks of waiting, Rebecca Yarros’ Onyx Storm finally came in at the library, but it’s still just sitting on my shelf. Right now, I can’t bring myself to read any more fantasy novels with bloated plots and scenes that appeal to our basest interests. Have I become a grouchy old lady? Maybe. I think it’s more that one can only take so much entertainment before she begins longing for substance. The problem is that now I’m having a hard time getting into a classic like Emma because my brain is going, “Where are the dragons??? Where is the action??? Why aren’t they kissing already???”