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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#106)

Cactus in a pot. Illustration.
Cactus plant in my office.

Quote I enjoyed:

“Ninety percent of good writing is rewriting.”

Charles Johnson

Book excerpt I was thinking about:

“Writing is selection. Just to start a piece of writing you have to choose one word and only one from more than a million in the language. Now keep going. What is your next word? Your next sentence, paragraph, section, chapter? Your next ball of fact. You select what goes in and you decide what stays out. At base you have only one criterion: If something interests you, it goes in—if not, it stays out. That’s a crude way to assess things, but it’s all you’ve got.” (John McPhee, Draft No. 4)

This struck me as some of the best decision-making/life advice I have ever heard.

Robert Macfarlane on ‘The Living Mountain’

Just listen to this little 4 minute clip. I bought the book.

đź—’ Note to get out into the hills sometime soon. Look for a walking club maybe?

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Misc

Some of my favorite things from 2020

Collage of artwork from the last year.

Here is a short list of things I shared this year that I wanted to reshare as we roll into 2021, as well as some thoughts on improvements (for me, our life, this blog, etc) next year. This wasn’t intended as any sort of annual review, but there are shades of that kind of thing here. 🤔 Good riddance 2020 and on to the next!

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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#105)

Sam holding a hand warmer while sitting on my shoulders.
What Sam learned last week: the joy of hand warmers.

Quote I enjoyed:

The most treasured gifts in the world are kind words spontaneously tendered.

Jim Collins

Book excerpt that I was thinking about:

“To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to “be happy.” But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.” Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.” (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)

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Kids Moving to Scotland

Winter rhythm

Dirt road next to a field on a clear sunny day.
I'll take icy and clear over wet and dark any day.

Winter in Scotland this year has been especially cold, and we’ve been adapting our routine as the season has gone on and we trudge through the darkest months of the year.

Routines change with the seasons and we’ve found a good groove in the month of December and the beginning of January. On the days where none of us has work obligations or otherwise appointments to attend to (rare these days anyway), the day has naturally become divided into the following phases:

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Misc

Butter your waffles

Drawing of Vivian giving two thumbs up for her plate of waffles.

New year, new waffle iron. This was something I was asking for for a long time and I finally got one for Christmas. My friend Chris used to make these yeasted waffles when we were younger and I couldn’t wait to make them for the kids and see whether they were as good as I remembered. It wouldn’t be the same without Ms Mary Jane or Ms Buttersworth at the breakfast table, but surely I could try.

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