Three excellent things
for a winter Friday
A brief post today to share three things we’ve recently enjoyed and think you might like too:
1. First, one of our favorite gifts this year came from our dear friend Cat—this amazing portable microscope! It has a small stand and slides you can prepare for at-home looking, but we like it best for carrying with us on hikes (if I had an elementary or middle school classroom, I would definitely get a few of these). It magnifies up to forty times, and has been great for seeing the life that is around all us—milkweed pods, seeds, ferns, and mosses—even in winter. Harriet and I also love using it while Bea bikes—our other big enthusiasm, which I’m sure Bea will write about soon.
I can’t wait to look at tadpoles with this microscope!
2. Second, Harriet brought home a lovely little votive that she made at school.
After seeing how Icelanders get through the long winter with lots of candlelight (shopkeepers put glass jars filled with pillar candles outside of their stores, and apparently Candle Beggar is the most popular Yule Lad), I’ve been very into tea lights and candles in the dark of winter. This one looks so festive on the table or windowsill! It’s also a nice way of reusing those small jars that collect around the house, and maybe some tissue leftover from gift bags.
To make one, get a glass jar (like a yogurt jar), a paintbrush, and some colorful tissue scraps and/or thin paper. Cut your tissue into squares. Paste them onto the jar with thinned-out glue or Mod Podge, overlapping a little for a stained-glass effect. Pop your tea light inside and voilà!
3. Finally, I want to recommend Taylor Sykes’s wonderful new novella, Many Small Disasters. Ideal for reading in a single sitting, novellas make perfect wintertime reading, and if you want to visit New York City (or your twenties) from the comfort of your cozy reading chair, Many Small Disasters will delight and sustain you. It’s also hilarious, tragic, and razor-sharp. Here’s the jacket copy:
Rebecca is an aspiring but uninspired writer living in Brooklyn. Struggling with creative stagnancy and the lingering loss of an old relationship, Rebecca drifts through the fog of her day to day while watching her friend Janelle succeed and stay in love in the city. When her Crown Heights apartment is infested with bed bugs, Rebecca’s fragile psyche spirals toward breakdown, and distinctions between nightmare and reality are blurred. A young woman’s reckoning with friendship, sex, art, and independence, Many Small Disasters hinges on Rebecca’s acknowledgement of past mistakes in order to reclaim control over her disastrous present.
Taylor also happens to be one of my favorite people, and it’s her birthday today. This book would make a great January pick-me-up for yourself or any friend who loves, say, Fleabag, Elena Ferrante, Sheila Heti, and Olivia Coleman—so, all your best friends? (Mamie, a copy is on the way to you!)
What’s getting you through January (and Omicron)? We’d love to hear! Bea will have some kid-book recommendations next week. Stay safe, Frog Troublers!
