Monday Musings (April 24, 2023)
Now that I’ve started writing again, I’m excited to start weekly summary posts (really, a prime function of newsletters). Throughout the years of thinking about writing, I’ve always felt this would be a good avenue for getting out my thoughts on various topics without having to dedicate an entire post to something that doesn’t merit one.
I’ll always open with some general thoughts on a single topic and then some scattered thoughts on a variety of topics. If you enjoy this, let me know! If you have suggestions or feedback, please share it with me as well.
Top Of Mind
Last week was a bit of a rollercoaster. If you haven’t seen my last post, I was laid off from my job at Meta. The axe fell on Wednesday morning and then I caught a cold so it wasn’t a great week overall. I’ve gone through a lot of different emotions about all of this (which I wrote about in that post), but I’ve ultimately arrived at feeling grateful for my time there, the experience I gained, and the people I got to work with. I’m working on my overall plan on how to attack my days going forward, but I need to be easy on myself if I don’t quite job search, workout, eat meal prepped food, be productive around the house, play music, and write every day. I’ve created a schedule that allows for flexibility and doesn’t expect all of things on a given day, but I’d like to use my unemployed time building better habits that can stay with me when I get my next job.
Overall, I think time off will be good for me, even if job searching in this market is even more stressful than a typical job search. My network has been incredible and I’ve had a number of conversations about new roles without putting my full effort into it yet, so I’m optimistic. I had therapy today and feel good about how I’ve processed everything so far. In the past I’d jump into fight mode and hyper focus on finding a job and only finding a job, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned how to keep myself healthy and balanced which allows me to grind when I need to.
My Thoughts This Week On…
Parenting
It’s crazy how the kids will wake up at 6am on a Sunday and come into our room all energized and wanting to go downstairs when we had no plans except for our lazy Sunday. Then this morning I had to drag all the kids out of bed at 8am so they could go to school. It’s not there was a continental breakfast waiting for them that was gone at 8 or something.
We are heading into the last month of the school year and I can see all of the kids starting to burn out. I always forget how difficult the last month is. I really wish there was a year-round school schedule with 3-week breaks every season. You could break up the weeks or combine them depending on the season. It would make taking time off from work easier and eliminate all the random days off or shortened days during the school year that teachers need because they’d have dedicated time during each quarter of the year. Maybe I’m being too simplistic and there’s a reason for how most of the United States does it, but summer is really hard to plan around 5 kids.
TV & Movies
Liz (my wife) and I finished the current seasons of You and Ginny & Georgia in the last week. You season 4 was outrageous and stretched beyond plausibility but also fascinating, pulpy, and exciting. Ginny & Georgia played along many of the same lines, with terrific acting and some good representation of mental health issues. I’d recommend both shows from the beginning if you haven’t seen them.
We’ve also been tuning in weekly to Ted Lasso and that show continues to hit the exact spot that I need every week. I know there’s all this discourse about the show but I don’t care. It’s funny, it’s sentimental, and it’s interesting. I will be so sad when the season is over.
Music
Last week I saw the Tiny Desk Concert with Raye, which was absolutely stunning. It got me to dive into her excellent first album My 21st Century Blues and I listened for a week straight. Her voice is stellar and the production on the album is outstanding. She pulls from genres like dance, electronica, jazz, R&B, and pop and melds them together into a raw, emotional memoir on her life to this point and her struggles in the music industry.
Every time I drive with my youngest son, he demands that I play Fall Out Boy’s latest album, So Much [For] Stardust. While I’m starting to get tired of the songs, the album is their best since Save Rock ‘n Roll and has some full time bangers. I thought I was over this band and this album very much brought me back.
Joseph, a band I’ve loved since they burst onto the scene in 2016 with “White Flag”, is releasing a new album this week and the two singles they’ve released so far are very much on par with all the excellent music they’ve made to this point. I am very excited for this album.
Video Games
I finished my second play-through of The Last of Us: Part II. I first played that game after a very difficult time in my life in late 2020 which added to the emotional impact. Playing it now, I was struck by how jarring the violence was. I also understood the part that grief plays in the narrative a bit more. Fans of the show are in for quite a ride when this game gets adapted over the next two seasons.
I’ve started the Horizon: Forbidden West expansion “Burning Shores” and the graphics are stunning. It’s been so long since I played the game that I’m having a hard time getting back into all the mechanics, but I did play a side mission that tugged at the heart strings with the return of an old character. That was all I needed to be fully invested in the great voice acting, the sci-fi plot, and the delightful gameplay. I’ll share more when I finish it.
Health & Wellness
Meal Prep is so simple but so hard to get started. I have such a hard time starting something when there is so much out there. All these different recipes and methods overwhelm me when I really need to start with a simple 3-4 ingredient meal, make 5 of them for lunch during the week, and build on that.
Working out is the same thing. I got these new home gym machines and I am blocked on starting a routine. All I need to do is lift some weights and get on the Peloton or the Elliptical, it’s really not that complicated!
Intermittent fasting has probably come the easiest of all of these simply because it’s not doing something. So all I have to do is not eat after a certain time until another time in the morning? Okay, that I can do.
Tune in next week to see if I’ve made any progress here.
That’s quite a bit for today, I’ll talk to you all again next week!