Category Archives: Links

The “Nice” List (of Links!)

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KathyTiffany and I will be back in a couple weeks with some end-of-the-year thoughts, but in the meantime, here are some things I’ve been reading lately — on holidays, parenting, and introverting! I hope you are all finding some time for yourselves during this busy month.

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As a mom and a writer who works from home, this piece by Vanessa Hua for the Washington Post had me nodding again and again. I’ve been feeling unhappy lately about giving more time to the “life” side of my work/life balance, mainly in the form of holiday prep. It’s not just guilt — I really do feel happier when I’m writing. The whole point of having a flexible schedule is being flexible, though, so why can’t I let myself feel grateful for having that extra time? I need to find a way to embrace it, not beat myself up about it.

Along those lines, here are some tips on being kind to yourself during the holidays from The Business of Introverts. I’m personally giving myself the gift of sleep, or trying to, anyway. My brain is giving me the gift of waking up an hour before I need to. Thanks?

Raise your hand if you’re looking for ways to minimize your time in a mall this season. Yeah, me too. Lots of great ideas in this post from Parent Hacks. I am all about food gifts, experiences, and donations.

Anglophile alert: If you have been extra good this year check out Sacred Introvert’s 2015 retreat tour to the UK, which includes Glastonbury, Stonehenge, and the city of Bath, AKA some of the coolest places I’ve ever visited. The tour is designed for introverts and will include plenty of chances to set your own schedule.

Finally, I’m blocking out this afternoon for Carolyn Hax’s Hootenanny of Holiday Horrors, one of my favorite holiday traditions. You can’t get much more festive than this chat filled with holiday disasters. If you can’t join in live, read the transcript later. Warning: Then you will want to go back and read ALL the transcripts, but that’s okay because this definitely counts as downtime. Consider it my holiday gift to you.

— Kathy

Kathy’s Summer Reading List

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KathyYou know that thing where you’re running around like crazy and when you finally stop you can’t even think straight? This summer has had a lot of that. Nothing bad – we’ve taken several trips and gotten to see people we haven’t seen in ages – but it’s been a lot of switching gears. We are almost in the home stretch, and hopefully in the next week or two I’ll get back to posting more regularly. In the meantime, here are a few things that I read recently but didn’t get a chance to post about.

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Travel Tips by Introverts, for Introverts from Introvertology

Tiffany and I did a post last summer about travel, but there are lots of great points here I’d never thought of. I love the tips about how to stay anonymous. One thing I’ll add from this summer’s adventures: make sure you bring enough reading material! Doodlebug only brought one book on our most recent trip – hopefully she’s learned her lesson on that one.

 

People Prefer Electric Shocks to Being Alone with Their Thoughts from The Atlantic

The people in this study were obviously not introverts in the middle of a hectic summer! The craziest part of this to me was that the people had already had a chance to feel the shock before they were left alone – I figured some of it was just curiosity, but nope.

 

Sleep Study Shows New Moms Are Dangerously Exhausted for Months from PBS Newshour

I can certainly believe this, and I would love it studies like this led to longer maternity leaves. I also think it’s a good argument for better paternity leave policies – iDad was up just as often as I was when Doodlebug was tiny, bringing her to me so I could feed her, then changing her and putting her back in her bassinet. He also fed me yogurt at 4 a.m. and listened to my half-asleep dream ramblings about placemats. Tip: Don’t reproduce with someone who wouldn’t do that for you.

 

I’ve just fallen in love with Gemma Correll’s artwork – she is the person who made the Map of the Introvert’s Heart illustration I posted on Facebook, and she seems to have lots of other introverty themes in her work.

 

How to Maintain Your Energy During Busy Times from The Business of Introverts

Speaking of busy times! One thing that has been helping my family stay grounded this summer is our nightly reading time – we sit together and read to ourselves for about half an hour as part of Doodlebug’s bedtime routine. If things get too crazy and we have to skip it, I’m always sorry. [And if you were hoping this was about my real summer reading list… My top picks are Landline by Rainbow Rowell, the two Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith, and Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue by Tom Angleberger. And I can’t wait for Louise Penny’s next mystery, The Long Way Home.]

— Kathy

Home Again, Home Again…

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Kathy… jiggety-jog. Home again, home again with my groundhog… Despite the fact that we have zero groundhogs, Doodlebug added that line years ago and now we always say it when we get home from a trip. Our latest was to New York during spring break, preceded by four days of playdates and errands and general running around, so I’m glad to back to our regular routine. Including my internet routine — I was offline a lot more than usual, and while I wasn’t completely unplugged, I definitely didn’t have time for my normal round of blogs and those random cool things you just stumble upon. Now that I’m caught up, I thought I’d share some of the good stuff I missed. Call it the first Introverted Mom link roundup.

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  • First of all, this piece on tech timeouts from Fit Bottomed Mamas! How… timely. (Sorry.) I have a thing about posting on Facebook when it’s clear I’m away from home — I’m always paranoid that our house will get robbed. Sooo, I wasn’t posting every little thing about our trip as we went, and even that small pull-back made a difference. I checked in on my friends from time to time, but it was nice not to have that constant “Did anybody like my post?!?!” brain nudge. Something to remember.

I’m not sure I agree that most introverts are bad at interacting with people, but I definitely liked the reminder that being yourself in social situations can lead to those real, meaningful relationships introverts enjoy so much. The app that can pull all of a person’s social media posts off the web for you… uh, that’s just kinda creepy.

GIFs ahoy! (Is that a hedgehog floating in a bathtub? Cuteness overload.) A list of what introversion is not, plus some good tips, especially the part about not spending too much time on the internet. Ahem.

I almost didn’t include this one, since I didn’t think it had much to do with being an introvert. But then I decided it absolutely does. The more stuff I have, the more stuff I have to wrangle. That takes time away from things I’d rather be doing — hanging out with iDad and Doodlebug, writing, eating Nutella while watching the Daily Show…Dealing with stuff is stealing my downtime. Yard sale season is almost here, which will help with things we’ve already accumulated, but I want to be much more conscious of what we bring in to the house in the first place. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the posts in this series.

— Kathy