Jaysus is it March already?
My dog Atticus is me looking at the calendar like “Did someone say summer?”
We are but mere days out from March. Thank goodness for the short, sweet breath that is February, and Spring is here to us all. I know in the US it’s sometime around the end of the month but one can’t help but look at the awakening of the slumbering natural world around us and ascertain that we are finally shaking off the dusty dirt of our buried winter selves and ready to weakly pull the sunbeams into our shrivelled, pale limbs. Unfortunately, I just saw daylight savings is coming what is this madness yet again? Didn’t that just happen? I am going to need someone to explain it to me again what exactly is happening and will my child stop sleeping again? We did only just recover from the previous saving of the day like two weeks ago so…….In other news, it’s time for another fun weekly roundup of doodads and thingymabobs that piqued my interest. Hopefully it piques yours, or anyone’s really I would give my left pinkie toe for some reader engagement. (That’s the weird toe I’ll have you know)
Reads
In light of the never ending presence of bad news on our everything we consume all the time I stumbled across a story of absurdly hopeful progress that just felt worth drawing attention to.
Parents say son with autism was nonverbal until trying an off-label drug that treats chemo side effects on CBS News.
Oh man I went wild on this story what a lovely and exciting thing to read. Often, here in America, it feels like the medical industry is all about groundbreaking research and cures etc only in ways that mean monetary gain. So all research and development targets new medicines because that way they can patent it and profit off of it in perpetuity. Money is the end goal. I never really thought about all the old medicines that already exist that might be put to use in treating other conditions we had never thought of. What a brilliant idea, one that is a hard sell because since a lot of these older medicines have generic off label versions that work for cheap there is really very little profit to be made. Every Cure is the incredible nonprofit who are using A.I as a powerful tool to scour already existing medications and figure out how they can be used to treat existing diseseas.
Here is another good article I enjoyed, The Stubborn Art of Turning Suffering into Strength: Václav Havel’s Extraordinary Letters from Prison by Maria Popova, The Marginalian. Now I am always careful of being ‘that guy’ who offers a platitude to someone in the face of unreasonable pain. I can’t count how many times I have been told I am resilient for all I have been through and how I can ‘use my pain for a purpose’. I hate it. Yet, this story of Havel is incredible and I think what with all of the unrelenting struggles many of us are going through there is some wisdom to be gained from reading this perspective. Without trying to bypass the shit and the pain of it all, we can find a way to stubbornly refuse to give in.
“The cruel kindness of life is that our sturdiest fulcrum of transformation is the devastation of our hopes and wishes — the losses, the heartbreaks, the diagnoses that shatter the template of the self, leaving us to reconstitute a new way of being from the rubble. ”
Bants
So I am training for an itty bitty long-distance run in April. I have never run this far before and I have a struggle, one of the many I have experienced with this sudden leap in distance moving forward on my feet. I am torn between listening to music and podcasts while running or leaving the earphones out and simply listening to the sounds of sweet nature/my heavy breaths as my lungs break down for hours on end. Listening to something is distracting which is nice but then I can’t regulate said breathing and I sound like a wheezing zombie breathing in the dust of his coffin being buried. So I am stuck trying to figure that out. I did listen to this podcast that was very interesting on my last run and a great one to pass the time. Since I have a daughter human I am really concerned about raising her in a way that allows her to thrive and define her life on her own terms. If I had a son I would still find this information really relevant.
Speaking of my child, welcome to a glimpse into our daily lives with a toddler who has just figured out how to run and jump but not how to stop herself from crashing into the giant Alaskan malamute standing in the centre of the room trying to avoid her.
Ok I realise my content is very toddler-parent heavy this week and I apologise but we are just entering a really funny stage in life with our little and there is so much good humour out there. It helps me too when I am struggling with all the changes to see that others face the same things and have found ways to laugh about it.
Pray for us dear ones.
Eats
Ah my favourite thing fooooood. Just a quick recipe share here today as I honestly have not had the time to do much cooking other than basics to tide us over because I have been just working my little whiskers off. SInce we have had a dash of lovely weather, feels like summa’ over here, this dish is perfect because it’s flavourful, filling and light.
BBQ Salmon Bowls with Mango Avocado Salsa
The mango salsa is divine, no shame at all in buying pre-chopped mango I use canned sweet corn so sue me I guess I don’t care it makes life a billion times easier. Also I never ever do the fresh salmon plank thing a lot of recipes recommend. I use frozen salmon fillets and just defrost them in running water. I am not about that life of the buying fresh (overpriced) fish on the day of. Also, on that money saving train. I got my rice cooker at Aldi for $8. It does one full cup of rice and I love her, the little engine that could. If you see it in Aldi I recommend snapping it up none of this $80 instant pot pressure cooker rice 5 in 1 blah needed. Or you can do the rice the old fashioned way on the stove. Whatever you fancy.