Power Nap #70

Nate's book reviews / Perfect athleisure dress

Oct 03, 2024

Nate’s Book Reviews

– Stephen King's Holly Gibney series: I read all six this summer: Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch, The Outsider, If It Bleeds, Holly. My favorite was The Outsider. Great plot line and twist. If you'd rather watch the HBO Mini-Series from a few years back with Jason Bateman, it too is excellent. Next favorite was Finders Keepers. This book reminded me of The Goldfinch in that in both books a kid acquires something of tremendous value (in the Goldfinch, a painting. Here, an author's unpublished manuscript to a famous trilogy.) and the kid has to figure out how to get rid of it (hopefully for $$). Of course, the Stephen King book also involves a murderer hunting him down.

– Some Trick by Helen Dewitt. Nate loves Helen Dewitt (The Last Samurai, The English Understand Wool). But could not get into this collection of short stories. Didn't finish.

– Damascus Station by David McCloskey. This was a highly touted spy thriller that takes place in Syria. It was just ok. I could see it being a better movie.

– The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis. As far as Michael Lewis books go, this one was not great. It's about the risk a society runs when it falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions. I did learn some about the National Weather Service.

– The Times by Adam Nagourney. Tells the history of the New York Times over the last 40 years. Some parts were interesting: like how the paper made editorial decisions around things like 9/11. Other parts got a bit too into the weeds for me.

– Gambler by Billy Walters. This was an auto biography by "the greatest and most controversial sports gambler ever.” Like The Times, some parts were interesting – Phil Mickelson gets a lot of print. But I didn't care as much about his personal life or upbringing, I wanted to hear about the gambling strategies lol.

– The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago. I found that our library system has a lot of art books. They are fun to flip through with the kids, and I like learning about the artist's bios. Upside: Almost all pictures! In this one, I liked Joan Miro and Visily Kandinksy.

– Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection. Another one. Some overlap with The Age of Picasso. Still enjoyable. If anyone has any tips on great art or art history books, send them my way. Here is Kandinsky's “Improvisation 30”

Molly’s Must-Haves

“Molly's Must-Haves” is brought to you by Kate's best friend Molly who is a meticulous researcher. Each week she is going to share an item, the problem it solves, and why she chose it. (Also, we know someone sent a DM with the genius new name for this section and for the life of us we cannot find the DM. If it was you, thank you so much!)

NEXT UP…THE PERFECT ATHLEISURE DRESS

PERFECT ATHLEISURE DRESS

“If you've ever had the panic moment of being in a public restroom when your toddler opens the door on you, then you KNOW the value of not having to fully disrobe to go to the bathroom! My sister (who is my source of all things fashion) told me about a high-end workout dress she loved that had pull down shorts. I knew I wanted one but didn't want to pay full price for a name brand as I was newly postpartum and didn't know how my sizing would fluctuate. After researching on Amazon and making a purchase and return, I finally landed on this one! The pull down shorts are a game changer and allow me to throw a sweatshirt on top when the temps turn cooler but still easily navigate the bathroom. It comes with a built in sports bra with removable padding and adjustable straps as well as POCKETS that I use for my phone! The only con is I can't 100% speak to how it does if you are larger chested but I imagine it would be okay if you size up!” - Molly

Q+A with Kate

Q: I've followed you for 5 years now and I am always so curious how you handle food..You buy all organic, and still have M&M's, gas station snacks for your kids, etc. how do you mentally deal with what the world is telling us and just living? Not sure if that makes sense, I try to eat clean but also want my kids to enjoy life... how did you find this balance, it seems like you have a healthy mentality with food. I want to find that balance and wonder where or how you got there.

Kate: Gosh this is such a good question! For starters, I think what we eat is important, but I do not think it is ultimate. What I mean by that is that while I focus on eating well and know it allows me to feel my best, I also think living a life I love is made up of far more than healthy food. I think a warm brownie out of the oven is sometimes just what I need to feel my best. For that reason, I have really pulled back who I follow online. Any account that makes me feel guilty or equates candy or non-organic foods with poisoning my children has been unfollowed. I am all for lunchbox inspiration, but I will not tolerate anyone making me feel that my food choices are a morality issue (Thank you Jesus for freeing us from that!!).

One large turning point for me happened a few years ago: I watched the documentary Fed Up, expecting it to make me feel spurred on to feed my children better and cut the crappy foods from their life. Instead, it made me realize my kids eat far better than I realized. They are not eating candy and drinking soda and having fast food daily. My kids ask me to get Kombucha at the grocery store for crying out loud! This helped me to realize how wildly out of hand the entire health food industry (especially preying on young moms) had become.

I can still get in my head and wondering if they should be eating better. Two of my four are so very picky. Their range of vegetables is limited (but honestly, so was mine at their age!) I guess I just look at what they (and myself) eat in the grand scheme of life. What they eat matters, but so does their mental health, and extracurriculars, and the stress and demands on my time in order to feed them, and our budget. Sheesh… it's too much to add guilt on top of all of that! On the whole, they eat well because I cook for them. Now, is one of my kids currently made up of 80% Hawaiian rolls? yes she is. Does my two year old get three m&ms in her lunch every single day? Yes she does. But she gets these three m&ms alongside frozen peas and cut up tomatoes and pretzels and a sandwich. It's utterly ridiculous to me that I would stress over those m&ms. We do buy some organic, but in no way do we eat 100% that way. Sometimes the strawberries are local, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes I wash them, other times I don't.

I will bring up food and how it makes us feel (examples: "Maybe we need to get you a better breakfast with more protein so you aren't starving at 10am," or “I wonder if your tummy hurts because you ate that third cupcake. My tummy hurts when I eat too many sweets too"), but at the end of the day, I want food to be something they understand but don't obsess over. I definitely err on the side of freedom because there was a time I obsessed over food and didn't feel free and it was awful. (I write about this in the book; comes out next year!) I don't want to go back there and don't want to set them up for that kind of stress either.

Whew, I could go on and on about this. I'll stop here for the sake of this being a newsletter and not a novel. Hope this helps!

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