For the Love of January
Your mess of a monthly round up of links and recs is back!
It’s the first round-up of the year and the first in several months following my shoulder surgery. We have quite a lot of new readers here. So, to review: at the end of each month, you get this post with things to read and listen to, a summary of this month’s posts on A Wonderful Mess, and whatever else might be worth sharing from my corner of the world. Let’s get to it.
Stuff to read
This month's book recommendation is How to Winter: Harnass Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days* by
, PhD.A blend of mindset science, original research, and cultural insights for cultivating a positive "wintertime mindset," to vanquish winter blues and find joy and comfort in dark times year-round.
Do you dread the end of Daylight Saving Time and grouch about the long, chilly season of gray skies and ice? Do you find yourself in a slump every January and February? What if there were a way to rethink this time of year? Psychologist and winter expert Kari Leibowitz's galvanizing HOW TO WINTER uses mindset science to help readers embrace winter as a season to be enjoyed, not endured--and in turn, learn powerful lessons that can impact our mental wellbeing throughout the year.
I appreciated this book and how the author uses a practical and nuanced approach to changing one’s relationship with winter. In popular culture, mindset science is too often flattened into an extreme version of positive thinking without attention to context and culture. The book provides helpful insights while attending to real constraints plus the practical advice is simple and feasible.
In fact, I enjoyed this book so much that my paid subscriber essay this month featured the book and reflection on my own winter mindset.
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And more to read
How My Mental Health Benefits My ADHD Kid’s Mental Health, a guest essay by
on .My Babies are Richer Than Yours: On the Lie of the Online Tradwife by Lauren Caroll Harris on LitHub.
Let’s Abolish The Phrase “Picky Eater” by
on Romper
And speaking of reading…
If you are a parent who reads books or a parent who wants to read books (in all their different forms), I want to hear from you!
Below is a link to a brief survey about reading in parenthood. I am working on a project for the spring centered on the parental reading life. The survey will help guide the directions we go. It is anonymous and can be accessed by clicking on the button below.
Some things to listen to
I’ve been doing a lot of podcast listening lately and here are some from the last couple of months:
Here are two amazing episodes of the Psychologist Off The Clock Podcast:
- was a guest on the Tilt Parenting Podcast discussing redefining success with neurodivergent kids—this conversation is great:
Currently reading
’s new book, The Good Mother Myth*, and here she is on discussing it:This one about kid’s toys from
was so good:
This month on A Wonderful Mess
And one more thing
May I suggest adding fairy lights to bookshelves? Or anything really.
I love the fairy lights on the bookshelf! So cozy and inviting.