August Worthy Stuff

Susan Edition

Hello, Friends!

My turn to share a few of the things adding goodness to my life this month. I hope wherever you are on the summer-waning-other-stuff-starting continuum, August finds you well and happy!

What could be better than this? We’ve got a first birthday coming up…

…with a strawberry-themed party! STOP it. It’s just too much cuteness.

I’m back in MN, greedily gobbling up grandma time but also giving the calendar the side-eye because summer’s on borrowed time. I’m waiting for the day (due this week, so far obscured by Canadian wildfire smoke) when the light shows up with a new, fragile edge. Second-half August light is light that knows it shouldn’t get too comfortable in these parts. Right now sunset is still holding at 8:25 pm, but we’ll be doing the lunch dishes while admiring the sunset out the kitchen window before long. No thank you! So for as long as this lasts, I intend to soak in it.

My summer’s been a bit crazy—let’s be honest, all of 2025 has so far! For the world, definitely, but in my personal world too.

Too much travel, WAAAY too many bad headlines, too many medical adventures, too much aging-parent worry … but also so many books signed (thank you!), and more love than I can hold! It’s all a mixed bag, isn’t it?

I’ve been reading this book that Cynthia recommended in her last Worthy Stuff, and I want to add my own recommendation! There’ve been some genuinely new ideas in it that I can’t stop talking to everyone about. Which is, imo, the best kind of book.

When I was a kid, I loved to stop at the University Pharmacy for penny candy. This was back in the day when you could put your hand right in the box of Swedish fish that everyone else’s bare hand also went in, and grab a grubby pawful, plus a couple of cellophane tubes of sixlets and a green apple jolly rancher, and they’d bag up that booty in a sweet little brown sack and charge you a dime. Ten cents could last you the whole walk home! This summer has felt just like that little bag, except this time the cashier also slipped a nasty coconut chick-o-stick in there and I keep taking bites without realizing it.

Life spins on, and as my mother (and ancient Persian Sufi poets) and OK Go always say, this too shall pass.

The brittle August light reminds me that actually, it’s all passing too fast. Even the coconut bits.