The Mergenthaler Family

You've been waiting all year for this!! I have created a list of my favorite reads of 2023. I barely reached my goal of 100 books by throwing in some shorter works toward the end of the year. This year, I decreased my goal to 90 so that I wouldn't avoid longer books in order to reach an arbitrary goal. Some people wonder how I read so much. The big trick is that the bulk of my book consumption comes through audio. I only spend about 30 minutes a day in actual eyes-on-page reading. My audiobook listening has decreased lately, too, with another child getting their driver's license, and I haven't been great at getting in my daily walks for exercise. Aside from reading and rating books as I went along, I did a little personal analysis of my preferences and learned some things. About 40% of the total books I read were non-fiction, and 33% of my 5-star reads were non-fiction. What does that mean? Who knows, except, looking closer at what type of non-fiction I read does give a...

Letters From the Nest, February 16, 2024 https://lettersfromthenest.substack.com/p/tiktok-tricks “Should I clean my room first or work on my homework?” “Which shirt looks better with these pants?” “Should I buy a gym membership?” “What time should I work out?” “Do you think I should give up on this book or keep reading?” “What should I eat for lunch?” My, you are an inquisitive crew! You’re often irritated at my answer, “You decide.”  I have two excuses for not being your source of all mundane wisdom. First is decision fatigue. I already make a million decisions in my everyday life. Some of those decisions are the same as you--what to wear, what to eat, how to spend my time; but I also have more perplexing questions with more serious consequences--should I make that big purchase, how should I bring up a difficult conversation with one of you, is it time for me to pursue graduate education or keep “being curious” without a degree? The thousands of daily decisions, no matter the sign...

Our kids' birthdays happen in pairs. Brooklyn is our January outlier. Other than that, we have two in February, two in May, and two in August. The kids with winter birthdays celebrated over a few days each this year, so it felt like birthday season.  Brooklyn had fun shopping with a friend, skipping school (which ended up delayed two hours because of snow), and eating delicious treats. Sean also skipped school on his birthday. He hoped for snow for snowboarding, but the snow from the week before melted. He stayed busy playing basketball. He likes it when his family and friends come to watch his games. One of his friends joined us during a game where Sean's team was  behind at the half. She said she believed the team would turn things around and said, "If they don't, at least they have each other. It's the power of friendship." She was mostly joking, but Sean's team eventually caught up and won the game. Since his friend had to leave early, I texted her a p...