V-Minus Eight
Issue 18, 17, 16, 15, 14...
Hello! Let’s go…
V-Day is eight days away. Put down this newsletter and take care of business. Reservations, chocolates, gifts, sorries for yourself, poems, tears. You pick. Love waits for no one.
Do you know who else waits for no one? My dad. If you travel with him (and I’m not sure why you would), you’ll be left in the dust. Grab coffee 10 minutes prior to boarding and he’ll tell the pilot to leave without you. Check your bags—forget it, you’re dead to him.
“Meet at the lobby at noon,” he’ll say. When you arrive at 11:59 am, he’s pacing and you’re clocked as late.
This is the downside. The upsides are innumerable!
This story has almost no relevance and I fear I’ve wasted your time. However, when I wrote “Love waits for no one,” immediately I thought of traveling with my dad. And because I’m training myself to trust myself creatively, I followed the thought.
Also, we do to others what’s been done to us and I’ve been without internet for six days (read: I’m not altogether normal).
This dining table scene imitates my week. Feel deeply sorry for me.
Better Than Brown Butter
Name something better than brown butter.
You can’t.
I know what you’re thinking, “I don’t cook with butter. I’m healthy. I watch my weight.”
Good for you. Now, stop.
At 45, I discovered brown butter is one of the seven wonders of the world.
For dinner, grab yourself ravioli of the porcini mushroom or butternut squash varietal, brown some butter, and your life will change.
Dough-Dough Family
I finally got my Ooni! I’ve had my eye on her for a while.
This oven makes pizzas better than any 12” you’d spend $30 on, which is all too easy where I live. While the oven isn’t inexpensive, turns out, pizzas are when you make them from scratch—which we do.
The dough is water, salt, and flour (but does take at least three hours to rise). The sauce is tomatoes, salt, and olive oil, and the rest is cheese and whatever else floats your boat.
At 950 degrees, the pizzas cook in 90 seconds.
It’s a full-on family affair. I spruced up the backyard, put up lights, a heat lamp, and we gorged ourselves on pizza Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. We need a break.
Owen says cooking pizza at home is calorie-free. Thank god!
With a mere 2565 5-star reviews, she’s spendy but worth every penny! And yes, you can get one used (or new in my case) on Facebook Marketplace.
We have the Koda 16. Send me your pizza oven questions. I’ve done my research.
You Say Tomato, I Say
You better believe this baby came home with me.
The Cost of Doing Business
Why no internet for six days?
Sometimes when you’re having your photo taken, you move a VERY large potted plant, scrape the floor, and kink a cable. At least, that’s what the outage timing and diagnostics point to.
After six days of hovering around my iPhone’s hotspot, a dozen phone calls, whiny kids, a whiny mom, and a tech visit from AT&T, we have internet as of 12 pm today.
And, here’s one of the headshots taken by my friend Willow. She can make you look good, too.
Inbox Hero
Do you want zero emails in your inbox? I didn’t care much until I did this and now I’m hooked. If you use Gmail, do this. If you don’t, well, you’re dead to me.
Follow along. I’ll teach you to search, label, archive, and if all goes well, end up with nothing in your inbox. Let’s start.
Enter in: label:inbox into the Gmail search bar.
In the date tab, where it says Any time click custom range and enter whatever year you’d like to archive. In this case, 2021.
Click Apply and all emails in that range will load. Select all [x number] conversations to highlight them all. Otherwise, it will load about 25 at a time and you could be here all day.
With all messages highlighted, click the label button and create a new label. For example *Inbox 2021 (the asterisk ensures the label will rise to the top).
Click apply.
Now those are labeled. Assuming they’re still highlighted, click the archive button.
Alternately, click the label *Inbox 2021, select all, and click the archive button.
Voila! Those emails are no longer in your inbox. They are now archived under the *Inbox 2021 label.
You can do this for as many years or labels as you want. I created a label for 2021, 2022, and Inbox old for anything out of that range.
Inbox zero! I sure hope this helps.
Now, when emails come in, I take care of them immediately (unsubscribe!) because I’m not so overwhelmed.
BTW don’t you dare use this against me and unsubscribe to this to this nameless newsletter. I’m watching you 👀.
Super Dad
I’ll bookend this letter with another note about my dad. He has a MAJOR Super Bowl spot airing during, well, the Super Bowl. He worked hard on this one!
I get asked a lot, “Does your dad still work?” The answer is, and always will be, YES! 🏈
✍️ As always, you can hire me to write for you. If you’re interested, please fill out this brief form.
Inbox to zero ftw! Life saver.
I LOVE the newsletters SO much and your photo is gorgeous! Totally worth 6 days of no internet.