Fun February Finds

my monthly notes and noodlings

Howdy fellow learn-it-all 👋 Greetings from Boca Raton, Florida ☀️ Now, let’s dive into letter 305 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

❓Question to think about

What happened in February?

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Below you’ll see a bunch of prompts I answered for my monthly reflection. If you want to use the eight prompts yourself, here they are:

1. What am I grateful for today?

2. What questions am I sitting with?

3. What went well?

4. What could’ve gone better?

5. What did I learn?

6. What surprised me?

7. What did I write (create)?

8. What brainfood do I consume?

🤔 Reflecting

❤️ Eight things I’m grateful for today

1. avocado bagels

2. Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups

3. The sensation of floating

4. Watching egrets hunt for lunch with a neck that jiggles and sand pipers scurrying up and down the shore

5. Pants with pockets.

6. The soothing effects of aloe Vera and cold showers on my sunburnt belly

7. Laughing at the zoomed-in scene of a slug at the cinema with my sister and cousin while watching Wuthering Heights, and the deep belly laugh

8. Rereading How to Live and noticing completely different chapters I glossed over years ago are now resonating deeply. Like mastering a craft and thinking long-term.

❓ 12 Questions I’m sitting with

1. How can I set goals without creating pressure and making it anti-fun?

2. How can I use hypnosis to program a more positive mind?

3. How can I be less of a people-pleaser but stay agreeable?

4. How much do I want to be the woman IN the arena versus the woman noticing the arena?

5. What would I be doing if I weren’t influenced by what I like and dislike?

6. How can I keep showing up in practices that matter and stay detached enough to let things unfold?

7. How much is luck versus wise decision making and how do I make peace with not knowing?

8. What does it mean to offer love only in ways that feel healthy to me?

9. How do I develop taste and a specific flavor for how to live without that becoming another form of control?

10. Why do I feel guilty when the people who hurt me rarely feel guilty at all?

11. How can I have a traveler’s freshness and ease of connection even when I’m not traveling?

12. How do I keep the inspiration ball rolling even when I can’t see where it’s landing?

✅ What went well

1. 12 min in a cold plunge. My body adapts beautifully to discomfort. The mind screams before you get in and goes quiet once you’re there. Turns out 12 minutes is not only doable, it’s something to look forward to.

2. First positive news in three months that my midspine curve is finally coming back. After months of adjustments and not knowing if the work was doing anything, my doc finally had something to celebrate. The curve is returning. My body is responding. It was a small moment that felt enormous.

3. Feb 14–16: no computer and it felt genuinely good. Sure, my birthday blog went out a little later than planned and my 1k words morning ritual got skipped. But being detached from my Mac for a few days felt like coming up for air. A good reminder that the writing, job search, and housing search will be there when I return, and the world doesn’t fall apart when I step away.

4. Took proactive steps toward boundaries with work. Pushed back on contract terms and asked hard questions about hourly caps. Advocated for myself in a negotiation even when it felt uncomfortable.

5. Turned 30 and actually showed up for it. Walked 30km. Swam 3,000 yards. Organized a brunch with friends. Didn’t coast through the milestone or let the existential dread swallow me. I chose movement and people over numbing out.

6. The return of swimming. It was only three times but it felt smooth like butter. This movement is like meditation. It works every time and I keep forgetting that until I’m back in it.

7. Petsitting Paisley, Polo, Twinkie, Smudgey, and Hummer. They are kind of a nuisance and my sleep definitely took a hit. But they are also the best thing to wake up to in the morning. There’s something grounding about being needed by creatures who don’t care about your productivity.

   

   

   

8. Movie nights & massage exchanges. So many DVDs. These were consumed as part of my nightly routine with my parents to eat dinner, walk the dogs, and exchange massages during a movie. I really enjoyed the DVD cabinet each night. Maybe a little too much. I’m planning a movie hiatus as winter comes to a close. According to my Letterboxd reviews, this was my watchlist: Solo Mio, Hitch, You’ve Got Mail, Letters to Juliet, The Karate Kid trilogy, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Pretty Woman, Sky High, The 13th Warrior, Mystic Pizza, Sabrina, 13 Going on 30, Wuthering Heights, About Last Night

9. GALentines reminded me that my travels inspire the people around me. My cousin invited me over to make pizza on Valentine’s Day. While sitting next to the flaming firepalce, her 24-year-old friends Mary, Julia, and Libby reflected back on how my exploration of the world since leaving Chicago six years ago and my pursuit to experience different cultures inspires them to also walk unconventional paths. Apart from these letters, I’ve been living quietly, not too loud or showy in a consumerist box-checking type of tourist travel. It was refreshing to share my thoughts on slow travel and how you can become inventive with finding work to enable dreams. Makes me teary-eyed to reflect on my inventive nature to make my dreams come true, and know it’s possible for others as well if they will it into existence.

10. Gifting my creations delights me so much. I started writing letters more this month and it’s been making me tap into my inner child to inscribe my books and write long, meandering thoughts to people on how I’m grateful they’re in my orbit and doodling in my favorite colors.

❌ What could’ve gone better?

1. Stress, sun and fatigue caught up with me and I got a stye

2. Pre-interview stress spiraling into anger and frustration

3. Panicky AM planning sessions and intrusive thoughts

4. Tension headaches while I’m trying to assert myself

5. Actually moving my body more. I’ve been hibernating like I was a year ago, but that was after a motorbike spill and dogs attacking me

📚 What did I learn?

1. Removing my mattress topper and switching to a non-foam pillow genuinely improves my sleep. A firmer surface and a pillow that molds to my neck rather than clumping under it incentivizes back sleeping. Small changes, real results.

2. I won’t “willy nilly” give someone my trust anymore. I’m getting more selective about who I let affect me.

3. Hot pads on the head or neck is brilliant during spasm. Especially tension headaches.

4. Of the AI tools I’ve tinkered with, Claude has been my favorite.

5. The questions you ask determines the answer you find. Asking "what is going well?" quietly reorients the whole day. It calibrates what I am attentive to.

🤯 What surprised me?

1. When a friend told me my 12-hour walk years ago was the sole reason he did his own. Mid-stride, my waterworks streamed down. I wrote about it in The ripples you forgot you made. I’ll never actually know what is resonating with whom and when. I’m going to keep showing up and keep with my rituals and leaning into what’s courageous.

2. When my friend who just bought a house told me advice: “Your people will make the good even better and the bad okay.”

3. The reinforcing revelation about how much easier it is to make friends in a city when they’re more open to connecting or while traveling.

4. My hairdresser who is getting a masters in philosophy exposing me to the word “Axiology” which is the study of values and told me that “Science is a search for the truth, philosophy is an activity of making sense.”

5. People help me remember things. My sister remembers food more, while I remember people or conversations.

✍️ What else did I write in February?

• Jan 30: The first month observed

• Feb 5: a letter to work (on the plane ride back to Detroit from NYC)

• Feb 6: The most consistent thing in my life

• Feb 13: The ripples you forgot you made

• Feb 15: a letter I wrote to my future self on the day she turns 31yo

• Feb 19: Dear Younger Me

• Feb 26: Don’t be dumber than a hamster

Some super simple habits I’m tracking in March are:

• 15 minutes a day of reading a physical book

• 10k steps from (beach) walks daily

• 5 minutes of zazen meditation a day (for my batshit faulty walnut lately)

• 3 scary emails a week as my challenge for Carly Valancy’s Reach Out Party mastermind!

• 5 swims per week(target 5x a week, floating in ocean counts)

now onto…

🧠Brainfood I consumed

📖Reading an article

David Whyte's piece rattled my bones a bit when I thought about how to answer these ten questions myself and what my own timeless questions might be. Here’s the full essay.

The three parts that resonate the most with me are:

1. Do I know how to have a real conversation?

2. What can I be wholehearted about?

3. Can I live a courageous life?

I found this summary to synthesize it:

📖Reading a book

The House In the Cerulean Sea by TJ Kline

A wonderful birthday present from a friend. I’ve never read a book quite like this in a humorous fantasy novel and it’s been a fun beach read. The way that Kline makes me feel grounded and actually see the characters is superb. Here’s a snippet from page 29:

Calliope, a thing of evil, sat on the edge of his bed, black tail twitching as she watched him with bright green eyes. She started purring. In most cats, it would be a soothing sound. In Calliope, it indicated devious plotting involving nefarious deeds.

🎬 Watching

Younger (on Netflix)

It’s been a guilty pleasure how much I’ve surprised myself with seeing the single New Jersey mom, Liza Miller, navigate the working world after her leave of absence to raise her daughter. The odd thing is I’ve already watched it ~three years ago, but things are hitting differently. I’m now 30 and it’s been 11 months since I had my normal 8 to 5 job finger printing and scanning my eyeballs as an English teacher in Thailand. I’m finding solace in how Liza navigates her impostor and not knowing things on the job or in Manhattan. And how she doesn’t allow the feeling of being older than her peers to hold her back. And how she’s crystal clear about lying about her age is worth it to be able to pay for her daughter’s college tuition. She has such conviction over what matters that the lack of honesty feels almost noble.

🎧Listening to a Podcast

Mel Robbins interviewed behavioral scientist Logan Ury on her podcast on dating in the modern world. The episode is called “What it Takes to Find & Keep True Love: The Best Advice No One Ever Told You”.

My favorite part was the “great date eight” of questions to ask yourself and train your brain to a experiential mindset for what to notice instead of some checklist:

1. What side of me did the

2. How did my body feel during the date? (stiff, relaxed or somewhere in between?)

3. Do I feel energized or de-energized

4. Is there something about them that I’m curious about? [What is it?]

5. Did they make me laugh?

6. Did I feel heard?

7. Did I feel attractive in their presence?

8. Did I feel captivated, bored, or something in between?

Here’s a Youtube short on the clip.

🔍Word to define

Kooky

(adj.) strange or eccentric: a cast of crazy and kooky characters | I like kooky foreign films

Being “kooky” means having an endearingly eccentric, quirky, or offbeat personality — someone who thinks and acts in unconventional ways that are charming rather than off-putting. It’s whimsy with a little weirdness, originality without trying too hard.

What kookiness looks like: It’s the person who has an unexpected collection of vintage salt shakers, who laughs at their own jokes before finishing them, who wears mismatched socks on purpose and has a whole philosophy about it. Kooky people tend to notice things others miss, make unusual connections between ideas, and aren’t particularly bothered by what’s “normal.”

The key thing is that kookiness is not performed. It emerges when you stop performing normalcy. It’s less about adding something and more about dropping the self-consciousness that keeps your natural strangeness under wraps.

Five ways to cultivate it:

1. Follow your genuine interests without apology. Kookiness is often just authentic enthusiasm that most people suppress. If you’re fascinated by the history of fonts, Victorian mourning customs, or competitive dog grooming — lean into it. Let yourself be a little obsessed.

2. Stop editing yourself so aggressively. A lot of kooky impulses get filtered out before they reach the surface. Say the odd thought. Make the unexpected joke. Wear the thing you like even if it’s a little much.

3. Collect experiences and objects that delight you, not ones that look good. Kooky people tend to curate their lives around genuine pleasure and curiosity rather than taste-signaling.

4. Be playful with the mundane. Give your houseplants names. Have an opinion about which type of cloud is underrated. Find the absurdity in everyday situations and voice it.

5. Read and watch widely and weirdly. Kooky sensibilities are often fed by unusual inputs — obscure films, niche history, strange art. The more eclectic your references, the more unexpected your perspective.

I’m looking to make March even more kooky!!

🌟Quote to inspire

“Be who you needed when you were younger.” — T.S Elliot

📸Photos of the month of February

🙏Shoutouts

• To my sister for making Florida such a delightful time. Ate yummy foods from TJs and rested and just laid around with each other like we used to as girls and saw the freckles start to pop out again.

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I am grateful you chose to fill part of your day here.

If something in this letter resonated, press the ❤️ , leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetJL@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.

Keep on learning 😁

Tot snel 🌺 🌺

Toodles :)

Jen

P.S. #1 - I coach writers. I guide them to build a writing routine and have fun hitting “publish.” Let’s chat.

P.S. #2 - I wrote a book. Letters to My Life is my favorite way to share my writing with you (and it keeps your screen-time stats down). Grab your copy here.

P.S. #3 - 📝 some noteworthy notes