The Happy for Now List #6

A bookish widget, 80s-villain hands, doctor's orders, and recognizing joy-stealers

Hello! It’s time for this week’s edition of the Happy for Now list! If you’re new here, this is just a weekly list of the things that are making me happy for now. I think now more than ever, it’s important to pay attention to the little things that can give us a boost.

“It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” —Lucille Ball

Recognizing Joy-Stealers

Speaking of recognizing what makes you happy, I think it’s also important to be aware of what steals your joy. On Friday, I announced that I was turning on the paid tier of this newsletter. A number of you signed up immediately—and I’m immensely grateful for that!

But I realized very quickly that it was a joy-stealing move for me. I have truly enjoyed writing more newsletters over the past two months. I’ve loved chatting in the comments and sharing books, movies, and other things with y’all. That is the reward of all this. The community of it.

Once I turned on the paid feature, I found myself checking the numbers and my email for notifications to see how many people had upgraded. And ugh, yeah, that is not what I want this process to feel like. It shifted into that same impulse that social media stirs up—checking, checking, checking. Measuring.

One of the reasons I am leaning into my newsletter more is to extract myself from as much social media as I can. I don’t want recreate that vibe here. I need a joyous corner on the internet, dammit! 🙃

So, where does that leave things? Well, I’ve turned off the paid option (and refunded anyone who’d signed up.) All posts going forward will be free and will go to everyone. I will continue to send out 2-3 posts a week and hopefully, much fun will be had by all.

(Also, I’m not saying someone charging for a newsletter is a bad move. I’m a paid subscriber of many Substacks and think they’re worth it. This is just a personal decision for me because of what it was triggering in my own behavior.)

A Bookish iPhone Widget Screen

This may be one of those things everyone already knows and I’m just finding out, but just in case, did you know that you can customize your iPhone widget screen to have all your in-progress ebooks and audiobooks ready to go with a touch?

I think I heard this tip on the Currently Reading podcast, but it’s really easy to do. Just swipe right on your phone to get to the widget screen, then long press to get the edit button to come up, and then add all of your ebook, library, podcast, and audiobook apps. They will automatically display your latest reads/listens, and you can start them straight from that screen.

On mine, I’ve added my podcast app (Overcast), my library’s Libby app, the Libro.fm audiobook app, Audible, Kindle, and then Spotify (which also has audiobooks now.)

I love seeing all my in-progress stuff in one spot!

I want to be able to open jars again

I’m convinced that manufacturers are making jars harder to open these days. Even my 6’2” son with his monster-sized hands couldn’t get a jar of salsa open the other day. However, it may also possibly, maybe be coming up for me because I am getting older and my grip has weakened.

This is apparently a super important issue.

“Researchers call grip strength an ‘indispensable biomarker for older adults.’ In other words, the strength you hold in your hands, wrists and forearms says a lot about how healthy you are. It’s also an indication of your risk for injury, mental health conditions and more.” —What Your Grip Strength Means for Your Overall Health, Cleveland Health

So, yeah. Who knew?

This made me want to work on it even more. There are a number of exercises you can do like squeezing a tennis ball, but I ended up ordering a hand grip trainer from Target (above).

I like it because it’s easy to use while I’m sitting at my desk and it can almost act like a fidget tool. It also makes me feel like a 1980s movie villain. I feel like Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid would definitely be walking around squeezing one of these to look intimidating. Now I’m going to stare down those jars and give them my “don’t mess with me” look.

Fresh turkey instead of deli turkey

This actually is a doctor’s orders type thing too. I have tried to casually ignore the concerns about deli meat over the last few years. I generally eat healthy, so I didn’t think this was something I needed to focus on. However, colon cancer runs in my family, and when I got a colonoscopy a while back, I asked my doc if there was anything I could do (in addition to regular colonoscopies) to lower my risk and she said “ditch deli cuts, cured meats, and processed meats.”

Sigh. Once I stopped pouting about it, I looked into options and found this:

Y’all, I didn’t even know turkey tenderloins existed, lol. I thought if I wanted fresh turkey I’d have to buy a whole turkey breast or something (which is a commitment because they’re giant.) But no, you can get tenderloins! They aren’t huge and two come in a pack, which will keep you in deli meat for a week. The price varies from $8-10 a pack and gets you 1.5 lbs of meat.

It’s the simplest process. I put them in a baking dish, drizzle with a little olive oil, season it with Montreal Steak Seasoning (salt and pepper would be fine too), and then I pop them in a 325 degree oven until they hit an internal temp of 165. Once it comes out, I let them rest for 10-15 minutes and then slice and store.

The turkey is so good! It comes out juicy and tender (turns out tenderloin isn’t just a clever name) and is a thousand times tastier than packaged deli turkey. It doesn’t look juicy in the above photo because that was after it had been refrigerated, but trust me. My son is now hooked on it for his school lunches too.

So, health reasons aside, if you just want delicious turkey sandwiches, give it a try!

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Alright, that’s all I have for you this week. I hope you have a great week and find a little joy where you can.

What little thing made you happy this week?