Coffee Conversations: June 2020

This month has been loaded. Let's take a bit out of our strange, "new normal" lives and have a chat.

Grab your iced coffee, because it's time for our June 2020 Coffee Conversation!

If we were getting coffee together, I'd ask how you've been. Has life gained some sort of normalcy? What are your thoughts on the state of the world right now? Are you emotionally exhausted, like me?

BLACK LIVES MATTER

First and foremost, I want to say this. BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Racism and racial injustice are alive and well in our world today. And to be honest, my privilege got the best of me up until this point; I've stayed silent before, not knowing what to add to the conversation.

But enough of that. Change doesn't happen by nestling into the status quo.

Because of that, I strongly encourage you to check out these resource hubs:

Regardless of your thoughts on the protests, at least try to investigate further and digest some of the resources above. If anything, you're broadening your horizons — is there harm in that?

Gardening - the quarantine trend of 2020

Now that we're homeowners, I got to do something that I've been eager to do for YEARS - start a garden! And not just a container-based balcony garden (which I've always struggled to keep alive).

Once we got the pool out of the way, I dug up a little plot of dirt for a garden.

I planted tomatoes (15 - I may have gone a little overboard), bell peppers, serrano peppers, radishes, carrots, zucchini, kale, buttercrunch lettuce, cantaloupe, mint, and a few other herbs.

So far, it's wild to see the changes over just a month. Tomatoes are coming in, zucchini is starting to bloom, and the bell peppers are close to flowering!

What I'm currently reading

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo — One big step in being a better ally to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)? Educating myself. My gym's book club picked this title to get us all started on this path. You can expect to see more books like this one on upcoming Coffee Conversations posts!
The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life by Joshua Becker — Frankly, this book wasn't very different from Joshua Becker's earlier book, The More of Less. The difference is that this one's a guidebook. Worth reading? Yes. As entertaining? Nope.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell — Surprisingly, this book started off very timely. And while this book was just average to me, there were certainly many takeaways that are 100% relevant to the things going on in the world today. And for that? It might be worth picking up.

Woman wearing a #rootscrew shirt from Strong Roots ND — Happy to rejoin my #RootsCrew in the gym now that Strong Roots is open again!

Shareworthy internet reads

The main reasons why the fitness industry has failed most people during the pandemic.
One happy consequence of the shutdown? 100-year-low CO2 emissions. (Daily emissions fell by 26% on average in most individual countries.)
DO more, buy less — that's one of the secretes to happiness.
Another happy lockdown story: wildlife is reclaiming parks and natural spaces.