Self-Care Necessities: Little Happy Things (+ Three of Mine This Summer)

The world can seem like a very dark place sometimes, and I know that most of us have been feeling the weight of that for a while. That's not to say the world hasn't gone through dark times before, but I think now that we're exposed to fast-flowing news and social media nonstop, it's sometimes hard to see out of it and find some light.

But finding that light and a few little happy things is often vital, especially if you're a highly empathetic person or someone prone to depression and anxiety. So first, remember to take care of yourself. Second, don't feel guilty for doing so. Third, don't let anyone shame you for not wanting to be immersed in the negative stuff all the time. Do what you can to stay informed and help the causes and people you care about, but also realize that you're no good to anyone if doing so is causing your own mental or physical health to suffer.

I've talked about this before, so I won't go too deeply into it, but I just wanted to put that reminder out there. It's one I need to give myself pretty often too. And one of the things I've found helpful for me is to find some little happy things that make me smile. This is one reason why I'm a romance reader and writer. We need to read those happy endings to remind ourselves they're possible. So first on my list is obvious.

1. Read books that make you feel good.

For me that's usually romance and YA. For you, it may be books that make you cry but are cathartic. Or it may be books that engage your mind in a mystery. You do you. But for me, there's often no better way to cheer myself up than to get lost in a great book. If you need a recommendation, I read Christina Lauren's Love and Other Words recently and loved it so hard. It just left a big ol' smile on my face. (If you like my books, I think it has a similar emotional feel to the kind of stories I write, if that helps.)

2. Upbeat music that gets you singing or dancing along

If I've had a rough day or am feeling blue, the quickest way to turn it around for me is to switch on my favorite playlist when I start cooking dinner and sing/dance alone while I cook. It's a great way to shake off the day and transition into relaxed family time. I know music is super personal, so suggesting something that everyone will like is impossible. However, I can tell you that after my family saw The Struts open for the Foo Fighters a couple of weeks ago, we have been OBSESSED. Opening bands rarely capture my attention, but The Struts grabbed mine right from the start. The lead singer is a great showman and reminds me a lot of Freddie Mercury, and the songs are just so catchy and fun to sing. I highly recommend checking out their full playlist but here's a taste. I apologize ahead of time for the earworm. Every one of their songs is an earworm. I think I've been singing "Put Your Money on Me" for a month straight.

3. Spending time with those you love with no news on TV in the background and without checking your phone.

I've talked about how we're doing device-free summer again, and that always gets us playing board games. Sometimes I'm feeling like--ugh, I so don't feel like playing a game right now--but once we start, my competitive side kicks in and before I know it, we're all having fun. We had quite a game of Upwords the other night where hubs trash talked me and then lived to regret it when I beat him badly in the game, lol. We also had a lot of fun last weekend playing ping pong. Those unplugged things sometimes take some effort to start, but they really do feel good once you're doing them.  

---

So those are just a few of mine. Not everyone's little happy things are going to be the same. A little happy thing for me is decorating my planner or writing in my reading journal. They seem like silly things but work for me. You need to find those things that let you take a deep breath and restore some balance. So go ahead, have a little fun, and don't feel bad about it. It doesn't mean you're ignoring the problems in the world. It just means that you're making sure you're not on the airplane putting everyone else's mask on first and then collapsing in the aisle because you forgot you needed to breathe too.

Slowing Down & Savoring Summer: A Few Strategies

I mentioned in my last post Device-Free Summer 2.0 that in addition to kidlet going device-free for another summer, I was looking for way to slow down our summer. Today I'm tackling that topic more in depth.

Summers for us usually mean a shift in our schedule but not a change in the hectic-ness of it. Kidlet isn't in school, but he goes to full-time day camp. Hubs and I are still working. Books still need to be written and edited and promoted. I'm used to that being our summer.

However, last week (week two of summer) when I found myself up before 7am and already yelling, "Where's the sunscreen? Where'd you put your tennis shoes? We're going to be late! Someone grab a juice box!", I realized that not only was I NOT getting any kind of slow down in summer, it almost felt more crazy--for all of us. This was in part because we'd spent seven days in New York City for a combo vacation/work trip right after school ended, so we'd hit the ground running with a very fun but busy trip. But it also felt like more that just that. I was deeply tired of this rush.

It gave me the very pointed craving to slow the hell down for summer. Summer used to have this promise to it when I was growing up--a promise of lazy days and an open schedule. Yes, it was blazing hot and humid in south Louisiana. Yes, I was an only child and often got bored. But that's also the time I got to read all the books I wanted. It's when I got to goof around at the pool with friends or run through sprinklers. It was walks down the road to the sno-ball stand (they are NOT snow cones in Louisiana) without your parents. 

My kiddo has never had that kind of summer because summers are generally scheduled events now. (Not just for me but most of the kids I know.) There are summer camps and music camps and STEM camps and sports teams/games and blah blah blah. Part of that is necessary. Even though I'm home, I'm working full-time. My job doesn't stop in the summer, and kidlet would get hella bored being home all day every day by himself with me working (and him device-free,) But I'm now wondering if we've swung too far in the other direction and maybe could use some balance. Meaning, work in some lazy, slow stuff into the busy schedule for us all. Allow time for boredom and creativity and white space.

So, though kidlet already has two weeks of pre-scheduled, already paid for speciality camps, I'm going to try him on half days instead of full for his regular summer camp and only bring him in the afternoons. I get most of my deep work/writing down in the afternoon anyway, so this should work for me. In the mornings, I can get easier work stuff done and also spend some time with him. We shall see how it goes.

But this got me to thinking more about how fast time goes. This past school year flew by, and I know summer will as well if I don't do something different. I mean, we can't actually slow down time, but I wondered if there were things we could do to savor it more and make it feel a little more languid.

This is what made me pick up the book Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam. (Yes, it has the same title as one of my books, but is a very different topic! lol) Y'all know I love a productivity book, but this one is less about productivity, and more about finding the white space in your schedule and feeling like you have "all the time in the world" instead of feeling like you're always rushed and behind.

Vaderkam had a large group of people in different professions track their time, and she used the results for this book. One interesting thing she found was that a lot of the people in very busy, high-powered positions often felt like they had more time, but it was because they'd learn strategies to make it that way. So this book goes into a number of strategies to help create that feeling of space in your schedule, of slowing down and savoring.

I won't go deeply into each of these because the book is worth a read and I did lots of underlining, but each strategy has its own chapter title and I'll touch on those.

Chapter 1: Tend Your Garden

Her basic premise here is that in order to do anything about your time, you need to know where it's actually going. We're really bad at estimating how much time we spend doing certain things. Like, you know, how often we're sucked into social media. Or how few minutes it actually takes to wash the dishes. So she recommends tracking your time by the half-hour ALL DAY for at least a week. 

"...one of the most striking findings of my survey was the gap in estimated phone checks per hour between people who felt relaxed about time and those who felt anxious" --pg. 8

I've done time-tracking on and off over the years, which is made easy with the Day Designer planner I use, and I have found it helpful. If you're honest in your tracking, you can see where your time is getting wasted or squandered. It's sobering when you realize you popped over to check twitter for a minute and wasted forty minutes instead. So this practice takes discipline, but I think it is a great exercise to kind of give you an overview.

"Time passes whether or not we think about how we are spending it. Tracking forces me to think about it." --pg. 35

Chapter 2: Make Life Memorable

This was probably my favorite chapter of the book. I have a TERRIBLE memory. Terrible, y'all. And I hate that so many memories sift through my fingers (probably because I'm moving too fast.) So this chapter was about the science of what makes a memory stick. We know that novel experiences and experiences with high emotion (good and bad) are more likely to burn into our memories. But does that mean the ordinary days are destined to just compress in our minds and give us that sense of time just flying by? Vanderkam argues that no, there are things we can do. She encourages us to record things in a journal (or in your time tracker if you're doing that). Nothing elaborate but something that will help the day stick a little better.

"One might inquire this of any twenty-four hours. Why is today different from all other days? Why should my brain bother holding on to the existence of this day as it curates the museum of my memories?" --pg. 64

I love this concept and am going to give it a try. I'm terrible at journaling, but this seems less intimidating--just marking down what was special about that day. Not only does it provide a record, but the actual act of writing it down helps your memory keep it better. And she said taking photos isn't enough because unless we curate them, it's just a big jumble of a file in our phone. (Guilty as charged!)

Chapter 3: Don't Fill Time

This one is pretty obvious but still not as easy in practice if you're not deliberate about it. The main points are: leave white space on your calendar (to account for things running over, unexpected things, thinking time, etc.) and don't say yes to things unless you really want/need to do it. (This goes back to the "if it's not a hell yes, it's a no" thing.) I liked a particular question she posed about how to decide whether to agree to something in the future. She warns that we don't think of our future selves as "us", so we assign those future versions of ourselves things present "us" really doesn't want to do because we think this imaginary future "us" will totally be into it by the time it gets here. I'm SO guilty of this. So she suggests this question:

"Would I do this tomorrow?" and "Would you be tempted? Would you try to move things around to fit this new opportunity?" --pg. 98

Also in the "don't fill time" category is the technology/phone habit. Every moment that you have to wait in a line or wait for an appointment doesn't need to be filled with social media or the web. It makes us fee busier. It erases that sense of downtime or space in your schedule (beyond being a distraction.) I also think it sucks up time we could use for those things we'd "like to do if we had more time." Like, for me, I always want more reading time. My TBR pile is out of control. But if I'm on the couch and bored and pick up my phone, I could lose half an hour just scrolling or answering email. Instead, I could pick up a book and spend that time doing something I love and want to do. When I started paying attention (and dialing back) my social media time last year, I noticed a big difference in how many books I read. (In 2016 I read 42 books, in 2017 I read 63. I've read almost 30 this year so far.)

Chapter 4: Linger

This chapter is mostly about mindfulness and learning to savor the present. One of the tactics I loved was recommended by a psychology professor she interviewed. He imagines himself in his elderly years when his health is failing and he can't do much anymore and imagines that version of himself looking back at today, feeling the wistfulness of "I wish I could be doing that again" and then knowing that, hey, that IS today for me. I'm here in this moment right now.

Chapter 5: Invest in Your Happiness

Her advice: if you can afford to, farm out hated/annoying tasks that can be done by others that are sucking up valuable time. If you can pay someone to cut your lawn and save yourself the time, do it. But this chapter also talked about "paying yourself first" with your time. Meaning, if you want to write a book, give yourself that chunk of time in your schedule first before anyone else gets your time. Even if it's just a little bit. I learned this when I took Becca Syme's Write Better Faster class--write first. Before the distractions come. Before the busy work or demands others put on your time. I don't always follow that because my creative brain kicks in more in the afternoon, but I still use it in concept because I block off that time for my writing. I give myself my most creative, productive hours and don't hand those off to other people's needs/tasks.

Chapter 6: Let It Go

Life is life, and things are going to get in the way of best laid plans. The water heater is going to break when you planned a writing day. You're going to get caught in traffic and screw up the afternoon's schedule. You're going to get a cold that knocks you on your butt. Vanderkam's advice is to learn to let it go. Just do what you can do with the time you have.

"When I tell myself, OK, you only have this time, just do what you can do, I surprise myself. I can write an article draft in a few hours. I can edit it in those ninety-minute chunks. Indeed, when I tell myself to just do what I can, even if it is only a little bit, because it is better than nothing, that something, done repeatedly, adds up." -- pg. 173 

I need this reminder often because I like to write in big three-hour blocks. If my schedule gets messed up and I only have an hour and a half, I feel like--well, why bother? But I can get a decent amount of words in an hour or whatever if I focus on it. So I need to not throw out the whole plan if things didn't go perfectly.

Chapter 7: People Are a Good Use of Time

This section focuses on spending quality time with your family and friends and colleagues because that kind of experience often expands time and makes great memories. What I particularly loved about this chapter was the idea of planning your off hours.

"Few people would show up at work at 8:00am with no idea about what they'd do until 1:00pm, and yet people will come home at 6:00pm having given no thought to what they'll do until they go to bed at 11:00pm. This is how people will claim to have no time for their hobbies, even though they're clearly awake for two hours or more after their kids go to bed...It is simply that they haven't thought about this time, and so it feels like it doesn't exist." --pg. 204

I love this idea and have seen it in action. Most of us don't want to schedule ourselves down to the second in our off time. However, last year when we did device-free summer, I had to be deliberate about what was going to fill some of kidlet's free time instead. I wanted to make it fun and to help him realize life without the devices and video games could be way cooler. So on our calendar I planned movie nights and board game night. I scheduled nights that he'd help me cook dinner. We planned for outings like putt putt or bowling. It gave the summer a feeling of adventure, and it cemented a lot of those things in my memory. I remember the movies we watched together as a family. I remember binge-watching The Goldbergs and teaching kidlet about life in the 80s. I remember an epic game of Upwords. It made simple things into events and made the summer feel special and full. I plan to do that again this summer, but I also need to take this idea and use it all through the year.

So, if you can't tell, I really enjoyed the book and got a lot from it. I'm going to take away a lot of ideas. I'm tracking my time again, and I'm going to attempt to journal. I'll report back!

How is your summer shaping up? Do you seek out a slow summer?

Roni Recommends: Two Intense But Spectacular Reads

Hey, y'all! I know I've been quiet over here because I've been buried in edits for book 3, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading in the evening. And today I have two reads, one fiction and one non-fiction, that just captured me completely and had me all...

Hook GIF from Hook GIFs

First up is a novel by an author who most of y'all most likely already know. I've had three Colleen Hoover books on my kindle for YEARS, but like so many other great books, they got shuffled to the back pages of the kindle and I forgot what I had. (This is one reason why I find myself gravitating to more print books the last few years. I can see them on my shelves.) But anyway, when Colleen so kindly blurbed The One You Can't Forget (out June 5th!) I wanted to fix the fact that I hadn't read her books yet. So of course I quickly realized once I started reading that I was a dumb, dumb lady for letting her books languish on my reader. How have I waited so long to read her??? I have since fixed that, don't worry. And it all started with me devouring this book:

About the book:

Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up
— she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan — her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. 

Buy the book

So this book took on a topic that would be very hard to do well and non-exploitively in a romance, but she completely pulls it off. I don't want to give too much information about what that issue is, but if you're concerned, check online for trigger warnings. I loved how this book showed the gray areas in a relationship/situation that is often looked at as solidly black-and-white by those looking from the outside in. It's also a well done romance on top of that so you'll still get your swoony happy feelings, too. In addition, her author note at the end really hit home for me as I could relate to her childhood experience on a personal level. So it was one of the best books I've read in a while, and that's saying something, because I've read some good ones lately. If you haven't read it, go forth and buy It Ends With Us!

---

Next up is definitely not a romance and is a difficult read but also a compelling one. If you haven't been living under a rock, you've no doubt heard that they've apprehended the person they believe is the Golden State Killer. This brought the recent book about the case, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, back to the forefront. I don't read true crime often but there are occasions where I'm compelled to know more. This was one of them because the author of the book passed away while she was writing the book, and sadly, will never get to see that her book helped this guy finally get caught. I wanted to read the story she wrote.

This book is about the crimes, the investigation, and the search for the killer, but it's also about the woman who dedicated herself so fully to writing this book. Michelle McNamara did a fantastic job taking decades of evidence and a long list of crimes and organizing the information into a compelling portrait of the time in history all this was happening, the investigators, the victims, and the monster who committed the crimes. It was written with a deft hand and in a non-sensationalizing way.

I will say that you should not make the mistake I did and read it when you're home alone at night, but it was worth the read. It's also a good example of how a book can actually change things. I truly believe that the killer was found in part because of this author raising the profile of the case. She also directly suggests in the book the very method they used to catch him.

About the book:

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it has been hailed as a modern true crime classic—one which fulfilled Michelle's dream: helping unmask the Golden State Killer.

Buy the book

---

BOOK NEWS

If you haven't heard, The Ones Who Got Away is currently on sale for $1.99!

And book 2, The One You Can't Forget, is almost here! Pre-order your copy and it will be in your hands June 5th. It's gotten three STARRED reviews, y'all! Rebecca's straight-A girl self would be super happy to know her book got all the gold stars. ;) 

Worth the Pre-Order: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

I don't normally do reviews for books that aren't out yet. However, I was able to get get my hands on an advanced copy of The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, and I'm here to tell you that this is a pre-order worthy book. (And that's saying something because I'm one who only pre-orders "sure things" AKA auto-buy authors.)

So I wasn't planning on reading this book when I did. I was in the middle of another book and wanted to finish that one first. But I made the rookie reader mistake of opening it to the first page "just to see" what the voice/tone was going to be like. Yeah, you know what happened next. The other book was forgotten and I devoured this in a day.

First, what's the story about? Here's the back cover summary:

A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

So I didn't know, based on the premise, if this was going to be a romantic comedy or an emotional book. Turns out, it was a bit of both. It had some funny moments but also had a lot of emotional teeth to the story and the characters. Stella is a fantastic heroine, and as a mom of a kiddo on the autism spectrum, I really appreciated how well she was portrayed. The author does share that she has Asperger's like her character, which did add true-to-life authenticity and an obvious respect for the character's strengths and challenges.

Michael, the hero, *fans self* was such a great character as well. Sexy but kind. Full of his own emotions and life challenges. Patient with the heroine when she needed him to be. And did I mention sexy? I really liked that he was a fully fleshed out character and that we got to meet his family, who added a lot of depth to the story.

Overall, this was a fantastic debut and I can't wait to read the next in the series. If you're looking for a feel-good book with laughs, emotions, and sexy times, go hit that pre-order button!

Oh, and hey, if you want to make it a REALLY GREAT BOX OF BOOKS on June 5th, my book also comes out the same day as The Kiss Quotient. Pre-order Rebecca's story The One You Can't Forget!

"Absolutely unputdownable, delivers all of the feels! Roni Loren is a new favorite. Loved this."—COLLEEN HOOVER, #1 New York Times bestseller

Most days Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter...
The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression would crumble if people knew her secret. She didn't deserve to be the one who got away. But nothing can change the past, so she's thrown herself into her work. She can't dwell if she never slows down. 

Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging and saves Rebecca—the attorney who helped his ex ruin him—his simple life gets complicated. 

Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than a fling. But when Rebecca's secret is put at risk, both discover they could lose everything, including what they never realized they needed: each other

She laughed and kissed him. This morning she'd melted down. But somehow this man had her laughing and turned on only a few hours later. Everything inside her felt buoyed. 

She felt...light.

She'd forgotten what that felt like.

Pre-order your copy  Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Indiebound | Books-A-Million | Google Play

*Though I got an ARC of The Kiss Quotient, I was not asked to review it and this review is my opinion.

Recs for Your Ears: Year of Yes & My So-Called Podcast

Hi, y'all! Guess what? I TURNED IN MY BOOK!!! 

This book (book 3 in The Ones Who Got Away series) was, by far, my most challenging book process-wise yet. You'd think that by my 15th full length novel, I'd have this whole writing thing figured out. Yeah, turns out, writing just gets harder as you go, lol. Processes change, different books require different skills, characters refuse to cooperate with your plan, and then there's the self-inflicted pressure of always trying to outdo yourself. So all that to say, I AM SO HAPPY to have it turned in! There will still be edits to do when my editor works her magic, but for now, I get to actually see the sun for a little while and do things like...blog!

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to share much with you guys, but I haven't stopped reading or listening to things, so I have a few recommendations for you today. This time, they're both for your ears (though one you can get in print.) I'm finding myself drawn more and more to audio because it's so darn convenient. I can listen in the car, while I'm cooking, while I'm getting ready in the morning. I love it.

For Inspiration:

First up is Shonda Rhimes' Year of Yes. I know this book has been out a while and I'm behind here, but sometimes you need to wait for a book to come into your life at just the right time for you. When Year of Yes first released, I was in a season in my life where I needed to learn to better say the word NO, not yes. I was overbooked and overextended.

However, this year, I decided that, though I still need to be selective with my yeses, I also need not say no to things just because they scare me. See, I'm an introvert, a to-the-core shy person. So, getting up in front of people, doing phone interviews, giving workshops, going to signings, etc. all make me anxious, and I want to hide in a cave. And saying no in the name of being too busy (even though I am actually busy) can sometimes be a crutch and prevents me from experiencing things I'd enjoy. Because almost inevitably, I angst about these things to a ridiculous degree beforehand, and then once I do them I'm like--oh that was fun! Which, for some reason, does not make me any less anxious the next time. *shakes fist at brain*

So when I started listening to Year of Yes and heard Shonda describe how she reacts in similar social or public situations, I was like YES. PREACH. She was absolutely speaking my language. If you've read the book, she has a story about sitting in President Obama's box at an event--her initial reaction would've been mine. So hearing how she decided to change things and how she went about it was truly inspiring to me. I HIGHLY recommend getting this one in audio. I'm sure reading the book is great, but I'm not sure it could compete with hearing Shonda read it in her own voice. It feels like she's sitting down with you for some wine and a chat. Plus, she includes the live recordings of the speeches she's given within the audio. Super ultra fantastic.

For Some Retro Fun: 

Alright, next up I have something a little different and that will probably only appeal to my fellow children of the 80s/90s. My So-Called Life was THE show when I first entered high school. It premiered in 1994 and followed angsty 15 year-old Angela Chase, played by Claire Danes, who was trying to navigate adolescence, love, parents, and high school. It also featured young Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano, who was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen. *insert teen Roni swoon*

Jordan Catalano Shade GIF from Jordancatalano GIFs

It only lasted one season, and y'all, my 14-year old self was DEVASTATED when it was canceled. I wrote letters to the network, y'all. (And I mean letters with stamps. Email wasn't a thing yet.) I may have cried a little... (shut up, I was 14 and very angsty.)

Jordan Catalano Are You Crying GIF from Jordancatalano GIFs

So, I was probably a little TOO excited when I heard that two of my favorite podcasters (who do the True Crime Obsessed podcast--another fantastic podcast if you love both true crime documentaries and humor) were going to do an episode-by-episode podcast about My So-Called Life. The hosts, Patrick Hinds and Gillian Pensavalle, are hilarious, clever, and true superfans, so although they are picking fun at certain things in the episodes, it is from a place of love. 

So if you want to have some fun and flashback to the 90s, I highly recommend it. I'm rewatching the episodes of My So-Called Life as new podcast episodes come out. (It's an interesting experiment to watch it through my adult/mom eyes now, lol.) It's streaming free on ABC.com and you can also get it on Hulu.

So, that's what I've been listening to. What's been keeping you entertained lately?