newsletter?! i hardly know her! 📰✨

Make some popcorn and collect your three beverages, it's time for a hot girl catchup.

IT’S MID-APRIL???? GENUINELY, RESPECTFULLY, WHAT THE FUCK.

Bookish content/updates are down at the end, but we’re gonna take our sweet ass time on the way there, if that’s okay with you.

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spring cleaning thoughts from your favorite yeehaw lazy-girl Virgo 🤠

I love Spring almost as much as I love Summer. I think I love it *because* it’s the lead-up to Summer. It’s nature’s flirty little striptease number before the total sexiness overload that is ✨ SUMMER ✨ on the Californian coast.

One thing about me is, if I don’t rearrange all my furniture every six months or so, I spiral into paralyzing anxiety. I need variety, I need change, and I need my physical environment to be fresh and different every once in a while. And like freaking clockwork, I started to get the ITCH towards the end of February. But I can’t just move some bookshelves and wall art around and call it a day. It’s a whole production. When I was a kid, I measured the dimensions of my bedroom and every piece of furniture and created to-scale paper models with graph paper to plan out what the next arrangement would look like. Tell me that’s not the most textbook Virgo bullshit you’ve ever heard— I’ll wait.

So that being said, the gears began to turn in February. And two months later we’re finally doing the damn thing today, April 20th. You can’t rush the process, okay?

In the meantime, I’ve been on quite the deep cleaning/prep bender the last few weeks. From dusting the blinds and baseboards, to serious closet and vanity purges, to buying a new bed frame because I’m sick of the old one, the name of the game is Out with the Old, In with the Cool.

Another random memory from the vault: I used to pretend to be Cinderella and, like, scrub the kitchen floor (for fun, by choice, by myself, like this was my version of a cute imaginary game). Then I’d tell my mom to please be the terrible stepmother, and then I’d get mad at her for “not being mean enough.” (Again, you look up Virgo in the dictionary and it’s just me holding a protractor and a sponge staring back at you).

Some things I did during my spring cleaning tailspin frenzy extravaganza:

1. Marie-Kondo’d the shit out of my wardrobe. Donated a TON, and now I love everything left in there and know it all fits comfortably. 1000/10 recommend.

2. Had a meltdown about the thought of mildew so thoroughly that I ordered a filter for the showerhead, bought new pillowcases, threw away all our old sponges/scrubbers, and randomly disinfected the bedroom floor. You know, just in case, or something. 0/10 do not recommend. (Except actually the showerhead filter is lowkey incredible.)

3. Bought new patio chairs from Target and swept off the back porch, and have sat outside every afternoon since.

4. Bought birdwatching binoculars for my afternoon patio sessions.

5. Cried about being overwhelmed by the sheer endlessness of laundry.

6. Decluttered the designated ~chaos corner~ of the living room and found homes for all the random dog toys/artwork/doodads that had piled up.

7. Filed my taxes.

8. Put away the precarious piles of mail and documents that had accumulated in three separate stacks around the house into the neglected filing cabinet we own for this very reason.

9. Canceled some recurring miscellaneous subscriptions.

10. Quit teaching pole.

11. Joined a Pilates gym.

12. Cleaned the baseboards.

13. Tossed all my expired makeup & skincare products.

14. Finally set up a command hook hat rack above the closet that I’d been meaning to do for months, and then woke up the next day to half the hooks/hats on the floor, and have yet to fix it, so now they’re back in the pile on my nightstand again.

15. Organized the cupboards & cleaned out the freezer.

16. Dusted my bookshelves, and barely resisted the urge to reorganize them (again).

17. Barely resisted the urge to make a new, adult-Noelle graph-paper rendering of the house and all the furniture. (Wes had to talk me out of it. Old habits die hard.)

The moral of the story is:

Clean out your closet. Have a good cry. Try something new. Take care of yourself.
And also, try to give yourself grace.

& now it’s time for the 💥 EARWORM OF THE DAYYYYY 💥

*AIR HORN GOES WILDDDD*

Like any self-respecting Millennial, my house-cleaning music of today is what I was dancing to at prom a decade ago. And also at those awkward-but-so-much-fun middle school dances.

Needless to say, I’ve been on a BIGGG 2000’s/early 2010’s kick.

🎤 THE REEBOKS WITH THE STRAPSSSSSS 🎶 - me with greasy hair & wearing threadbare sweatpants while cleaning my kitchen backsplash, hard seltzer in hand

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Recent favorites & highlights

show:

I truly don’t think I’ve watched anything recently outside of an episode or two of White Lotus with Wes, and a whole bunch of YouTube. Sometimes that’s how it goes. I mean it when I say I’m not really a tv show/movie person.

music:

Honestly, I’ve mostly been listening to audiobooks. (Like, very lengthy, 30+ hour fantasy audiobooks). BUT my music standout has been this iconic playlist I found a couple years ago (I didn’t make it), that I kind of mentioned earlier. It’s the PERFECT cleaning playlist. “Grinding in a sweaty HS cafeteria” on Spotify. Thank me later.

game:

As of earlier this week, I am 1000% back in my beloved Stardew Valley comfort zone. Every now and then I get the urge to deep dive a brand new farm/save file from scratch. I can never quite fully explain how happy and relaxed this game makes me. I started a new farm this week, and I’m having a GD blast.

food:

Fun fact: I am an absolute fiend for jelly beans. Actual Jelly Bellies are great, sure. But I’m talking about ✨EASTER JELLY BEANS✨ specifically. This is my Halloween. I’ve always been more of a fruity-candy person. And holy shit, why am I the only one that goes wild for Starburst and Jolly Rancher and Sweet Tart jellybeans every Spring??? I always think I’m stocking up on extra to last me through the season, but reader, I’ve already cleaned out my stash. I’m not even ashamed. Jellybeans and Diet Pepsi are my yin and yang.

bird:

I could write an entire newsletter just on my birding updates the past few weeks. It’s freakin’ mating & migration season baby!! The tea is HOT and there’s so many cool species around that I don’t usually get to see. If I had to choose one highlight, it’s this:

I can see two of our birdfeeders from our bed, through the sliding glass door to the yard. The other day, I was half-awake and just staring bleary-eyed out into the yard. I noticed some large-ish birds at the feeders and was like, “Huh, must be some bigass finches or something.” But then my eyes focused and I had no earthly idea what I was looking at— definitely not finches. I grabbed my damn binoculars from my nightstand like a complete dweeb, literally still under the covers, and spied two of these cutie patooties:

Black-headed Grosbeak (not my photo)

I was so stunned and amazed I just sat there and watched through the glass until the

y flew away. I’ve never seen them here before, and I’ve looked every morning since and have yet to see them again.

✨ BOOKISH UPDATES ✨

WE MADE IT!!

recent reading highlights:

Something I love about my friend Jan Agaton’s bookish newsletters (Full Moon Book Club) is the way she talks about her recent 5 star reads, so we’re gonna give it a whirl and see how we feel.

The last 4 books I’ve finished include a 1 Star, a 2 Star, and two 5 Stars. (Hint: neither of the pink ones were 5 Stars. 👀)

I may have been lacking on bookish content output the last few weeks, but boyyy I have not been lacking on bookish content input, that’s for damn sure. There have been ups and downs, terrible reads to new favorites.

here’s two I really want to gush about:

• Funny You Should Ask, by Elissa Sussman

  • I was prepared to hate this. I thought I would hate this. It has several tropes I usually don’t love, like a super short timeline (72 hours) and second-chance romance.

  • But, it also has split timelines (two different 72 hour timelines, a decade apart), which I loved. And that made me fall in love with second-chance romance, getting to see the botched “first chance” and all the growth and change that happened in the years since.

  • There’s also a mysterious interview element woven throughout that’s kind of hard to explain, but created the perfect amount of mixed media additions and external information between chapters.

  • What I loved most about it though were the two main characters, who felt like real people, but not boring people. Both Chani and Gabe are so interesting and smart and flawed and misunderstood and I absolutely gobbled up their dynamic and the whole damn story. Can’t wait to read the author’s 2023 release ASAP, Once More with Feeling.

• Whiteout, by Angie Thomas, Dhonielle Clayton, Ashley Woodfolk, Nic Stone, Nicola Yoon, and Tiffany D. Jackson

  • Earlier in the year I was raving about Blackout by the same team of co-writers. Blackout takes place over 24 hours in the summer in NYC, the entire city loses power. The unique thing about it was that it was written by several established authors, but they all contributed to the same interwoven story. Each of them wrote different characters, but the characters all interacted like any other novel. I asked on my youtube channel if anyone had similar recommendations, and learned the same team had just released Blackout’s spiritual sequel, Whiteout, at the end of 2022. I ordered it immediately.

  • Whiteout is winter in Atlanta, around the December holidays, and follows a young cast of Black characters as they navigate a sudden blizzard that brings the city to a grinding halt (again, all in 24 hours). I loved it even more than Blackout. The characters in Whiteout simply jump out of the story. I listened to the audiobook, and 5000% recommend that journey.

  • They also never explicitly say who wrote which characters, outside of a cheeky riddle at the end right before the acknowledgements. I’m so obsessed with this style and collaborative writing method, and I hope we see more from them soon!!

    

upcoming liveshows:

• Silly Goose Book Club (March read): Phaedra, by Laura Shepperson

  • Last week of April, tentatively Wednesday 4/26 around 6pst

• May Readers’ Happy Hour

  • Second week of May, weeknight after 5pst

• Silly Goose Book Club (April read): The Bandit Queens, by Parini Shroff

  • Mid-May, weeknight after 5pst

my recent videos:

I know, I know— I haven’t really posted in the last couple weeks. HOWEVER, I’m so proud of this unhaul video from mid-March! And also, Starbucks discontinued the drink I mentioned not even one week after posting it lmao. So that tracks.

upcoming vlog projects:

*RECORD SCRATCH* Yep, that’s me, regretting last month’s optimism. Let’s take a look at where we’re at on these, shall we?

• 3/24 week of 4/17 sometime: oddly specific ep. 03: the girlbossification of satirical litfic

  • An entire MONTH late, but everything is read and filmed and I just need to edit. Coming to youtube near you next week sometime, pinky swear!!

  • May or may not be the first in a whole new ~era~ of videos/style for me. I’m super excited!

• 4/21 ???: classic retellings ep. 02: jane eyre, the genre

  • Really wanted to get this up for Bronte’s birthday (4/21), and the all-or-nothing part of me is considering delaying by a year LOL. I don’t know, I could be convinced to do it anyway. But also, there’s so many other things to read?

• 4/25 end of May/early June: reading previous Women’s Prize for Fiction Winners (ALSO have you seen the 2023 longlist for the prize?!)

  • I straight up forgot I’d committed to this in April. Why did I do that? This is a May/June project, always has been. #realisticgirlspring

• tbd: nonfiction GIRLies reading vlog ;)

  • In an ironic twist, I’m more than halfway done with this already. Don’t be shocked if you see this sooner than later!

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If you enjoyed reading this bad boi and want to chat about it, please feel welcome to leave a comment or reply to the email (it comes directly to me). You can always DM me in Instagram as well. <3
You can also share this post on social media, or forward the email to a friend that might enjoy it too.

see you soon!! 🌷

Love ya, thanks for reading all the way through!

The SILLYVERSE sprinkling springtime sparkles on your Mercury Retrograde business (starting 4/21, buckle up little pumpkins).

Chat soon silly gooses!! Next time we talk I’ll be freshly home from freakin’ ITALY (lol, surprise!) and hopefully full to bursting with inspiration and ideas and well-rested gumption. HAPPY SPRING MY SPICY PETUNIAS. 🌷🌷🌷

Stay funky,
Noelle

my links:

YouTube // Instagram // Storygraph // Ko-Fi