shit i bought and liked no. 33: better than whole30
My sweet, sweet Shitters. Every December I say I’m going to write you all a gift guide, and every December… I don’t. It turns out that even in a pandemic, when there is literally nothing safe to do outside of your home, I still cannot find it within myself to be remotely productive this time of year. Though I missed the cutoff for the official gifting days, I figured this crew wouldn’t say no to a (relatively inexpensive) gift for the soul: The Happiness Project One Sentence/Five Year Journal.
The concept is simple. The journal has a page for every day of the year—Jan 1-Dec 31. You open it up to the day’s date and write a line or two about what you were up to or thinking about (or if you’re like me, you end up playing catch up and writing a few nights at a time). But the cool part is that each page is split into five sections for you to write a line a day for the next five years. So if you start your journal on say, January 1st, 2021, you’ll eventually be able to read about your New Years Day hangovers from 2021 to 2025 (hopefully somewhere in that period of time, New Years Eve goes back to being an actual event in crowded/expensive places that we get all dressed up for/complain about).
I’ve talked about these journals before (I started my first one during my senior year of college and it is a true goldmine), but I wanted to share them again for two reasons. The first is the rapidly approaching new year—it’s a good time to start something like this and incorporate a new habit if you don’t journal regularly. And the second is the time we’re in.
In general, I’ve thought of these as a nice gift for people in times of transition—around a graduation or big move, etc.—and it just so happens that literally all of us are living through big changes right now. I wish I had journaled more frequently at the start of the pandemic to remember those initial months and where my head/the world was at during that time. But I think keeping track of how the next few months/years unfold will be a really interesting little time capsule to have. And what better time to start than fresh on page one, Jan 1st. Call it your resolution! Promise it’ll be better than Whole30.
This was one step closer to a gift guide. But if you think about it, this whole newsletter is basically a gift guide, so it’s not like I left you with nothing!! Before I let you descend back into holiday oblivion, I do need to know one thing—what was your favorite sweat set purchase of 2020? According to Twitter, the faves seem to be Entireworld, Lou & Grey (which are all on sale rn), and Richer Poorer (which I love/love the donation aspect of as well), but I figured this discerning group would be able to give me the scoop on their favorites. If there is one thing to accomplish in this hellish year (aside from staying safe and COVID-free and not hosting a superspreader wedding/expecting people to like your Instagrams of it), I feel like finding the Goldilocks of sweatsuits has gotta be it.
As always, happy and grateful that you let me hang out in your inbox, on your phone, on Twitter—wherever it is you are finding this right now. If someone sent this to you, subscribe (and check out past editions) on the very fancy and professional shitiboughtandliked.com. To all my sweet shitters, I hope your holidays are happy, safe, relaxing and COMPLETELY UNEVENTFUL IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY.
LOVE YOU ALL,
P