The Weekly Wrap: July 11, 2021

I like checking things off my to do list. Part of the reason I use a bullet journal is because I take such satisfaction in putting a little "x" next to the things I finish.

We have a white board on our fridge for the priority things we want to get down around our house. There is one task that has been on there for weeks now - changing out the living room pillow covers.

It's not hard. All I want to do is remove the outer "winter" covers to show the interior "summer" covers. But I can't seem to make myself do it. When I remove the outer covers, it leaves a snow shower of felt and other puffy stuff behind. I usually do this task over the tub where I can handyvac out the worst of the mess and wash the rest into our drain trap.

All together, this is a 10 minute task. Just 10 minutes... and it has been languishing on the fridge list for weeks. I keep telling myself that I will get around to it, but I just don't want to deal with the mess.

Maybe I'll get around to it this week. Maybe.

What little thing have you been putting off?

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• Easy swaps for gender inclusive signage. [@magmidd]
• Staging a world for Instagram. [NYT]
• We've turned productivity toxic. [Real Simple]
• We can probably blame social media for making productivity toxic. [Vox]
• Finding comfort in frito pie. [WaPo]
• Expiration dates are more like guidelines. [Real Simple]
• A book list to get you started in critical race theory. [Book Riot]
• The ellipses of generational divide. [Pure Wow]
• Brands have nicknames, but they should use them with care. [HBR]
• What's hiding in the spines of old books? [Syracuse University Libraries]

• Bottled water almost wasn't. [Gastropod]
• The decision-making process behind the FDA's call on a new, controversial Alzheimer's drug. [The Daily]
• Brain freeze is a summer right of passage. [Short Wave]
• The history of Haiti and lead up to the assassination of its president. [The Daily]
• The connection between capitalism and the prosperity gospel. [Throughline]

• Making Georgian puri bread is a full body activity. [Great Big Story]
• My husband and I are rarely the type to see a movie the month it comes out. That's why we just got around to watching Hustlers. It's the Jennifer Lopez/Constance Wu flick about former strippers who end up fleecing men during the Great Recession. It earned all the Oscar buzz it received. [Amazon]
• We watched a few more episodes of Doctor Who. These included my favorite episode from the twelfth doctor, Heaven Sent. It is a tour de force of an acting performance supported by brilliant writing and direction. [HBO Max]
• This week, we also continued our rewatch of Outlander. My mom, who I got in to the books, once said that drama always follows the lead characters. She's not wrong. The past episodes from seasons three and four have been nothing but one disaster and drama after another. [Netflix]

• One food our kid eats is quesadillas. I thought I'd sneak in a few new ingredients in a preferred dish by making black bean and goat cheese quesadillas. We got some good bites, but she mostly deconstructed her wedges to eat the tortilla. Her parents, however, are big fans of the entire dish. It went really well with some chipotle salsa. [Martha Stewart]
• I enjoy cooking in my Dutch oven. (Makes great food and is easy to clean.) I'm not saying I deliberately made a recipe where I could use it, but it was a bonus. This Tuscan chicken with white beans and kale was tasty and, overall, easy. The chicken just took longer than planned to get to temp. We had leftovers (minus the chicken) and they made a decent lunch stew later in the week. [Cooking Light]