Beth Dunn

I am so so sorry, my to-do list, but I can physically feel my motivation to do A Single Thing seeping right out of my pores as this day goes on.

O my people, if you ask me to write a regular update or anything resembling a newsletter, I do hope you realize it will become progressively sillier in tone over time. Still useful, still delivering "impact" or "value" or whatever you need. But yeah. Increasingly unhinged with each passing week.

Woke up from a (terrific) nap (but aren't they all?) in which I was describing my medical shrimptoms to my doctor to see what was up. Confident that in my dream universe, this term was used to describe tiny things that might be nothing, but might be a big deal.

I make a motion to adopt

(not a podcast)

TLDR psst hey new wicked fun thing coming in hot

Honest to KITTENS, nothing makes me as happy as hurtling my whole body deep down a new creative tech rabbit hole. Almost forgot how much I enjoy video. Scripting, recording, motion graphics, captions, and at LEAST three new types of recording/finessing/editing software... SO freaking fun.

I don't think this is much of a hot take, but might be helpful if you struggle to do both at the same time, in whatever creative endeavor you're all up in right now. And also to secret handshake my fellow former Kitchen Confidential-era crewmates. I see you. Love that we made it this far.

Yes, this is a story about why I love a good design system so much. And why I like separating laying the foundation and being wildly creative into different shifts. They're different activities. Like writing a first draft and editing it. They need different parts of my brain.

I don't prep meals as much as I prep ingredients. Because I also can't be contained! Diced onions, chopped herbs, roasted veggies, whatever, can all be mixed and remixed to make what I feel like making that day. I think those restaurant days made me hate the idea of mixing the two activities in one.

I'm so allergic to making things from scratch at the time of the meal. (Breakfast, like the Mongols, is the exception.) I always want to have all my ingredients sorted, washed, chopped, and portioned out in advance. That way I can make lunch and dinner on busy days quickly, yes, but creatively, too.

One thing I got from working in restaurant kitchens for the bulk of my 20s is a tendency to always separate out the prep from the meal. Having just spent yet another Sunday afternoon prepping the ingredients for what I'll eat this week, it occurs to me (again) that this isn't what most people do.

My pleasure! :D

Yep! Just a simple linter. This was all way before the current AI craze.

Good heavens. Extreme hashtag goals.

Wait. This means you OWN one of these, doesn't it?

EXACTLY

Of course the absolute pro move would be to add something custom to the various fields — author, title, and borrower name in beautiful old fashioned librarian penmanship, and then one of those great wonky stamps for the due date.

Library Card Vest pattern by Pretty Grandpa This listing is for a digital PDF download of a knitting pattern.

I DO. And I just saw this pattern on Ravelry a few days ago, and thought I should really make that for somebody. www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...

yes, that's me!

Did you find what you were looking for?

This is the best.

I hope you LOVE IT

(both real and metaphorical)

Optimist: the cup is half full.
Pessimist: the cup is half empty.
Content Designer: is this the right kind of cup? Is the cup in the right place? Is what’s filling the cup best for the audience at this particular time?

The number of side conversations I am having about turnips today absolutely delights me.

Anyway, there's a new edition of Voice Mail (that's my newsletter) coming in hot. Here's where you can get it if you don't get it yet. www.bethdunn.com/newsletter

Usually I just leave those warm-ups in the Google doc where they were born. Someday I should pull them all together and see if there's something bigger there.

It's my warm up stretches. My walk around the block to limber up. Yes, the first 800 words that tend to come out of my fingertips in the morning tend to follow the same well worn path. But once that part is over, I'm ready. My brain is awake and there's a new thought it wants to explore.

So I sit down to write a new newsletter, and all that comes out is yet another slice of my life/childhood/favorite fiction set in a rambling old house by the sea. It's easy and warms up my writing brain, but it's not what I wanted to write about today. I'm coming to realize this, too, is my process.

Every year, the pretty catalogues come! And every year I think, that would be perfect for the company holiday party! Always forgetting I haven't had an in-person company holiday party to go to in... severalmany years. 😂