issue #260: just some ideas for your weekend ☺

• HELP: Here are some ways to support the people and families who are in or fleeing Ukraine: Donate, if you’re able, to World Central Kitchen (chef José Andrés and his team are providing hot meals to Ukrainian refugees) and USA for UNCHR (part of the UN Refugee Agency, who are on the ground providing assistance to ensure families and children find safety, shelter, food, medicine, and water). But there are countless others you can support—NPR has a good list here.

• GET: Appointed’s Notepad for Peace. 100% of sales support World Central Kitchen in their efforts to provide hot, nourishing meals to Ukrainian families. 

• TRY: Heck yes, you can eat DEUX’s vegan and gluten-free cookie dough both raw (yes, it’s safe to eat) and baked. And, the dough (Chocolate Chip! Cosmic Brownie! Birthday Cake!) will make you feel as good as it tastes—it’s enhanced with immunity-, collagen-, and mood-supporting supplements. Get 20% off and free shipping with code GIRLS20.  Sponsor 

• LISTEN: SPAM: How the American Dream Got Canned is a three-part podcast series from The Atlantic. It covers everything from the various cultural adaptations of SPAM, to an unexpected turn in U.S. labor history, to just what exactly “SPAM” stands for, anyway. It’s a snackable (sorry for the food pun…) listen I thoroughly enjoyed.

• BUY: Just some very pretty bookends.

• SNOOZE: Want a deeper night's sleep? Beam's CBD hot chocolate helps you fall asleep, and stay asleep—with zero sugar and only 5 calories. Sip 20-30 minutes before bedtime and enjoy a cozy night's rest. Get up to 35% off with code GIRLSNIGHTIN.  Sponsor 

• WATCH: If you can stomach a bleak, Black Mirror-esque drama right now, try Severance on Apple TV+. It’s a commentary on work-life balance (in the show, workers’ brains are “severed” to prevent knowledge about their lives outside of work while at work and vice versa). Creepy but highly watchable. (If you’re looking for something, um, less cerebral, I keep hearing about Love Is Blind Season 2 on Netflix, so that may be my junk-food-watch of the weekend...)

• TRY: I have several friends who are new parents and I'm going to make freezer care packages, a genius idea Jenny Rosenstrach mentioned in her latest newsletter.

• READ: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is a novel of epic proportions (589 pages long, to be precise!) that follows two parallel lives: Marian Graves, a daredevil female aviator who longs to circumnavigate the globe, and Hadley Baxter, a young actress who is cast to play her in a film a century later. The writing is engrossing, the characters feel alive, and the short chapters make the length feel a little less daunting and perfect for before-bedtime reading.

• READ: Carey enjoyed Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez. “Quite a whirlwind of Puerto Rican history, love, tragedy, more!” Adding to my TBR.

• CHECK OUT: Sidekick (from the folks behind Morning Brew) is your personal manual for productivity. Think breezy and useful—not boring and jargon-y. It's a 5-minute read every Monday and Thurs that helps you level up your relationship with work. Subscribe here.

• REFLECT: A gentle reminder that spoke to me this week: "Everything does not require a deeply meaningful explanation for why you may not want to do something. Sometimes the answer is simple, you just don't want to, and that is enough of a reason to say no to something or someone and should also be respected." —Minaa B.

  Note: We linked out to these delightful egg coasters last week that are by the artist Carolyn Yoo. We misspelled her name and regret the error. 

weekly reads