Links + Local Love (Vol. 2)

now I know about the wall of frogs!

Hello to my new subscribers, and thank you for the warm Substack welcome the last few weeks! You can get the backstory on this newsletter in this post, have your burning questions answered here, or share this with a friend via the button below. Thank you!

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Well,

Meagan Francis

and I shared big news on our podcast The Mom Hour this week:

The response to our announcement has been so supportive that it’s honestly overwhelming. Meagan posted the below on her Instagram, and the 50+ comments there (which anyone can read - it’s a public post) are pretty representative of the many, many more we’ve received in our private community and in our inboxes.

meaganfrancis

A post shared by @meaganfrancis

Speaking of Meagan and me on the mic, I joined her on

The Kettle with Meagan Francis

podcast a couple of weeks ago, where we talked mostly about my reflections on a post-social-media existence:

Exiting Instagram and investing in the real world with Sarah Powers

It was a great conversation, and if you’re not already subscribed to Meagan everywhere she is, go ahead and get on that.

Onto the links…

a smattering of things I’ve been using, loving, reading, listening to, or thinking about

• My friend and kindred spirit in all things efficiency and organization

  Kelsey Wharton
  recommended this tiny car trash can a couple of years ago and it’s still receiving Perfect Bar wrappers and crumpled up tissues on the daily (I also discovered that dog waste bags work perfectly as can liners, do you don’t have to replenish the ones that are included)

• Do you need garden clogs? You probably do. These are the ones I have.

• So many interesting points in this Culture Study Podcast episode about thrifting

• I was on the hunt for storage baskets shaped specifically for a corner shelf, and I found this Etsy shop run by a Ukrainian artist. I ordered four of these (look how many size choices! and color choices!) and they took a while to ship but they were so worth the wait. The craftsmanship is gorgeous.

crocheted corner-shelf baskets from a Ukrainian Etsy artist

• We’ve been watching lighter-fare, totally-consumable sitcoms lately. Highly recommend Man on the Inside and St. Denis Medical

• Am I an early adopter or late to this party? Likely neither, but you can tell me where you fall on this spectrum in the comments. I properly engaged ChatGPT for the first time recently and it was genuinely helpful with some travel planning. While I’ve been paying curious attention to various uses for AI chat bots for a few years, the final nudge might have been this Reid Hoffman interview on Armchair Expert, which I thought was great.

January 31 sunrise at Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara; straight off the camera, no edits, no filters, no ChatGPT.

Local Love

a few items of note pertaining to my hometown - tell me what’s happening in yours in the comments!

• Santa Barbara has a really fascinating local news saga that has played out over the last 20 years or so. This documentary will blow your mind, and this piece of very encouraging news happened just recently!

• I’ve been enjoying

  Picnic
  , a fashion and lifestyle Substack written by the team behind Jake and Jones, located here in SB (plus I just haven’t found too many Santa Barbara-based writers, creators, or businesses that are present here on Substack - if you know of any, let me know!)

• One of my kids just told me about the wall of frogs, and it was my first time hearing about it!

• Are trees in the news where you live as much as they are here? I read a lot of stories about trees.

• Hadn’t been to Esau’s in a while. Went. Always a delight.

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In serious need of new head shots, guys. Here’s a selfie instead.

That’s it for now! -S