Evil Witches Newsletter

Hey witches! I wanted to send out one last email before I take a monthlong or so summer break. I'm kicking the hiatus off with what I've been calling my "midlife crisis trip": hiking for several days with some women I've never met in a far-flung part of Sweden. Pooping in a hole may come into play. I learned about the opportunity while researching an article I worked on about newsletter writers who lead their readers on trips.

health — 8 min read I've been trying to get to the bottom of why it bothers me how much absolute junk garbage my kids eat and seeing if understanding it better can help me get over it. This is a tricky subject to grapple with because I am not MAHA — I love a Snickers ice cream bar as much as the next red blooded American. I am not Almond Mom. In fact I was raised by Almond Parents which gave me a (diagnosed) complex around "good" and "bad" foods that I had to work out with quite a bit of therapy.

Here's something I'm working on for the newsletter for later this summer that I would love some witchy feedback on, if it speaks to you. On Monday, I had breakfast with a friend I see every few years who has two kids my kids' age. The last time I saw her, she and her husband had just split up. This time I asked her how single life was going and she said, "Actually, I'm seeing women now." She told me not only about her dating life but about the fun circle of lesbian moms she's made as well.

I know most of us are struggling to spend less time online, or at least mean to struggle to spend less time online. For the Not Right Now Podcast my co-host Quinn and I recently spoke with Amanda Hess and Kaitlyn Teer, and in separate interviews, they each admitted to repeatedly deleting and then re-downloading Instagram.

My kid screamed this in my general direction Monday and I did nothing to deserve it. All right, maybe I had had a temper tantrum of my own while we were in a double tornado of last-minute-group-school-project and house-not-picked up and I may have kicked some of his toys out of the way, but ladies of the jury, I ask you this: When presented with the following evidence, literally how could I not? This post is for paying subscribers only

Short dumb issue today because I am a short dumb person. No seriously, I feel quite brain damaged lately. Forgetting to invite people to parties and then talking to them to their face about the parties they were not invited to. Not remembering what day it is.

Household — 7 min read Last week, I asked you all what question from the survey you'd like to hear about next, and by far, you wanted to hear about failed household/child-rearing systems and processes the most. I didn't expect to find you all sharing so much in common over what parts of our lives we tried and failed to Real Simplify. Some answers came up repeatedly: chore/reward charts allowances/kids financial routines screen time. "I have given up and I removed all restrictions." shared calendar.

This week I was working on pulling together witches' answers to the survey question "What's a system or process that you tried to optimize your household that didn't work out?" I have some takeaways that I think will make many of you feel a lot better in that you are far from alone in not landing on some enforceable, manageable way to handle your household chores/screen time/laundry/meal planning.

First, housekeeping: I am still tinkering with Ghost and just now figured out how to include a "like" button on these emails for those of you who missed that functionality from Substack. No pressure. Just there if you like to click it. Please don't click the thumbs-down button unless you want to hurt me personally. At our house, likely at yours too, MayCember has come hard for us.

I think a lot of us are kind of over school right now, and that includes kids, parents, teachers and admin. But despite the senioritis and exhaustion I do want to note three interesting things I have gleaned from my kids' school of late, which is a nice payback for what we put in.