Chelsey Chats #2: February 2025
Every month, I come to you with a roundup of various things: what I’ve been up to, how the substack is going, interesting things I’ve found online, and of course, BOOK TALK.
As I was getting ready to write this post, I ran across a new word: HYGGEKROG (pronounced “HOO-geh-krog”). You may have run across the concept of hygge, which is a Danish concept that implies coziness and comfort. But hyggekrog describes an actual physical place that embodies hygge. As soon as I read this word, I thought, “I have a hyggekrog!”
Some of you may be aware of this space in our house, which is actually the walk-in closet of our master bedroom. It used to be where our youngest son slept, but almost exactly a year ago, he decided he was ready to move into the room with his sister and I was left with an almost empty closet (I do have clothes in here, but they are to the left just out of frame). Because I didn’t need the space for storage, I decided to make it into my own personal space. Our house has room for all six of us, but there is really no where for me to sit and be undisturbed when everyone is home, and as an introvert, I really crave that. Thus the Dopamine Den, as the whole family now refers to it, was born. I painted the walls, took out the original shelving, found a chair and ottoman on Facebook Marketplace, and for the last year have been adding in things that make me happy. Last Mother’s Day, my husband got me a Keurig, and for Christmas he got me a mini fridge. Now I have coffee with creamer every morning and sparkling water and cold Coke Zeros always ready at a moment’s notice, without ever having to go downstairs. You may not have a full-on Dopamine Den, but maybe there’s a way you can make a little hyggekrog in your home this weekend, even if it’s only temporary.
February was another month of me being continually shocked at anyone wanting to read my writing. About 40 new people joined the CCW community this month, and I’m honored you wanted to get me in your inbox a few times a week. Because I like stats, I thought I’d share where people are reading from:
48% of you live in Georgia or South Carolina
Another 22% of you are in Florida, Texas, Connecticut, California, or North Carolina
Internationally, there are readers from Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, France, Poland, and NIGERIA ( !?!)
I have truly enjoyed every second I’ve spent writing and creating lists of books. Some of you have blessed me so much by becoming paid subscribers. I know not everyone can do that or wants to do that, so I also have some other ways you can support me if you’re interested.
Support Me
An obvious way to support me is by becoming a free subscriber. Every free subscriber makes me so happy!
The very best part of writing to you has been hearing about how something I’ve written has been helpful or relatable. One of you has started making my daily smoothie. Someone else reached out to share their story of church hurt. A friend from church said my post on reading gave her permission to count audiobooks as reading. And another far-away friend said he now has a kindle book on his phone so he can listen in the fringe moments. I even got an email from one of my kid’s teachers who subscribes! It’s so fun I almost can’t stand it.
I started this month on crutches, and I ended it with a walking boot. It is progress, and I’ll take it. What the doctor thought might be a stress fracture turned out to be plantar fasciitis. It’s pretty severe, and I’ll be in physical therapy for a while, but I am counting my blessings.
This was a hard month. It felt like every time I mentally stood up from being knocked down that I got hit with another blow from some direction. It was exhausting. But I made it, and my husband made it through, and we’re still here.
I was texting with my dear friend Alexis-from-Texas at one point during the last few weeks and telling her about some of the hard things, but then also telling her about different people in my life who had helped me. Her response was: “I think what I’m hearing you saying is that you have built a community and you’re able to get really good help when you need it and that is a beautiful thing.”
Some of those beautiful things: various people bringing dinner when I was totally off my feet; a friend picking up ice cream; a Zoom call with some ministry mentors; so many friends letting me know they were praying for me… the list goes on and on. I don’t take this support for granted. We haven’t always had it. But I’m really thankful we have it now.
One thing about February was that the kids went to school WAY more days than they went to school in January. They went to school 15 days in January and 18 days in February. And because January lasted 47 years, the extra days in February made it fly by.
We didn’t have any huge events in February, so my highlights of the month were more ordinary.
We went to Kroger Chef Junior for the third time in the past few months. If you’re not familiar with this program and you have a Kroger in your area, I can’t recommend it enough! It’s only $7 per kid on a Saturday morning. Each month, they make a different recipe. You come home with some kind of quality kitchen item (so far we’ve gotten a spatula, a pizza cutter, and a silicone cake pan). The kids get to make and eat something in the store, and they come home with the recipe to make it at home. They also get an apron and an iron on patch at each session. This month they made chocolate strawberry “pizzas.”
Zoe (7) decided this month she wanted to learn to cross stitch. My heart leapt. It took her ten thousand years but she cross stitched her name all by herself. Now she’s looking onto bigger and better things and I couldn’t be more excited to teach her!
I have been trying to replace my bedtime doomscrolling with reading. I usually like something fiction at bedtime, but I finished one book and didn’t know what to start next. I decided to pull out a beautiful illustrated Lord of the Rings that Christian got as a gift and start that. I didn’t know it would have pictures, despite the fact that it said “illustrated,” and it has been a delight. I have read it before, but it was years ago.
Finally, another highlight of the month has been adding games to our bedtime routine. The younger two have aged out of bathing together, so while one is showering or taking a bath, Christian or I play games with the other. Then when everyone is done we might play one or two more rounds. Our usual games are Spot It!, memory, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, Disney Princess Uno!, or Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. I have learned from this that my children are truly able to beat me at memory, even when I am actually trying.
Something common in the craft world is making some kind of item to track the daily temperature in a given year. Some people knit blankets to track this; others use crochet or some other fiber art. I’ve even seen a crocheted temperature snake! There are different versions, but in the one I did above, each “hourglass” represents the high temp and low temp for that day. You choose a color for each temperature range. In mine, the darker the color, the higher or lower the temperature—so the dark red is the hottest and the dark purple is the coldest. (It is very easy to tell which rows represent the summer in south Georgia.)
I used a pattern from Snarky & Modern Embroidery from 2023. I chose to track 2020 because it was the year we moved from South Carolina to Georgia, and I wanted to commemorate that in some way. If you look closely at the picture, you can see one hourglass that is dark gray. That represents March 21, the day we moved. The dates before are all based on the temperature in Columbia, SC, and the dates after represent the temperatures here.
Here’s a new section where I recap some of the stuff I really loved this month in terms of consumption—whether that’s something I bought or something I watched or listened to. The best thing I watched this month was Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. I have now made this show my entire personality. It is about narcissisim, wellness culture, Instagram—a few of my favorite things. Here is some other stuff I loved:
TV SHOW: Man on the Inside (Netflix)
My mom recommended this show to me, and I didn’t start watching it until I ended up on crutches and had a lot of time to sit. I had several pretty dark shows on my list on Netflix, but just wasn’t in the mood for murder or drug smuggling. I was almost immediately hooked. The show is funny, but the characters are real and it’s never over the top. It took me a while to recognize the director of the retirement home as Stephanie Beatriz, probably because we have also been watching Brooklyn 99 with our boys and the Rosa is a much different vibe from her character on this show! I found myself laughing out loud. The premise of the show is that Charles (Ted Danson) has recently lost his wife, and his daughter is encouraging him to get a hobby. He decides to apply for a job as an investigator for a case where the son of a retirement home resident is trying to figure out who stole his mother’s necklace. Charles moves into the retirement home and tries to figure it out from the inside. Much hilarity ensues.
MOVIE: The Holdovers
MUSIC: I discovered the artist Olivia Dean this month and wore out her small repertoire on Spotify. I also loved Mat Kearney’s new album and listened to Vintage by Shane & Shane and the “This is Mission House” playlist on Spotify.
I can’t remember how I found this video, but man—I LOVED IT! I grew up in the evangelical church in the 90s and I think there were only 3 of the songs in this video that I wasn’t familiar with.
If 90’s Christian worship music isn’t your jam, maybe you’ll enjoy this amazingly choreographed video to a Billie Eilish song. If you like it, make sure you check out the other videos on the channel.
I ran across the article below by
at and loved everything about it. I didn’t really lean into hobbies until I was in my 30s. Since then, reading and cross stitch have been something that have added so much to my life.
Reading the article reminded me of the Olympics last summer. Even great Olympians enjoy hobbies in their off time.
I’ve been continuing to listen to the Sons of Patriarchy podcast, which I highly recommend. There was an episode this month called Understanding Spiritual Abuse that I think every Christian should listen to. I ordered the guest’s book before the episode was over.
In the area of food, Christian and I enjoyed homemade deep dish pizza the other night. This recipe was great and it turned out almost better than a restaurant.
I didn’t read as much as last month, and that’s OK. It was a hard month in other ways and I felt like I was able to read when I wanted to, which is what matters to me. I really, really struggled with getting into a fiction book this month. I only read two fiction books, and one (Hannah Coulter) was a re-read. I lamented this to my two best reading friends and they had both just finished Hello, Beautiful. I opted to try it and am so glad I did. It was probably my favorite read of the month. I read her previous book, Dear Edward, but I liked this one much more.
Fiction
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Nonfiction
Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigail Schrier
Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum
Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen
Spiritual/Devotional
Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Rhythms by Justin Whitmel Earley
Running on Empty: The Gospel for Women in Ministry by Barbara Bancroft
I meant to do this last month and forgot. Here is everything I’ve posted this month, in order of least viewed to most viewed. I chose this order in case you missed something! It’s been really interesting to see which posts get the most engagement. Apparently I need to write more about depression!
February 21 | 10 fiction books worth reading during Black History Month
February 19 | what’s saving my life: the food edition
February 5 | how to be dependent
February 26 | 13 nonfiction books worth reading during Black History Month
February 3 | how to read 1000 books in 10 years
February 10 | How I stopped the apocalypse when I was 12 years old
February 17 | the toxic impulse of nostalgia
February 14 | 14 of my favorite books about relationships
February 7 | my 10 favorite fiction reads from 2024
February 24 | chelsey’s depression toolkit
Things I’d Love to Know
What did you read this month?
What was the highlight of your month?
What was your favorite 1990s worship song?
What kind of book roundups are you interested in?
Did you watch anything this month that you’d recommend?
My eight year old daughter created her own hyggekrog in her closet! Of course, she didn’t know to call it that, but she did a nice job creating one and she calls it her reading nook. I’ll have to show her yours.