🎃 Best Parent's Halloween Costume, My New Daily Habit, Podcast Recs, & More: A Beet Salad for October 2023
A few new things in our life right now
I recently got complimented for recommending Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in a previous post and it motivated me to bring back the Beet Salad: our eclectic recs across life, parenting, career, and product.
Connections Word Game by the New York Times
This has become my new favorite daily habit and I play it with the kids, too.
Every day, a new four-by-four grid of words is released, and your job is to group them into four distinct categories. It’s on you to figure out the categories - they can be words with the same meaning, phonetic similarities, or all used in movie titles for example. Often the puzzle designers throw in some tricks - like five words that could be related to each other, so you need to figure out which of the five actually belongs in another set.
You only need to figure out three of the four categories, as the fourth is the only set left at the end.
Find it in the New York Times Games app, alongside Wordle and the Crossword.
Boss Class by The Economist Podcasts
A seven-part series, 20 minutes each, that covers practical advice on management - hiring, leading, consensus building, decision making, and hybrid work. I found the topics both relatable and practical - it’s not about leadership or abstract concepts, but includes deeply useful and practical guidance you can apply in your work life if you are a manager.
Only two episodes have been released and after episode 3, an Economist subscription is required.
Learn more and access the podcast.
Lesson in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
This recommendation comes from Helen. The book is getting more attention thanks to the recently released Apple TV show based on it. But start with the book, not the show. It follows chemist Elizabeth Zott as she navigates a career in a male-dominated field in the 1960s and her eventual path to being the host of a popular TV cooking show. Mixing humor, fantastic characters, and a retrospective on how far women have come and how much farther we have to go.
Strike Force Five Podcast
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver joined forces for an open-format podcast this past year during the writer’s strike. That’s a lot of comedic brain power (and cross-chat) in one podcast and it’s been a go too choice for Helen and me on some long drives recently.
You can listen in any order. You should start with episode five, considered one of the funniest and best: Strike Force Five | Ep 5: Strike Force Wives!
My Go To Parent’s Halloween Costume: Light Up Stickman
Warm, memorable, and your own personal flashlight. Plus, your kids will never lose you.
I got mine from Glowy Zoey - The World's Brightest LED light up stick figure suit.
🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃