Friday Musings: Dry January Inspiration and Reading Goals

A few things I'm watching, drinking, and enjoying

Hello, fellow compassionistas! Here is this week’s note where I share a couple things I’m reading, eating, drinking, doing, and loving right now. Please remember…

What I’m Enjoying

I can’t overstate how remarkable it is that I now love sparkling water. As I talked about in the podcast episode Dry January and Cold Plunges: The Ancient Practice of Doing Hard Things, one of the benefits / gifts of stretching your comfort zones is discovering things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

For me, it all began with Dry January a few years ago, when my husband—knowing I loathed sparkling water—asked me to take a blind sip of something he was sure I’d like. It was Fever-Tree Sparkling Cucumber. He was right. I loved it. It had just a touch of sweetener and a hint of quinine—something else I would have sworn I disliked, given all the times I’d rejected tonic water (quinine, after all, is what gives tonic its characteristic bitterness).

But I liked it (actually, I love it), and so it began.

Over time, I worked my way up to “flavored” but unsweetened sparkling waters, like LaCroix and Bubly and made them more palatable by turning them into what could hardly be called a mocktail—just sparkling water with a splash of grenadine—but which I called a mocktail.

Fast forward to 2025, when I decided—gasp—to take a sip without the grenadine. And I loved it. I found it refreshing and lovely and rejoiced in what felt like a genuine feat. I’d crossed the Rubicon. I wasn’t just someone who could tolerate sparkling water anymore—I’d become obsessed.

Obsessed enough, in fact, to buy a carbonation contraption and start making my own at home to cut down on the number of cans I was going through.

(I still can’t believe I’m even saying this.)

I started weighing my options. I looked at SodaStream, but in the end—even though the Breville InFizz was more expensive (it helped that we had a coupon for a pretty deep discount)—it felt like the better choice. It’s sturdier, more substantial, and made from metal rather than plastic.

Also, it allows you to carbonate more than just water; you can carbonate anything!

So now I’ve made space in my pantry for my new sparkling water maker (can I just say “sparkly water?), and I’m so delighted. I’ve only carbonated one bottle so far and am still figuring out how many pumps I prefer, so stay tuned! Ha!

What (Else) I’m Drinking

A few weeks ago, a friend—also doing Dry January—invited me to a tasting of nonalcoholic wines at a local wine shop. None of the reds did much for either of us, but we both liked a dealcoholized sparkling rosé quite a lot. I wasn’t surprised it was the sparkling one that worked: the bubbles provide structure and depth that tend to be lost when alcohol is removed from wine.

That one exception is made by Woody’s, Crafted in California using organic Chardonnay from Mendocino. I haven’t tried anything else by Woody’s, but this sparkling rosé ticks the box: it’s crisp, with bright berry notes and a mineral finish that hints at its fermented origins.

Other than that, I’ve been happily rotating between my sparkling waters and Fever-Tree sparkling cucumber, and I can’t wait to make more using my Breville. I also look forward to carrying my nonalcoholic discoveries beyond January.

What I’m Reading

I made a goal this year to read one book a week, and so far I’m ahead of the game. I’ve already read four books in January and halfway through my next. So far, I’ve read:

• Montaigne by Stefan Zweig

• Breath by James Nestor

• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

• Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

I’ve also made two other reading-related goals:

1. Most of my reading happens on my Kindle now, and of course that makes it easy to buy digital books I want to read. However, we also have shelves and shelves of physical books lining our house, and I need to start making a real dent in them—reading the books we already own and then passing them along once I’m finished.

2. A fan of themes, for the fiction side of my goal I’ve decided to focus solely on novels by Dickens. I read a few many decades ago and liked—but didn’t love—them. But after rereading A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities in December, I was reminded of his humanity, compassion, and humor (as well as his lyrical prose), and so I’m going all in.

If you ever want to see what I’m reading (or what I’ve finished), you can find me on Goodreads.

Just one of the many filled bookcases we have in our home.

What I’m Watching

While we’re still watching a number of Polish films (see Films Watched and Ranked in 2025), right now we’re the middle of a few different seres:

• The Story of Film: An Odyssey — incredibly comprehensive and thoughtful

• The American Revolution — by Ken Burns

• Mussolini: Son of the Century — an eight-part docudrama made in 2025

We also recently enjoyed several films at the Noir City Film Festival, which we’ve been attending for about twenty years. It used to be held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, but now it’s just down the street from us at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland—which means we can walk there from our house.

I think that’s all for now. Gotta get to some gardening so I can bring you some updates about my rewilding adventure (sooo much to share). Have a wonderful day, and let me know what you’re up to!

Additional Resources

👉 Connect with me 1:1 – Get personalized guidance whatever you are looking for.

👉 Read A Year of Compassion – Daily inspiration to help you live with intention, kindness, and clarity.

👉 Travel with me! I host animal-friendly, luxury, all-inclusive vegan trips around the world, specifically curated to ensure high-quality, high-touch premium experiences. Check out our upcoming trips, and let me know if you have any questions.

👉 Check out my Recipe E-Books and my library of On-Demand Cooking Classes for recipes.