NEW: Field Notes
#1: Relishing in spring, entering my chef era, exciting news
Field Notes comes following the encouragement and inspiration from a dear friend of mine, Camille, who recently started a personal column to accompany her lovely Substack. I’d also started noticing it pop up on my feed as a way to share a variety of things that writers have found impactful, insightful, or simply have brought them joy.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve been semi-frequent with my writing. I’ve definitely been stressed and tired. To combat this, one of the things my therapist has encouraged me to do is to try and keep track of things that have brought me joy and make me excited. It can be big, but the idea is that it can be small. It’s trying to find God in all things and be grateful.
So I thought to myself, this time I am going to try in earnest to keep track of these things, and when I feel like there’s a good mass of them, I’ll share.
To kick this off, here is my first installment of Field Notes~
My field notes:
Every spring, my camera roll is filled with these photos: cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, magnolia trees… spring is truly springing. I’ve found myself making sudden turns onto streets where both sides are filled with fully blossoming trees, leaving what looks like snow on the ground. It adds a bit of time to my commute, but the blossoms are so beautiful I can’t help but continue seeking them out. It’s also led me to continually reflect on my word of the year “blossom”.
The arrival of spring also marks the event of Easter. As usual, we went as a family to Easter Vigil at our home parish. This year, I was particularly drawn by the light of Christ that makes it’s triumphal entry into a darkened church. All the lights are turned off in a dramatic fashion, and we all stand in the dark and face the back of the church where the Easter fire is lit and blessed. Christ, the light of the world, has dispelled the darkness with His death and resurrection. For this reason, we have hope. For this, I am reminded that there is so much more to look forward to because Christ is the one who lights the way and dispels my darkness.
In a completely random turn, I wanted to give a shout out to my latest cooking ingredient obsessions: orzo and baked oatmeal. I think that my family would agree that among the five of us, I’m perhaps the weakest cook, though I have the convent to thank for helping me grow in this area (shout out to convent life skills!). For no reason at all, my algorithm started feeding me (no pun intended) several orzo recipes for dinner and baked oatmeal recipes for me to meal prep for work.
I’m obsessed.
Some fun recipes that I’ve been enjoying recently:
Lemon orzo salmon (pictured up top! I added peas)
And… some exciting news!
Towards the end of last year, I shared with the Lord that I would like to resume speaking again. 2025 was a quiet year intentionally — I turned down almost every single invitation — because I really felt like I wasn’t in a place yet to speak about some of the things that the Lord and I had been working through.
Upon sharing this small thought, the Lord returned it back almost one hundred fold. In a week, three invitations came with an additional one that came a few months later.
I was grateful for the opportunity to speak at our Archdiocese’s Fiat Women’s retreat at the end of March, and I want to share two upcoming events that I’m grateful to speak at:
Tickets for both of these events are on sale now. I’m very thankful to the organizers of these respective events for inviting me to share a little bit of my story and speak about things that I love sharing about — namely, the feminine genius and the beauty of our Catholic femininity.
In your kindness, please pray for me as I prepare and also for all the women who will attend these events!
I really, really hope to continue writing and share good news with you all. It’s been a joy to write, and particularly humbling to continue to receive subscribers to my little corner of the internet. Thank you again! May God bless you as we continue on celebrating this Easter joy.
In Christ,
Rachel
Register for the upcoming talks here: