This is Catching Up from Downtime, a monthly column where I (Alisha) share an inside look at my personal highlights of the past month. This column is exclusively for my paid subscribers as a big thank you for directly supporting this newsletter. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, I’m offering 20% off an annual subscription for 4 more days, in case that’s of interest! Thanks for reading. x

Hello! I’m so sorry this is a day late! I’ve learned my lesson that as a toddler-mom, I will have absolutely zero time to do any work on the weekends. It’s a new boundary I’m getting used to that I know is for the best. :) And any time spent not doing work will be spent on the couch, zoned out in front of the TV watching falling asleep to Great British Bakeoff…(which is what happened to me at 8:30pm on Saturday night). Anyway — here we go with a refreshed monthly column!

There’s a LOT in today’s post…

• 5 things on my mind, including lessons learned

• What I read this month—and my honest thoughts

• Some work life behind the scenes—including a sneak peek :)

• The best thing I did for my mental health this month

• The thing that SAVED our lives this month as busy parents to a 1-year-old

• Outfits I wore and liked!

• A special 🍼mom/baby/kid stuff corner🍼 section with a dump of thoughts and links that might be helpful to any new moms out there

• The monthly subscriber giveaway! 🎉

To kick things off, here’s a peek at what was up at Downtime this month.

• ❤️ The newsletters people loved the most:

  • The Fall Books Issue 📚 went mini-viral on Substack, which was exciting — and the comments are full of even more ideas on what to read this fall.

  • The “chores” edition of the Friday newsletter in which readers and some of my friends shared how they get sh*t done around the house.

• 💬 The most active subscriber chat threads this month: There were SO MANY great chats happening this month! Here are just a few to look through:

  • Becca was looking for some great physical magazine recommendations

  • Jordan wanted your best San Francisco travel recommendations

  • Spooky book recs thread for October, kicked off by Sarah

  • Kendall was on “a desperate search for comfortable jeans” and got many recs :)

• 🛍️ The recommendation readers clicked on most:

  • The Will Jacket from Sézane, which was a fall jacket rec from a reader.

  • The Margaux loafer was also quite popular.

🔗 Paid subscriber exclusive: I shared the household chores spreadsheet that my husband and I use to split up our duties in the chat.

Life Updates ~ 4 Things On My Mind

This section feels more serious than it is, lol, but there are so many things I don’t share in the Friday newsletter that might be interesting or helpful for readers, so I’m dumping all of that here.

This and the rest of this newsletter is behind a paywall since I talk about some more personal stuff like family life, motherhood, work issues, and so on…...