Something Good

1. Poetry: The First Time by Ted Kooser and Before You Put Your Armor On by Wendy Videlock and Where I Come From by Assemay and Poem Written by AI by Eric Markowsky on Rattle, Belief and wonder: Wondering about belief and Courage and rage: And the call to creativity on Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Turning Memory into Material “writing our origin stories” on Earth & Verse, i learn what to do by staying “on slowing down enough to feel where i am” by Isabel Abbott, The Want of Peace by Wendell Berry shared by Patti Digh, i didn’t eat the sun by ire’ne lara silva on poets.org, In Case I Forget to Say It Enough by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on Heart Poems, A Perfectly Good Pitchfork and Half Off on Happy and Writer’s Evening by Julie Barton, Devil’s Advocate: The Ruler Speaks and For What Ails Us and Nothing and For This, I Walk Outside by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The rules you forgot you wrote by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project, Corrective for a Broken Heart by Maria Popova, Poem to Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, and In Wartime and A Heart of Any Size by James Crews.

2. The Interview on The New York Times: Rebecca Solnit Says the Left’s Next Hero Is Already Here. (gift link)

3. Something Deeper Than Hope: Terry Tempest Williams on Our Stays Against Despair by Maria Popova. 

4. Palm Sunday 2026, “Remembrance of time past and present” by Jeanette Winterson. Also from Jeanette, Spring Equinox, “The real start of the year.”

5. Why Are Women Doing Their Husband’s Job-Searching? on Culture Study.

6. Northern Kentucky family declines $26 million bid as data center plans advance.

7. Wisdom on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: I’m Not Anti-Trump Supporters, I’m Pro-Humanity and Are Americans Too Lazy to Stop a Dictatorship?

8. This Spanish mountain range has just been named the world’s most beautiful place.

9. On Waiting For Spring. “The Essay In The Age Of AI, Writing After Chat GPT, The Novel, Plus Some Favorite Poems, Stories And Essays” by Alexander Chee.

10. Good stuff on Be More With Less: Feel Happier With Less Effort: 10 Simple Habits That Really Help and Honest Decluttering Advice You Might Not Want to Hear by Courtney Carver.

11. Addicted To Being Busy? How To Overcome Chronic Overwhelm.

12. 11 little ways to fall back in love with reading. I certainly don’t need this, but maybe you do?

13. How to Calm Your Nerves When You’re Freaking Out, According to Experts.

14. Parents at Iranian school bombed by US describe their worst day on The Guardian. “Hours before the world learned that a US missile had hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school, parents were already searching the rubble for their sons and daughters. In this exclusive report, four families describe the events.” WE DID THIS.

15. Kevin James Thornton’s rant about social media. (Instagram reel)

16. The Kinds of Questions We Ask Ourselves, “right as the seasons change” on Craft Talk from Jami Attenberg.

17. On Aging, Dying, Butter Melting, Crafting Legacy and Punching Robots from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds. “AI is soulless — so don’t let it sub in as your soul. And when you write, or make art, or do anything, put yourself into it. As wholly as you can. Without reservation. Be unabashedly yourself. Because that’s what goes out into the world. That’s the song you sing. Those are the echoes in this great cave. You’ll live on in others if you allow yourself to. We’re all just melting butter. Glorious, tasty, melty butter.”

18. I met someone because of a shirt, “when small talk becomes real talk” by Brad Montague on The Enthusiast.

19. The Small Miracles We Almost Miss by Andrea Scher.

20. A Snail’s Pace, “a comic about how my writing is going” by Connie Sun, (although, this could have been written by me).

21. Complicated, Before the Alzheimer’s. “Alzheimer’s doesn’t arrive in a vacuum. It lands inside relationships that were already complicated” by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. *sigh*

22. Into the rabbit hole. “The first of two parts. Or maybe three. Or maybe infinity” by Rita Ott Ramstad on Rootsie.

23. The New 100 Etiquette Rules for Modern Life. “Some old social standards really don’t work anymore… Here’s a guide that we hope will stand the test of at least a bit of time for our socially confusing era — until the next great exciting social upheaval.”

24. Do what you want on The Imperfectionist. “If you’re overwhelmed by the feeling that the world is falling apart – or just overwhelmed by your to-do list, or stuck in any kind of rut – there’s a solid chance you’d benefit from reorienting your life in the direction of what you actually want to be doing with it, instead of how you think you ought to be living it.”

25. Harvested Lives. “How work, time, and exhaustion are shaping what it means to be human” by Frederick Joseph.

26. Typos on Short Reads. “Happy mistakes” by Brenda Miller.

27. Leave room for yourself by Jenny Lawson.

28. And finally, this random collection of things I saved to my phone this week.

Gratitude

1. Morning walks. We’ve been able to adjust a lot of our regular spots to something a bit shorter as Ringo gets his strength back. Today he even got to stop by and see his friend, Theresa, at her fitness studio. He was so happy he ran in the door and barked. Everything is blooming: crabapple, cherry, pear, redbud, daffodils, forsythia, Japanese quince. There are lots of robins and I even heard a mountain bluebird. Sadly, the river is so low in spots, it’s hardly even there.

2. Some things were hard and others went okay. They are most likely not going to continue to approve Mom’s hospice placement, so she has to move — AND it’s because she’s doing so well. Our first choice placement was full AND our second choice has a spot and just so happens to be a ONE minute drive away from where her older sister may be moving and is only a couple of miles from my brother’s house. My brother got my Ubox all packed and locked up so it can get shipped to me, AND we discovered that someone who has been in the house since I’ve been there stole a bunch of my dad’s coin collection. We got our taxes signed and sent, AND Ringo’s medical needs have already spent a significant portion of our refund. We went out to lunch at our favorite BBQ spot yesterday, brought home leftovers, AND Eric spent last night sleeping on the couch because his stomach hurt so I’m afraid to have the leftovers even though he said I could have all of them. The pool is open again, the new tilework complete, AND I haven’t had time yet to go. It’s like that saying about how we are falling through the air without a parachute but the good news is there’s no ground.

3. Our new bed. I finally felt sure enough about it to leave a review on their website (which I don’t do unless I really mean it), five stars and this comment:

My husband and I slept on cheaper cotton futons when we first got married because it was the frugal, easy choice. When we bought our first house, we felt like we should “upgrade” to something more adult, so we got our first king sized traditional mattress. This was about 20 years ago when you could still get a firm spring mattress that would last more than six months and it served us well. When it was time to replace it, we went through three different “hybrid” options (can’t find just springs anymore) that all, honestly, were awful. Even at their peak, they just weren’t right. They were supposedly firm, but broke down, and they had various topper material that always threw off the feel and sleep quality. This time around, we searched and searched, willing to pay just about anything, to find that old school truly firm mattress that would last and it just wasn’t available anywhere.

We started joking around about those years we slept on a futon on a pallet on the floor and that maybe we should just go back to that, and then we realized, wait, maybe we actually should try a futon again. We didn’t stop sleeping on them because we didn’t like them, we just felt pressure to be like everyone else and get a “real” mattress. So we found Comfort Pure, poured over the reviews, and landed on the Natural Coconut, Latex Wool Bed Mattress (Extra-Firm) Kind with (as we are a bit older now) a Natural Wool Three Inch Mattress Topper. We’ve only had it for less than a month so I can’t say what the longevity will be, but the sleep and feel has been so perfect and lovely, I’d willingly buy a new one every year if they only lasted that long. I can finally get a good night’s sleep again!

4. Ringo Blue. I am so glad that his belly has been doing so well for so long, that we finally got that figured out, and that his back is feeling better, his arthritis discomfort managed. At 12 years old, he’s turned into such a Mama’s boy, follows me around everywhere, has to check in and know what I’m doing at all times.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I finally finished my portion of the great garage clean up, with Ringo there to supervise. Next is my office, my writing and art space, with two new bookshelves to build — so many books and notebooks! I’m looking forward to it being done but I don’t know how I’m going to feel about the actual doing… 

Bonus joy: writing with my Friday morning writing group, texting with Chris and Chloe’, deactivating my Facebook account (again), comedy and comedians — this week Pete Holmes and Chris Higgins in particular, listening to podcasts — this week I’ve been binging Do You Need A Ride and Working It Out, getting books from the library to read on my Kindle, oranges, pasta, Pop-Tarts — because sometimes that’s just what you want, down blankets and pillows, sweet stories about unlikely animal friends, poetry and poets, writing in the morning while I drink my coffee and tea, Haflinger wool slippers, sitting in the backyard with Ringo and Eric, a/c (it was already 90 degrees one day last week, and we’ve already had a bunch of 80+ days), honey cornbread muffins, Diet Pepsi — because sometimes, as with Pop-Tarts, that’s just what you want, coupons from Tillamook for free full sized tubs of ice cream just because I said something nice about them, discounted bread, Dairy Queen soft-serve ice cream, steaming TV and movies, the Hallmark Channel (not for me, for my mom), soft flannel, music, trash service, indoor plumbing, wood stove fires, campfires, battery operated candles, a couch comfortable enough you can sleep on it all night, white noise machines, the sauna, electric and hybrid cars, a big glass of clean cold water, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.