January | 2018 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

Icy morning river, image by Eric

1. 25 YA Books to Add to Your 2018 TBR List Right Now. And if you need more suggestions about what to read, here’s Roxane Gay’s comprehensive list, My 2017 Reading List. And, in other but still related news, 35 Literary Adaptations to Look Forward to in 2018.

2. Recipes I want to try: Rachel Roddy’s four bean-based recipes and Everyday Chocolate Cake.

3. 6 Ways My Parents Unintentionally Taught Me Disordered Eating.

4. CNN Debuts American Woman Documentary Series … Which Has the Same Name, Theme and Aesthetic as a Series Already Created by a Black Woman. Can we STOP doing this, please? Watch this short episode of the REAL American Woman series, an interview with Tarana Burke.

5. Black writer says he was nearly shot by police while shopping for conditioner. Speaking of things we need to STOP doing…

6. Watch grown-ish, a spin off of the brilliant black-ish. It’s also available on Hulu.

7. Photographer Reveals The “Addicted” Side Of The Streets Of Philadelphia.

8. Social Media Has Its Pitfalls But You Can Use It For Positive Change—Here’s How.

9. How To Do An Annual Review: 10 Questions. These are always presented as something to do at year’s end, but I think prompts like these are useful any time you are feeling stuck or confused.

10. Beyond the Food Podcast, Episode 109, The OTHER Reason Why We Overeat and Binge with Isabel Foxen Duke.

11. All the Weird Thoughts an Introvert Has After Socializing. #1 is so me. In related introvert news, Help for Introverts Who Are Struggling With Depression and 4 Ways for Introverts to Make 2018 Their Best Year Yet.

12. I Love You So Much Podcast Ep. 24, Austin Kleon on unlocking creativity; Nils Juul-Hansen on ‘Hygge.’

13. Good things from Karen Walrond’s This Was a Good Week list: 14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018, and Pad and i: 7. I’d like to make a toast, and 5 Ways to Be Kind Right Now.

14. Your theory from Seth Godin.

15. Dear life from Marc Johns.

16. Sick Little Lamb Falls In Love With A Rescue Cat. (video) In related news, Rescuing a family of dogs. (video)

17. UniLid. “Universal lid that fits all shapes and sizes with food tracking. The perfect, eco-friendly replacement for plastic wrap.” I need this! Apparently, so do a lot of other people — they set a $5000 goal, and it’s close to $500,000 with three days left in the campaign.

18. Turns out, Ringo Blue is part penguin. (video)

19. How to Deal With Failure, Rejection, or Public Humiliation, another great article from Kirsten Akens. “Very few people will turn a crummy Yelp review into a work project, but writer Alexandra Franzen has done just that with her new book, You’re Going to Survive.”

20. Roxane Gay on setting boundaries and saying “no.” (video) Why yes, Roxane Gay IS one of my favorite humans — why do you ask? 😉

21. Living Simply in 20 Square Meters. (video)

1. Morning walks. Because it’s been so cold and I went back to work this week, Eric’s been doing most of these for almost a full two weeks. I told him this morning how grateful I was that he’d been doing it, but that next week we need to get back on our normal schedule — I miss it.

2. Flowers in the bathroom. When we redid our bathroom a few years ago, it was so pretty all by itself that I didn’t actually decorate it. Two years later, there’s still nothing on the walls other than paint. I bought new bathmats and some towels, but the only other thing I do is keep flowers in there. It makes me happy.

3. Baby Ringo isn’t a baby anymore. He graduated to getting to have blankets in his crate when we aren’t home. He was so bad the first few years, putting everything in his mouth, eating and swallowing things that ARE NOT FOOD, that we didn’t want to risk leaving bedding in his crate with him when we weren’t there to watch him. We started leaving him with them last week, and he’s done totally fine, doesn’t even dig them up, just settles in for a nice nap. Good boy, Ringo.

4. Lineage. Three of my dogs have been rescues, and the next ones will be too. However, we got Ringo under special circumstances and he was born on purpose. Because of this, we know his parents. Peach, the dog top left, is his mom, and Spec, on the bottom left, is his dad. I’m so grateful to their human for cultivating a line of healthy, beautiful, smart, and even tempered dogs.

5. My tiny family. Besides Ringo, the rest of us are mutts.

6. I get to see these two love bugs. My niece had a baby just before Christmas, and my mom and I are hosting a baby shower for her in a few weeks. It’s in Oregon, but I’m going to fly out for a few days so I can be there. Can’t wait to meet the tiny new one!

Bonus joy: practice, deadlines — because once they come and go there’s nothing else you can do about it, Sam (because Ringo got all the attention in this post somehow) for being such a sweet dog, good books (I’m finishing up Jenifer Lewis’s book, The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir), good TV, podcasts, Emergen-C, aqua aerobics, the sauna, my new heating pad, clean sheets, soft flannel pjs, snow tires, windshield wiper fluid, sleep, writing, Burrito Del Mar breakfast burritos.