Monthly Archives: November 2023

Something Good

1. An American Disease“Anders Carlson-Wee on Dumpster Diving in a Culture of Waste.”

2. How I’ve Changed My Thinking About Burnout on Culture Study, which suggests, “burnout is caused by 1) problems on the societal level (lack of social safety net, precarity, dealing with being a person in your particular body with your particular identity in the world); 2) problems at the level of the workplace (policies, norms, work culture, productivity expectations); but also 3) problems on the level of the individual (self-value derived exclusively through work, inability to adhere to guardrails against overwork set by yourself and others, obsession with micro-management).”

3. How to Ask for Attention as an Introvert.

4. Thich Nhat Hanh’s 5 Practices to Nurture Happiness on Lion’s Roar. “The late Thich Nhat Hanh taught these five practices to nourish daily happiness, offering a pathway to transform suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy.”

5. Project resistance from Seth Godin.

6. Trees on A Grace Full Life. It makes me happy that other people geek out on trees like I do. Here are some of my favorites. And I don’t mean favorite kinds, I mean specific individual or stands of trees.

7. 99 Inexpensive Ways To Slow Down And Enjoy The Present Moment from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

8. We Alive, Beloved by Frederick Joseph. “Cover reveal, preorder, and plans to support Palestinians and Congolese.”

9. deep breath, full life, can’t lose from Karen Walrond on Chookooloonks.

10. What the Mermaids Sanga poem from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

11. What Place Do You Write From? from Jami Attenberg.

12. We think you’ll like this essay from Danny Gregory.

13. What do you long to say? from Patti Digh. “It’s the unfurling, the diving into, the deeply human recognitions that burn most brightly.”

14. Seasons and the psyche“SAD isn’t the only example of a seasonal impact on our psychological functioning. In fact, it’s the proverbial tip of the iceberg, write Ian Hohm at the University of British Columbia and colleagues in a new paper in Perspectives on Psychological Science. As the team reports, recent work has documented seasonal impacts on everything from generosity to colour preferences.”

15. Introducing: The Essay Series from Summer Brennan on The Writer’s Notebook. “A rough guide to the different kinds of essays you may find yourself wanting to write.”

16. What to expect when your in-laws are expecting charcuterie(Facebook reel) Funny, because it’s true.

17. Nature’s Hidden Beauty(Facebook reel)

18. Working conditions(Facebook reel)

19. Embroidered Leaf Artist from 60 second docs (video). “Laura Dalla Vecchia from Guaratuba, Brazil embroiders dry leaves. The leaf embroidery artist discovered the art form experimenting one day, and has since been creating works inspired by native Brazilian birds.”

20. “The Feelings Song” by Heidi Rojas(video)

21. “Unhinged” by Elyse Myers | Unofficial Version(video)

22. ‘I’m a sex symbol? That makes me embarrassed’: Monty Don on love, class and his future on Gardeners’ World“He has presented the same show for 20 years, been married to the same woman for 40, yet his life refuses to stand still. Don talks about his unhappy childhood, his failed first career – and his war on fake grass.”

23. I Just Lost A Dog For The First Time. Here’s What I Learned About Surviving Pet Loss.

24. Olga Prinku Grafts Blooms and Branches Into Expansive Embroideries.

Gratitude

1. Morning walks. Walks are good for you, in all kinds of ways. It’s said to improve your mood, improve your heart health, strengthen your bones, relieve joint pain, boost your immune system, aid digestion, boost your energy, enhance your quality of sleep, improve cognition, feed your creativity, help you feel connected — so many good things. I don’t think about any of that when I’m walking though. I’m looking for critters and things to take pictures of and talking to Ringo and enjoying the sunrise. 

2. Good friends. Ones who make me laugh, send me pie, make art with me, send me texts and funny gifs, let me love on their dogs and kids, make me banana bread.

3. Ringo’s habits. Even the ones that are sort of annoying are cute, like when he boops me in the butt to try and get me to play with him, or how he digs up the couch every night when we sit down to watch TV after dinner, or how he finds lost things (toys, gloves, hats, socks, etc.) on his walk and brings them home to love, the way he spends the two weeks after we turn our clocks back an hour thinking I’ve forgotten to feed him and begging for the next hour, how he stands in the back yard barking in the hopes that one of the four neighbor dogs will come out and bark with him, how he goes down on one shoulder and flips over on to his back wagging his tail like crazy for the five people in the world he loves the most, how he’ll make a nest of pillows and blankets on the couch, and how happy it makes him to find a stick and carry it on his walk.

“It’s past my dinner time, Ma!”

4. Content — books, TV, movies, podcasts, magazines, music. This will most likely be one of my top regrets at the end of my life, that I didn’t have enough time to read all the books, watch all the TV, listen to all the podcasts, etc.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I love it here.

Bonus joy: practicing yoga at Red Sage, how much Ringo loves Chloe’ and Teri, having only one hour of rain on a day it was predicted to be wet and gloomy the whole entire day, writing with my Friday morning sangha, working on my book, stickers, rechargeable headlamps, potato chips, good neighbors, the opportunity to start over, naps, down blankets and pillows and coats, wool socks, bluetooth speakers, my infrared heating pad, writing in the morning with a hot mug of green tea and my HappyLight, clean sheets, bread, a big glass of cold clean water, houseplants, tarot, pens with refillable ink, paint, meditation, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

Special mention: all the dogs I’ve loved and lost, which is more happy that we got to love you than sad we had to lose you, the kind of grief/love that never really goes away, you just wear it and carry it for so long that it gets a funny, awkward sort of comfortable.

14 years ago this week, we had to let go of our first dog, Obi