jillsalahub

1. Morning walks. I’m enjoying the last few Eric gets to take with us before he heads back to work in earnest and we go back to alternating days, just one of us and the boy. This morning we walked at the CSU Trial Gardens, to get one more walk in on campus before all the students come back. The trial gardens are in full bloom and there were a few spots, beds of plants and trails and fountains and vine covered iron arches, that got added after I left CSU and during COVID that I hadn’t seen yet. The dahlias and sunflowers in particular were gorgeous.

2. Working on “The Book.” Yes, I am still working on writing this book. Recently I realized I was actually writing two different books and have had to spend some time shuffling things around to their respective containers, and yet that also made the structure and focus of the one I want to finish first so much clearer, a whole lot less confusing and unwieldy. *Spoiler Alert*: the one I want to finish first could be summed up as simply: “Being human is hard; don’t give up.” I am also having fun reading all the books I have collected over the years on writing memoir.

3. Tomatoes from a friend’s garden. We didn’t end up putting in a garden this year, even though typically we have a massive one. We were gone for the true start of the season, thought we’d wait until we got back to plant, but it was so hot while we were gone, with the promise of that being the norm for the rest of the summer, and we have so many grasshoppers and no real way to get rid of them without something toxic, so we decided to skip a year. So when a work friend brought Eric a bag of cherry tomatoes from their garden, we inhaled them! So good…

4. School is about to start and I don’t have to go. I am still so grateful to have been able to leave my job at CSU, to not ever have to grade another paper or be given too much work to be completed in too little time and with too few resources, to not have to be diplomatic or deal with the big egos that tend to collect in the tenure track at universities. I’m happy to stay home with my dog, not wear a bra or pack a lunch or pay $600+ to park a mile from my office or answer to anyone about what I’m working on.

5. My tiny family, tiny home, tiny life. I am content, so lucky and so grateful.

Bonus joy: Watermelon, peaches, grapes, corn, zucchini, tomatoes, basil, good books, listening to podcasts, watching TV with Eric at night, training with Shelby (who got engaged AND had a birthday this week), sharing more food with Chloe’ and Ralf, seeing Carrie’s addition almost finished, Ringo getting to meet Rex his new next door neighbor (the initial sniffing was fine, but then Ringo had to tell him “don’t mess with me” — Rex is a Goldendoodle easily twice Ringo’s size — so the meet and greet was cut short), the hydromassage chair, the pool, the sauna, going out to lunch with Eric, the full sized pig that apparently lives as a pet with a family down the street and around the corner that got out the other day and wandered down the block (when we drove by and the person was taking it back home, Eric rolled down the window and yelled, “I like your dog!”), yoga nidra, scheduling appointments online instead of having to call, vaccines and masks, my Friday morning Wild Writing sangha that starts back up soon, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.

1. Why You Should Try Crevice Gardening: ‘This Is the Future’ on The New York Times. “In a world where water is increasingly scarce, these rock gardens are not only pretty, but surprisingly resilient.”

2. Just 2 Minutes of Walking After a Meal Is Surprisingly Good for You on The New York Times. “A new paper suggests that it takes far less exercise than was previously thought to lower blood sugar after eating.”

3. The Dog Actor In Prey Was Adopted Especially For The Movie ⁠⁠– And She Was A ‘Hot Mess’. She reminds me of my Ringo Blue, also a hot mess. 🙂

4. A tale of lost and found. (video) “In 2006, Jason and Liz McKenry’s baby – their cat, Ritz – bolted out the door of their Annapolis, Md., apartment building, and never returned. Their sliver of hope that they would see Ritz again lasted for 16 years, until an automated text message was received.” Yet another great argument for chipping your pets.

5. How the Indian Action Spectacular ‘RRR’ Became a Smash in America on The New York Times. “The unusual decision to rerelease the film a few weeks after its initial run has drawn enthusiastic audiences even though it’s available on Netflix.”

6. Celebrating 25 Years of Ani DiFranco’s Living in Clip. “Today we celebrate 25 years of Ani DiFranco’s Living in Clip. An album that not only empowered millions of women, but rewrote the record industry playbook.”

7. ‘The Golden Age of Thrifting Is Over’ on The New York Times. “A glut of fast fashion has made its way into local thrift stores, making it hard for women who have been purchasing secondhand for decades to find quality garments they can wear.”

8. ‘Draw This Again’ Challenge Proves That Practice Makes Perfect. So cool.

9. You can stop intermittent fasting now, new research says. “In a year-long study, time-restricted eating didn’t help people lose weight.”

10. The Excruciating Echo of Grief in Uvalde on The New York Times. “The community buried 21 people after the Robb Elementary School massacre. In the weeks that followed, the aftershocks only compounded the agony.”

11. The Remarkable Lesson of Grief. “This psychologist created her own mantra to help manage profound grief after the sudden death of her husband.”

12. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Before and After the Bombs. “Before the 1945 atomic blasts, they were thriving cities. In a flash, they became desolate wastelands.”

13. The drugs don’t work (and other mental health myths). “Our attitudes to mental health are changing but much of the stigma that surrounds conditions such as schizophrenia remains – along with some enduring and often damaging untruths.”

14. 11 brutally honest reasons millenials don’t want kids. “When it comes to embarking on the journey of parenthood, lots of millennials are saying, ‘Meh. No, thanks.'” I may be Gen X, but a lot of these reasons make sense to me too.

15. Weatherman is overcome with contagious joy after learning his map has a touchscreen. I have watched this clip many times. It’s just so sweet, genuine, and funny, and I need reminded that those things still exist.

16. 120 Things To Remove From Your Life from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

17. Wild Fox Comes To Hear This Guy Play Banjo Every Day. (video)

18. Manufacturers use ‘shrinkflation’ to pass costs on to consumers. “With inflation at a 40-year high in the U.S., we are all spending more when we go to the store. But there is another dimension of inflation these days called ‘shrinkflation.'”

19. Colorado’s first dedicated ‘green cemetery’ helps people return to the earth once they’ve passed.

20. The Sandman: ingenious TV that will inspire an entire generation of goths. “The enduringly popular comic book series about gods and the afterlife gets the big-bucks, amazing-cast Netflix treatment. And it’s good. Very good, in fact.”

21. Regina Spektor: Tiny Desk Concert (video).

22. RE: [YOUR SUBMISSION] (spoiler alert, the news is bad). “Rejection erasure poems by R.L. Maizes.”

23. Quilting Your Memoir: Your Turning Points and Timeline by Linda Joy Myers.

24. 4 Steps to Making a Successful Career Change. “If you’re looking to switch careers, now may be a good time. Opportunities are plentiful, especially in the U.S. with workers driving the Great Resignation. Moreover, employers are now looking for candidates from diverse professional backgrounds, and therefore willing to make big accommodations. Here’s a four-step framework to help you get started.”

25. In Bhutan, they dream of rainbows from Seth Godin, which includes an infographic of “The most common dream in every country.”

26. Crickets also from Seth Godin. “The body of work you’re creating adds up over time. The consistency and empathy of your vision will seep through. Drip by drip, you’ll create something worth noticing.”

27. The Wild by Summer Brennan.

28. The Capitalist Origins of #Manifestation. “Ideas about changing your life by vibrating at a higher frequency with positive thoughts are popular in this economic downturn for the same reason they were popular when Hill published Think and Grow Rich during the Great Depression, because they feel personally empowering at a time when the masses are grappling with terrifying economic precarity.”

29. How truthful are memoirs? “Roy Peter Clark, a journalist and Senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute, offers a detailed list of ten ‘rigorous steps to an honest form of writing,’ making a firm argument that there is a clear line between fact and fiction in memoir.”

30. Renovations by Laura Pritchett.

31. In Rare Interview, Kate Bush Raves About ‘Stranger Things,’ Reveals Meaning of ‘Running Up That Hill’.

32. Critical Race Theory FAQ. When I read the answer to “What is CRT” I can’t understand how anyone reasonable and aware could possibly disagree with it.

33. The pandemic impulse purchases we grew to hate. “From Pelotons to pets, the Covid buys people wish they’d left on the shelves.”

34. Reading Room: Austin Kleon’s top Substack reads. “Great writers are great readers first, as the maxim goes. In this series, we explore what Substack writers are reading by asking them for a tour of their reading list.”

35. An end-of-life doula’s advice on how to make the most of your time on earth.

36. Second Opinion, a cartoon from Gemma Correll.

37. Vivid Botanics and Butterflies Encircle Photographer Fares Micue in Striking Self-Portraits.

38. Animator Anna Samo Scripts a Love Letter to Artists in Her Short Film ‘Conversations With a Whale’.