Tag Archives: Jamie Ridler

Something Good

1. Reuniting a War Veteran with His Beloved Dogs. I’m a total sucker for those videos where a person serving in the military comes home and surprises someone who loves and misses them, (mostly because I wish they never had to go in the first place). I’m a complete mush for stories about people and pets reunited after time apart. And I absolutely adore stories of animals helping people with physical disabilities or things like PTSD or anxiety, whether they are certified service dogs or not. This video is a combination of all three and I love everything about it.

2. “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” – SNL, so funny, because it’s true.

3. In related news: Dear White Reader, here is your weekend Beyoncé reading list from An Ordinary Life.

4. This 21-Year Old is Cleaning Up Our Oceans. “21-year-old Boyan Slat found a way to actually clean up our planet’s oceans. The largest ocean cleanup in history will begin by 2020.” Yes, please.

5. Give a Girl a Journal, an amazing project from the equally amazing Jamie Ridler. “With a journal, every girl has the opportunity to discover her own way of expressing herself. She has the chance to hear her own voice, to have an open and honest conversation with her own heart. In her journal, a girl can discover who she is. The ‘Give a Girl a Journal’ movement is about giving all girls a chance to be who they are, to be creative and to express themselves, all in their very own journal. You can help.”

6. 5 Life Hacks Fur Cat Owners. You don’t have to have a cat to enjoy watching the video, the kitty joy.

7. Karen Walrond, 48: Embracing What It Means to Be ‘a Woman of a Certain Age.’ I love this series, and I want to be just like Karen when I grow up — can I do that even though she’s a year younger than me?

8. If “dieting” doesn’t work, then what? from Isabelle Foxen Duke.

9. 7 Lessons From a Tiny Wardrobe (and pictures of what I’m wearing now) from Be More With Less.

10. How Sharon Salzberg Found Real Happiness on Lion’s Roar. “Facing her suffering head-on has made Sharon Salzberg one of today’s most relatable Buddhist teachers. Lindsay Kyte talks to Salzberg about her difficult life’s journey, establishing loving-kindness as a key practice in American Buddhism, and how we can all find real happiness.” Such a great interview.

11. Johnny Depp gives Donald Trump the Funny or Die treatment in surprise biopic. (I only watched the trailer, because I’m not sure if I could handle 50 minutes of Trump, even if it is fake and meant to be funny).

12. Celebrating Butch: A Powerful Photo Collection on Female Masculinity. A beautiful collection of images.

13. Gay at home dad, a sweet, funny Twitter account.

14. What Are You Practicing—Self-Judgment or Self-Compassion? Jamie Greenwood on Tiny Buddha. Jamie’s honestly is a compassionately fierce thing, and this article is no exception.

15. Wisdom from Aristotle, “Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” Oh, snap!

16. On the Eve of My Ex-Husband’s Second Departure, from Laurie Wagner, one of my most favorite women, writers, teachers, humans.

17. How to Find Your Voice, from Laura Simms, in which she says, “You gain nothing—we gain nothing—when people who are compelled to speak stay mute. We don’t need noise, but we do need caring people to speak up about the things they care about.”

18. An Open Letter to My Friends who Support Donald Trump. Word.

19. Wisdom from David Whyte,

Enough.

These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to life
we have refused
again and again
until now.

Until now

20. Sit Down, Shut Up, and Write Your Fucking Book: Uplifting Tips for the Aspiring Author from McSweeney’s.

21. Eric Garner’s daughter talking about Bernie Sanders will leave you breathless, a beautiful and heartbreaking video.

Something Good

Lory State Park, image by Eric

Lory State Park, image by Eric

So great to be partnering with Wanderlust to share this list with a larger audience.

1. Adele’s latest album, 25. I’ve been listening to it nonstop since it was released. And this prank she pulled on a group of Adele impersonators is so sweet.

2. Wisdom from Susan Piver, “Love is the least safe thing there is. It’s fierce. You can’t domesticate it. It’s wild. When you find it you should rejoice. When you lose it you should grieve.”

3. 31 Days of Gifts You So Deserve from Be More With Less, “is like an advent calendar in your inbox designed to deliver the gifts you so deserve. The gifts are meaningful, some are magical, and all of them remind you to fully embrace the simplicity and meaning of the holidays with purpose and intention.” Added bonus? Pay what you want! This would make a great gift, for yourself or someone else.

4. NIH to retire all research chimpanzees. Fifty animals held in “reserve” by the US government will be sent to sanctuaries. This makes me so happy. Here’s one reason why, Chimp With Darkest Past Takes Comfort In Tiny Troll Doll.

5. Outlaw Willie Nelson Opens Up In Two Classic ‘Fresh Air’ Interviews. Confession: I adore Willie Nelson.

6. In ‘Just Eat It,’ Filmmakers Feast For 6 Months On Discarded Food.

7. Roasted leek and white bean galettes, a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Yum. And this Honey Maple Roasted Carrots recipe from the Cafe Sucre Farine. (I get a little obsessed with roasted veggies this time of year.)

8. Florida Teacher Starts Each Day Complimenting Students One by One.

9. Finding Your Way Back to the Practices that Serve Your Soul, Willo O’Brien on Medium. This, in particular, is brilliant, “Fully allowing and feeling the emotions. Letting them be and letting them come through. Listening to what they have to say, giving them love, compassion, and space. This is the ultimate practice at the heart of it all.”

10. The incurable creative virus from Paul Jarvis. Have I told you lately how much I adore him? (P.S. Here’s a call for stories that will be published in the book this piece will also be in).

11. 365 Collage Journal Flip Through from Jamie Ridler. This looks like a fun project.

12. “You can always just listen” from Judy Clement Wall.

13. One letter can change your life–or someone else’s, “a free digital booklet all about the art of letter writing” from Alexandra Franzen. With the holidays coming up, this is a great practice to start cultivating.

14. Good stuff from Chookooloonks’s this was a good week list: let us attempt to spill light, and Still learning lessons, and Karen’s advent of light journaling course.

15. The *new* Black Friday hosted by the amazing Sherry Richert Belul. “This Black Friday, go with the new black: Spend at least part of the day making a Love List as a holiday gift for someone you love.”

16. Good stuff from Susannah’s Something for the Weekend list: Visible Mending as an art form, and Shinning the Light on Sensitivity, and Elizabeth Gilbert on dealing with criticism.

17. A Funny Thing Happened When I Was Typing My Suicide Note…

18. Health at Every Size Lies from Dances with Fat.

19. READY ♥ SET ♥ REFLECT an online retreat being offered by the amazing Susie Stonefield Miller. This is for “anyone who is yearning to take some time to reflect on the past year, to let it inform this next year, to choose a word for the year and to make a gorgeous deck of inspiration cards,” and will include “short guided meditations with art journaling prompts, video tutorials, thoughtful worksheets, and community connection.” Good stuff.

20. Planning Day: Design Your 2016 from Jamie Ridler, a webinar to help you design the year you want.

21. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club, “…each minute we spend lending ourselves, our time or talents or energy or thoughts to something that we really want little or nothing to do with is time is stolen from the things that really do matter to us. Each minute spent with the parts of our life that we want to be free from is a minute that we are not at peace….a minute that is spent feeling miserable instead of joyful.”

22. Buddhism by the Numbers: The Four Noble Truths, a simple, clear description.

23. Ladybug take off – in slow motion. Nature is so fascinating, so amazing.

24. How our Feelings Weigh Down our Bodies on Elephant Journal.

25. 10 Things Black People Fear That White People Don’t (Or Don’t Nearly as Much).

26. 5 ways Christian fundamentalists completely misread the Bible.

27. The Gnomist: A Great Big Beautiful Act Of Kindness.

28. 20+ Cute And Funny Puns By Arseniic. Part of me feels like I’m too smart and too grown up to laugh at these, and the other part is laughing her thunderpants right off.

29. WATCH: A French Father Tries To Explain The Attacks To His Young Son. Sweet and heartbreaking. The way he smiles at his dad at the very end is worth the entire thing.

30. Three Reasons Frozen is Better.

31. Artwork is Work, Supporting the Arts Means Paying the Artists, a really great bumper sticker.

32. Nurse Writes This Heartbreaking Letter To The Parents Who Just Lost Their Daughter.

33. 48, written by Christine Mason Miller on our shared birthday, in which she says,

For now, while I’m able, I’m going to keep creating, feeling, living, crying, laughing, breathing deep breaths and being of service in whatever way I can. I will continue opening up my home to those I love. I will keep on trying to create the best I can create, whatever that means.

Today, I am turning 48 years old. Today, I am in awe of everything my first 47 years have given me. Today, I’m here to do one thing: LIVE.

34. Company is Coming. This is funny because it’s true. Anyone who is hosting Thanksgiving this year understands how it feels, the particular way you can lose your mind getting the house ready when you have people coming over.

35. Liz Kalloch’s redesigned website. LOVE it.

36. Watch Anthony Bourdain’s Mind Get Blown Eating At The Waffle House With Sean Brock. I always wonder where I’d take Anthony if he ever visited Fort Collins. Where would you take him where you live?

37. This quote from Arundhati Roy’s War Talk, which seems especially timely.

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

38. Horse Head Squirrel Feeder. This is the best, a great gift idea.

39. Buddhist Extremist Cell Vows To Unleash Tranquility On West on The Onion, (just in case you thought it was for real).

40. Gluttony? It’s the holiday season; don’t judge yourself.

41. Funniest Parenting Tweets: What Moms And Dads Said On Twitter This Week. You don’t have to have your own kids to see the humor here.