These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things
I love to share things I like, love or find thought-provoking or inspiring with others. It's a huge part of why I blog and use social media. Occasionally I'll share a round-up of interesting links, books I've read, music I'm loving, cool artwork etc. Enjoy!
LINKS:
Zen Habits: The Downward & Upward Spiral of Health & Productivity “The bad news about health and productivity habits is that if you start to slip up, things can slowly spiral downward. If you are tired, you can’t focus on your important work, you don’t make time for exercise or cooking healthy food, so you grab some fast food, you veg out in front of the TV. This doesn’t lead to better energy the next day, but it does lead you to feel worse and worse about yourself. When you feel worse about yourself, you want to comfort yourself with more unhealthy food. You don’t feel motivated to exercise or be productive. Things spiral downward, until you feel hopeless and out of control. The good news about these habits is that they can also spiral upward...'“
HuffPost: Declutter Your Fantasy Self “Have you ever looked around your home - at the stuff piled in the lounge and bedrooms, the stuff crammed into cabinets and drawers, the stuff spilling out of closets and boxes - and wondered, "Where did all this come from, anyway?" You spend a lot of time shuffling it around and tidying it up, but rarely find need for it. You vaguely remember acquiring it, but can't remember the last time you actually used it. Well, that stuff may very well belong to your fantasy self...”
GraceTable: The Hospitality of Marriage: Loving Like It's New “When I hang his shirts next to mine in the closet, there are surf brands, the same ones he wore when he had hair bleached white by the sun and waves. When his skin was tan and his mouth tasted like wintergreeen gum and saltwater. When I spread my beach towel with my arms wide and the tradewinds swooped down and lifted the corners from my fingertips like a magic carpet and I would nestle my body in hot white sand and lift my eyes to the sea and she would offer the lip of a wave for his surfboard and I’d see the arms I loved paddling into the white and blue horizon. Love was so easy then...”
BOOKS:
Coraline and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - I've read one or two of Neil Gaiman's books for adults and, although I liked them, I didn't love them the way I thought I would. It's been awhile, so I don't really remember why not, but I think they were probably just a little bit dark for me. I have, however, always enjoyed a certain level of darkness in children's and YA fantasy books (Roald Dahl's books, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, the Harry Potter series and the Lemony Snicket books, for example) and Sasha and Jordan definitely share that with me. I bought Sasha Coraline for Christmas and just finished reading it myself. I really liked it and am now reading The Graveyard Book which I'm enjoying even more.
MUSIC:
Mumford & Sons - I've loved Mumford & Sons for years. Ever since I got my first iPod (a first generation mini), I really haven't listened to albums in their entirety. My days of listening to one CD obsessively for days or weeks on end on my Discman are long gone. I generally prefer listening to my playlists on shuffle because I find I get bored easily otherwise. Mumford & Sons is one of the rare exceptions. When Sign No More first came out I listened to it over and over and over. Then I moved on and didn't really pay that much attention when Babel was released. Fast forward to last month when a friend and I were lucky enough to purchase tickets to a sold out Mumford & Sons show. Not only did the experience remind me of why I spent a huge chunk of my income in college attending as many concerts as possible, I'm also now listening to Babel and Wilder Mind on repeat.
twenty one pilots - Although I'd previously heard "Stressed Out" on the radio and loved it, it was really Jordan who first introduced me to twenty one pilots. (Does it make you old if your 13 year old son is the one introducing you to new music?) Blurryface is now on repeat in our house (and car). I love that I can listen to the whole album with my kids without having to skip any songs due to concerns about language or content that I don't want my 9 year old exposed to (or that I don't want to endorse for my teens). It's the sort of genre-bending music that I loved in late high school and college, has intelligent lyrics and enough rap that even Justin enjoys listening with us.
ART:
Impact by Erik Johansson