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December 21, 2018

Have you ever seen the movie Desk Set? It’s got Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in it, and Hepburn is a reference librarian! It’s snappy and cute. Anyway, toward the end of the movie the librarians are having a little Christmas party and the only question they’re getting all day is what the names of the reindeer are. As this is my last work day of the year, I thought this scene was fitting. I hope I don’t have to answer anything more difficult than “Dasher, Prancer, Dancer and Vixen, Cupid, Comet, Donner and Blitzen.”

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, History. I didn’t really know this origin story till this year! My favorite bit: “Seeking an alliterative name, May scribbled possibilities on a scrap of paper—Rollo, Reginald, Rodney and Romeo were among the choices—before circling his favorite. Rudolph.” Imagine Reginald the Red-Nosed Reindeer!

Is it Christmas? Well? Keep checking back!

Study with Me YouTube Videos. I’m actually really into this trend! It started in Japan, with these real-time study sessions, sometimes set to music or just the sound effects of turning pages, typing on a computer, and clicking your pen. If I were a college student right now, I would definitely see if this helps me stay focused. I was a big user of ambient noise websites like RainyMood and Coffivity as well. Purrli is one that’s just cat purring, and it’s surprisingly comforting even if you are not a cat owner!

Christmas at the White House Through the Years, Town and Country. So many great photos in here. What did it look like the year you were born? For me (1991): “The 1991 Blue Room tree was decorated with 1,200 needlepoint ornaments, three of which First Lady Barbara Bush herself made by hand.”

Martha Stewart Christmas (17 minutes) and Martha Stewart Living: Holidays (2 hours). Vintage episodes of Martha Stewart on Youtube have been virtually my constant companion this month. Here are two great ones to watch while you cook, snuggle your pets, and generally get cozy.

December 14, 2018

Hello, friends. Today at work I made a huge paper chain and strung it up at the Circulation Desk. Do you remember making paper chains? They’re so satisfying and fun! The holidays are truly the best season for crafting. Here’s 5 things I found this week:

You Can’t Trust What You Read About Nutrition, FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight is a really interesting website. This talks a good bit about diets and specific foods, but it’s exposing how easy it is to manipulate scientific study or survey results to whatever claim you want to make. Food surveys are ridiculously inaccurate, so much so that “the Energy Balance Measurement Working Group that called it “unacceptable” to use “decidedly inaccurate” methods of measurement to set health care policies, research and clinical practice. “In this case,” the researchers wrote, “the adage ‘something is better than nothing’ must be changed to ‘something is worse than nothing.’” They used a short food survey along with other personal data to make very silly associations (eating egg rolls is associated with dog ownership; Drinking soda is associated with having a weird rash in the past year, etc.)

What’s All This About Journaling? NYT. I love journaling! Here are some of the benefits: “There are the obvious benefits, like a boost in mindfulness, memory and communication skills. But studies have also found that writing in a journal can lead to better sleep, a stronger immune system, more self-confidence and a higher I.Q.” I would highly recommend journaling as a practice, and don’t be too hard on yourself if you feel like you’re “not writing anything important,” or if you miss a few days/weeks. Journals are always there for you and they can be a wonderful record of your growth, relationships, faith, pop culture favorites. Highly recommend!

Toward a More Radical Selfie, The Paris Review. “In 2018, the ambivalence toward how to treat one’s digital self, how to create one’s “character,” is a particularly unwieldy knot for women. The collapse of the critical space between one’s personality and one’s online persona erases the distinction between self-expression and self-promotion. Every post now seems to fall into a dangerous trap.” Interesting. I do get tired of “putting myself out there,” which is why my Instagram has slowly transformed into a one-dog (one-PERFECT-dog) show. But this essay is beautifully written and introduced me to an impressive piece of fiber arts that I’d never seen before!

The military secret to falling asleep in two minutes, The Independent. This trick actually sounds like it could work for me! It’s basically a body scan and then about 10 seconds imagining you’re in an incredibly still peaceful place. But click through and read the details, I’d love to hear if it works for you!

Man Discovers a Family of Mice Living in His Garden, Builds Them a Miniature Village, Bored Panda. The pictures in this piece are MAGICAL. The guy is a wildlife photographer with a big yard, so I can only hope this habitat he’s built for the mice is a good good distance away from his house. But the photos are really precious and Beatrix Potter-like.

Bonus features:

How Rubberbands Are Made. This process is ridiculous and every stage looks like dough or a bunch of noodles.

The hardest person to shop for is your significant other’s dad.Haha! Painfully true.

December 7, 2018

Blog news: I might be moving to Wordpress in the new year, given some of the strange news about the Tumblr platform, which is too complicated and frustrating to get into on my weekly-reads blog. Just a heads up that some changes may be coming down the pike.

This has been a week of unusually high anxiety for me, but I’m working my health and self-care plans as best I can. I haven’t had the brain space for anything really deep or intense, but I hope you enjoy this lighter, story-based fare this week!

How a 6-Year-Old Survived Being Lost in the Woods, Outside. “Some kids will sit down and stay in one place,” says Koester. “If you are in the open woods and there is no landmark to follow, then the majority of six-year-old kids are going to circle.” So it wasn’t surprising that the search party concentrated its efforts around Deerings Meadow, where Cody was last seen. But lost people also latch on to linear features, like a road, Koester says.” Spooky!

Ask Polly: I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life. This is such a generous, beautiful essay about shame and art and how to start again. I'll let her own words speak for themselves:

“Shame is the opposite of art. When you live inside of your shame, everything you see is inadequate and embarrassing. A lifetime of traveling and having adventures and not being tethered to long-term commitments looks empty and pathetic and foolish, through the lens of shame. You haven’t found a partner. Your face is aging. Your body will only grow weaker. Your mind is less elastic. Your time is running out. Shame turns every emotion into the manifestation of some personality flaw, every casual choice into a giant mistake, every small blunder into a moral failure. Shame means that you’re damned and you’ve accomplished nothing and it’s all downhill from here. You need to discard some of this shame you’re carrying around all the time. But even if you can’t cast off your shame that quickly, through the lens of art, shame becomes valuable. When you’re curious about your shame instead of afraid of it, you can see the true texture of the day and the richness of the moment, with all of its flaws. You can run your hands along your own self-defeating edges until you get a splinter, and you can pull the splinter out and stare at it and consider it. When you face your shame with an open heart, you’re on a path to art, on a path to finding joy and misery and fear and hope in the folds of your day. Even as your job is slow and dull and pointless, even as your afternoons alone feel treacherous and daunting, you can train your eyes on the low-hanging clouds until a tiny bit of sunlight filters through. You are alive and you will probably be alive for many decades to come. The numbers on your credit-card statements can feel harrowing, but you can take that feeling and keep it company instead of letting it eat you alive. You can walk to the corner store to buy a newspaper and pull out the weekend calendar section and circle something, and make a commitment to do that one thing. You can build a new kind of existence, one that feels small and flawed and honest, but each day you accumulate a kind of treasure that doesn’t disappear. Because instead of running away from the truth, you welcome it in. You don’t treat what you have as pointless. You work with what you have.”

How to Clear a Path Through 60 Feet of Snow, Japanese Style, Atlas Obscura. This is so fun to look at. I can't even fathom this amount of snow, and yet it's a yearly thing for them. I would watch a movie about Snow Canyon and the people who live (and plow) there.

Pushcart-Nominated Poet Accused of Plagiarizing Multiple Peers, Jezebel. There seems to be a lot of plagiarism happening in the exploding landscape of “social media poetry.” It makes sense in a way, even though it’s absolutely not ethical. This example is basically an object lesson to the extremely damaging consequences of plagiarism via paraphrase. Things shared on social media are often fractured from their context or source -- we see that all the time with the frustrating sourcing on Pinterest (although this seems to have improved somewhat as the years go by). That’s why I tell my students: what you say matters, but also how you say it (ethically, responsibly)! I feel for the poets involved in stories like this, especially those whose work has been stolen.

We thought the Incas couldn’t write. These knots change everything, New Scientist. This is so cool! I would love to see a fantasy story that adapts this language system for magic purposes. If I had world enough and time, this is the kind of mystery I would love to know everything about.

November 30, 2018

After a long year of reading and experimentation, I have found a mini-calling to withdraw from much of my online participation and screentime. You know, participation is hardly the word because so much of my screentime has involved passive scrolling and skimming! I am probably becoming as pretentious about this subject as Neo-Luddite Frank Navasky from You've Got Mail, but I do think the mindful steps back I've taken have been helpful to me. I'm reading more, I'm journaling more, and I’m looking up a bit more. It's not a perfect change, and I do still reach for my phone in unconscious moments of insecurity or mild boredom, but I'm getting there.

Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, Linda Bacon. I'm getting a lot out of this book, which sparked the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement. It's very well-researched and talks about the factors that influence weight regulation and how to listen to your body's natural cues regarding food. It's a very generous book and while I do find some chapters difficult/anxiety inducing (the food industry, eek!), it's been an excellent, stabilizing force in the ocean of diet and nutrition information out there.

Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound. "We know from research that the reading circuit is not given to human beings through a genetic blueprint like vision or language; it needs an environment to develop. Further, it will adapt to that environment’s requirements – from different writing systems to the characteristics of whatever medium is used. If the dominant medium advantages processes that are fast, multi-task oriented and well-suited for large volumes of information, like the current digital medium, so will the reading circuit. As UCLA psychologist Patricia Greenfield writes, the result is that less attention and time will be allocated to slower, time-demanding deep reading processes, like inference, critical analysis and empathy, all of which are indispensable to learning at any age." This is really interesting, talking about how our reading skills evolve to fit the mediums we use, and how our current screen media make it difficult to do deep reading. But read this piece -- it ends with a message of hope!

Disruption: Saadia Muzaffar. "For the vast majority of these workers, their only contact with their employer is through an app. You sign up through an app, you interact with them through an app, you get paid through an app. All of this is fine until a worker does something, let’s say unsavory, that the employer does not like. They are immediately kicked off the platform with no recourse. They have no way to reach anybody, talk, clarify, renegotiate, and their work history is erased. So it’s almost like they never existed, doing the jobs that they did for many years at a time. These platforms also purposely don’t provide any way for these workers to connect with one another, so it is a very lonely existence as a worker." Wow, this is a really interesting look at a population (online labor workers) that I hadn't considered to this degree. The level of employee surveillance is definitely something I'm not comfortable with, along with the designation of these employees as independent contractors to avoid giving them benefits or a safety net! This is a really good talk.

The Problem With Being Perfect, The Atlantic. This is an interesting examination of perfectionism. When I had a therapist, one of the most freeing things she told me was to shoot for "excellence, not perfection." Personal excellence, meaning that you tried your best and tried only to please yourself over any external judges, is a healthier goal for me than an ever-distant perfection.

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Perfume, Longreads. “It’s not always about simply smelling good: We want to smell complex, so that others will be compelled to keep coming back, like bees to a flower, to sniff us again and again, to revel in our scents, and draw ever closer to our warm, damp parts.” Gross! But fascinating. I like reading about scent; it's hard to describe and I love when people do it well. “Smell is the mute sense, the one without words,” wrote Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses. “Lacking a vocabulary, we are left tongue-tied, groping for words in a sea of inarticulate pleasures and exaltation.”

November 23, 2018

However you are celebrating this holiday, I hope you find a moment for gratitude and another for cozy.

Know Your Squash: How They Look, How They Cook, NYT. This is a great guide to a wonderful vegetable!

McMansion Hell (Williamson County, TN). This is a Tumblr that pokes fun at the real estate listings of enormous mansions -- the tacky taste, the iffy architecture, and the sense of dread you get from looking at pictures of a house with no people in it. It’s all here, and I’ve snickered my way through many a house profile on her blog. This post, which covers an eyesore of a house from Tennessee, is representative of her humor.

Why UX Designers Should Consider the Role of Sound Design, WIRED. This is interesting! Describes the phenomenon of “sonic trash,” like that grating noise when you need to remove your card from the chip reader at the grocery store. Some of their findings: “That credit card chip reader sound has an emotional appeal of 95.7, just slightly better than nails on a chalkboard. In that same range is the relentless beeping of a typical microwave when your food is done. The least appealing designed sound we tested was the government issued Emergency Broadcast Alert—with an Emotional Index of 93.1, it’s only marginally better than hearing a pained scream.

Interestingly, the most appealing designed sound we tested was that of The Weather Channel's Severe Weather Alert on its mobile app, which falls somewhere between an orchestra tuning and the sound of applause (Emotional Index = 107.8). Not far off, with an emotional index of 107, was Disney Now’s streaming media UX sounds.”

Quitting Instagram: Why did one of the original employees of the social media platform quit the company and delete the app? Washington Post. “She was one of the 13 original employees working at Instagram in 2012 when Facebook bought the viral photo-sharing app for $1 billion. She and four others from that small group now say the sense of intimacy, artistry and discovery that defined early Instagram and led to its success has given way to a celebrity-driven marketplace that is engineered to sap users’ time and attention at the cost of their well-being.“In the early days, you felt your post was seen by people who cared about you and that you cared about,” said Richardson, who left Instagram in 2014 and later founded a start-up. “That feeling is completely gone for me now.” This line also identified why Instagram Stories, along with a few other features, make Instagram a less authentic internet space: “The result of these changes and others prior to it was increased follower counts, produced larger social networks with weaker ties, and more time spent in the app.” Interesting!

Quality Time: The Presentation That Changed My Work Life, ACRLog. Forgive me for the self-promotion, but this blog post just came out on the library blog I write for! I talk about the book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, and the new way I structure my day.

November 16, 2018

Were you snowed in this week? Maryland had the first snow-before-Thanksgiving in years and personally I loved it. I spent the afternoon with my favorite snow day food (grilled cheese and tomato soup) and my favorite snow day company (my black lab during the day, my intrepid husband back from CA in the evening). Back at work today caught up on sleep and feeling cozy.

The Freedom of Designing a Non-Performing Home. “Inspiration and copying certainly primes the pump — but then it’s time to let go and trust we don’t need to make our homes for the world, but simply to reflect the people living inside them.” This is such great advice for anyone who looks at staged interiors online and then back to their own lived-in living rooms with a sigh. It’s your space, it’s supposed to function for and reflect you! I like this piece a lot.

“For Strong Women,” by Marge Piercy. I recently discovered this poet, whose words are rooted in nature and feminism in perfect measure. This poem is from the 80s but sounds as relevant today. “Strong is what we make / each other.”

RSPB Scotland’s Nature Prescriptions calendar. I heard about this pamphlet from this piece in the Cut, but I encourage you to check out the checklists for each month! Hearing about doctors prescribing nature, and specific ways to encounter it, made may day. I want to talk to a pony or make a rock sculpture on the beach this November!

Laziness Does Not Exist. “I know, of course, that educators are not taught to reflect on what their students’ unseen barriers are. Some universities pride themselves on refusing to accommodate disabled or mentally ill students — they mistake cruelty for intellectual rigor. And, since most professors are people who succeeded academically with ease, they have trouble taking the perspective of someone with executive functioning struggles, sensory overloads, depression, self-harm histories, addictions, or eating disorders. I can see the external factors that lead to these problems. Just as I know that “lazy” behavior is not an active choice, I know that judgmental, elitist attitudes are typically borne out of situational ignorance.” I really appreciate the author’s compassionate perspective on student “laziness.”

The Mindful Twenty-Something: Life Skills to Handle Stress…and Everything Else, Holly B. Rogers. Reading this book with some coworkers as we explore how to make mindfulness a conversation on the campus at large. If you’re a 20 something (or not! the advice is approachable and mostly age-neutral), and new to the ideas of meditation, paying attention to your breathing, and practicing non-judgment to yourself and others, this book really lays it out in a friendly and doable way!

November 9, 2018

We all made it to this Friday! I’m proud of you. This week I’ve been thinking about self-care -- the fun kind that nourishes her skin and hair, but also the hard kind, the kind that mops the kitchen floor and finally washes her bras. Do you ever get the urge to ponytail up, plug in your headphones, and finally face all the things hanging over your head, mumbling that you should attend them? Now you know my weekend plans. Wish me luck!

Well, Damn, Paper Books As Small As Your Phone Are Actually Great, Quartzy. Penguin is developing a mini book size that is meant to fit in the back pocket of a woman's jeans. Check out the link for some pictures of how these books are read (horizontally! as if you are scrolling through a slightly-wider version of your phone!), and let me know what you think. According to the coverage of the mini-books, the pages are super thin, so I wonder if libraries will stock them or not. I could definitely see myself buying one of these for a favorite book.

A Brooklyn Bookshop Owner on the Lost Art of the Phone Call, Haystack Stories. “That feeling when the phone rang throughout the house, and you were in another room but ran to get it, and it could be anyone but you had no idea who! Such possibility! And you had like 15 friends whose voices you could recognize simply from the word, “Hey.” And maybe because it had an actual cord it made you feel tethered to your friends in their other houses and you could picture them in their rooms, doodling, or painting their nails, as you chatted. I desperately wanted my own phone in my own room and when my mom finally gave in and got me one it felt like freedom, my secret world, a world of kids.” I really love this conversation about the landline, about how girls talking on the phone could get into the minutia of our lives back then, and that was a kind of intimacy that looks different now.

Live Stream of a Norwegian Train, Kottke. This is a 24/7 stream of a train in Norway, from the perspective of the train driver's cab. It's so peaceful, with the noises of the rail and bell, or with your own music! Highly recommend a few minutes of this video on your lunch break.

How to Host a Dinner Party When You Just Don’t Feel Like Cooking, Bon Appetit. This is a cute example of how to combine quick takeout with a few tricks at home to make it seem like you've made an effort. I am into it! Every time I've had friends over for chicken, it's been a pretty good time.

How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care, Marlee Grace. I want someone else to read this book so we can talk about it! It is a cute-sized (though not quite mini) book that combines thoughtful journal prompts with the writer's informal reflections on the balance between work and life. She invites you to contemplate how you define your work -- is it just what makes you money? Is it things you have to do but don't feel like doing? Is it the things that make you money but also make the time fly by? This book gave me a lot to think about, and it's worth a read if you ever think to yourself, on the way to your job, “This again? Is this all there is?”

November 2, 2018

It’s funny how the pleasure of a holiday changes as you get older. Earlier this year, I bought a pinata for a friend’s birthday party and learned that all this time, grownups have had to buy the candy and fill the pinata themselves. The feeling of dumping candy into a pinata came back to me on Wednesday, handing out treats to our neighborhood kids. The holiday is less about the thrill of free candy and homemade costumes and suddenly more about the crisp weather and porch conversations (and of course, leftover candy). As an adult with no children, it was really fun to watch kids practice being polite with fake blood all over their chins. What a fun, funny holiday.

Plus, my best friend had her baby this week! Welcome to the world, FJH!

If Your Chair Hurts Your Back, Blame Technology, Then Try These Hacks, NPR. This is very informative! I want to practice better posture, especially sitting in a desk at work. I'm going to try some of these tips.

How to Stay Focused. This blogger shares some of her tips for staying focused -- playing classical or instrumental music has helped me at work too! So has the realization that I should write in the morning, and do email and other less intense things in the afternoons. What are your strategies for staying focused? There are some more good tips here at Buzzfeed.

9 Gift Giving Crafts to Start This Fall, Joy the Baker. Joy rounds up a few crafts that make good gifts here. I have my eye on this weekend as a crafting/sewing retreat!

Awful Library Books. This is a blog detailing books that are withdrawn from all kinds of libraries (this process is called “weeding”). Each post explains a little bit of why the book was weeded, and most of the examples are just horrifyingly out of date or unappealing to readers these days. A funny, interesting look at a library process that not many know about! Here are a few of my recent favorites: The Art of Salad Making, How to Break Into Modeling, Toasts! The Complete Book of the Best Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings, Curses, and Graces.

26 Iconic Foods from Disney Movies You Can Actually Make, Buzzfeed. NOTHING looks better than animated food. If I had magic powers I would want to become a cartoon and eat a glossy, animated birthday cake and some pork dumplings. This roundup of Disney-inspired recipes is the closest I can come until the technology for making me a cartoon gets here.

Have a great weekend!

October 26, 2018

This is my favorite costume I’ve ever done, from about 6 years ago. I’m the Tooth Fairy! Are you going to a Halloween party this weekend or next week? Are you giving out candy or taking your kids to a trunk or treat thing? You need a costume. Luckily I have put together a round-up of last minute costumes in case this has been a wild month and all you have at home is a permanent marker and a cardboard box in your closet!

Pineapple - This is a really detailed tutorial on what is essentially a yellow shirt and a green headband. Gender neutral and cheerful!

Super-Last Minute Scarecrow and the kids’ version - I like the idea of using yarn over straw because of itchy. Honestly both of these tutorials are complicating something that can truly be so easy: overalls or a flannel shirt (or both), + a little face paint + big hat + awkward pose for pictures = perfect scarecrow.

Mister Fred Rogers - An icon whose clothes you (or the local Goodwill) probably own!

Where’s Waldo - Another absolute legend. Here he is in baby version, too. I appreciate a costume that lets you wear long-sleeves because it is CRISP outside.

80s Aerobic Instructor - If I didn’t already have a costume this year, I’d be all over this one. Again a good option if only for weather management. I'm not trying to freeze giving out Starbursts on my front porch. This costume is as simple as tights under a baggy sweatshirt and a one-piece bathing suit! You could also do a shiny tracksuit or some extremely chill sweatpants. This is the costume for someone who has outgrown tripping around someone’s messy apartment in platform heels, shivering and nibbling on stale pretzels because somehow NO ONE BROUGHT FOOD.

Happy week of Halloween!

October 19, 2018

There’s a hill at this park near my house that I’ve taken to marching up and down with Persey in the afternoons. I’m delighted to find that it’s crisp and even chilly out here, so I can indulge in long, rambling walks with my girl without worrying about either of us collapsing from heat exhaustion. Something about this incline, only about a quarter of a mile at a gentle but definite slope, has been fantastic for my mental health as well as my heart rate. And the reward of sitting in the sunwarmed grass, looking over the rest of the park with Persey panting at my side, has been so rich. What do dogs look at when they look over a great height?

Get Acquainted with the Gorgeous Wedding Gowns of America's Wealthiest Families, Harper’s Bazaar. Some gorgeous satin and dramatic veils at this link. As the article says, we may not have royals here in America, but we do have society brides.

The One with the Embryo’s Friends Trivia Episode: A History. This is interesting: “The writers crafted the material, but the crowd decided whether or not it was good enough. If a joke didn’t yield the expected laugh, the writers huddled up, rewriting on the spot. The actors tried multiple line readings, listening to hear which one landed best. If the audience seemed uncomfortable or put off by a line, they fixed it and tried the take again — and again, if necessary. This meant shoot nights were a marathon, often going until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. (and sometimes required swapping out one sleepy audience for a fresh one halfway through). Sometimes producers would turn to the crowd between takes, asking for a show of hands to see how many got the joke.” I love this episode, because it reveals more little details about our friends than we knew before, plus the electricity of a high-stakes competition. This episode and the Thanksgiving one where they’re all yelling each other’s dirty laundry in mutual destruction (”The One Where Ross Got High”) are some of my favorite moments.

Doctor Beth, who runs the Realms of Gold doll and stuffed animal hospital, has a wonderful blog that photographs her process recovering and restoring beloved and damaged stuffed animals to lovable glory. What I especially love about her process is that her goal is not always to make the loveys as good as new, but to stablize their seams, wash away matted fur, and get them back to their kids as soon as possible. Take a look at some of her posts, like this amazing Gorilla restoration or this sweet Winnie the Pooh, and you’ll see what I mean.

I Think About the Princess Diaries Palate Cleanser A Lot, the Cut. The Cut has this series, “I Think About This A Lot,” which is sort of a personal essay about a really specific memory or moment that the author has keyed in on with loving attention. I am always a sucker for deviling the details, but these are also often funny. Check out the series, and especially this dessert from an iconic movie of my growing up.

I Still Love My American Girl Dolls, Glamour. “Historical fiction is essential to young readers, especially girls; we have to be able to imagine ourselves and our foremothers as vital, even in a small way, to the story of our society. The American Girl books (and later, the Dear America series, another 10/10 rec) put young women at the center of history and said that virtues like bravery and honesty and friendship and hard work were the keys to happiness and fulfillment, rather than a sweet disposition and a pretty face and a nice singing voice, as Disney might have us believe.” [Emphasis mine] Same, girl.

#have a great weekend!#thefriday5 #what im reading #link roundup

October 12, 2018

Hello friends. I am spending this Friday 5 on 5 of my favorite painters of dogs! Aren't dogs and cats just the best subjects for art?

Andrew Wyeth - His paintings of family dogs are peaceful and pastoral, even though I always feel there's something a little cold in his color palettes. It's the chill of early mornings in a farmhouse, the kind of morning that would make you snuggle up in the Master Bedroom. His son, Jamie Wyeth, is also a delightful painter of dogs, and here’s a cute one of his.

Molly Poole - This contemporary American painter is new to me and I just can't get over how she captures Labrador body language and expression. Looking at her paintings I delight in the truth of my dog. Here are some of my favorites: Morgan’s View, Grass is Greener, Garden Bench.

Franz Marc - German Expressionist. This painting, called Dog Lying in the Snow, is of his dog, and check out Blue Dog too!

David Hockney - This artist's paintings are so charming. His dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie, are his muses, and he published a book called Dog Days that features so many good paintings of these pups. Here’s a photo of him with his dogs and all the paintings of them!

Carl Larsson - Swedish watercolor artist with an illustrative style that I love. I first discovered his paintings in an art-a-day tear-off calendar my best friend gave me. This lovely one is called Woman Lying on a Bench with Dog. Cozy Nook captures how peaceful it is to watch a dog sleep in the late afternoon.

I hope these dog paintings make you smile today! I'll end with a poem by Jane Kenyon called After an Illness, Walking the Dog: “It's so good to be uphill with him, / nicely winded, and looking down on the pond.”

#dogs #dogs in art #dog paintings #friday 5

October 5, 2018

The news has been really heavy lately, have you been taking care of yourself? I would give myself a C+ for self-care this week, except that self-compassion and not being too hard on yourself is part of self-care so...I did my best to keep my chin up, and snuggled with my dog anytime I wasn’t at work.

But tonight! Oh, tonight...I’m making slime. You know slime? I have a box full of supplies from Walmart waiting for me at home, plus about 4 recipes for different slime variations. Here’s one. I will report the results of this experiment next week, but I expect that the feeling of mixing goopy, slimy materials together will be the most satisfying thing I do this week.

Your Notifications Are Lying To You, Lifehacker. Quieting most or all of your push notifications has been at the top of most peoples’ Reduce Screentime strategy, but it does seem like people are talking about notifications a lot this week. Lifehacker had a good take: “Social media companies make their money through advertising, stuffing ads and promoted posts into your feed. Their business model is, quite straightforwardly, that you’ll view their ads because they bundle them with things you care about.

Don’t trust the app. You know it doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

With notifications off, you may feel lonely. You may start opening apps to see if there are any new replies or likes. When you notice yourself doing this, stop! Ask yourself, what do I really want right now? Is it human contact? Hug your kids, or text an actual real life friend. Is it entertainment? Decide on a book or a movie before you pick up your phone. With practice and intention, you can fight the apps’ designs and use your phone for your own purposes.”

Martha Stewart Living Helped Kick off a Domestic Explosion in the 90s, AV Club. “Her soothing voice filled almost every minute of Martha Stewart Living, unfolding at a meditation-inducing monotone as she walked you through making clarified butter or planting a rose bush.” Planning to watch the clips linked in this article this weekend, how soothing!

The 54 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time, Vogue. Ok, the other day I read a different list of best rom-coms that had like 3 Adam Sandler movies on it and Knocked Up, and it made me realize how fast and loose we’re all playing with the word “best.” This list does start with a caveat, “Comedy is subjective. So is romance.” I’m not sure how I feel about some of the movies/TV shows on this list (Lost in Translation, hard pass, and WHY can’t we just escape Woody Allen already), and the article needed some sterner copy-editing, but it gets me thinking. How about you? What’s your favorite rom-com?

Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, HuffPost. This is a good, important read. “Obesity, we are told, is a personal failing that strains our health care system, shrinks our GDP and saps our military strength. It is also an excuse to bully fat people in one sentence and then inform them in the next that you are doing it for their own good. That’s why the fear of becoming fat, or staying that way, drives Americans to spend more on dieting every year than we spend on video games or movies. Forty-five percent of adults say they’re preoccupied with their weight some or all of the time—an 11-point rise since 1990. Nearly half of 3- to 6- year old girls say they worry about being fat.” Some of the reported studies about doctor care in this are so horrifying. Read it when you have the emotional energy, and do something kind for yourself after, but know that this isn’t right and no one deserves this treatment.

The Governess Game, Tessa Dare. Tessa Dare’s historical romances are spicy and actually funny. I highly recommend her books, even if you’re not into the romance-novel genre. Have some fun! Read about a devilishly handsome duke with a razor-sharp jaw and sparkling emerald eyes. They are plentiful, and only a plain, sometimes-clumsy and always-feisty woman can make them settle down. :)

5 Favorite Podcasts

This is a photo of me from college radio days and SHOUTOUT to that shiny shirt that transitioned seamlessly (seamlessly!) from childhood dress-up to my college wardrobe. I thought I’d write a bonus post this week to share a few of my favorite podcasts. They might not be for everyone, but they get me through the margin moments of my day that would otherwise (god forbid) leave me alone with my thoughts:

Wonderful - Rachel and Griffin McElroy started this podcast to cover the Bachelorette and when that took a turn for the depressing, they pivoted to talk about things they find wonderful. They do a little research on a few wonderful things each week, and speak gently and fondly to each other while their baby naps. Consistently my favorite listen of the week.

Keep It - This one is a podcast hosted by a culture critic, covering political and pop-cultural current events. I really like the chemistry between these hosts, and they have good interview guests (they interviewed Jenny Han, the author of To All the Boys I Loved Before the other week!).

Hey Riddle Riddle - I love the concept of this podcast. The three hosts work to solve riddles and puzzles that range from easy-peasy to the difficult or bizarre. The podcast is still relatively new, but I am liking the groove they’re finding. A guest last week said something like, “This podcast is for people who think they enjoy riddles, but actually enjoy hating riddles.” Given how many riddles rely on elaborate puns, I think this holds up.

By the Book - For two weeks, two friends try to live by a self-help book to the letter, and report their results. As they follow the advice in a book, the two weeks are usually a mix of chaos and personal growth, which I can appreciate. Even when I haven’t read the self-help book in question, I still enjoy listening to this one. It’s like, “We try out this trendy book so you don’t have to.”

She’s All Fat - I already talked about this podcast a few weeks ago, but it’s still so good! They describe the podcast as being for “body positivity, radical self-love, and chill vibes only,” and that has held up as I made my way through their backlog. Even though they cover some depressing topics, such as fat discrimination, they also highlight good news and resources, and the podcast stays uplifting. Also Sophie’s favorite YA author is Tamora Pierce and SAME GIRL.

#podcasts #what im listening to #podcast recs

September 28, 2018

Well, hello there. This week I am rounding on my 27th birthday and my 1-year wedding anniversary. It’s been quite a year − I've felt like I've been full to bursting with ideas, typing madly from the moment I get to work till I leave. Full of notes, brainstorms, talks I want to give someday, exercises I want to try in the classroom. It's been a fertile period for my brain and I've felt really confident in my abilities lately.

But yesterday I made it back to the meditation room for the first time this semester and I realized how quickly I've gotten out of the practice of Doing Nothing purposefully and for a set amount of time. I fidgeted. I breathed shallowly. Thoughts swooped and drifted through my head like the ghosts in Mario Brothers. There was a tempting moment where I thought, “I'll just take a few minutes and puzzle over this work problem while I'm here,” as if I wasn’t already doing something very important! Nothing!

I've noticed that even though I'm in a period of high motivation and ideas, I still need to keep up the habits that separate my work and the rest of my life. One great way to keep those things from bleeding into each other is to rely on rituals − cues that your body gets used to over time that say, “This is what you're doing right now. You can transition. You can focus on this.” Meditation 2x a week is one important ritual for me; walking Persey after work is another. What are your rituals?

Having Faith In Your Students. Love this. “I go into every class believing that what I am saying to students is vitally important and that they have the ability to change their thinking and behaviors; I believe that my students can go beyond what I anticipate. I can proudly say that every day I work with students, I see glimmers of genius. Nothing can be more fulfilling to a teacher. But it is all a matter of faith.”

They've Found It. Can They Read It? Adding Academic Reading Strategies to Your IL Toolkit. This was one of the readings I found this week that got my mind racing with the implications. Especially startling for me is this finding: “These types of articles have become increasingly specialized and complex. A 2002 paper comparing scholarly articles published in the 1970s with those in the late 1990s found articles in most fields to be longer and to contain more references...Asking a student to write a 5 page paper on capital punishment is to turn that student loose into a thicket of information resources in which hundreds of thousands of pages have been written on the minute aspects within the broader context of capital punishment.” I believe these findings complicate the “lazy students” trope. For a long time I’ve thought that smartphones, video and other visual mediums, and Twitter have allowed our young adults’ reading stamina to atrophy. And maybe that’s true – we are all experiencing assaults on our attention at all times. But I see more clearly now that is my responsibility to ensure that our library collections are used effectively, and the fact is that most students have trouble using them. Excited about what that means for my classroom in the future.

XOXO in an Email: What Your Sign-Off Says About You, Vogue. “Closings (ways of saying ‘goodbye’) are the trickiest points in a conversation, written or oral,” reminded Lackoff in an email. “You have to both get away and convince your addressee that you still like them and want to continue the relationship in the future.” I use xoxo with my mom...can't imagine using it with my coworkers, but with other women I work creatively with, absolutely. It's so cute. It's an acronym but instead of evoking a chat room, xoxo has vintage valentine vibes.

The Apples of New York, The New York Botanical Garden. I got my image from this collection today. Definitely go check them out, there are such great (public domain) images of fruit, flora, and fauna to be found here!

Finding My Voice, ACRLog. Can I share my own piece, maybe just this once? I just started blogging for ACRLog, a blog for academic and research librarians, where I'll be talking about my teaching journey and library news!

September 21, 2018

I slept so much last weekend while David was out of town, and I still feel like I could nap the afternoon away! This week’s finds feature a lot of fashion and visuals, so feast your eyes:

Plus-Size Vintage Really is Hard to Find, Racked. This look at the history of plus size clothing was helpful to me, at least in unpacking why I've never been able to take much more than a visual interest in vintage clothing. One historian comments, "After stoutwear ended and before plus-size in the 1980s emerged, women were sewing for themselves," which I am actually still seeing! Women sewing their own clothes because designers and mainstream retailers are just not providing clothes that flatter us.

Experts Agree: We’re in the Midst of a Paradigm Shift in Women’s Pants, Quartzy. “Denim silhouettes shift in a major way about every 10 years, enough to define the decade when you look back on it. We entered the skinny jean phase around 2007 when we left bootcut behind and stuck with that silhouette for about 10 years without fatigue. It was time for a change.” There's some talk in here that kind of bums me out -- about how when suddenly everything in our closets looks outdated, we'll have to all go shopping for new clothes and that news excites retailers -- but I also like thinking that every decade has an iconic denim that defines the era.

Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, the Guardian. I always love these. I've noticed that there is a half-conscious reaction in me, a Noah's ark instinct perhaps, that loves to see two animals of a kind interacting -- cuddling, tussling, or climbing on each other. I look at two cats washing each other's ears and think, "Yes, that looks about right."

The Harvard Color Detectives, The Paris Review. I wish I was a color scientist! "Toward the end of the interview, I ask Khandekar how much the collection is worth. None of my questions, even the dumb ones, have elicited even an eyebrow raise from him, but this one is different. “I have no idea,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”" The pictures in this piece look like a wizard's shop. This author writes a column on the history of colors (another dream job), and I've shared her pieces before!

You’ve Got Mail (1998) -- Art of the Title. Just learned about this website, Art of the Title, which highlights the title sequences of film and tv. Some of them have interviews, some just the title sequence. Of course I'm using the You've Got Mail title as my sample, but check it out and look for your favorite movies, it's really interesting!

#the friday 5 #what im reading #thanks for reading

September 14, 2018

I’m WIPED y’all. I looked at my list of readings this week and they’re all really intense and sad. Can I just share 5 nice things with you? Here’s some light fare for a dark week, dear friends -- if you are in the path of this storm, I hope you find the resources you need to stay safe!

25 of the New Words Merriam-Webster Is Adding to the Dictionary in 2018. My girl “zoodle” made the list!

10 Tips for Baking Simple Bread at Home, Bon Appetit. My (dad’s) tip for baking bread isn’t on here, but feed your yeast a little warm water and sugar to get it started before you combine it with everything else and it rises much faster! This time of year is perfect for making bread.

She’s All Fat podcast. One of my new favorite podcasts! I’ve been thinking of making a post of 5-10 of my favorite podcasts, which keep me company in every ordinary moment that I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts (god forbid!). Keep an eye out for that post this month, but in the meantime check out this awesome body positivity podcast -- these women are sharp, funny, and kind.

The concept of Facebook groups. This is not a link but it is my favorite part of Facebook lately -- being a part of groups related to my work or interests (I belong to a few librarian groups and a self-care group) has brought positivity and new ideas to my News Feed.

Colorplan. This is a cool tool to play around with color combinations, to kill a little time while you wait to hear back from someone, or to look at every beautiful shade that the Internet can bring me. (I heard about this one from Swissmiss Studio, a design blog I like!)

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