A few good gems

Hello, hello! Happy weekend! Do weekends still have meaning for you or are they the same as every other day? For my crew here, Saturdays still feel a little different—a little more free with no work or school—and Sundays still feel special since we still do home church and even dress up (a little. sometimes.). This weekend, of course, is Mother’s Day. I’ve always loved thinking about the mothers in my life and celebrating them but I know the day can be fraught with undertones and pain, too. Whatever the case, be gentle with yourselves.

As always, we’ve been collecting a few gems from the internet for your weekend pleasure:

Cards Against Humanity has come out with a free, printable family version that looks fun. They’ve cleaned up their original version for a younger audience—but you may want to still screen them and just use the cards that seem right for your family.

These Sweet Potato Oven Fries were a hit at our house. Queen Ina never disappoints.

Have you ever watched Pointless, the British trivia game show? We LOVED watching Pointless when we lived in Australia and recently found that there are many episodes uploaded to YouTube (or, if you have BritBox you can watch it there.) If you like trivia, this is for you and your crew.

The Thayer estate in Lancaster, MA, is for sale and it’s a bargain! It was used in a few scenes of the recent Little Women movie and boasts 47 bedrooms and 28 baths! Let’s all pool our money and make it happen. (Thanks, Tona!)

Design Mom’s reno of her newly-purchased vintage French home is lighting my life right now. I especially love her Instagram stories every day, taking us through the daily details of tinting plaster, fixing up the garden, etc.

My brother told me about Public Domain Review, a terrific website that catalogues loads of images and files that are in the public domain (and therefore open to use). It’s a really fun place to explore. They’ve done a free PDR coloring book and even have formatted and provided some pretty cool Zoom backgrounds for your next class/meeting, like this one:

""The Hall of Stars in the Palace of the Queen of the Night"", Act 1, Scene 6 — by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for Mozart’s Magic flute

One of the websites I like to visit every day lately is Jenny Rosenstrach’s blog Dinner: A Love Story. During the pandemic, she’s posting daily in three categories: project, pantry (recipes), and purpose.
It’s like chatting with a good friend while browsing through her favorite recipes. (And she’s got some great ones! We loved her roast chicken AND her granola, both in this post (photos via her site, below):

Happy Mothers Day and Mothering Day weekend! Here’s to those who nurture and raise, who lose sleep and a little sanity, who try and fail and try again for the younger humans in our lives. It’s not about perfection, it’s about the endeavoring. I loved this NY Times series of short essays on How Motherhood Changes Us All. Especially these and this one and this one.

. . .

Watching: The Missing series, The Last Dance (Michael Jordan series), Pointless (see above)
Playing: the game Azul, the game Codenames (online with whole family)
Listening: Don’t Delete the Kisses (Wolf Alice), Ina Garten’s Trip to Paris playlist

What are you watching / playing / listening to these days? Any other gems you’ve come across that you can share with us all?

A Few Good Gems

Happy Friday! September weekends rank right up there with the best of them, I think. What's on the docket for you? G and I are in Utah right now so we'll be heading up to Logan for some family time, hikes, breakfast at Herm's, and maybe even a USU football game (go Aggies!).  Before we take off, I wanted to share a few good gems from around the internet:

• Harvest season means awesome veg-and-flower centerpiece opportunities! I'm loving this one:

• I'm sorry I missed this Kennedy Center performance in January with Sara Bareilles and Ben Folds but, happily, they filmed it. I could listen to Sara hum all day long and this song is one of my faves of hers:

• Training grandmothers to help treat depression in Zimbabwe seems like a great idea to spread around the world! 
   
• Speaking of training, I'm taking this free online class on the Science of Happiness, taught by the same folks at the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley who produce the Science of Happiness podcast. It's the first week of the course so it's not too late to start! Come join me!
   
• This letter took my breath away! It's a note from Aaron Copeland to Andre Kostelanetz asking him to help Leonard Bernstein. Let's hear it for mentors and fifth business players.

• I just noticed that all the haircut idea photos I've been gathering and pinning lately look something like this. Is it time to bring back the Princess Di cut? 

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• Music: There are Many Way to Say I Love You (Sylvan Esso, covering the Mister Rogers song) 
   
• Watch: To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Netflix) 
   
• Podcasts: I've just started Better than Happy and Alan Alda's Clear & Vivid. Both are good finds!
   
• Read: Luisa Perkins's blog, Novembrance, is smart, well-written, and full of good lists and insights. I miss the good ol' blog days, don't you?

Happy weekending, friends! What gems have you found and enjoyed this week? We'd love to hear and share!

A few good gems

Hello and happy summer to you! I've been enjoying a verrrry gentle and restorative May and June after the mad dash to the end of the school year. We made it through another high-mileage semester, commuting back and forth between our respective jobs. The up side to all that intermittent separation is that we are delighted to be together full time now--well, as full time as we get, with G's work travel. 

He actually just returned from an overseas trip this morning so this weekend we're planning on some good long city walks, teaching Sunday School to our class of 17- and 18-year-olds, and checking out the Black Out: Silhouette exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I highly suspect it will further fuel my obsession with collecting little pieces of vintage silhouette art. Or, better yet, getting out some scissors and black paper myself...

First, a few good gems for your weekend:

• Speaking of silhouettes, I love this sweet collection. Wall goals! (Just because I collect them, doesn't mean I actually hang them anywhere...)

• Did you HEAR? There's a Freaks and Geeks documentary coming soon to a television near you!! Monday, July 16th on A & E.

Photo: Chris Haston/Getty Images

• NY Times obituary writer Margalit Fox says goodbye today and I loved what she had to say about finding her path, writing about others' paths, and coming up with her own epitaph. (Thanks, Maddy, for sending me this)

• I'm deskless here in our little one-bedroom condo in DC, which is fine, but this window-mounted standing desk has me rethinking the situation!
   
• Recently I followed a delightful rabbit hole through the comments of this Cup of Jo post: What's the Most Beautiful Thing You've Read? The post itself is three years old and readers have come back and posted their favorite lines of poetry and literature. Clear your schedule if you click over and start to read! There are some beautiful gems there. 
   
• Isn't this a gorgeous dress? I tracked it down to Johanna Ortiz in Russian Vogue.  Next step: either figure out how to purchase it or how to make one of my own--I'm not sure which one is more likely/possible, ha!

• Do yourself a favor and go see the Mister Rogers documentary, Won't You Be My Neighbor, stat! It's no secret that I love Fred Rogers--and in large part my career was influenced by him. Even if you're not a certified Mr Rogers fan, it's a good, hope-filled film. Exhibit A: G and Maddy both liked it when I invited (dragged?) them with me.  And, listen: I like you just the way you are. 

Okay, friends. Happy weekending! It feels good to reconnect with you here after a bit of a break.  

A few good gems

Hello! I'm a little giddy today--my spring break starts at the end of the day and I'm looking forward to a week with family and friends. (Never mind that it will feel more like *winter* break--I'll take it!) What do you have brewing for the weekend?

Here are a few gems I've collected from the internet recently. Enjoy!

How great is this By The Sea painting by Lisa Congdon?!

via

Joanna Goddard recently featured a terrific selection of insights and epiphanies on parenting teens. Read the 286 (!) comments, too; there are some winners there! 

Why are more teens than ever suffering from severe anxiety?

A great Traders Joe's breakfast hack for your Saturday morning enjoyment (yum!)

Are you watching the Netflix series of David Letterman interviews, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction? I've missed him! I loved the ones so far: Obama and George Clooney. Next up: Malala! 

I love this idea of Overlooked, "a history project recalling the lives of those who, for whatever reason, were left out of The Times’s obit pages." Like Charlotte Bronte! Ida B Wells! Read about it here and watch for more great updates/entries here and nominate someone to be included here. (Thanks to my friend Deirdre for sending this along.) 

One of my favorite magazines in Australia was Dumbo Feather, with its wonderfully thoughtful conversations with doers, thinkers, and creatives: June Factor on the importance of play, Brene Brown on vulnerability and being brave, Parker Palmer on living the questions, Krista Tippett on belief, the list goes on and on. 

This week's BYU devotional by Mechanical Engineering professor Julie Crockett was delightful

The Mothers Before instagram account collects photos and shares the stories of mothers before they became mothers, submitted by their children. Charming and surprisingly moving. 

Have a great weekend! 

A few good gems

Hello, friends! What are you up to this weekend? I've been looking longingly at these days on my calendar for a while now--it's been the light at the end of the midwinter tunnel! G and I are heading south to Charleston SC for the long weekend* (it's our anniversary today--28 years!). We've never been there and I'm excited to finally see it. I've been filling up on Pat Conroy books in preparation. Any recommendations for things to see/eat/do?

A few good gems for your long weekend:

• Have you tried the Forest app? It helps you control your internet distraction and gives you rewards for time spent focused--you grow "trees" within the app according to how long you stay focused. Best of all, the company donates actual trees to the world as a result.
   
• I loved this annual letter "10 Tough Questions We Get" from Bill and Melinda Gates. Their responses to these tough questions all fascinated me but the part that caught my eye was Melinda's description of what it's like to be work partners with your spouse and how she handled establishing her own credibility in the room when everyone in the room was looking to Bill. (Melinda seems so cool--would love to take her to lunch sometime.)

• Are you interested in history, fashion, and/or sewing? Here are 83,500 vintage sewing patterns in an online database from Vogue, McCall's, Butterick, and Simplicity. 
   
• Speaking of history and fashion, I've been enjoying Lydia Edwards's How to Read a Dress Instagram account. Very cool!

• Amy Adams reading a poem ("Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver) and telling a joke. (Another person who I think would be a phenomenal friend, don't you think?)
   
• The key to raising a happy child? "Agency may be the one most important factor in human happiness and well-being." (LOVE this and the research this full article on NPR here cites. Great suggestions on how to become a consultant parent rather than a boss/micromanager.) Hat tip to my friend Jen who sent me this link.
   
• Finally, a few words of poetry I loved reading this week:

  Driving west tonight, the city dissolves behind us.
  I keep feeling we’re going farther than we’re going,
  a journey that started in the deep inkwell
  out of which our days are written.
  Nothing is said to indicate a monument,
  yet I perch on the edge of some new light.

  -Naomi Shihab Nye, Lights from Other Windows

I love that: "yet I perch on the edge of some new light."
Wishing you all some new light of your own. Have a wonderful weekend.
x Annie

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*I have to admit I'm even looking forward to the 6.5-hour road trip down. We've had some of our best talks and planning sessions sitting next to each other in the car, watching the horizon spread out in front of us. Here's hoping for many more years and miles ahead *knocks on wood*.

A few good gems

Hello, friends! I'd like to congratulate you all for making it through the month of January. High fives all around! We are getting ready to do some bathroom renovations in the coming weeks/months so this weekend our assignment is to pick out tile and finalize a couple of other choices, which could land anywhere on the spectrum between exhilarating and anxiety inducing for me. Wish me luck! 

Here are a few gems to see you into the weekend:

• Wouldn't it be nice to just get a quick glimpse in a crystal ball, just to put some of those everyday worries to rest? Sometimes I just need a good reminder to just remember this:

print available at Telegramme Paper Co. 

• Meet the illustrator of all those great cake drawings on the Great British Bake-Off. What a cool gig!
   
• I missed this when it first came out but I had to share these six fairy tales for the modern woman that my friend Ellen (hi ellen!) posted about a while back. Hear, hear!  (p.s. I just had to look it up: is it 'hear, hear' or 'here, here'? Answer: hear, hear.)
   
• Count me a fan of this origami airplane necklace. So pretty, especially in the long length!

• I was intrigued by this new research suggesting that doing 3 "Active 10"s might be healthier than 10,000 steps. Thoughts? (Confession: I kind of want it to be true.)
   
• Have you found the Accidentally Wes Anderson instagram account yet? Oh my GOODNESS--it's fabulous. Visually, it's spot-on and then on top of that they also give a quick + interesting write-up of the history of the building or scene. It makes me want to take a Wes-Anderson-themed world tour!  Check them out here. (Thanks, Jenny F.B.)

• Finally, I sent Maddy this hang-in-there commiseration video clip earlier this week since she was having a string of days full of deadlines. Maybe you know someone who could identify with the sentiment, too?

Have a lovely first weekend of February! See you back here on Monday.

A few good gems revival

When we were unpacking after our recent move I found a bunch of journals from my growing up years. "Bunch of journals" sounds like I was a diary writing fiend but really I was sporadic and fickle, switching to new ones midway through the last.

Thumbing through them,  I noticed that every time there was a time gap between writing, I spent the whole next entry talking about how I hadn't written for so long--it kind of crushed the narrative juju, ha! 

So I have good precedent for that habit but I'm going to try not to do it here.  Except to say: Hello, friends, sorry I haven't written for so long!  Nesting and launching are in full sway around here and we have lots to catch up on, you and us.  But it's a Friday so how about we start with a few good gems: 

• The power of talking sideways to teens. Yep, I second this. Some of the best talks with my kids have been in the car or working next to each other
   
• Sam shared this music video with me and it's a no-fail, happy-making clip. It came out about a year and a half ago but it's new to me! (I wonder if it helped Emma Stone land the LaLa Land role?)  Even if you've already seen it, maybe this will still brighten your day:

• Parenting advice from a 24-year-old son by Katrina Kenison was illuminating.  I've loved her writing for a long time (anyone else inhale the wisdom of Mitten Strings for God when your kids were younger?) 
   
• How to talk about your side projects: great insights about using your interests, hobbies, side projects into job interviews
   
• I love that there are people in this world who think about how the characters from Friday Night Lights would have voted in the presidential election. 
   
• Now that's it's heading toward spring/summer and we're located in the porch-centric southern US, I feel obligated to outfit myself with a porch swing. I've been drooling over this one: 

via The Porch Swing Company

Or what about a bed swing?!

• Isn't Edie Wadsworth's kitchen lovely? I love that green hutch, the brass pendants, the light gray cabinets, and all the rest.

via her Instagram

Have a fantastic weekend, all! I'm hoping to explore a local trail, grade some papers,  and mostly just cozy up at home to listen to conference together. What's on for you?