A year ago today, I declared the following intentions for the decade. I wanted them to be broader than SMART goals, something that I could have as guideposts. I have no idea what my life might look like in 2030, but if I’ve consistently worked towards these intentions, I think that I will be happy …
Month: December 2020
In reflecting on 2020, it is so easy to summarize it as a lost year. It’s easy to say “COVID ruined everything, we all stayed home and watched Tiger King, the end.” I don’t want to minimize the impact of COVID-19. Over 80 million people have had COVID worldwide, and over 1.7 million people have …
On January 1, 2020, I declared that this would be my year of buying nothing. This year has been nothing like I expected. Nothing like any of us expected. Here’s what a younger, naive version of myself wrote about my year of buying nothing in January: I will still buy: Food (groceries, dining out, including …
Every Monday Matters was not for me. The author starts out by explaining his story – he spent his whole life chasing a Western ideal of success, but that made him anxious and depressed, and now he travels around the country speaking and inspiring people with his message. “I believe that we humans are all …
When I was in TFA, they had us do a sort of self-care plan based on The Happiness Project – pick a thing that will make you happier every month, and then do that thing. I read The Happiness Project that year as well, and I liked it. I also enjoy Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, Happier …
I’ve been following Melissa Urban on Instagram for a while now. Five years, at least. Honestly, the Melissa Urban who exists on Instagram today seems like a whole departure from “It Starts with Food.” I read one of her other books, “Food Freedom Forever,” a few years ago, and that seems much more aligned with …
Angela Davis is a genius. I was reading this book on my Kindle, and highlighting every sentence that made me feel like “Wow, that is so profound” and then I had to stop myself, because it is not useful to highlight every line of the book. But really, just about every line of this book …
2020 has involved a lot of being alone for many of us, so I picked up this book, which has been on my bookshelf for a while. The only way I can think to describe “The Lonely City” by Olivia Laing is as an art history memoir. And, given that 2020 is the year when …
I was in charge of buying new books to restock our classroom libraries this summer, and it was a lot of fun. I don’t normally buy a lot of books, so this was like getting to go on a book-buying spree for my kids. One of the books I ordered for school was “When Stars …
I had heard of “The Body is Not an Apology” here and there in body -positivity spaces online, but the reason I read this book was Sonya Renee Taylor’s interview on Brené Brown’s podcast. “I am not simply proposing that you make peace with your body because your body shame is making you miserable. I …