Happy Hallow's Eve!

Happy Halloween to you and yours.  Hope it is spooktacular!

This year we have a little shark and butterfly to trick or treat with.  And I will be going as the shark's victim :)

And here are a few songs we will be listening to today to get us in the Halloween spirit...


Halloween, The Dream Syndicate

Pet Sementary, The Ramones

Frankenstein, New York Dolls

Brain Pickings: 7 ThingsI Learned in 7 Years of Reading, Writing and Living

Brain Pickings turned 7 this week.  I've written about this weekly digest before, here, and needless to say, since I am talking about it yet again, I am a fan.  I liked this week's list of 7 Lessons Learned in 7 Years: 

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.
2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don’t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night — and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards.
3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.
4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose todaydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.
   Most importantly, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?
5. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.
6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowedfrom the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. As I’ve reflected elsewhere, the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.

I love all 7 of these.  But especially #3 "It's so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator".  So very true.  Especially in this digital age of snark and cynicism.  Sitting on the couch or in front of the computer and criticizing somehow gives people the feeling of "doing something" or being better than.  But it is not and they aren't.   And #4, sleep and meditation.  So overlooked and so essential.  Do you agree?

Congrats to Brain Pickings on 7 years!

Have you checked out Brain Pickings yet?  Do yourself a favor and sign up for the weekly newsletter.  Your brain will thank you. 

Image via Brain Pickings, via Inside the Rainbow: Russian Children's Literature 1920-35.

 

Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes for your listening pleasure.

I am a huge Velvet Underground fan.  It's truly impossible for me to answer the question who is your favorite band.  But I do remember, once upon a time, in college, being asked this question and answering "The Velvet Underground".  Loaded had been on repeat for awhile, as I recall.

Just this week, while listening to a new compilation my hubby made me, a Lou Reed song came on that I was not familiar with. Not surprisingly, I really liked it.  It reminded me of college and of being a kid.

And the next day Lou Reed died.  And I felt old.

R.I.P. Lou Reed, to me, you never get old.

Sweet Jane, The Velvet Underground

Wishlist

A few things I have my eyes on...

From the looks of this list I am fully in Fall, cozy mode and getting ready to hibernate for winter.

From Top:

Rosetta Stone Spanish.  I pulled the trigger!  Tad and I have been doing this for about 30-45 minutes, 4-5 times a week.  Muy buen!

L.L. Bean Wicked Good Moccassins.  I am in the market for some cozy and warm slippers.  These are at the top of my list though I just read a rave review (Tomboy Style) for these L. L. Bean Wicked Good Slippers.

J. Crew Stadium Cloth Cocoon Coat  I think this coat looks way cuter in person.  I am always cold and would like a simple WARM coat to throw on for morning school runs which are already freezing and only getting colder.

The Most of Nora Ephron.  I love Nora but have never formally read any of her books (just articles and excerpts and such).  I think this needs to be remedied stat.

What better to sit and read with but some yummy fall treats??  Fall cannot go by without a batch of pumpkin cupcakes for me to stuff my face with!  Okay, maybe I'll share.  One.

Tuesday Tunes

Tunes for your Tuesday (Halloween Edition)

Night of the Living Dead, The Misfits

Really Nailing This Parenting Thing

This article from BuzzFeed, 24 People Really Nailing This Parenting Thing, made me laugh.

Wish List

A few things I'm wishing on....

From Top:

Done to Death Projects "Diane Keaton Shirt". Because it's her.  And I'm me.

Seaweed Bath Co. Seaweed Detox.  Supposedly this stuff is magic in a bath.

American Apparel Flex Fleece Hoodie in Navy. My old one bit the dust and navy is my favorite.

Gold Flats.  I am a sucker for gold flats even though I have terrible luck with them.  They never last me.  The gold rubs off.  But, as I said, I'm a total sucker and am jonesing for another pair and better luck.  The pair pictured here aren't available right now but I'm on the hunt.

Camping.  We have a camping trip coming up soon and I cannot wait.  Want. it. now.