A Vacation Note to Our Friends with Benefits

While we take much needed time off this August, we want to make sure our Friends with Benefits get full value for their subscriptions. We’d planned to simply add an extra month to all subscriptions, but have encountered unexpected technical difficulties. We hope you’ll bear with us during our hiatus and know that we’re working on a solution.…

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Life Lesson from a Simple Kid’s Lanyard

Recently, I discovered a forgotten neon pink plastic lanyard at the bottom of a basket of cat toys. Made at summer camp two years ago, it was a gift from a small person, presented with a shy smile “I made it, just for you.”

When I read this poem by poet Billy Collins, I suddenly felt saddened that I had been so cavalier in discounting its importance. Finding it again felt huge––like a redemption.

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Why Not Sleep on the Roof in a…Sky Parlour?

We recently read that President Taft had a sleeping porch built (below) on the roof of the White House in the 20’s. On hot summer nights, the first family could sleep up there to cool off. It allowed the President retreat up there to chill and look out over Washington. We love sleeping outdoors too.
We’re always on the lookout for cool impermanent shacks— “sky parlors” — that can be erected on a roof, a yard, even indoors as a rustic office or private space.

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Trees Growing Through Obstacles (Like Us)

Our friend Cara De Silva sent us a link to images of trees growing through concrete, with these words. …I was startled and grateful when I looked at these beautiful and inspiring photographs. But not only for the usual reasons. For months now I have been seeing such trees as a metaphor,

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Ornithology Wall Mural: Proseck’s Practice of Seeing

(Video link HERE.)  There is something enchantingly low-tech and intimate about artist James Proseck‘s painstaking process of making this wonderful, public wall mural: painting bird silhouettes a la Field Guide series of nature books. His technique is very interesting and could easily be applied to the walls of any interior or exterior space – bedroom, dining…

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A Song for a Summer Weekend

 We know a number of people taking “stay-cations”, enjoying the city as though they were visiting it anew, filling themselves up with wonderful art, food, happenings,  and not dealing with traveling for one reason for another. We’re going to do the same in a week or so, just so we can WANDER, without a…

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