Month: January 2021

humor

I’m Having a Party and You’re Invited

Go Jules Go

Hey! What’s up! How are you! Why am I using so many exclamation marks! I don’t know! There’s just something in the air!

And it rhymes with Schmala Schmarris!

I don’t want to keep you from your own celebrations, but if you’re looking for even more uplifting stories while you wait to pop the bubbly, I thought it’d be fun to share some of the REALLY cool stuff I’ve seen lately.

(I’ve cried enough while watching the news this month. I figured you might be feeling the same.)

If You’re Looking for #WomanPower or #Entrepreneur Inspiration…

Check out Axiology’s story.

My friend, Ericka, launched this cruelty-free beauty company right here in Bend, OR, and their waste-free, multi-use balmies landed on OPRAH’S FAVORITE THINGS LIST! I’m excited to interview Ericka in the future, but in the meantime, I can’t recommend her products enough.

My favorite lipstick. (Cozy photo taken early 2020. Sigh.)

If You’re Looking for a Feel-Good Movie*…

Photo credit

Check out “The Grizzlies” on Netflix, based on the true story of a group of Inuit high school students who live in a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America. Cue: preppy, young history teacher from the city who takes the only job he can find and decides to teach them how to play lacrosse. I especially loved how they included an update on the actual students and teachers at the end of the film.

*I hesitate to post this for fear of promoting the simplification of solutions to systemic problems…but watching this movie made me want to BE AND DO BETTER, so I’m including it here**.

**I really hate having to qualify things that make me want to be a better human***.

***But unfortunately it’s important to do so because watching a movie isn’t going to help unless you take action afterwards****.

****I promise the rest of this post is free of footnotes.

If You’re Looking to Take a Trip Without Leaving the Couch

Uncle Jesse at our neighborhood go-to spot last week. Bend, OR.

My French Chronicles just pulled together a wonderful two-minute video, “Bloggers with a View,” featuring quick clips from around the world (including Bend!). She’s got more collaborative projects in the works, so if you’re interested in participating, head over and say hi!

If You’re Looking for a Healthy Living Jump-Start Before You’re Seen in Public Again…

What are you looking at me for? I kid! Actually, over at Plant-Based Point, Robin and I have oodles on this topic. Including this fun, fact-filled video, “Why Your Energy Tank is on E,” and this blog post, 21 Foods for 2021.

And whether you’re rockin’ your quarantine bod or better, why not clothe it in our new merch?

If you think our merch is lame, our commercial is even lamer!

If You’re Looking for a Really Great Podcast Episode

I love Rich Roll. He’s smart, eloquent, sensitive, vegan, badass, and driven. In episode #567, he interviews Joe De Sena, founder of Spartan and a bunch of other crazy endurance events. Maybe it’s the Jersey girl in me, but I laughed out loud (along with Roll) listening to this Queens native tell his fascinating story.

I actually wrote a whole long intro to this blog post about the power of doing hard things. One of them is knowing when to shut up.

If You’re Looking for…YOU

Okay I know I just insinuated that I was about to shut up, but real quick, I just want to give an insufficient, yet utterly heartfelt, thanks to YOU. If you made it to this point in my post, I’m going to assume you choose hope over all else. And even if you don’t? I love you anyway. So there.

“Rock Face” seen at my go-to running spot. Two months later, people are still updating it with new nature-inspired expressions.

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What/who else should be on this list?

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humor

Imagine if…

Go Jules Go

I glanced to my right and let out an astonished chuckle. Shifting in my seat, I looked right again.

The clouds had lowered themselves in such a way that they were somehow part of the sprawling, high desert ground, the northern Nevada mountains peeking out over top. They looked solid yet ethereal. Upside down. A fairytale landscape.

I couldn’t safely stop to snap a photo, so I hope you’ll use your imagination [and settle for this photo taken a few days earlier in Nevada].

I wondered how many fanciful reasons I could come up with for this sight.

Even the clouds gained weight in 2020…

A giant sky troll got mad and smooshed them down…

A GROUND troll started weight lifting and pushed them UP…

The clouds were hungover, couldn’t get out of bed, and like seriously why are mountains such show-offs anyway…

The mountains were taking a shower and didn’t want road warriors like me to see their, ah, peaks and valleys…

The mountains were getting ready for a grand performance and the clouds were their theater curtain…

Maybe it was the monotonous driving; nine hours with little more than radio static to keep me company. Or the stress of the past year. Or maybe this was just how my brain worked. Either way, a surge of energy swirled around my heart.

There was magic in this moment. Not just because the sight itself was otherworldly. But because it catapulted me into my imagination, a place where time was meaningless and the more something made me giggle, the more valid it was.

Those moments were commonplace in 2019.

When I got back home, I stared at my laptop wallpaper, where I proudly displayed my vision board. A cliché exercise, to be sure, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t produce some of that mountain magic.

A snippet of my current vision board. By the way, feel free to forward this blog to 1,111,300 of your closest friends.

In fact, over the past few years, I’ve had to update my vision board regularly because the images on it KEEP COMING TRUE. Usually not in the exact way I pictured, but that’s how the universe works. Wishes are granted through chance encounters, strangers’ smiles, and saying “yes” when all you want to do is sleep.

2020 robbed us of many things, including some of those opportunities to bump into each other, smile, and say, “Yes!” But now the cloud curtains are parting and reminding us that the mountains and magic were there all along.

Happy 2021, Chipmunks.

I have a vision board. I light magic candles. And I fall asleep at 9pm on New Year’s Eve.

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