Category Archives: Miscellany

Good Reads, Jan. 6-12, 2013

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Been too busy this week to spend much time keeping up with your newsletters, RSS feeds and other news sources? Here are some of the best articles I’ve come across during the week.

Analytics & Websites

 Technology

Journalism / Content

 Branding

Personal Development

Take Time to Do it Right

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… or…
Slow down; you’re moving too fast.

Christmas cookiesI love to cook.

I especially love to bake – a skill I picked up from my mom. I’m actually good at it, too. I’m the pie baker, cookie maker and cake provider for my extended family. If the occasion calls for dessert, nine times out of 10 I’m bringing it, and 99 times out of 100 it will be homemade.

But I’m also very distractable and have a hard time stopping myself from multi-tasking. If I’m not being fully challenged by a task, I sometimes let my mind drift forward to the next job. Given an opportunity, I look for another challenge. Continue reading →

Cranberry Nut Muffins

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I have no idea what happened to my cranberry muffin recipe. Certainly, I have made cranberry muffins, and my personal cookbook (you know; the one where you collate hand-written recipes that you have collected over time?) contains two of them, including one that is clearly labeled “Mom’s Cranberry Nut Bread.” But neither of them looks right to me.

So when I opened the cookbook this weekend after buying cranberries, I found myself at a loss for what to do. Continue reading →

My tree is not dying (really!)

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White pine tree with brown needlesStrange title, perhaps, but this really is about a tree. We have a white pine in our yard, right behind our deck. It shades the deck in summer and provides a visual screen against traffic on a busy street. While it’s not my favorite tree in the world, it serves a useful purpose; I’d say it’s convenient.

I noticed about a week ago that a lot of its needles were browning, and a few had started to fall off. Within a few days, brown needles were raining down on our deck and the ground, and I started wondering if we were going to lose this giant of a tree. Continue reading →

Bookplates: What I Got for My Birthday!

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My silly plastic figurine, bought years ago because she looked a lot like me (combination of her haircut and vintage coat), came out to party on my birthday a full year ago. That's my cocktail on the table with her, not hers!

If you’re a book lover, perhaps you’ve admired a bookplate or two in your time. I certainly have. These little paper stickers that identify the owner of a book have a long and honorable history, and many a great artist/designer has turned a hand to this medium, if only for friends. (There are some lovely and really interesting books about these, by the way. Insert a plug here for your local public library, where you should be able to find them.)

In any case, my graphic-designer husband has started designing some of these, with what I consider great success. Most recently, he surprised me with my own personalized bookplate for my birthday. Continue reading →

Why I Love Instagram

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These shoes were left abandoned outside my office building a while back. They sat in the parking lot for days. I'm so glad I noticed and took this picture.

My “One Moment” this week

One of my friends asked a fascinating question recently on Facebook: “I’ve noticed that Instagram has become the default picture-taking/sharing app. Why do you who use it love it so?”

The question alone shows how amazingly popular this app has become. It’s only available for Apple devices at this point, yet already some see it as the “default” photo-sharing app. Instagram officials announced recently (at SXSW Interactive) that they have 27 million registered users — a number some predict will double when the app is released soon for Android. (Android users, you won’t have to wait long; you can now pre-register with Instagram for the Android app.) Continue reading →