Tuesday Playlist

A soundtrack for studying . .  . or dancing . . . .

Lorde: "Green Light"

Birdy: "Wings"

Lana Del Rey: "Young and Beautiful"

<3 Frances

Spring is Upon Us

I don't care if it's cold outside . . . it's spring now! And even if there was a part of me that really, really wanted snow last week, I'm grateful that all the little flowers and animals didn't have to deal with any crazy blizzard weather.  I'm also grateful that it might actually get warm soon--and not just sporadically like it did in February.  As much as I love hot chocolate-and-peppermint-weather, my chronically dry skin and numb toes are looking forward to not having to be wrapped in layers of flannel.  Not that springtime will stop me from stealing my brother's over-sized plaid shirts, of course....

Indie Playlist for Spring 2017 (Compilation by alexrainbirdMusic)

I've been listening to alexrainbirdMusic's Spring 2017 Indie playlist to get spring ready, doing lots of homework, and cleaning.  Spring weather always makes cleaning feel very necessary. I just wish there were more time for it .... every weekend has been booked by work or school.  Has anyone else been spring cleaning?  Sometimes it helps to put on a show in the background, like the Maya Angelou documentary that was on PBS on Friday..  There was so much about Maya Angelou that I'd never known before I saw the documentary, and I really recommend it because she's as brilliant as her poetry, and the documentary has so much meaningful footage and history in it. 

Another quick thought for spring time . . .for some reason, spring weather always makes me think of styles form the 1910s into the 1920s. Flippy flapper skirts and little hats and flowers always feel very spring-y.  

from fashionista.com

from www.vintage.es

from Modcloth

from Vicky Loebel

<3 Frances 

Link Loves and Must-Reads 3/10/17

In honor of whatever flu/stomach bug/bronchial infection is currently making rounds through school, I'm taking a sick day.  (In other words, I am ill.  Woohoo.)  But I've developed a new sort of love for tea.  If I could carry a tea kettle around with me at school and work, I seriously would do that.  Unfortunately, my backpack is already big enough to make me look ridiculous enough as it is.
Since I'm home, I have a little bit more time to do classwork and long-term projects, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to share some of the things I've had sitting here as links for the past two weeks.  Yay!

• What I Ate Wednesday: It's Unhealthy to Eat Only Healthy Food by Alexis Joseph
• This article from the Hummusapien is really refreshing given the current "all-or-nothing" attitude that the media is preaching when it comes to health and fitness and well-being.  It's awesome to make healthy choices so you can feel your best, but there's a big difference between taking caring of yourself and being obsessive.  Having a fixation on health can actually be really unhealthy.  This is something that's become more and more clear to me over the past few months.  That said, it can be difficult to identify what behaviors are healthy and which are obsessive because of al of the hardcore images of wellness that we're constantly being bombarded with.  Alexis's post is something I think everyone who struggles with balancing true health and happiness with obsession and anxiety needs to read because Alexis (an actual RD) has a very honest and un-obsessive attitude about taking care of herself.  Unlike the Photoshopped fitspo pics preaching two-hour workout sessions, green drink lunches, and dessert-less evenings, Alexis talks about how "[t]here is so much more to life than golden milk and smoothie bowls and toast covered with berries and almond milk yogurt." Thank you!!
• A Story of Bats, Agaves, and People by Kristen Lear
• I love Bat Conservation International and all it does to help take care of our little bat friends, and this story is awesome because it shows just how we can help people and animals at the same time.  YAY for environmental conservation efforts!  There's such a huge relationship between the health of the natural world and the health of the human one, and we often forget about this relationship when we're thinking about "progress" and "industrialization."  But true progress is about maintaining a balance with nature and respecting our ecosystems so that our world doesn't end in a sad spiral of global warming and pollution.  I mean, look at Bhutan....a carbon-negative country that measures progress based on GNH (Gross National Happiness). I think we have a lot to learn from Bhutan! (And from bats.)
• If social media is toxic for you . . . do these 4 things by Cassey Ho
• This sort of relates to the first article I linked to.  Looking around me, I realize just how many people (many of whom are very young) have fallen into the trap of comparison.  I'm definitely not immune to this myself. Even without a smart phone and all the apps that come with it (yup, I've got a little flip phone and LOVE IT), I'm definitely affected by comparison.  I'm so incredibly grateful every day for little things like hearing my hermit crabs playing in their houses or talking to my mum about work, but I also really love fashion magazines (guilty pleasure), and that usually leads to #comparisonproblems.  Social media is such a huge contributor to comparison because it inundates us with a Photoshopped version of reality.  Why, we wonder, is everyone so happy and glamorous and perfect all the time?  Well, here's the truth: they aren't!  Think of social media as a big filter.  People are only sharing what they WANT to share.  And for every Snapchat story of an epic vacation, there's something very sad going on in the world (i.e. deportation, famine, war, etc.).  Comparing ourselves to each other is such a waste of time. Should a blueberry compare itself to a banana?  NO.  Both fruits are totally awesome in totally different ways. 

<3 Frances