Welcome To The New Blog!

sunflowers

Thanks for stopping by my new blog home! I’m still getting used to things over here, so it will take me a bit of time to get up to speed. But I am loving this new space!

Thank you so much to Donna at Wicked Simple Marketing! She designed this new blog and was wonderful to work with. All the random stuff that I showed her and we spoke about, she has brought to life.

The plan in my head was to have the perfect introductory post all wrapped up and ready to go last night at the stroke of midnight. But my time on the planet  has shown me that sometimes you just have to go with the flow. That’s what I’m doing today.

I just finished baking my birthday cake, which is an adapted version of these strawberry cupcakes. I put blueberries and shredded coconut on top.

As I enter this new fifth decade, I’ve found some inspiration from a few recent news articles.

There are many stars turning 50 this year. Doesn’t Sandra Bullock look amazing?! 51 ladies shared some amazing words of wisdom.  I really like these three quotes below.

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” ~ Nora Ephron

“I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life — and I became that woman.” ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

“If you’re creating anything at all, it’s really dangerous to care about what people think.” ~ Kristen Wiig

I love the model Cindy Joseph. She wasn’t discovered until she was 49 and is still going strong at 63 years old! When she was asked to give advice to women who want to be happy, healthy and beautiful, she gave some great advice. It’s now another favorite quote.

“Live your life according to you and what gives you pleasure. That way you will trust your intuition, follow your dreams, and take care of your body and spirit.” ~ Cindy Joseph

Her words are sounding pretty good to me!

Top 8 Links: That Will Make You Feel Good

feel good links

It’s hard to believe that my last Top 8 Links was back in June! This is one of my favorite types of posts to write, so this one is long overdue.

These links all made me feel good in different ways after I took a look. Hope you enjoy them too!

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Vanilla Bean and Thyme Madeleines (Anthology)

DIY Flameless Fire Pit (Free People/Building 25 Blog)

Homemade Circus Animal Cookies (Mrs. Penguin)

Cute Tourist Couple Captures a Heartwarming Look at Boston in One-Second Segments [Video] (BostInno)

Edible Chocolate LEGOs by Akihiro Mizuuchi (Colossal)

Boston’s 1st French Macaron Food Truck (Cameo Macaron)

Bring Back Home Economics: Three Food Writers on Teaching People to Cook (The PLATE/National Geographic)

Bukowski’s Letter of Gratitude to the Man Who Helped Him Quit His Soul-Sucking Job and Become a Full-Time Writer (Brain Pickings)

Thoughts on Blogging & Philanthropy

Blog advertising logo

This new blog home is so exciting for me! Hopefully for you too! As I start anew, I’m drawing from what I learned over at my First Amendment.

One of the many things that I’ll continue here is donating a portion of money earned from blog advertising and sponsored posts. It may only be a small amount of money, but it’s more than I would have been able to give otherwise and helps in my philanthropy goals.

Those of you who have read and commented, emailed me, linked to content, shared on social media and met me in person, you keep me going! Over my eight years of blogging, I have been amazed by it all the time and continue to be surprised.

Below is a list of the worthy organizations that you helped me donate to in 2013 and so far in 2014. Thank you!

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CAMBA

Community Servings

FACE Africa

Greyston Bakery

Spare Change News

WBUR

WGBH

Snap Judgment

A New Movie: In The Morning

I just saw the trailer for a new movie called In The Morning. This narrative feature film will have its World Premiere in New York at the 18th Annual Urbanworld Film Festival, which takes place from September 17-21, 2014.

The Writer/Director/Producer of the film is Nefertite Nguvu. From her blog, she gives us a peek into her world.

“As a filmmaker, and as a lover of films, I’ve always been attracted to intimate stories, films with an incredibly rich emotional life. I’m infinitely fascinated by the landscape of the human heart, and mind. I seek to create, and long to see films with complex, layered characters that take me on journeys. In The Morning is about something universal, something we’ve all wrestled with, sometimes won and sometimes lost, this terrible/beautiful animal: love. It explores the ever-changing nature of romantic love, but it’s ultimately about the profound power of self-love, self-actualization. My hope is that In The Morning will spark conversations about those beautiful moments in our lives and loves where we are required to be brave.”

The trailer looks like the type of film that I love and I’m intrigued by the filmmaker’s words as well. Hopefully In The Morning will be showing around the country soon!

*Updated 2/18/2020* I saw this film and loved it!

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Image: YouTube