Friday, December 28, 2018

A May You Have Freedom Weekly Link Round-Up




Christmas flew past in a blur, didn't it? Now we're facing the end of a year and the birth of a new one. It's the time of year that has me thinking back on the good things that have happened. It's so easy to get bogged down in the negative. As someone who fought crippling depression for many years, I know what it's like to look out at the world through a black cloud. 2019 will be the third year that I utilize my Blessings Jar. Every week, I write down on a slip of paper something good that happened, and I put the slip in a Mason jar. On New Year's Eve, I empty the jar and read all the slips. It never fails to put a smile on my face. Granted, there's been a week or two where the good things were a bit scarce. The slip for that week may say nothing more than "watched two yellow butterflies chase each other around the backyard." But guess what? That slip makes me smile, too, because this whole Blessings Jar idea has helped me focus on ALL blessings. Not just the huge ones like being able to see distances without glasses, but the little ones as well. It's those little ones that can sustain us the most.

You may not think the greeting card to the left is very cheery or "Christmas-y" but it is, indeed, a Christmas card, one that was sent during World War II. Seeing it made me think of all the enemies a person can face-- and those enemies are legion. Not only do we seem to be facing a lot of them as individuals but as a country, too.

So if there's any one thing that I wish for all of you-- and the world for that matter-- it's freedom.

Freedom from want. Freedom from ill health. Freedom from loneliness. And how about freedom from ignorance, hatred, and bigotry? There are so many dark clouds trying to obscure our beautiful planet. Each one of us needs to do our bit to bring freedom to one and all.

And on that note, may you all have the best of all possible years to come. Enjoy the links!


►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄


►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄


►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
  • Ants take sick days, too.
  • Whales change their tune every few years.
  • Dozens of sea turtles have been found frozen to death at Cape Cod. 
  • A peacock in Vermont has been on the run with wild turkeys. 
  • Early mammals were thought to be small and unseen in the Age of Dinosaurs. An elephant-sized fossil complicates that story.
  • A man discovers a family of mice living in his garden, so he builds them a miniature village. 
  • It only takes six hours for billions of plastic nanoparticles to accumulate in sea scallops.
  • Fruit flies first began feeding on our fresh produce about 10,000 years ago.

►The Happy Wanderer◄
  • Why the Great Lakes make for the perfect mystery setting.
  • Is Mumbai the 21st century Capital of Noir?
  • The Parco degli Acquedotti is a beautiful park on the outskirts of Rome that protects the ruins of two colossal ancient aqueducts. 
  • The murals on Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal are something to see.
  • Mundal, Norway has more books than people.


►Fascinating Folk◄
  • Dorothy Porter, the Howard University librarian who decolonized the way books were catalogued.
  • Bletchley Park codebreaker and colorful peer Baroness Trumpington has died at the age of 96.
  • Joan Curran, the woman whose invention helped win a war-- and still baffles weathermen.
  • Critically explore 17th-century noblewoman Hester Pulter's little-known poems online.


►I ♥ Lists◄



That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!


9 comments:

  1. I wish you freedom, too, Cathy, in just the same sense. And I like your idea of remembering the good things that happen, even if it's as simple as 'I got a really good parking spot when I went to...' Those little things buoy us up, don't they? Now, I'm off to Luxor...

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    1. Yes, they do buoy us up. More than we realize sometimes.

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  2. Gratitude is an interesting thing. Sometimes I can be grateful for many things, including my apartment, books, a good meal, my neighborhood. Some days it's hard to get there.
    But the next day one can be back to the gratitude.

    Am so glad your eyesight has improved. That and your good medical care are things to be grateful for -- and then all of the books you can read, movies you can see, crafts you can do.

    And I like the freedoms from bigotry, hatred, etc., and I'd add freedom to write, speak and act to protest things that are not right and are hurtful to people economically and socially.
    I support freedom to have health care, housing, food and education.

    But these links: so much to read. And already I'm making a list of more books to read from the "best of" lists. Those get me in trouble. I think I should retire from my outside life and stay home and read.

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  3. Hear, hear! Loved all you said and your jar idea is brilliant. Think I might try that.

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  4. Happy New Year Cathy! I'm starting a gratitude jar today and your writing is the first slip of paper in my jar. Thank you for inspiring us all, as well as giving us so many interesting things to read or look at and enjoy! Blessings to you.

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    Replies
    1. Awww... thank you so much! Have a wonderful 2019; it's people like you who inspire me to keep on blogging.

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  5. I must have done something wrong...It says Unknown in my comment...I'm Sandee
    and I get your email newsletter.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for letting me know just who "Unknown" was!

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