May I recommend
Checking out Yoga With Adriene.
Listen, I know that recommending Adriene just proves my status as a Basic Middle Class White Lady, but sometimes things (Taylor Swift’s later music, tall boots, Lululemon athleisurewear) are basic for a reason and that reason is that they are comfortable and not too challenging and they make you feel good about yourself.
Yoga With Adriene fits that bill. She offers approximately 40 billion classes on her Youtube channel. They are all free. Some classes are 10 minutes long, others are 90 minutes. Some classes are very, very hard and you sweat and curse at Adriene as she makes you do another goddamn plank and you catch yourself loudly saying, “No, Adriene, I’m not going to attempt the fucking Crow Pose today, thank you very much.” Others are easy and she tells you to go and get yourself a blanket and a pillow before class starts.
Here’s the thing about Adriene. Because she has 80 billion classes, you can choose exactly what you feel like doing every day. Only want to work out for 8 minutes? Fine! Do a 45 minute yoga flow? Adriene’s got you. Target your abs? Why, but fine! Do the mother-loving crow? Fill your boots! Yoga for headaches? Yoga for cramps? Yoga for stress? Yoga for foot health? Yoga for posture? Yoga for forgiveness? Yoga for back ache? Yoga for the soul? ADRIENE HAS A CLASS FOR THAT.
Some things to know about Adriene: She’s very low-key and chill about everything, she lives in Texas, but in Austin, so… She has a dog named Benjy who is just as chill as she is. She is of indeterminate age but definitely younger than me. She is quite pretty but in a very accessible way. She makes corny jokes and sometimes sings a snippet of a song. She is very good at yoga. She’s also very good at teaching you yoga.
The best thing about Adriene is that she’s non-judgmental. Amy, you are thinking, you are doing on online yoga class, no instructor is ever judging you because they can’t see you. Listen, I respond, I have done a bunch of virtual classes now, and I can assure you that some yoga instructors do manage to judge you, even though they are not watching as you fail to do the pigeon because you can’t get your leg past the beautiful soft bulk of your own belly. There is something about those other instructors - maybe it’s their complete mastery of the pose, maybe it’s their slightly-too-soothing voices, maybe it’s their well-applied eye liner… Whatever it is, I sense judgement emanated from the screen. With Adriene, though, there is none of that. She is my dorky younger sister, half-singing a Backstreet Boys’ deep cut whilst telling me it’s totally okay if I need to drop to my knees during another mother-flipping plank.
Have you hung out with Adriene and Benjy? Tell me in the comments below!
Cozy mysteries
The Dark Reality Behind the Cozy Mystery
I love a cozy mystery (perhaps not surprising given my hatred of horror movies) and I have passed that love on to my daughter. Nice to see this type of book - a solid mystery wrapped in a cozy setting like an English village or a quirky bakery - acknowledged in this article.
But the feature that most distinguishes the cozy from other crime fiction—and that makes its wide-ranging appeal so curious—is that it’s devoid of gore. Murders tend to take place off the page, and many are bloodless. The details that do appear are spare: a pair of legs sticking out of a doorway, a witness crying plainly, “He’s dead!” The overwhelming mood is one of mollification. In Elizabeth Penney’s Hems & Homicide, the protagonist finds a skeleton in her shop’s cellar; while she waits for the police to arrive, she sits in a chair at her bay window and notes how surprisingly comfortable her cushion is.
Hope is better than Optimism
The Difference Between Hope and Optimism
I thought this distinction was interesting.
People tend to use hope and optimism as synonyms, but that isn’t accurate. In one 2004 paper in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, two psychologists used survey data to parse the two concepts. They determined that “hope focuses more directly on the personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general.” In other words, optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right; hope makes no such assumption but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way.
An excellent thread about small life improvements
What improves your life for under $25
I love. these kinds of threads. Grab a pencil and jot down the ones that appeal to you. I might try that fancy minty floss.
Where to begin- any loose leaf black or green tea from Upton Tea; Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard; fingerless gloves; Smartwool socks; Dove unscented beauty bar; The Ordinary Glycolic Acid Toner; Dr Hauschka Lip Care Stick; Turner Classic Movies; fresh flowers; basil and thyme plants; Oxo Good Grips vegetable peeler.
I always used it for my apartment key when I was going out
Why is there a tiny pocket above the front pocket in jeans?
Huh, there you go. Now you know. The l’il pocket is for your l’il pocket watch.
The reason for the little pocket was practical, at least during the time period. It was there to store and protect a pocket watch, especially for someone working. Suit pants didn’t have a small pocket because a suit jacket already had a pocket for a pocket watch.
TikTok
As an early riser, I relate
Let’s destroy toxic masculinity with love
Oof, Keanu (Sad warning)
A rhumba of rattlesnakes
As someone who used to turn the overhead light on to read on long trips with my dad, this spoke to me
This really really made me laugh
Big brothers
Always watching
Mother trucker, we need to make some changes
A bit of a brother’s theme today. The heartwarming and the creepy
Look at that putz-face
Another oof (another sad warning)
Tape measures
I am a simple person with simple pleasures
Cozy mysteries for-eva! I still don’t understand why people are willing to post videos of themselves looking like idiots on the internet, but I appreciate the laughs. That last one. Ha!