I want Patti to be my auntie or my awesome neighbor or my totally cool big sister. The person who would always say exactly the right thing and make you realize what you haven’t been thinking about and totally should have been. The one who tells you your crazy ideas aren’t crazy. (Also, and totally unrelatedly and completely hypothetically, the person who’ll go with you to dye your hair pink.)

She’s the one you want to grow up into if you ever manage to grow up.

To say that you should be reading 37 Days is a bit of an understatement. You should be living 37 Days.

Here are three essays that I’m turning over and over in my brain lately.

I love your hair. Every now and then, say the things you usually leave unsaid, and see how it lights up the world of the recipient.

Squeeze in. I am wrestling with this essay. I am noticing how much it throws at me that I’m not immediately comfortable with. Being present. Not having to fix anything. Stretching out of my comfort zone. Erasing boundaries. It is draining, but I can see the truth I need to get to and can’t quite reach yet.

Channel your inner halfathoner. I’ve just started looking for mine. I think a red t-shirt and a blue tongue will help.

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Leo Babuta writes Zen Habits, which labels itself as “Simple Productivity”. A friend introduced me to it about a year ago, and I’ve been tremendously grateful ever since.

He is not a monk. Nor is his blog one of those productivity-factory GTD nightmares. It’s just simple, thoughtful ways to consider in order to make your life better.

I’d write more about it, but I think that would be self-contradictory. Just give it a try and see if reading Leo’s work helps your life. I suspect it will.

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(BTW – If you don’t know what #followfriday is, check this great explanation by the frankly adorable AJ Vaynerchuk.)

Today: Peter’s Food Adventures.

If you live in the north-of-Philadelphia vicinity, you’ll like it specially, because he’s fairly local in his coverage, but even if you (like me) don’t, it’s still fun.

Most of the food blogs I’ve seen tend toward the pretentious, or at least the artsy. This is not that.

I used to work with Peter lo-these-many-years-ago and I love how clearly his actual voice comes through in the blog. Serious but funny – not silly just for the sake of making a joke, but always with an eye open to what’s good about life.

He’ll poll for your favorite culinary herb (tarragon, if you’re asking) but then he’ll have posts about hot dogs or his wife’s meatloaf. And that’s the thing – they all get the same treatment.

It reminds me to take food – all food – thoughtfully and appreciatively. You shouldn’t think to notice what you’re having only when you go to a posh restaurant or take all day to make a fancy meal. I love that.

And if you could use that too? Go read. Happy Friday!

(And have something tasty today.)

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Miss Britt

I suppose technically Britt is “one of those mommybloggers”. But that’s like saying that the Mona Lisa is just an art project. Like saying that Tostitos Scoops are just tortilla chips. (I’m sorry, but – miniature edible salsa bowls? Genius! Where’s the Nobel Prize for that? …But I digress.)

If Britt is a mommyblogger, than every condescending preconception you had about mommybloggers (Like the urge you just had to make a mommyblogger/conception joke right there. Don’t lie. You know you had it.) is a great big pile of stupid.

Britt is, hands down, the most powerfully honest, the most forthright, the most heart-wrenchingly herself writer that I’ve ever known, on paper or online. She is funny and silly and unstoppably caring and she will make you laugh in self-recognition or in a painfully awkward shared experience or just in the joy of the randomly funny moments of life.

And then she’ll turn on a dime and make your heart wrench itself down into the pit of your stomach.

No holds are barred, no topics are taboo, no punches are pulled.

Britt writes like I want to write. And Britt sees herself with a clarity that I strive for.

I adore her, and I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know her over the last year.

(Even if she is “one of those mommybloggers”.)

Check her out. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

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