Thursday, May 12, 2011

BYE-BYE "SHOULD", HELLO "WANT TO"

Recently, it's been "Bye-bye to-do list, hello What do I WANT TO DO list." This campaign has been a way to break from being such a task-master and open up some diversity and creativity in my daily life.

I noticed that if I stick only to checking off the daily to-dos, I get bored, resentful, and stale.

Sunday was a good example. I knew I should clean the house, go to the gym, and a million other things. But it was such a pretty day and the image of The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens kept popping into my head. I bought a Sunday Times and plunked myself down at a table there with a lemonade, letting a throng of thousands of people swirl and ebb around me. There were so many pretty flowers out!

Yesterday, I was supposed to go to a pilates class I know I should attend every Wednesday. But I went with what I wanted to do - rolled into The Housing Works Book Cafe, an old favorite of mine in SoHo; picked up a few tacos at the warehouse-loft/garage-ish Tacombi in the same 'hood, and went into the Chinatown Y to do some stretches.

I was so happy when I saw my horoscope today on Daily Om. It confirmed that what I am doing is a good thing!

May 12, 2011

Novel Patterns

Scorpio Daily Horoscope

An avant-garde mood can descend upon you suddenly today, prompting you to look for ways of imbuing your existence with a greater degree of creativity. Your search for ideas can take you on a wild and intensely moving journey through books, museums, and meetings. If you truly want to open your life to imagination and novelty, you will likely need to look at your own choices first. You may discover that today you have been locked into patterns of thinking and behavior that have kept you from fulfilling your creative potential. This can be a wonderful time to distance yourself from these patterns by pursuing a new range of activities and events.

We break new ground and broaden the borders of our existence when we move away from our routine patterns in order to explore fresh methods of being and doing. Though we can never escape certain elements of our experience entirely, we can nonetheless identify unexplored areas of interest and use those as a starting point from which to immerse ourselves in new patterns. Doing this allows us to determine definitively whether the routines, habits, and preferences we have long embraced are truly meeting our individual needs. Should we discover that there is a deficiency in one area or another, we are already primed to investigate alternative ways of patterning our lives because we are approaching the matter with an open mind. Your openness to fresh concepts and methodologies can give you an advantage when you decide to build a better life today.

Image Credit: Bella Foster

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

SIXTH ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST IS MAY 12


BROOKLYN BLOGFEST 2011

Come one, come all to the 6th Annual Brooklyn Blogfest on MAY 12, 2011 at 7:30 PM at The Bell House(149 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in the Gowanus/Park Slope neighborhood.

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE HERE.

“Where better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers, thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?” ~ Sewell Chan, The New York Times

Since it was founded in 2006, the Brooklyn Blogfest has established itself as the nexus of creativity, talent, and insight among the blogosphere’s brightest lights. This year will be no different as Blogfest presents keynote speaker, Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? Jarvis blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine and is director of the interactive journalism program and the new business models for news project at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Jarvis’ must-see presentation, Will Blog for Food (or You Can Make Money Doing This!), will focus on new business models for bloggers!

Just announced: An Opening Video by acclaimed photographer Gabriela Herman will open Blogfest 2011. Herman is a Brooklyn-based photographer, who is gaining a reputation for her portraits of bloggers in the glow of their computer screens while they write. "Something about the alchemy of isolation and connection stares right back at us from her arresting images."

Blogfest is for bloggers, social networkers, journalists and entrepreneurs. Whether you live by a blog, live to blog, blog to live (or are thinking of starting a blog) you’ll want to join us on May 12th.

Also on tap: An opening video by acclaimed photographer Gabriella Herman; a video tribute to Brooklyn’s most visionary photo bloggers (by Adrian Kinloch of Brit in Brooklyn), Blogs Aloud (directed by Elizabeth Palmer of Midnight Cowgirls); special networking sessions for like-minded bloggers (i.e. Blogs of a Feather), the ever-popular Shout-out, when bloggers are invited to share their blogs with the world, and a roof-raising after-party with a cash bar, food and music!

See you on May 12th at 7:30 PM (doors open at 7PM). Order your $15 tickets NOW HERE.