Hello friends. How are you?

We’ve made it to Friday so I say that’s an achievement and a blessing in itself.

I hope the weeks been kind to you.

As always friends here a few simple things,  fresh and friendly, to get your weekend started on a relaxed note – – – – – – –

A Good Word

A Good Look

“Arlin felt moved to dance every time he passed beneath the glowdrops.”

See more of David McBirds amazing “Becorn” creations here. David is an Ex-LEGO designer who traded in plastic bricks for acorns and sticks.

A Good Idea

from Kyra Joy Craig

Lord, thank you for time off.

May this weekend be set apart for your glory and our good.

May we

Drive home and start to relax;

Eat a fun meal;

Feel deep enjoyment;

Connect with others;

Get outside;

Do a home project that was on the back burner;

Read an extra chapter in that book;

Sleep in late;

Reflect on some aspect of our country’s history, and pray for our leaders;

Do something that makes us feel free, alive, understood, and whole;

Cook a deeply nourishing meal and linger at the table;

Reset our space;

Rest;

Loose track of time;

Clean up that which needs attention;

Make joyful memories;

And come back to our work grounded, centered, and present next week.

Let it be so!

A Few Good Reads

Man throws free pancake party for neighborhood to make friends: ‘My wife says I’m getting weird’

‘Even if you don’t like to eat pancakes, you just like the idea of them. Being around pancakes feels good, even if you’re not eating them yourself.’

Curtis Kimball faced a conundrum that many adults these days are painfully familiar with. “I just don’t know how grown-ups make friends,” the 43-year-old explained to The Washington Post. With the pandemic exhausting all—if any—opportunities of meeting new people and forming lasting bonds, Kimball decided to get creative in his quest to forge adult friendships. “I don’t mind looking foolish,” he shared. “So, I was like, ‘I bet I could just put myself out there and maybe something would happen.'” For Kimball, putting himself out there meant throwing a pancake party for his neighborhood, where he has lived for about a year with his wife and two daughters.

Everybody in my life thought I was insane,” he revealed. “It’s a pretty vulnerable feeling to do something that outlandish in public.” Why pancakes? Kimball’s reasoning was simple: “Even if you don’t like to eat pancakes, you just like the idea of them. Being around pancakes feels good, even if you’re not eating them yourself.” Also, he added, “if you see someone making pancakes for strangers, you’d probably think that person is nice“ – – – keep reading

Wrestling the Angel

One day, during the 12 years I spent living in India as a missionary, I read about 200 girls attending a renaming ceremony. They all had been given a single name, Nakusa (also spelled Nakoshi or Nakusha). Unwanted.

For every thousand boys in India, there are 914 girls—a number that increases to 50 million when considering the nation’s population of roughly one billion. Female infanticide still exists in some places as a harsh result of centuries of naming women as “less-than.” Although laws are in place now to protect women, the traditions remain deeply rooted.

In many places, men are the wage earners, the ones with strong names that endure. Women are the unwanted, with dowries upon their heads and scars upon their hearts. But in that single renaming ceremony, 200 girls took on new names. Aishwarya. Puja. Shruti. Wealth. Worship. Revelation.

I wonder if they had the strength to leave behind the labels they had carried for so long. I hope so. There is such power in language, such power in naming—to clarify and create and give credence… or to cast away and objectify and demean – – – keep reading

I always have my inspiration glasses on in my everyday life,” says the Swedish creative consultant Sebastian Bergström, who can reel off a long list of people, places and media that have influenced the charming, cheerful interiors of his apartment in Stockholm. It starts with interior designers Rita Konig and Beata Heuman, moves into the various national styles of Britain (for the colour), France and Italy (for their country kitchens), takes in Nancy Meyers movies (“I’m always pressing pause on It’s Complicated and taking in the details; after seeing it for the third or fourth time I bought rattan blinds for the whole flat”), and ends with the most prosaic of grocery store items: “A tomato in the store can give me some ideas and then I go home and create based on that. I love that flow!” Loved this one – so much colour

Sebastian has been obsessed with interiors from his childhood, when he would create rooms within rooms at his parents’ rural house in northern Sweden, graduating to reading their interior design magazines and redecorating his teenage bedroom over and over again, and then starting on the other rooms in the house, “with my parents’ complete support”, he hastens to add. He calls it a “good school”, forcing him to learn how to redecorate with the things his parents already owned. Only 26 years old now, he has been blogging and Instagramming about interior design for 10 years, and has just set up his own eponymous studio. His flat in Gullmarsplan, a neighbourhood just over the river from fashionable Södermalm, is something of an Instagram sensation, a tiny space efficiently organised and overflowing with colour and pattern – – – keep reading

I’ll leave you with a foodie reel from two of my faves Jonesy and Amanda. I’m so making it !

CUSTARD YOGURT TOAST

That’s all for now friends. Have a beautiful weekend. Rest up. Do something you love xx