Friday Carousel — 12.18.09

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Welcome to this week’s Friday Carousel! It is all of 14 degrees outside on this lovely Friday morning in Northern New Jersey. The forecast calls for snow tomorrow, perhaps it will take us to a white Christmas? I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I hope that you are warm & happy wherever you are, whether the Arctic or the Caribbean. Now on to this week’s lovely links…

1. The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2009: Wow, I don’t know how so many of these really important news stories from around the U.S. & the globe slipped past my radar.

The media (at least where I live) tends to focus so much on celebrity gossip, that many people lose sight of the real news, the important stuff that is shaping history. It is definitely worth taking 10-15 minutes to read through these.

2. Facebook is Your New Best Friend: A thoughtful & entertaining post from Andrew at Leaders of the Free World. It confuses me when people complain that “Facebook changed its policy, now the world can see my private stuff!” I’d like to know why people are posting “private stuff” to the internet if they don’t want the internet to see it? Andrew’s points are spot-on & I agree with him, a little common sense will go a long way!

3. How to Be Mindful During the Holidays, in 350 words: Sound advice from Leo at ZenHabits.

Remember what’s important. During these holidays, think about what’s most important to you. That might be your loved ones, or a loved one, whether that’s a spouse or friends or kids or parents or whatever. It might be your work — what you create and are passionate about.

4. It’s Okay to Not Go Home for the Holidays:

…if you’d rather spend your Christmas Eve skiing in the Alps or trekking across the Sahara, I say go for it. There’s no need to lie, there’s no need to feel guilty.

5. Lifestyle Design for Normal People: Four Baby Steps Toward Absolute Freedom: If you have not yet begun to explore the world of Lifestyle Design, this post is a great place to start.

6. Social Networking: Stop Being Polite & Start Being Real: Social networking is huge right now. What I really liked about this post is that it wasn’t yet another redundant social media post; it actually gives some solid tips about how to use social networking to your benefit.

7. Why Making Meaning is More Important Than Making Money: Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or just an average Joe with a good idea, you must read this post.

…to stand out, you must make meaning in people’s lives.

8. Five Tips for Planning Effective New Year’s Resolutions: A few things that you can do to make sure that your New Year’s Resolutions last longer than the third week of January!

Ask: “What is a concrete action that would bring about change?”

9. Convention of Those Wounded in Love: If you’ve ever been hurt in a relationship or know someone who has this post will definitely give your heart strings a tug & then, hopefully, put a smile on your face.

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  • Carousel — 04.09.10

    Hello Dear Readers & happy Friday! It’s been a bit quiet around here this week because I am preparing for vacation. Yahoo! I leave tomorrow morning and will be returning late next week. You will see a couple of guest posts during that time (if I can properly set that up in WordPress) and a guest post from me will be posted over at a friend’s blog. So keep your eyes open for those things, but my apologies in advance as I will not be replying to comments or emails because…

    I plan to be completely disconnected during my trip. That means no Blackberry, Twitter, Facebook, Web, Foursquare, and so on. I need a break from “virtual reality”, my friends. 😉 In fact, we all do from time to time!

    That said, let’s move on to this week’s Carousel. I’ve got some very sweet goodies to share with you this week.

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    Every Friday, I post my favourite links, posts, & resources from around the Web. Expect to learn, grow, & be inspired.

    1. Coming across hurting people: Every now & again, I come across a piece that touches me in a deep, profound way. Usually the piece is not too long, but it is always powerful and tugs at my heart strings in a soft, yet poignant way.

    This blog post is one of those pieces. If you read nothing else from this week’s Carousel, read this.

    2. Eco-Bootcamp: The sustainable, savvy heroines over at Your Daily Thread have kicked off a month long going green boot camp in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd. Their goal is to turn Eco-zeros, to Eco-heroes even if you’ve never recycled before.

    3. Soda: A Sin We Sip Instead of Smoke? and Junk food ‘as addictive as heroin and smoking’: I am extremely passionate about healthy living & lifestyles. My passion has been really intense lately as I become increasingly aware of the disturbing truths about modern “food”.

    I view the recent elimination of sugary beverages (soda) from school systems as a huge triumph. I look forward to the continuation of this important trend. Education and awareness is crucial.

    4. create luck, embrace chance & tune in to your serendipity: What is it about lucky people? Have they all got horseshoes tucked into their backsides? 🙂 Amber doesn’t think so & neither do I.

    5. 7 Sources of Deep Clutter: Some great advice about how to eliminate the “shoulds, have-tos, and people-pleasing” bad habits that are cluttering your life & soul.

    (And as a side note, the Good Life Zen blog is really fantastic. Each post is insightful, inspirational, and well-written.)

    6. Remaining Calm in Stressful Situations: I like this post because it teaches us something that we can all benefit from (remaining calm) but I love it because it reminds us of something even more important — that mental/emotional stress does cause physical illness.

    7. 40 Belief-Shaking Remarks From a Ruthless Nonconformist: Ah, yes! We can always count on Friedrich Nietzsche to obliterate the complacent, feel-good beliefs that we hold about ourselves. This collection of quotes will stir your pot and get your wheels spinning.

    8. The Top 10 Online Habits That Make My Life Simpler: If you’re like me—meaning you spend several hours a day online—then you know that the Web can be the biggest time-vacuum known to man (if you let it). This post lists lots of simple yet effective ways that will help you make the most of your precious time spent online.

    9. Why You Should Be More Decisive: Truth: I am an extremely indecisive woman by nature. Those closest to me will tell you this.

    I have trouble deciding upon the simplest of things—which restaurant to visit, which shirt to wear, which road to take, whether or not to put salt on my food, which movie to watch, and so on. Well, a couple of years ago I found an ingenious method for dealing with this problem: I started flipping a coin! Yes, that’s my secret.

    While the coin-flipping model has worked well for me, I still really enjoyed this post. It teaches us why some people have so much trouble being decisive in today’s world and why it is really important that we become more decisive overall. Perhaps I should stop relying so heavily on the coin and start aiming to be more decisive myself…

    10. How To Fund Your Travels With Creativity: I have several friends who are currently living outside of the United States, seeing the world, gaining incredible life experience, and living the lives of their dreams. If you want to know how 95% of them are doing it, read this post. It will tell you exactly what they’re doing and how you can do it too.

    ———————–

    That’s it for this week. I’ll see you all on the other side.

    In love & light,
    Dena

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