Inspiration

It truly makes me emotional to see that this single campaign has raised over $100,000 for earthquake relief in 5 days. If you have it in your budget and in your heart, please consider donating to the beautiful country of Ecuador, which is struggling very much this week.

I loved this article on ways to keep creativity alive and part of your daily life.

This week I did a lot of pondering about how to slowly start to #buylessbutbetter, and I really appreciated this post listing 30 ethical brands.

Hard to emphasize how much we all need a guide to not being frustrated all the time.

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Inspiration: April 22Read More »

I really, really loved the new episode of The Lively Show with Jasmine Star this week. Lots of wisdom and truth inside.

Girlfriend Collective is giving away leggings to celebrate their launch! You pay for shipping and the next batch is being sent out in July, but this is still an awesome deal. They are made from recycled materials, their factories follow UN human rights and safety standards and the leggings look so comfy.

I started using the Elevate app this week – it gives you a “brain workout routine” every day and I’ve been finding it so helpful. I even (sort of) learned how to calculate complicated percentages, which I find so baffling usually. There are also activities to help you retain what you read and hear, read more quickly, and find grammatical mistakes.

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Inspiration: April 15Read More »

I have to talk about the tools that are changing my (work) life at the moment. First, there’s Timely, an app that lets you track your time spent on projects and later export the hours as an invoice. I had been using a horrible system of timing on my phone timer, manually writing the hours on a document and later adding them up by hand (WHY?!?!) so I adore Timely.

The second app is Slack, a messaging application that my team started using this week. Goodbye to endless emailing! We’ve been more productive and worked much more efficiently by having an easy way to send along the answer to a question or an update quickly and easily.

There were lots of loans being matched on Kiva this month, which is always very exciting! The matching is over for now, but you can still make a big impact by giving a loan now.

In similar news, I’m trying to raise $250 for Charity: Water before my birthday on April 7! You can help the cause by donating here.

Guinea Pigging Green got an update this week! I used the free WordPress theme West for the design, but I also saw this cool theme from Colorlib today. Free themes just keep getting better.

I always love to read Elise’s favourite things list each year.

This Instagram account makes me want to make a quilt so badly. This summer it’ll happen!!

The Sixty Second Photograph project is so beautiful so far. I like this one a lot and am so inspired to do my own.

Speaking of which, I made a video of life in Quito so far if you’d like to see it!

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This week was so much better than last week that it’s crazy. I’m so happy my mom is home from her big adventure trip and that she had such a great time. I taught a lovely new private yoga class this week, applied for and got a volunteering position at an organization doing great work, and found out more about a very affordable Spanish course starting soon. Life is feeling full of possibility which is a wonderful feeling, right?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

I haven’t watched the Oscars for a few years but I like to read about the highlights. This year, my very favourite part was Lady Gaga’s beautiful performance.

After seeing that performance linked above, I watched the documentary that the song was written for: The Hunting Ground. It’s available on Netflix, and it is both horrifying and excellent.

I always love the Lively Show, but I liked this episode on generating more positive emotions (right now!) in particular.

This interview from my friend Laura on Little Black Leggings with the founder of The Yoke was so great. The Yoke is a way to create more yoga community and bring affordable yoga classes to everyone: you can see my teacher profile right here!

If anyone else reading is a freelancer, check out Timely! I started using it this week to track my time and I absolutely love the interface.

For anyone who wants more insight into relationships of all kinds, check out Baggage Reclaim. I find her articles so incredibly spot-on.

I found this analysis of Donald Trump (ugh) by John Oliver very insightful. He really broke things down so clearly and convincingly.

I signed up for Scribd this week, and I absolutely ADORE it.

This week on the podcast, we talked about how to cultivate a growth mindset.

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This was not a great week for me personally, but it had a lot of bright spots too. I went to the movies with a friend, recorded the podcast with another, and Facetimed with a third. I also painted myself a little reminder, had a great meeting for work, and watched way too many episodes of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Oh, and I made cupcakes! So yeah, there are always bright spots.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!