What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we've got mini makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #5: The changeup that will make hosting a snap.
Who knew the humble paper plate could bring both class and consciousness to the table? A Japanese brand called Wasara, that's who. Designer and restaurateur Shinichiro Ogata sculpted the curvaceous plates (and bowls, and cups and saucers) for easy balancing while you're deep in conversation, then molded their creamy surfaces from rapidly renewing materials like bamboo, reed pulp and sugarcane fibers. When the party's over, the dishes go straight into the compost bin. (BranchHome.com)
Keep Reading
30 days of makeovers
A stress-free dinner party
How to break bread (and poor eating habits)
| Photo: Gregor Halenda |
Who knew the humble paper plate could bring both class and consciousness to the table? A Japanese brand called Wasara, that's who. Designer and restaurateur Shinichiro Ogata sculpted the curvaceous plates (and bowls, and cups and saucers) for easy balancing while you're deep in conversation, then molded their creamy surfaces from rapidly renewing materials like bamboo, reed pulp and sugarcane fibers. When the party's over, the dishes go straight into the compost bin. (BranchHome.com)
Keep Reading
30 days of makeovers
A stress-free dinner party
How to break bread (and poor eating habits)
Every Monday,
we're rounding up things—small and big—that made us stop and think.
Today, we were captivated by a writer learning to love her red hair, a
self esteem expert who explores a health hazard of self-acceptance, the lovely Bill
Murray, and more...
"Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal."
"...At my most recent DMV trip, the guy behind the counter asked me if I wanted my license to say 'red' or 'brown.' I'd wanted to be anything but a redhead my whole life, and there I was, suddenly insulted by the mere suggestion that I might not be one. I put 'red' because anything else felt like a lie."
"There has to be a lightness; you have to be as light as you can be
and not get weighed down and stuck in your emotion, stuck in your body,
stuck in your head. You just want to always be trying to elevate
somehow."
"...I was rescued through the novelty of reading on a Kindle. My hyper-attentive habits were alienating me further and further from the much older and (one would have thought) more firmly established habits of deep attention. I was rapidly becoming a victim of my own mind's plasticity, until a new technology helped me to remember how to do something that for years had been instinctive, unconscious, natural."
"My weight hadn’t stood in the way of my dating gorgeous men or
succeeding in my career. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been
to the doctor. And it had been 16 years since I weighed myself...So I
didn’t know: Was I really obese? My body wasn’t anyone else’s business,
but had I done everything I could to make it my business?"
What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we've got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #4: Rehabbing your virtual reputation.
Deleting old Flickr photos and closing Myspace accounts do only so much. If you want to seriously revamp what pops up when someone searches for you, consider turning to an online reputation management agency. Such sites, like reputation.com and metalrabbitmedia.com, reverse engineer search-engine algorithms in order to drive favorable content towards the top and bury unflattering posts. One DIY to hiding embarrassing content: Create Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter pages; Google and Bing generally put content from social networking sites toward the top of search results.
Keep Reading:
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| Photo: Thinkstock |
Keep Reading:
Ah, Friday: A chance to look back on all the things kept us going all week long. So thank goodness for...
1. "From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: a social security number, a gender, a race, a profession or an I.Q...Would we still be able to exist if we were authentically 'un-contained'?"—Paige Bradley, the artist behind the astonishing sculpture Expansion (right) which says the same thing without words.
2. Up, up, and away! The adorable house from the movie Up! comes to life.
3. Photographer James Mollison's book "Where Children Sleep" gives an extraordinary view of the planet's cultural divide through children's bedrooms across the world.
4. Forget superheroes, this 12-year-old girl took matters into her own hands to save a boy from drowning.
5. Hugh Herr, the double amputee who designs better artificial limbs, which help people like himself (without their biological legs) to climb mountains—scaling ice walls and toeing into tiny fissures in the rock.
| Photo: Courtesy of Paige Bradley |
1. "From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: a social security number, a gender, a race, a profession or an I.Q...Would we still be able to exist if we were authentically 'un-contained'?"—Paige Bradley, the artist behind the astonishing sculpture Expansion (right) which says the same thing without words.
2. Up, up, and away! The adorable house from the movie Up! comes to life.
3. Photographer James Mollison's book "Where Children Sleep" gives an extraordinary view of the planet's cultural divide through children's bedrooms across the world.
4. Forget superheroes, this 12-year-old girl took matters into her own hands to save a boy from drowning.
5. Hugh Herr, the double amputee who designs better artificial limbs, which help people like himself (without their biological legs) to climb mountains—scaling ice walls and toeing into tiny fissures in the rock.
Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.
* Congratulations to Philip Levine, the newly named U.S. poet laureate. Watch him read "Belle Isle, 1949," a poem influenced by his time working in a Detroit auto factory. (Library of Congress; Poetry Everywhere)
| Photo: Frances Levine, Courtesy Library of Congress |
* John Stamos, "one of the most handsome men you can think of off the top of your head," presents his guide to cuddling. (CollegeHumor.com)
*Famed dissident artist Ai Weiwei pledges to never stop fighting injustice—and the diminishment of happiness—in his first interview since being detained for over 2 months by the Chinese government. We love: the orange cat. (Global Times)
*Famed dissident artist Ai Weiwei pledges to never stop fighting injustice—and the diminishment of happiness—in his first interview since being detained for over 2 months by the Chinese government. We love: the orange cat. (Global Times)
*"His music was meant to uplift. I can't imagine summer without it."—Ziggy Marley on his father's influence, and the other songs that constitute his warm-weather playlist. (O Magazine)
* "I should say my boy's a really happy boy. I've in my life been around some children who are sick or suffering, and to be honest, my boy's doing really good."—Colin Farrell exhibits inspirational optimism and hopefulness while discussing his son, who has Angelman Syndrome, a rare developmental disease often diagnosed by excessively happy, smiley behavior. (Aol)
* "I should say my boy's a really happy boy. I've in my life been around some children who are sick or suffering, and to be honest, my boy's doing really good."—Colin Farrell exhibits inspirational optimism and hopefulness while discussing his son, who has Angelman Syndrome, a rare developmental disease often diagnosed by excessively happy, smiley behavior. (Aol)
What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we've got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #3: Getting photos onto your wall (your real one) in a snap.
 |
| Photo: Thinkstock |
Click, Click, Print
We take 28 billion digital photos each year, most of which languish on our hard drives. To get those third-grade plays and surprise birthday parties off your computer and onto the fridge, consider the digital-photo collage. Photovisi.com offers customized tools that can be downloaded free of charge, smilebox.com provides more than 1,000 collage templates for home printing, and shutterfly.com and snapfish.com will deliver printed collages to your home or office.
We take 28 billion digital photos each year, most of which languish on our hard drives. To get those third-grade plays and surprise birthday parties off your computer and onto the fridge, consider the digital-photo collage. Photovisi.com offers customized tools that can be downloaded free of charge, smilebox.com provides more than 1,000 collage templates for home printing, and shutterfly.com and snapfish.com will deliver printed collages to your home or office.
Keep Reading:
What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we've got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #1: New fruits to try.
 |
| Photo: Thinkstock |
Apple, banana, pear, yawn. These exotic alternatives are packed with vitamins and fabulous new flavor.
Rambutan
Peel off the spiky red covering of this iron-rich Southeast Asian treat to reveal a translucent white orb with a taste that marries grape and watermelon.
Rambutan
Peel off the spiky red covering of this iron-rich Southeast Asian treat to reveal a translucent white orb with a taste that marries grape and watermelon.
Keep Reading: 3 more exotic fruits to try
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| Photo: Thinkstock |
The Secret:
A 2007 study of more than 23,000 Greek adults may have revealed a surprising key to their legendary vigor—the siesta. Compared with those who power through the day, adults who nap for a minimum of 30 minutes at least three times a week have a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease.
The Prescription:
If your work schedule doesn't allow you to pencil in a snooze, nap on weekends—every little bit helps.
The Prescription:
If your work schedule doesn't allow you to pencil in a snooze, nap on weekends—every little bit helps.
Every Monday, we're rounding up things—small and big—that made us stop and think. Today, we were captivated by a paean to postcards, a consciousness-raising moment on Broadway, and more...
"It just might be that the greatest threat to monogamy is the uncritical acceptance of it."
Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon.com sex and relationships writer, on what she learned from Salon's series about monogamy.
"...unlike letters, [post]cards require a verbal concision that can rise to high level of eloquence: brief and heart-breaking glimpses into someone’s existence, in addition to countless amusing and well-told anecdotes."
Poet Charles Simic on the lost art of postcard writing.
"I read Proust first, before Freud...And I think I simply realized that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, more fascinating than human nature. And human relations."
From a 2008 Guardian article about Hanna Segal, psychoanalyst who popularized play therapy for children, who died last week at age 92.
"People generally laud you for raising a well-rounded girl who knows how to wield a baseball bat as well as a princess wand...Watching [Billy Elliott], I started to think about all the useful things I've taught my daughter over the years ...I began to wonder what it might have been like had I had a boy instead. Would I have let him enroll in ballet if he wanted? I like to think so. I hope so.”
Mike Adamick, Jezebel's “Daddy Issues” columnist, on raising a well-rounded boy.
"Most foodies sneer at the word 'fusion'...but in fact, the fusion impulse is the human impulse--to cross over, to integrate two different, sometimes warring worlds, to create a new meaning.”
Todd Kliman, food and wine editor of The Washingtonian, writing about the "authenticity of food" in Lucky Peach.
"It just might be that the greatest threat to monogamy is the uncritical acceptance of it."
Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon.com sex and relationships writer, on what she learned from Salon's series about monogamy.
"...unlike letters, [post]cards require a verbal concision that can rise to high level of eloquence: brief and heart-breaking glimpses into someone’s existence, in addition to countless amusing and well-told anecdotes."
Poet Charles Simic on the lost art of postcard writing.
"I read Proust first, before Freud...And I think I simply realized that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, more fascinating than human nature. And human relations."
From a 2008 Guardian article about Hanna Segal, psychoanalyst who popularized play therapy for children, who died last week at age 92.
"People generally laud you for raising a well-rounded girl who knows how to wield a baseball bat as well as a princess wand...Watching [Billy Elliott], I started to think about all the useful things I've taught my daughter over the years ...I began to wonder what it might have been like had I had a boy instead. Would I have let him enroll in ballet if he wanted? I like to think so. I hope so.”
Mike Adamick, Jezebel's “Daddy Issues” columnist, on raising a well-rounded boy.
"Most foodies sneer at the word 'fusion'...but in fact, the fusion impulse is the human impulse--to cross over, to integrate two different, sometimes warring worlds, to create a new meaning.”
Todd Kliman, food and wine editor of The Washingtonian, writing about the "authenticity of food" in Lucky Peach.
Before we head full speed into the weekend, we're hitting the breaks for a moment to say thank you...
1. Rick Mereki, filmmaker, you make us want to MOVE!
(See the other two short films in this series titled "Move, Eat, Learn" here)
2. History, meet future. At Historypin, web-wanderers can upload and browse beautiful photographs from around the world, and it's all organized by timeline.
3. A construction worker sings Sinatra with a sign that says, "Forget all the noise..." Yes, yes, we think we will.
4. This week's loud round of unifying applause for Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
The very crown of nature's changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
Here's to happy and restful weekends everyone.
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
Here's to happy and restful weekends everyone.
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The Oprah blog is a place where you can find engaging news coverage, fresh inspiration, and the straight talk you've come to count on. A place that
provides the tools you need to make a change—if not in the world—then at
least in your little corner of it. It's a place that will raise your energy, lower your blood pressure and
occasionally make you laugh—in short, a place of possibility.
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