How is it that inanimate objects are so often so eloquent? We know they are just things, but we love our things. I know I like to think of myself as too deep and unsuperficial to really care about material things, and yet, when my home almost burned down (I exaggerate slightly) I spent the remainder of the day wandering around in a daze, loving all those dumb things: the sticks my kids collect and the photograph of my grandmother holding baby-me, yes, but also, the rocking chair, the potted plants, the bathroom sink. Maybe those things aren't me, exactly, but those mute hunks of wood and plastic and stone are my life. And though I don't think of myself as having a lot of things, compared to the Chinese farmers photographed by Huang Qingjun my small home becomes a low-rent-version of the British Museum.

According to the BBC, Huang Qingjun has spent the past decade traveling around China's rural areas, photographing people outside their homes with all of their material possessions. (The BBC has a can't-miss slide show of his photographs.) The photographs are haunting portraits of the simple way people still live in the quickly-changing country. But they tell stories, too -- a story of forced change, in the case of a couple posing in front of their house which has been slated for demolition; a story of intentional change, in the case of families proudly displaying their modern DVD players and satellite dishes.

it's impossible to look at these photographs and not think, "That's IT?" I'd like to think I could live so simply as these families, possessing only what I needed to work and make food and little else, but it takes me about twelve seconds to start wondering, but what do they do in their free time? (The answer is, probably, what free time?) Where are the books and games and photographs and all those other things that we think make our homes our homes? And what would my life be, who would I be, in a yurt on the plain?

Read the entire article for more, including the the wonderful history of the "Four Big Things."

Read More:
What Are Your Chairs Telling You?
The History of the World in 100 Objects

Photo: Debby Hymowitz

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, The Pink Project—a collaboration between SUITE New York, Swarovski and Lange Production—will auction 20 one-of-a-kind chairs customized by designers like Kelly Wearstler and Colin Cowie.

The creations are based on the iconic GJ chair designed by the late Danish furniture designer Grete Jalk, and they are stunning. I particularly love Kelly’s chair (which features pink Swarovski crystals), Aerin Lauder’s (she covers the chair with braided jute) and Christopher Coleman’s (he interjects bold colors into a graphic black-and-white pattern).

The best part? Eighty percent of each sale will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, so you can have a unique work of art and support a worthy cause at the same time. The online auction will run Oct. 1–31 on charitybuzz.com.

Chair designers from top to bottom: Kelly Wearstler, Aerin Lauder, Christopher Coleman

Photo: Thinkstock

Oh, the wedding dress. When else in her life does a sane, non-millionaire woman spend hundreds, if not thousands, on a totally impractical white dress, for what (it's easy to forget when you're in the thick of wedding planning) is really just one day? I was interested to learn recently that the lacy, fancy-shmancy white bridal gown is actually a relatively new phenomenon, inspired by Queen Victoria's own lacy, fancy-shmancy white bridal gown in 1840. For decades, civilian brides stayed too sensible to really latch on to the trend (white gowns are hard to clean, for one), but eventually latch on we did. Nowadays a bride is making a noticeable statement if she gets married in anything other than a fancy-shmancy white dress.

But what about those who really, really don't have money to plunk down on a gorgeous gown they'll only wear once? One woman, faced with this ridiculousness, decided to give away her wedding dress after her wedding to a bride in need. The bride, who wishes to remain anonymous, is offering her lovely ruffly confection of a Cambodian silk gown through Huffington Post Weddings. Head on over to see photos of the dress and find out more. I can't think of a better way to start off a marriage than by sending some kindness out into the world, can you? After all (as it's easy to forget when you're suffering satin-blindness in the middle of David's Bridal panic attack), this getting married thing, it's not about a day, or even a dress -- it's about starting a new life together. A life, one hopes, of giving, and sharing, and good vibes all around.

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Don't Tell the Bride...
The Beginner's Guide to Wedding Planning

Photo: Thinkstock

There is a list on my fridge entitled Things to Learn About. It's scribbled in blue marker on a piece of newsprint drawing paper, the first thing that was at hand when my 3-year-old decided she had a burning desire to learn all about Mini-Coopers. "I don't really know anything about them," I admitted. "Let's learn about it together." "YES!" she said. "Also, how are houses made? And bridges?" And so the list was born.

As I stuck the list to the fridge, I daydreamed about the different lessons we would have every week, how I would combine documentary clips and projects and field trips in a totally inspiring and life-affirming improvised homeschooling situation. I envisioned the children and I racing through a meadow, peering at clouds through homemade cloud-viewers and shouting, "Cumulus! Nimbus!" at each other like greetings in a newly-learned language.

Right. So as it turns out, I apparently don't know how to learn about anything other than by checking out relevant books at the library. Each Monday I stare at the list, and think, Right. India. We were going to learn about India. Hm, guess I'll check out a book. What's next? Animal groups. Okay, I'll find a book. Now don't get me wrong, the disintegrating, outdated science textbooks at my local library are great and all. But I know there must be more engaging ways to learn about new things. And now I know where to find them: Learnist.

This new social media site is essentially Pinterest with a point. (No offense to Pinterest!) Users share their areas of expertise, compiling, say, helpful grammar infographics, or the best works of filmmaker Werner Herzog, or (my favorite so far) words that can't be translated into English. Learnist draws you in and around (I was not exactly looking for Werner Herzog, but suddenly here I am, obsessed) the way Facebook and Twitter do, but with more useful content -- lots of resources for teachers, home cooks, sports enthusiasts, basically, everyone.

So I can space out online and actually be compiling an unofficial lesson plan for my curious kid. Or, you know, myself.

Check out Learnist and request a (free, easy) beta invite!

Read More:
Is Learning Ever Just Plain Learning?
The Importance of Curiosity

As Martha Beck writes on this very site, to live a life rich with everyday miracles, all one needs is a " sense of what's probable—and a world filled with moments of grace, strange synchronicities, and perhaps (who knows?) the occasional bedroom full of guardian angels." So where are your everyday miracles today? And when they appear, will you let them in?

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The Big Question: An Adventure or a Nap?
The 23-Year-Long Road Trip

It's finally Friday! This week we're oh-so-grateful for...


Jimmy Fallon and the cast of Guys with Kids sing an awesome mash-up of classic theme songs [via TV Guide]

Google lets us explore the Great Barrier Reef with it’s underwater Street View [via Mashable]

Writers (hilariously) pick their favorite punctuation marks [via The Atlantic Wire]

The perfect way to say happy birthday to that special someone (grab 'em now, stock up on them, use them for years!) [via Oh So Beautiful Paper]

Photo: Thinkstock

It's a hard and terrible thing, to remember that in so many ways, and in so many places, women and girls still struggle to be treated as well as their male counterparts, or have diminished accesses to resources like education, medical care, and food. Like the schoolgirls of Uganda. Acccording to allAfrica.com, Ugandan girls are dropping out of school for many reasons: their families can't afford their uniforms, books, and supplies; their academic development isn't valued by their communities; awfully, they face sexual harassment or abuse at school (or on the way there). As a result the literacy rate for girls is much lower than for boys.

Depressing, I know. But the article also shares the story of Namakula, a young woman who was denied schooling but took a catering class. She has since started a catering company called Allied Female Youth Initiative and said that "the training showed her that she had other options besides being dependent on a boyfriend or husband." Namakula now says that people treat her with respect; she is now a woman with a future—all because she's taken the trajectory of her life into her own hands.

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Ugandan Skaters Make Their Own Fun
Oprah's School for Girls in Africa

I know it's a luxury of my life that I get to think this, and yet I sometimes find myself wondering what I'm really doing here. Here in my life, I mean. Reading my kid a picture book about the rain forest the other day sent me into a mental tailspin. The rainforests! Are getting destroyed! What am I doing about it? Nothing! I don't volunteer, I don't donate large sums of money, I don't save the children (except my own, of course, when they teeter off the playground equipment). I don't even use cloth diapers! I'm part of the problem! Of course (and here come the excuses of which we all have so many) what could I do that would really make an impact without turning my life upside down, or maybe it needs to be turned upside? (And don't say use cloth diapers.)

So it was like something chimed in my chest when I read this BBC News story about Hernando Guanlao, a 60-something book lover in Manila who turned his private book collection into a lending library for his community. Twelve years ago, his parents died and Guanlao was looking for a way to honor their memory. Since he had shared with them a love of reading, he decided to put his books -- 100 or so -- outside his house, encouraging people to borrow them on an honor system. Over a decade later, his collection has swelled to the thousands, providing reading material to a community in which few people can afford to buy books and there is not a public lending library. Guanlao told the BBC, "It seems to me that the books are speaking to me. That's why it multiplies like that. The books are telling me they want to be read... they want to be passed around."

Books now overtake nearly all of Guanlao's home -- and life, since he quit his job in order to run the library, living off his savings. And this, as you may guess, was what spoke to me so eloquently. Here is a man who has found a way to combine a wish to help others with his personal passion, and it's changed not just his community's life, but his own. There was of course risk here -- he may well have lost all his books, in a place where books are expensive. And yet, as he told the BBC, "You don't do justice to these books if you put them in a cabinet or a box. A book should be used and reused. It has life, it has a message. As a book caretaker, you become a full man." Words which should be inscribed on every overstuffed bookcase everywhere, probably. (Read the full article to learn Guanlao's plans for even more intrepid and creative book-sharing.)

Guanlao offers another gift, too, even to those of us too remote to visit his library: a reminder that sometimes, when you're least expecting it, a need dovetails with your passion, and your life's mission finds you.

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Becoming the Person You Were Meant To Be
How to Make Your Life Sparkle