(Part 2) Top products from r/blogsnark

Hi Im here for your yoga wants and needs

Yoga Friends looking to start meditation suggestions

Meditation Cushion (I think I have the 13" one) - I specifically have this Reehut ($23) one and a Manduka one (I cant find it online! but it was about $50) and the manduka definitely has a better suede feel, the Reehut one feels just as nice to sit on).

Headspace account - you can get a year premium account on eBay just saying for a fraction of the price... (I'm talking like $5 versus $100).

Journal - I got the meditation cushion and added a journal for my friend (I ended up getting a 3pack from Costco for $11 and gifting to 3 people! 😁

Odds and Ends:

If you want to spend money on your yoga friend, a Liforme yoga mat that's $150-200 might be right up your alley.

I also want the NOW Tone Therapy speakers but cant talk myself into spending $150 for 3 minutes of sweet bells.

If you want to go super hippie, you can buy Sage to burn ($18 issa vibe)

.I think this is a super cute card set Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck (less than $25). The same artist also has a similar Tarot deck that's under $25

This is also a great visual/journaling book for yogis - a lot of pages, colorful, and places to write (so dont bother with the Kindle version!)(Wanderlust might have another book for cookers, if I'm not mistaken).Less than $20 right now.

Jessamyn Stanley also has Every Body Yoga for someone who practices yoga and is interested in hearing Jessamyn's journey to yoga. She's very inclusive and I really enjoyed reading her story. The yoga is very basic though.

Replying to myself and my list is all over the place but these all made me happier (and no affiliate links here people):

Devotions by Mary Oliver - this book of poems was the nicest thing I gave myself this year

My new favorite necklace stand

Bluetooth shower speaker - I start my day with a positive podcast each day now

Tea Tins - I drink an insane amount of teas and these keep the quality up

Wine opener - Do I really need this? Do I even drink enough wine to justify this? Questions I asked when I was younger and more naive because this was the best thing I ever asked for, especially ahead of hosting a bridal shower

Puzzles. Last Christmas I decided my husband and I would do puzzles and drink cocoa and eat Moose Munch while listening to happy music or watching classic movies, many of which were Christmas themed. Best idea ever. I plan to make kits of these for a few people I'll be seeing at the beginning of the month and therefore they can enjoy their Christmas gift all month long.

Microfiber washcloths. Such an upgrade.

An alternate-universe Shauna:

Prompted by a couple of the comments below referring to Amazon reviews, I went there to take a look, and ended up coming across this other author, who also happens to be named Shauna. I think it's pretty funny how familiar these titles seem (even though I'd never heard of her before). One of these has a forward by Brene Brown. Check out these titles!

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living

Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

The Amazon summary for Bread and Wine describes her as a mix of Anne Lamott and Barefoot Contessa.

Monday - A variation of these pork chops with rice noodles and roasted brocolli

Tuesday - pepper steak with coconut lime rice

Wednesday - leftovers

Thursday - summer veggie pasta pesto bake with hot sausage

I love cookbooks as books - I read them cover to cover. It sounds corny, but I use my Betty Crocker cookbook as a good baseline for baked goods. I also adore this book to shake things up!! AND OF COURSE COOKING FOR JEFFREY

In terms of Roe, remember that around 12-15 states will most likely continue to have legal abortion, and that women will need help getting to those states. Please follow https://twitter.com/NARAL to keep updated. If you are in a red state, and you want to have a line to resources, or if you are in a solid blue state and think you could help with room and board or transportation, you can send me your email, I will keep it secret, never use it unless needed, and will never ever consider doxing you, even in a court of law. I'll go down with a real tight lip, I don't crack. We are building our underground railroad, and it's go time.

​

Edited to add:
If you want to see how to go on when we don't have body autonomy, read this inspiring story. Regular women, helping regular women

https://www.amazon.com/Story-Jane-Legendary-Underground-Feminist/dp/0226424219

Lewis Hyde's The Gift

https://www.amazon.ca/Gift-Creativity-Artist-Modern-World/dp/0307279502

(Maybe that isn't the book you're thinking of; but the red heart reminds me of Shauna's newsletter)

The New Yorker reviewed Leah Plunkett's book Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online today:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/instagram-facebook-and-the-perils-of-sharenting

It sounds like a very interesting read. The cover art and the fact that it's published by MIT Press pretty much guarantees that those who should read it, won't.

The School for Good and Evil a YA series by Soman Chainani. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I heard about these books on Tim Ferriss' podcast, but so far, it's a really great story.

I just saw Meaghan Oconnell's book (she was the one Alice always called "Poundcake") is coming out soon - I don't remember her being a particularly good or bad writer in her Tumblr days but, as somebody who's currently trying to figure out her feelings on kids, the topic caught my interest. I'm hoping it's not just blood and guts navel gazing but who knows.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. I got it as a Kindle daily sale. Enjoying it so far!

"To An Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial" is in large part about the legal fight over the religious use of peyote (specifically, whether being fired for said use violated the free exercise clause), but there is a really interesting chapter in it about the Bhagwan situation. The author is a former law professor at UOregon who knew the Attorney General who had to deal with the whole mess pretty well. No preview on Google Books, here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/God-Religious-Freedom-Trial/dp/0312262396

I LOVE this book for older toddler to kindergarten age kids: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062455508/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm reading Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began.

So far, I can't put it down (two days and I'm almost done with the whole book). I found it because I saw a commercial for the Lifetime movie, which came on last night. I'm not sure how the movie will be, and I know Lifetime is corny, but the book is worth the read.

It's so hard to believe that Alex went through deconversion therapy and what seems like torture in 2010. I'm thankful for how far the US has come for LGBTQ+ rights (especially for youth), during my lifetime... but we've still got work to do.

The venue search is kicking my ass. 100%. I ranted a couple weeks ago, but it's like they specifically try to hide the cost info as a way of reeling you in. I'm so sick of vendors playing these games, I'm a straightforward, direct, and honest person and I hate hate hate when people aren't the same with me.

As far as premarital counseling, we didn't/won't do it the conventional way, but we did painstakingly go through the "1001 Questions to Ask Before Getting Married" over the course of a few months (https://www.amazon.com/Questions-Before-Married-Family-Relationships/dp/0071438033). It was really good at making sure we were on the same page on both big and little issues, and raised lots of hypotheticals we never would have considered ourselves. I recommend it to everyone I know who gets engaged.

Michelle McNamara's book about The Golden State Killer is finally arriving today! She was married to Patton Oswald and died unexpectedly while she was in the middle of writing it. He brought in other writers to make sure that her work would be finished. I'm obsessed with the GSK and wish she could have lived to see her book published.

The latest Maisie Dobbs novel comes out tomorrow, and I. CAN'T. WAIT.

Edit: I just checked Amazon and I pre-ordered before my card expired, and it didn't automatically switch to my new one :( No Maisie until Thursday.

Expecting Better by Emily Oster offers some good perspective on what “they” tell you to avoid vs. real risks to your pregnancy.

Personally, listeria is something I didn’t want to risk. Unlike run-of-the-mill food poisoning, listeria can pose a risk to the fetus. I chose to avoid raw milk products, cold smoked foods, and certain raw fruits and vegetables unless I knew they were washed.

Technically, it's not a straight copy/paste. (it's a slow day at work so, let's compare!)

From the IG post:

> I didn’t write this in the book because it happened while I wrote the book. The last six weeks of writing the first full draft of ENOUGH, I had hundreds of hives all over my chest and abdomen when I started to write for the day. Four times my lip swelled up, along with half my face, so I had to stop to go to the clinic, the emergency room, the fire station, to make sure I wasn’t in danger of losing my breath. It always calmed down after an hour or two away from the computer. I had allergy tests, specialists looking at me, and it all came up with no answer. It was terrifying, again.
❤️
At least 8 or 10 times I’ve had occasions like this, mostly focused on severe abdominal pain. And most of those times, there was nothing wrong, at least on tests. I never had anyone suggest it could have been the trauma in my body talking to me.

And, from the "Leaving LA" newsletter:



>I didn’t write this in ENOUGH because it happened while I wrote the book. The last six weeks of writing the first full draft, I had hundreds of hives all over my chest and abdomen when I started to write for the day. Four times my lip swelled up, along with half my face, so I had to stop to go to the clinic, the emergency room, the fire station, to make sure I wasn’t in danger of losing my breath. My body calmed down after an hour or two away from the computer. I had allergy tests, specialists looking at me, and it all came up with no answer.
>
>At least 8 or 10 times I’ve had medical mysterieslike this, mostly focused on severe abdominal pain. And most of those times, there was nothing wrong, at least on tests. I never had anyone suggest it could have been the trauma in my body talking to me.

I bolded the differences. (I love that one of the differences has a typo, too!)

The next paragraph IS 100% copy/paste.

IG:

> My doctor, a wonderful woman who trained under the doctor I mention in my book, sat me down about a month after my manuscript was in. And she told me that idiopathic uticaria (hives for no reason) is generally stress, deep body stress. My body, hardwired to protect my mom and keep the secrets, was trying to make me stop writing. I persisted.

Newsletter:

> My doctor, a wonderful woman who trained under the doctor I mention in my book, sat me down about a month after my manuscript was in. And she told me that idiopathic uticaria (hives for no reason) is generally stress, deep body stress. My body, hardwired to protect my mom and keep the secrets, was trying to make me stop writing. I persisted.

The last two paragraphs have only one slight difference:

IG:

> She diagnosed me with complex PTSD from my childhood. She put me on an SSRI for the first time in my life. And I started a deep dive into reading (please read @nadineburkeharris”s book and The Body Keeps the Score) and acting on what I know now. I’m still learning how to take care of myself. I will probably write about this journey too.
❤️
I know how to admit to myself when I have had enough now. When I found my jaw was clenched most of the time in LA, I knew it was time to come home.

Newsletter:

​

>She diagnosed me with complex PTSD from my childhood. She put me on an SSRI for the first time in my life. And I started a deep dive into reading — if this resonates with you, read The Deepest Well and The Body Keeps the Score — and acting on what I know now. I’m still learning how to take care of myself. I will probably write about this journey too.
>
>I know how to admit to myself when I have had enough now. When I found my jaw was clenched most of the time in LA, I knew it was time to come home.