If you think farmers and ranchers are technophobes on tractors, think again. I was lucky enough to get selected for AgChat’s recent social media conference for and by agriculture professionals. I like to think of myself as pretty tech savvy, having been blogging since 2005 and tweeting since 2008, but this city girl had to scribble furiously to keep up…
Money can’t buy love. Money can’t buy happiness. We hear these clichés frequently, but I loved this article from investment firm Vanguard that suggests you can, in fact, buy happiness — if you spend your money on the right things. A snippet from a Q&A with MP Dunleavy, author of “Money Can Buy Happiness: How to Spend to Get the…
I feel a bit like I’m off to summer camp to meet my pen pals. Every Tuesday night, a diverse group of people participate in a Twitter chat using the hashtag #agchat — it’s a moderated online conversation of usually about a dozen questions on a focused agriculture topic, ranging from use of smartphones to farm regulation. Here’s how the…
I kept seeing people post this photo on Facebook but only recently stopped to read the poster. I encourage you to do likewise — it’ll just take a minute and with luck, it’ll make your heart feel good like it did for me. Mission for this week: ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your…
I love that the contributions to the “Things I Have Learned” series keep coming in. I asked a small number of my writer friends to participate at the outset, but now the majority of participants have volunteered themselves and that’s fantastic. Keep ’em coming, all! Today’s list comes from Amy Spooner, who I met when she profiled me for the…
Some of the decisions I have made this year — choosing a part-time job over full time so I could launch my own business in a tough economy, spending two months in New Orleans when we have a cozy place in a great Brooklyn neighborhood — don’t make sense to some people. Ditto our choice not to have children, not…
If you haven’t already seen this video of pastor Joe Nelms giving thanks in prayer before a NASCAR race in Nashville, you’re in for a treat. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J74y88YuSJ8] I grew up Catholic and have heard a whole lot of prayers and invocations in my life — but have never heard such impassioned thanks raised up to God for the power and…
I’ve shared posts before from one of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits. I know you can read it yourself if you’re interested, but this recent column on dealing with negative people just struck me as such good advice that I wanted to share here. Zen Habits encourages sharing by offering all its content freely, without restrictions. This post, borrowed from…
Picture someone you really look up to — someone who goes beyond an important mentor, someone you idolize as very talented or successful in your field, perhaps the person you wish you could grow up to be. Got someone in mind? Now imagine getting an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with that person. Not just an “I love your…
Today’s installment in the “Things I Have Learned” series comes from a colleague at my first job after college, where I worked as a reporter at the Alpena News. If you’ve never heard of Alpena, think cold. It’s five hours north of Detroit, and in addition to learning a tremendous amount about real-life newspapers, I learned such things as how…
A few months ago I wrote a pair of posts reflecting on what I’ve learned in five years as a New Yorker: Five observations after five years in New York New York tourist tips gleaned in my five years in NYC But I have to give it up to Sarah Hepola for writing a piece with an almost identical theme — lessons…
A recent Harvard Business Review suggested the best way to achieve your goals is to not demand too much of yourself. That’s not to say set your goals low — but if you want to reach a goal, don’t make it harder than it needs to be to get there. In a post headlined “The Only Way to Get Important…
This post continues an occasional series on writers — how and why they write, what inspires them and how they overcome challenges like writer’s block and rejection. Previously we’ve heard from Jim Tobin, Jim Ottaviani, Lara Zielin, Bruce DeSilva and Jennifer Worick. Today’s Q&A features a baker’s dozen questions with Margaret Yang, an Ann Arbor-based science fiction writer whose first…
Don Miguel Ruiz‘s slim little book, “The Four Agreements,” offers four simple pieces of life advice: Be impeccable with your word — say only what you mean and be careful the power of your words Don’t take anything personally — the way others behave is more about them than about you Don’t make assumptions — it’s easy to misunderstand when…
Mark Zuckerberg, the gagillionaire founder of Facebook, apparently posted to his person Facebook page this spring that he had just killed a goat and a pig. No, not a sacrifice to the gods of Silicon Valley. Fortune magazine followed up and learned Zuckerberg has pledged to only eat meat this year from animals he personally kills. He wrote in an…
This is mainly for your summer Friday entertainment — but there is a bit of a Newvine Growing theme here. Tony-nominated Broadway actor Brian d’Arcy James grew up in my hometown, Saginaw, Mich., and I was wowed by him in our high school’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I love this video because while Brian’s been part…
