Blog
I launched my blog in 2009 when I was wrestling with a midlife crisis. Since then, the digital world has changed so much. I was new to both Facebook and Twitter when I started blogging, and I was still rocking the BlackBerry for email. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. Podcasting and short videos are what the cool kids do these days, blogging is considered old fashioned. But I still find it the best way to share my thoughts and to profile people who inspire me.
I hope you’ll find something here that inspires you, or at least sparks a conversation. Some of my favorite posts are pinned to the top, scroll down a bit more to find the most recent, or check out the categories in the sidebar.
You’ve probably heard that old chestnut “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’ve been thinking about that lately, in the context of my 2011 goals. We can aspire to a perfect year free of pain and suffering, but it’s pretty unlikely. And in the long run, that kind of year might not be in our best interest. It’s often…
John and I have been married more than 10 years and I remain sort of wishy-washy on the maiden name vs. married name debate. I never legally changed my name — my driver’s license and passport still say Colleen Newvine — so technically I decided. I go by Colleen Newvine at work. But on my blog and when…
Do you need some help working toward your 2011 goals? I think there are two separate challenges to making good New Year’s resolutions: taking the time to set thoughtful, achievable goals that align with what you really want out of life following through to achieve those goals So let’s divide and conquer together. I’ll even offer a prize to help…
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the existence of Santa Claus. If you, like me, might find this disturbing, you might want to go watch Rudolph and skip this one. When I was maybe 5 years old, Santa came to my dad’s house. We were sitting around on Christmas Eve when the back door opened and Santa waltzed in carrying a…
I would love your input here. Here’s the general premise for an in-home wine club — think book club or scrapbooking club, but instead, getting together to taste and learn about wine: A group of friends organize around an interest in wine They place an order for regularly delivered wine selections at their choice of price points (low, medium, high)…
Earlier this week, I wrote about the most popular blog posts in the two-year run of Newvine Growing and about the most common search terms that bring people here. Studying those data points is part of some work I’m doing to refine my focus for 2011. I launched Newvine Growing in January 2009 with broad goal: to have a forum…
Some people arrive here because of links I post on Facebook or Twitter. Others subscribe to e-mail or RSS updates, and some generous readers pass along links to friends who might be interested. Search engines are also responsible for a good chunk of traffic. And while some people arrive after searching for, say, Ben Jaffe, happiest people in the world…
I launched this blog nearly two years ago as a means of exploring my own mini midlife crisis. I wanted a venue to explore questions like what makes life meaningful, what makes us happy, who should my role models be in living life well. Of course being a data nerd, I’m interested in which of these issues get the most…
After a month of daily gratitude posts, it’s taking me a bit to regain my rhythm of regular content — but I do have some good stuff in the hopper: I sat down with Larry Kirshbaum, formerly CEO of Time-Warner Book Group and now head of LJK Literary, and he shared the unvarnished truth about moving from a corporate gig…
I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and rather than falling into my usual trap of reading fluffy magazines, I’ve used that travel time to dive into some good books. I pounded through Mark Bittman‘s “Food Matters” in just a few days. Much like Michael Pollan‘s books about what’s wrong with American food production, Bittman writes that how we eat is…
Margaret Yang recently won one of two Month of Thanksgiving contests here on Newvine Growing by expressing her gratitude for her daughter’s bus driver. Because Margaret won the “Who are you thankful for?” contest, I sent flowers to her house so she could give them to Miss Penny, the bus driver. Margaret sent two follow-up notes on what happened when…
I woke up just in time to hear a doctor telling my parents how I was lucky my nose had shattered because otherwise the bone would have driven up into my brain and killed me. It was hard to feel especially lucky at that moment. I had broadsided another driver who hadn’t looked to see I was approaching doing about…
Maybe some of you spent a little time going around the table at Thanksgiving dinner sharing something you’re thankful for? While the holiday is mostly about gorging on food and/or spending time with loved ones, there is this sweet notion of a holiday about counting our blessings and giving thanks. I’ve taken that a step further with Month of Thanksgiving,…
Early in my Month of Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for traditional jazz — but that’s not the only music that makes me happy. In high school, I hung out with the band and musical theater nerds. In college I was entertainment editor at our newspaper, I worked at two of our radio stations and spent a lot of time hanging…
John and I walked home late Thanksgiving night, trying to walk off a few of the thousands of calories we’d ingested with friends, and our path took us past a big shopping center down the street where crowds were lining up for Black Friday sales. I’ve never felt compelled to get up in the middle of the night…
On Thanksgiving, many of us will spend the day feasting on a ridiculous amount of food, only to lay around later groaning that we’re about to burst. While we gorge ourselves silly, the AgChat Foundation is urging us to give thanks for that abundance of food — and for the farmers responsible for producing it. They explain: A…
Several people submitted thoughtful entries in the “What are you grateful for?” contest — including those in the comments of that blog post, and a few in the comments on “Who are you grateful for?” that I think technically might be more of a what than a who. But rather than get all grammatical on who’s a who and what’s…