Full confession, I already know how to crochet. BUT, I'm always learning new stitches, patterns, and techniques. This week, I am working towards finishing a baby blanket for my nephew, Max. Here's the (almost) finished product.
Want to learn how to crochet? It's pretty simple, and requires just a few tools and supplies. While at home, you can order materials online, watch how-to videos, and even download tons of free patterns. Check out these links!
I don't have much cultivable land on my property, so any vegetables I want to grow for the summer season have to be planted in pots or raised beds. Growing things in containers is a little different than planting in the ground, but with just a few adjustments, you're on your way to a bountiful harvest. Check out some of my favorite sites for gardening advice!
Discover the hidden side of everything with Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.
Turn on your radio and hide.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino,
true crime and Rosa Parks then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Serial is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig, narrating a nonfiction story over multiple episodes. The series was co-created and is co-produced by Koenig and Julie Snyder and developed by This American Life.
Radiolab, with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, is a radio show and podcast weaving stories and science into sound and music-rich documentaries.
Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Phoebe Judge explores topics from owls killing people to how to fake your death to the life of a police dog.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and The Tipping Point, looks back through the overlooked and misunderstood in history, re-examining the past and asking whether we got it right the first time.
Each episode of This American Life centers around a theme. Most are journalistic at the core, but some are comedic. This podcast is hard to generalize, especially after over 600 episodes. But the number of episodes, and it’s massive popularity, should speak for itself.
99% Invisible is a sound rich, narrative podcast hosted by Roman Mars about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.
Sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.
Abbi Hope Goldstein is like any other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of September 11. On that terrible day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knight's Day Camp two towns away.
Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on 9/11, has a similar summer plan. When he recognizes Abbi, he believes his meeting with Baby Hope is fate. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the story behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?
Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she's thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn't quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin.
But then Kiko doesn't get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the West Coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and ears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.
Kara knew she could reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
She had done it once before. That's why, when she failed in a second attempt, it brought her so low. Struggling with a food addiction and looking for ways to cope with feelings of failure and shame, Kara ballooned to more than 300 pounds. Deep in her personal gorge, Kara realized the only way out was up. She resolved to climb the mountain again--and this time she would reach the summit without waiting for her plus-size status to disappear.
Gorge: My Journey Up Kilimanjaro At 300 Pounds is the raw story of Kara's ascent from the depths of self-doubt to the top of the world. Her difficult and inspiring trek speaks to every woman who has struggled with her self-image or felt that food was controlling her life. Honest and unforgettable, Kara's journey is one of intense passion, endurance, and self-acceptance.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than "an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise." But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
A wise man once said, when at Loveboat, party like the prodigies do.
When Ever Wong's parents send her away for the summer, she's expecting Chien Tan: a strict, educational immersion program in Taiwan.
Instead, she finds the infamous "Loveboat."
There, Ever is surrounded by prodigies: like Rick Woo, Chinese American wonder boy and longtime bane of her existence; Ever's roommate, the confident and clever Sophie Ha, as glamorous as she is sharp; and the intimidatingly cool Xavier Yeh, heir to an international tech empire.
But her classmates are more interested in the nonstop Taipei nightlife than anything to do with the curriculum. Hookups abound, snake-blood sake flows, and adult supervision is nonexistent. For the first time ever, Ever is discovering what freedom tastes like, and it is exhilarating.
But summer will end and Ever will be back to her parents and the future they've planned for her. Will she let this glimpse of freedom go--or will Loveboat give her the courage to pursue the future she dreams of, and the Ever Wong she wants to be?
Tour MARS!
Explore Mars through the eyes of the Curiosity Rover. "Walk" the terrain, experience the mission, and learn about our planetary neighbor.
Looking for a cool book/movie companion to this virtual experience? Try the novel The Martian by Andy Weir and the EXCELLENT film adaptation of the same name starring Matt Damon. BEWARE: both the novel and film contain adult language and situations.
Missing a spring field trip to DC?
The Smithsonian is providing a variety of Virtual Tours of exhibits online. Check out everything from the famous dinosaurs to the very cool and eclectic Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art.
Looking for some museum-related reading or viewing? The Stranger and The Statesman details the founding of The Smithsonian during the presidency of John Quincy Adams. And, just for fun, watch the series of Night at the Museum films, starring Ben Stiller!
