a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

“I drove down to New Orleans from Vermont,” said Dan, “and asked him to teach me how to make shoes. At first he said, ‘no.’ So I went down another time and I guess he thought I was serious and this time he said, ‘yes.’ His name was Calvin.” We were in Dan’s leather store…

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver posed this question, “How could there be a day in your whole life that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?” I was fascinated with the word “splash” and looked it up. Definitions include: “A colored patch.” “A short plunge.” “A sound produced by liquid falling.” “A vivid impression created…

We commute to work on the subway and have noticed on our line two trains can be minutes apart, but everyone will crowd into the first train which makes it miserable for everyone. But if you choose to wait, often just a few minutes, the second train will be half full, providing a comfortable and…

We spent the day at the New York Botanical Garden enjoying the scent of fall in the air when we came across these striking objects called, Ghost Plants. Conceived of by the artist Ebony Patterson after studying extinct plants during her residency at the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, Patterson created glass blown, white, haunting,…

A book I return to every year is Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, where he interviews athletes, authors, and entrepreneurs for advice on topics such as productivity and creativity. An idea Ferriss shares which influenced him personally is being taught by Tony Robbins to identify, as Ferriss puts it, “knots in the garden hose.”  Meaning, we…

I recently came across a coffee table book of photographs taken by Susan Middleton called Spineless which had amazing images of nudibranches, anemones, sea stars, and cowries. What these animals have in common is they are spineless. They are called invertebrates.  Did you know invertebrates comprise more than 98% of all animal life? They are also, as…