Tag Archives: New York Magazine

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Hey guys! Another Sunday Reading list that didn’t get out for Sunday. Surprise! There are lots of reasons for this, the main two being really busy and then my husband had to work some over the weekend so I spent more of my free time looking up information about baby mattresses. Enthralling right? I know you are dying to know more about how to buy a baby mattress, but I won’t go into the those details today. I’ll just jump right into the posts. Oh, and for anyone who wants more food posts, there should be three restaurant reviews coming up and possible *crosses fingers* a recipe! Yeah, I think I might of finally nailed the savory zucchini muffin.

Oh, I am also curious, would you guys be interested if I wrote a series about framing? This blog has never been so much about DIY nor have I really talked much about my job as a framer. I mean, did any of your guys know that? I really don’t know how many times the word “framer” has been typed on this blog. XD I have been talking a lot with my bosses about how our customers are largely people who have had their parents teach them to go to custom framing shops, or serious art collectors. I might do a few posts about what to look for in a framer, how to do your own frames/shadow boxes, and how save money on framing. 

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Millions of Women are Injured During Childbirth. What Aren’t Doctors Diagnosing Them?

I’m kind-of glad to be pregnant during the age of the internet since there are a growing numbers of personal blogs talking about the complications about pregnancy. I can also quickly google a bunch of wives tales like not raising your arms up too high because the umbilical cord will choke your baby. BTW that is total bullshit. Oddly Cosmopolitan (you know that magazine giving all those hot sex tips) wrote a pretty intense article about how little we treat postpartum injuries.

This is clearly a problem with the medical industry in general where we treat injuries with surgeries before doing physical therapies. What makes this case a little more interesting is that the side effects here might be so embarrassing that it would prevent women from seeking the help they need.  Or they get dismissed as just normal post pregnancy stuff like Sayward from Bonzai Aphrodite has written about.

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The world’s most expensive coffee is a nightmare for the animals who produce it

When you go vegan you get asked a lot of silly questions. You mean you don’t eat meat? Not even chicken? Well, what about fish? Reptiles? Bugs? Not even silk? When I get asked these questions I usually talk about poop coffee or kopi luwak. If you aren’t familiar it is an expensive coffee fruit that is eaten by the Asian Palm Civit (an animal in the Feliformia suborder aka related to cats, ferrets, weasels, hyenas, and meercats) then pooped out and brewed. It is a product that seems to not hurt the animal to get, I mean the civits aren’t needing that poop, right? But it is hard to find enough of this poop to fill a bag to sell. So people cram these animals into cages like how we cram chickens into cages. Pretty much, it is an example that if there is a market for it, the animals will get exploited.

I am glad that a news outlet is picking up this bit of information. But even the picture they used is pretty misleading. Most companies put the animals in worse conditions. Some companies outright lie and say they “forage” for the beans, which should be a big old red flag of bullshit- or civitshit.

Former President Bill Clinton salutes before speaking during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Hillary Clinton’s husband wore a fetching pantsuit to honor her nomination for US president

I thought this article was pretty funny. It goes through all the details of Mr. Clinton’s outfit in the same way we talk about the First Lady’s outfits. And if you are like my husband who said “I don’t get it, what’s a pantsuit? Don’t all suits have pants?” well I read up a little bit of the history of the term “pantsuit.” The term was first used for little boys who would wear blazers with shorts. As that style started to go out of fashion, women started to work more white collar jobs. Traditionally women would wear suits composed of a blazer and skirt, but slowly started to wear pants instead of skirts. To make a distinction from the traditional “suit” (read: skirt) from the newer ones with pants, they called them pantsuits (since they were already in the English vernacular.) So yes, pantsuits are just suits with a name that is more fun to say.

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Is Watching Gymnastics Worse Than Being an NFL Fan?

Hands down my favorite part of the olympics is the women’s gymnastics. I loved it when I was a little girl and vaguely remember begging my mom to let me take up gymnastics. I wasn’t allowed to because of the whole stunts your growth thing, but I am sure a large portion was because of money. I remember always not wanting to go to my dance classes when I had them, sorry Mom for wasting your money! I did like the classes, I am just a little brat about time management ^__~. But there is something different about gymnastics than some of the other sports I liked to watch when younger like rhythmic gymnastics and ice skating- it’s the muscle.

Now that I am more about some light weight training (though I plan on amping up my game post baby) I have a lot more respect for these girls. I find myself like more sports like Football (er.. American Football), soccer, and yes, embarrassingly enough American Ninja Warrior. Heck, I’ve even started to get into watching the men’s gymnastics, even it means there aren’t any lamé or rhinestones on anything. WTF guys? Jazz it up a little!

What I don’t like about this article is that it doesn’t go too much in depth. You would think by the end of the article everything is perfect in the gymnastics world. Plus they criticize the femininity of the sport as being anti-feminist… which might be true for 2nd wave feminism. 3rd wave feminists would argue that the pink and sparkles aren’t preventing the girls from being their physical best, so therefore the only thing preventing their respect is that the idea that femininity is bad.

I will be rooting for team USA, duh. But I am pretty excited to see Oksana Chusovitina who qualified to compete for the vault exercise for Uzbekistan. This is her 7th Olympics, and she is 41 years old. There is also Cătălina Ponor (Romania) who is 28 and has qualified for beam. I am excited to see these older women compete.


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Another day late to the game but I guess that is fine. I was getting a little bit of cabin fever last Saturday night, and maybe a little sad that we never did anything really special for my birthday or our anniversary (I said we were going to have a nice dinner together, but it ended up being an emergency at my hubs work and he pretty much worked all night T__T) So we headed into Philadelphia to go to the art museum not noticing there was a big event going on that night at the oval  (the park right in front of the museum) or that it was the first Sunday of the month so admission was pay what you want, so there was a long line snaking around the museum. Luckily we are members and got to by pass the line *phew* 

As for today, feels a little like I’m trapped. Most stores are closed for the 4th of July, and Jon’s back hurts too much to do much. But I guess I shouldn’t complain since tomorrow I will be driving all the way out to Intercourse, PA. Flattering name right? Well, it is very close to Lancaster, which means it has a very high Amish population. For international readers The Amish are a religous group that live a very simple life. From an outsiders point of view, they live in a time capsule, the don’t drive cars, they don’t use health insurance, don’t drink, still wear traditional clothing, etc, etc. But it isn’t as simple as they don’t use “modern technology.” Whenever new inventions come about, they often decided whether or not to adopt it by deciding how it can enrich or tear apart their community. ANYWAYS, this is a long way for me to say I need to buy some cheap fabric for a quilt I am working on. Normally good quality cotton fabric can sell for $14 a yard, and in Amish country you can get it for $6 a yard. Much cheaper right? 

Anyways, hopefully I will post updates on my quilt making, because I think it should be fun. I haven’t made a quilt, like ever. But I figure how hard can it actually be? I mean it is just cutting and sewing straight lines right? Famous last words right? XD Anyways, here are some articles from this week.

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How Years of Macho Marketing is Killing Men

This is a nice article summarizing the concept of gendered foods. I posted one about how food targeted for women are pretty much made to starve us. While men get foods that are pretty much killing them. It is an interesting read, and I am sure most vegans have had that major eye roll moment when a man shuts down veganism because it isn’t macho enough. 

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Samantha Bee is going where Jon Stewart and John Oliver never did

I think this article hits on the nail what I really like about Samantha Bee’s new show Full Frontal. At first I hated but loved what she was doing, but I argued it didn’t give an argument for people who apposed her views. But this article argues that Samantha Bee does alienate people with different views from her, but she holds her viewers to a higher standard. After watching some of her sketches I do feel much more motivated to actually do something about the situation at hand, or to at least get a conversation going with people I know. Not to mention, I feel a little like we don’t want to offend anyone with apposing political views that we never talk about it period. Maybe not giving a damn about how “neutral” you are shouldn’t matter? I am not sold on the idea that we should give up on trying to be impartial, but I am curious on what other readers think.

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The oldest library on Earth was started by a woman, and finally everyone can visit it

I just found this generally interesting. I love libraries. I love to browse, books, movies, whatever. And this looks like such a cool library, the place looks amazing, and hell, I would come there just to read a book I already own! And I found the history pretty interesting as well.

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What the Amish Can Teach Us About Modern Medicine

Since I talked a little about the Amish I thought of this article that I debated sharing a few weeks (months?) ago. Pretty much the article talks about how the Amish community survives with no health insurance in modern America. It is pretty interesting, using a mix of self sufficiency, maintaining good health, haggling, and community support.


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Hey everyone. I would love to say I had a busy week, but it is was mostly spent trying to stay cool or me trying to get over headaches all week. Since the weather has been all over the place this past week, my body just isn’t digging it. Luckily the temperature seems to be mellowing out a little more (keeping between 70 and 80) so I won’t be roasting all day. Though I am not sure if the humidity will be going down this week.

I am sure there was fun and exciting things I was going to share with everyone today, but I am more concerned with trying to get my to-do list done for today. So I will just jump into the links.

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A scientist’s love story with the eccentric and largely unknown peacock spider

This was a pretty interesting story about a man who has been filming and photographing the peacock spider, bringing it forward into popular science. He has even discovered new species, but isn’t being formally paid to do the research, talking about doing what you love.

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Most of us misunderstand metabolism. Here are 9 facts to clear that up.

I think these are great facts to commonly misunderstood concepts about metabolism. Some of which falls under the whole “speed up your metabolism” section that we hear often in blogs and fitness books. I am not going to say these are bad suggestions, like building more muscle, or eating more raw foods, but it isn’t altering your metabolism.

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The FDA just made the most significant changes to the nutrition label in years

I love the idea about listing sugar in two ways- added sugar and natural sugars. I hear so many people who get confused about the idea of sugars, like me explaining to my boss on several occasions that you don’t need sugar for bread to rise since there is natural sugars in the flour for the yeast. I don’t eat too many pre-packaged foods, but it is always something good to be paying attention to.

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Exercise Research is Ignoring Female Athletes

Add this to stats I just don’t get. I feel like women are more likely to fit exercise in their daily routines than men. But I guess when we look at athletic research we think the people who are going to benefit are professional athletes, which makes majority of the population think of men. This is bad. 

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11 Angriest Cities in America

Okay so this is a fairly click-baity article but I couldn’t help but love it. I just that I am from New Jersey so I have a lot of anger, or that my humor is fueled by irritability. My life has centered around two major cities- New York City and Philadelphia and surprise! Both cities have ranked on this list. I do have to say the “anger” is different from both cities, though I feel like Philadelphia is clearly the worst as it seems almost completely sports based (hello Phillie riots!) 


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Hello everyone! I am a little late for posting my Sunday Reading post, but oh well. I am good at ignoring self made schedules. I’ve slowly gaining some control in my life again. The last two months have felt a little bit like I had been running in slow motion. I would try my hardest to get certain things done but next thing I would know, hours would go by and I didn’t seem to get much done. But I am finally working on some posts that I started drafts of a while ago, and reading tons of books that has been on my to read list for awhile.

Tomorrow is my birthday and this weekend my Mother and Father in Law invited my husband and I over for dinner. I might of specifically requested for certain vegan meals, and my Father in Law made me the pad thai dish from The PPK. It was pretty yummy, and made the perfect amount for 4 people. My Mother in Law surprised me with vegan chocolate cupcakes. Apparently she found out of the recipe from Mayim Bialik‘s appearance on The Rachel Ray Show. The cupcakes were pretty yummy, and what I like about them is that it is easy for non-vegans to make. You can check out the recipe over here. There was some confusion from her end of which tofu to use (which took awhile for me to figure out too) but the frosting still worked out.

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What’s Behind Slovenia’s Love Affair with a Salamander?

I forget where I’ve first heard about the olm, but it is a cave dwelling salamander that has no eyes, and is only found in a cave system in Slovenia. They are really interesting and beautiful looking. So when I saw this article on my news feed I got pretty excited. The New Yorker talks about the cultural investment the Slovenian people have with this salamander, along with their folklore.

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33 Rescued Circus Lions Airlifted from Peru to South Africa

Here is some happy vegan news! A lot of people argue what would happen to all the animals if we adopted a vegan diet. Although it seems unlikely that the world would go vegan overnight (causing an over population of farm animals) some more complicated cases are wild animals bred in captivity. It is nice to see wild animals get closest to living in the wild that they can. It takes time, money, and effort from humans, but I think the results are worth it.

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Are Humans Smarter Than Animals? Honestly Who Knows?

I love this article. I get very frustrated when we talk about animals and intelligence, because it gets complicated. I remember joking about my cat was smarter than my nieces when they were little tiny babies. Yeah humans are suppose to be smart, but my cat has object permanence, does your baby? Joking aside, there are many things that animals do everyday that is amazing. There is even a squid that can change it’s color AND control it’s shadows. We might not be able to comprehend what that would feel like, how much active thought process does a squid go through to control it’s color changing? It is hard for us to think of walking as something we need to learn since we learned it at such a young age, but it is part of our intelligence.

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After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

This article is one that sums up most of the body love movement. I have heard some crazy fat-phobic people say things like “just eat less food,” and hey I understand where some people come from. Weight and health are two things that are deeply embedded in our minds. But one thing is for sure, weight is more complicated than we think. We are finding that weight can be controlled by more than just calories, including epigenetic, gut flora, and much more. We get so set into the mindset that our weight is “our fault” that when I tell some people about these studies they defend their original thoughts on other things. I remember citing a study that said that people from the 80s were thinner with the same amount of exercise and calories than people today. What did I hear? About whole fucking grains. Really? I then asked that person if they ate more whole grains in the 80s than they do today, answer no. So this is a much more high profile study that shows that rapid weight loss might be more complicated than “sucking it up” and having lots of willpower.

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Making an Informed Transition to Veganism

I am a little bad about helping people with nutritional information. Veganism is easy, really, but it does require us to rethink the rules of nutrition. We have so much programed in our minds as kids- x amount of protein (meat), x amount of grains, x amount of dairy, x amount of fruit, etc. But things get really complicated with a plant based diet. This might partly because a lot of these foods merge into the different categories. And I think since long time vegans get so use to this new way of thinking we tend to ignore newbies, who might not know all the basics. I am always stressing that I still taking vitamins, largely vitamin B12, but still pointing out that meat eaters can be low on the vitamin since animals don’t make the vitamin. It’s created by bacteria. 

Gena has written a great outline of things to look for in a vegan diet. You might need to think about your protein sources for the first year, but it’ll become second nature. Concerned about calcium? Pay attention and you will eventually learn enough information that you won’t need to think twice about your daily choices.