Inspiration from the Blogosphere

Ok. So for a while I thought that this week was turning out pretty horribly. Being away from my friends and everything I've grown close to over the past few years is starting to take a toll on me and I can't wait to get back to the city. So I thought I'd catch up on some blog reading for some inspiration, and boy did I get it.

The journey started over at one of the blogs I've been reading for about a year or so now. Kimberly Wilson's Tranquity du Jour. I got stuck sophomore year when I decided to try and learn yoga and discovered her podcast named Hip Tranquil Chick. After listening to a few of the episodes I found myself unable to tear myself away from my iPod. Within a few weeks I had listened to all of the podcast episodes and read her book, also titled Hip Tranquil Chick. The blog has since been renamed to capture Kimberly's mission to find tranquility in everyday life. The past weeks on Tranquility du Jour have brought not just Kimberly's voice, but the voice of several very talented guest bloggers, one of whom is the next source of inspiration.

The author of the Signature Style Wednesdays guest spot on Tranquility du Jour is Kaileen Elise, who happens to have a blog of her own. When I fell in love with her first two posts I decided to check out her blog. My Google Reader couldn't have been happier. The blog, which is self named, is subtitled "Everyday is an Extraordinary Adventure". Who can argue with that? An Kaileen's Modern Girl's Manifesta was such a treat. It's amazing that we don't usually stop to think about how we want our time to be spent and how we want to live, and then we get upset after we've been angry and self-destructive and wasted our time. I feel like I've just found a new friend.

And how great is it to make a new friend and then meet their friends? Well, that's what happened to me today. Stumbling through my new weekly read I found a post called Design Your Life, which was a feature of her on another blog. Click. Click. Click. Makeunder My Life. Wow was all I could say. I've found someone else who shares the idea that a few nice things are worth more than a lot of crappy things, and you can appreciate your things more if everything you have is something that you love. This was what I had in mind when I started my project to Get Rid of 365 Things. Jess from Makeunder My Life makes it a point to get rid of at least one thing every week that she is no longer absolutely in love with. She calls it End of the Week Exfoliation. By the end of the year 50 or so things have said goodbye, making room for more lovable items.

I am also quickly falling in love with some of the other "weeklies" on the blog. I might just have to steal some of the easy recipies my attempt to learn to cook more for everyday life. Also the series on small business advice could be useful, if not to me then to some of my friends.

Hopefully this isn't the end of finding inspiration in the blog world. As part of my 365 Things I'm looking to pare down my Google Reader count and find a handful of blogs that are helpful, creative and inspiring. I think that would help my life much more than reading the same news from 6 different sites. I'm not a fan of being depressed.