http://www.phoenixoflove.com life in 24 hours Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:49:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en (from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton) http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/07/30/success/ http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/04/12/ties/ While shopping for groceries today at Food 4 Less, I was winding my way out of the produce section when I took a momentary detour to pick up some sweet potatoes. There was a slightly elderly lady standing in front of the sweet potatoes, sifting through them intently. When I ... http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/04/11/sweet-potatoes/ http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/04/09/34/ Somewhere along the line, this blog has lost a sense of direction. I'd appreciate any thoughts on where it should go or what posts have been the high points. http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/04/05/where-to-go/ It is easy to see why we of the industrialized world love return policies and money-back guarantees. We are a culture of cautious, risk-averse, thoroughly insured thinkers. We pride ourselves on our ability to deliberate ourselves to the absolute best possible choice. We are paralyzed with fear lest the fifty ... http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/03/28/the-power-of-irreversible-decisions/ Handy visual budget calculator: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26641187/ http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/03/24/budgets/ There's a key principle that often gets lost in the din as our lives become more and more complicated: anything that is going to stay around needs to generate more than it consumes. A friend once gave me the memorable advice that in life we need to be able to manufacture ... http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/03/22/consume-vs-generate/ Pain, like noise, is one of those vague nouns that reduces a vast array of sensations to a single, dull concept. Today, I've been wishing that a particular collection of excruciating jaw pains were more of a concept and less of a sensation. It's occurred to me, though, that the concept ... http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/03/18/pain-and-thinking/ When you hear the phrase "crayon art," chances are that the image that pops into the gray matter is one of those squiggly compositions that your parents displayed on the refrigerator door when your age was solidly in the single digits. Galleries and museums probably don't enter into the picture. A ... http://www.phoenixoflove.com/2009/03/15/crayon-apotheosis/