As my goal for 2017 is to publish at least 3 times a week, I hope to post “Links that Think” each Friday evening. Why Friday?

1. To give you something to read on Saturday mornings with coffee.

2. My husband works Friday nights (restaurant and brewing industry), so I have the whole house to myself once Novella goes to sleep.

I LOVE lists and people telling me what they’ve read, so, here ya go!

Grey Hair, Wise Eyes I tell my students about this phenomenon all the time. It’s been the most shocking part of getting older: I don’t feel that differently than when I was their age (seventh grade). I’m still the same person at the core. Such a sweet read.

What reality are you creating for yourself? I really don’t want to give too much away with this. It’s a TED talk, and I’m using it next week to teach about bias and perspective.

Kid Logic My grandparents live in a very rural area without trash pickup or easy access to a dump. So, when I was growing up they would take any “scraps” and (I think) burn them. I know they at least put them out in a little rounded-off coup in the nearby field. Either way. I spent weekends with my Mamaw and Papaw, and they were the only people I knew that made us put our uneaten food on one big plate. For the longest time, I never saw them take the food to the field. I had no idea what they did with it, but I definitely made one huge and embarrassing assumption: I thought they shipped the food off to China. You see, anytime my cousin Jason wouldn’t eat, someone would remind him: “There are starving kids in China!”

This episode of This American Life, can I just tell you I cried 3 times during it? It’s all about kids and the way they see the world. I am always so moved by the innocence of children. This is a great listen for a commute.

The Great 2017 Book Preview I’ll admit, I never know where to look for lists and blurbs of upcoming releases. I loved looking through this list to determine what I should read this year. My goal is 3 books/month (at least): nonfiction to learn a skill or for self-improvement/nonfiction life story (think memoir or autobiography)/ fiction (because I am terrible at reading fiction. I LOVE nonfiction!)

Efficiency is the Highest Form of Beauty Don’t you hate it when something feels like your idea, but then you realize other people are also relishing in the same idea? Right before I fell pregnant with Novella, we moved into a small house, determined to live a much simpler life than the majority of our peers. Over the last couple of months, before we buy ANYTHING that’s not consumable, we ask ourselves: “Would that be a minimalist approach?” (OK, it’s not that robotic and technical; we half laugh at ourselves at least!) I don’t really remember how I discovered this blog, but if you get real with yourself, Mr. Money Moustache is really right about how we value our own consumerism. Yes, even me, the minimalist. (BUZZ-WORD!)

I Wish I Had a Pair of Scissors, So I Could Cut Your Tongue via the New York Times. I have so much I could say about this. Don’t stop reading it because of politics. Ask yourself: how, HOW can we make this better? I ask myself this every single day when I put my favorite students (all of them, yeah?) on the bus. I hate it.

What did you read this week that you love? Please share!