A Few of My Favorite Things

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with string, These are a few of my favorite things…” – Maria, played by Julie Andrews in Sound of Music.

I often find myself singing this song, especially when it comes to “my favorite things.” I credit Oprah for giving me this idea. In her magazine, she has a section of her “favorite things.” She even dedicated an entire show every season to “her favorite things.”

The word “thing” has many definitions. It means “a separate and self-contained entity.” It also means “an action” or “an artifact” or “an event.” But for today’s blog, to me “thing” means “websites.” So here are a few of my favorite websites.

The first is a website called www.Pinterest.com. It’s been mentioned in several magazines, and my cousin, Dallas, also raved about it at one of our Sunday family lunches. So I looked it up and absolutely loved it! There is everything from recipes to fashion to artwork to those silly pictures of pets with funny sayings. It’s basically an online pinboard website that lets you organize and share your favorite things into categories like “hair & beauty”, “my style”, “fitness & health”, “for the home”, “crafts & DYI”, etc.

The hitch with Pinterest is that you have to “request an invite” and wait. I waited almost two weeks before I got the email saying I was invited to participate in Pinterest. I have over a dozen boards with dozens of photos in each board. You can connect with people via facebook, tumblr, and even find commonalities with dozens of people you’ll never really meet or know. It’s amazing! You can browse the website – www.pinterest.com – without having to request an invite or log-in.

But if you do request an invite and are accepted, the website is fairly easy to navigate. You can add a board, then you can “pin” something from a website or “repin” something someone else has pinned. You can “like” someone’s pin and you can even “comment” on it. It’s more addictive than Facebook (sorry, Mark Zuckerberg)!

My favorite website to read short fiction is www.PopcornFiction.com. If you are a fan of “pulpy short fiction”, then you’ll enjoy this website. Screenwriter Derek Haas is the editor. Last year or the year before that, Popcorn Fiction partnered with Mulholland Books. Haas and his writing partner, Michael Brandt are responsible for writing the screenplays for “3:10 to Yuma” with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, “Wanted” with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie, and most recently, “The Double” with Richard Gere and Topher Grace.

Short stories are published weekly and are written by a variety of writers from television writers and movie screenwriters to novelists and journalists. You can subscribe to the website and you’ll receive an email every week. For instance, this week’s short story was written by Matt Olmstead. He is the co-creater of “Breakout Kings.” Even Derek Haas has a great story on the website called “Western Law.”

And last, but not least, my favorite news website is www.dailymail.co.uk. I’m not British, but I absolutely enjoy reading how British journalists write about American news and gossip. It also has a lot of interesting International news. I check this website daily, if not three-to-four times daily. Last year for Lent, I gave up gossipy magazine websites like People.com and USMagazine.com, and I picked up this website as my go-to for both British and American news and “gossip.”

In another blog (hopefully within the next few weeks), I’ll highlight some more of “my favorite things.” Until then, rent Sound of Music and when that song starts playing, sing along and let it remind you of a few of your favorite things!