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Time for Thursday Favorite Things

It’s time for Thursday Favorite Things! A party for blog writers and blog readers.time for thursday favorite things Welcome to Katherines Corner its time for Thursday Favorite Things! I’m enjoying time spent with our grandchildren this week ( they are staying with us while our daughter and son in law are in California).I say it all of the time and I don’t think I can ever say it too much, can I? We have the best bloggers in blog-land at our Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop every week. Remember it isn’t just for blog writers its for blog readers too. I appreciate each and everyone of you who share with us every week. Here are just a few of the many wonderful posts that caught my eye from last week. Please pin from the source so our bloggers get credit . Just click on their feature photo and you will go straight to their post.

Rosemary and Thyme’s beautiful Victorian inspired tablescape, aww I love a pretty tablescape. The pink and gold does give it a wonderful vintage feel.

victorian inspired tablescape

This off the shoulder top and outfit shared by 5 Foot Nothing  Shopping has me wishing I had saved a few peasant tops from high school.

off the shoulders peasant blouse style

Worthing Court shared a sweet diy for Mothers Day

diy gift for mothers day

The Jenny Revolusion made nut free carrot cake!

nut free carrot cake

Simply Darrling shared a cute  menu that reminds us that nachos can make a yummy dinner.

menu board printable

Home Cooking Memories has us ready for Cinco de Mayo with her Homemade Enchilada Sauce

easy enchilada recipe

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you a gave a moose a cookie? Wife Mommy Me has the answer.

cute kids day recipe and activity

Okay friends it’s time to party!

Please follow all of your lovely hostesses, they are amazing women. Get to know them and all that they share on their blogs. We ALL share our features from your posts every week. Lets get YOU featured!

Thursday Favorite Things a party for blog writers and blog readers

nina CollageThursday Favorite Things Blog Hopangelina collage

Are you a blogger age 50 and up? Awesome, lets get you on the Between the Lines blogger list! Click HERE to add your blog


146 Comments

Comments

  2. Thanks so much for hosting once again this week and hope you are continuing to have wonderful visit with your grandkids now. Happy Thursday, Katie xoxo <3

    Reply

  5. Grandchildren are just the best! I had some time with my little grand guy yesterday! Permission to blow bubbles in the sun shine? Yes, please!

    Reply

  8. Dear Katherine, thanks most sincerely for sharing such inspiring features and for hosting every week such a precious link-up party !

    Wishing you a lovely remainder of your week.
    I’m sending hugs and more hugs to you

    XOXO Daniela at – My little old world sweetlydreamingofthepast

    Reply

    • Hello Daniela such a lovely comment, you are a bright light. I felt your hugs and hope you feel mine too. I look forward to your visits and your participation in the TFT blog party too. xo

      Reply

  10. Katherine and party—Love your blog site. The shopping is wonderful. Keep up the great work. Gaye A

    Reply

  11. Thanks for the link party, Katherine. My blog post about the jewelry I bought from your shop will be published tomorrow. My emails to you aren’t going through, so I’m letting you know through the comment section. Have a great day!!

    Reply

    • Hi Debbie, oh no, are you getting an error message when you email me? I’ll do a test this morning and see if I can find out what is happening. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, Hugs!

      Reply

  14. Hi Katherine,
    Thanks so much for inviting me over to your party today, I brought some great recipes that I hope your guest will enjoy!
    You have a wonderful weekend.
    Miz Helen

    Reply

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  3. […] Debbie Kitterman, Create with Joy, Sincerely Paula, Oh My Heartsie Girl, Simply Sweet Home, Katherine’s Corner, Wandermust Family, Adventures of a London Kiwi, Momfessionals, Mommynificent, Arabah Joy, […]

    Reply

  4. […] Debbie Kitterman, Create with Joy, Sincerely Paula, Oh My Heartsie Girl, Simply Sweet Home, Katherine’s Corner, Wandermust Family, Adventures of a London Kiwi, Momfessionals, Mommynificent, Missional Women, […]

    Reply

  8. […] I love that line. Hubby and I use it all the time. I cannot believe that it’s been twenty-one years since Shakespeare in Love, with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush as Henslowe.  Now, speaking of books, I’m off to book club in a few minutes, and I haven’t read the book. I know, I know. Bad book club member. I’ve just been too darned busy searching for good mysteries to do my assigned reading.  Hope I don’t get in trouble.  What about you folks? Are you addicted to books of a particular genre? Care to join Mystery Lovers Anonymous? Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  14. […] Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.  […]

    Reply

  29. […] And you know how we can learn to be more empathetic? And teach others to have more compassion for others? By reading more fiction. I swear. This is not just something that we dedicated readers have cooked up to justify our many hours of splendid isolation, slipper-clad feet up, balancing a good book in one hand, and a nice cup of tea in the other. It’s true. Science says so. Teaching empathy is not a new idea. I first read about it years ago, in a short essay we used on a grade twelve English exam. Most high school English exams include a short text which the student is unfamiliar with, and to which they must respond. We tried to choose timely passages, and ones which we could link to the themes of the works we had studied in class. And this short essay on this particular exam has always stuck in my head. It was about how literary fiction was being used to teach medical students how to better understand their patients. Teaching them empathy, in other words. I have no idea where the original essay came from, but I started looking around on the internet this week .. seeing if I could find it. Or one which espouses the same ideas. Wow. Could I?  After separating the wheat from the chaff, I found some pretty interesting articles. Like Sandra Boodman’s How to Teach Doctors Empathy in The Atlantic, where she says that “being a good doctor requires an understanding of people not just science,” and doctors who learn to better understand people become better doctors. Mohammadreza Hojat, research professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, explains in the article that “empathy is a cognitive attribute, not a personality trait.” So we can learn to be more empathetic. He goes on to say that the time used to teach young doctors to be more empathetic is time well spent. And many medical schools are doing just that… teaching empathy. Some more explicitly, through courses which teach better listening skills, and how to decode the facial expressions and body language of their patients. Others through what is called “narrative medicine” which involves the reading and discussion of literary fiction, novels, stories, and poetry. In the New York Times article Stories in the Service of Making a Better Doctor, Pauline W. Chen M.D. says that “exposure to literature and writing during residency training can influence how young doctors approach their clinical work.” That even for young residents whose days are already very busy, it’s important to “[spend] a half hour a day to remember that we are all human, not just doctors, or pharmacists, or nurses, or patients.”  In fact several doctors interviewed for this article speak of how reading and discussing literature has transformed how they do their job. That’s pretty cool, I’d say.  And finally, the article Wrapped up in a Book: The Role of Emotional Engagement in Reading explains the science behind all this, how emotional engagement with literature can make us more empathetic, and includes links to the studies which make a connection between reading and empathy. And while most of the articles I read say that the long term effect of increased physician empathy on the health care system is still unknown, they also say that in the short term greater physician empathy certainly leads to greater patient satisfaction, fewer malpractice suits, and even possibly fewer cases of physician burn-out. So it would seem that the reality here is that everyone benefits… from reading fiction.   Now all this is not to say that doctors alone should learn to be more empathetic. Au contraire, my friends. These articles about doctors and empathy are just by way of an example. Because if busy medical residents who have enormous demands on their time, who have to learn all kinds of scientific knowledge, and master all kinds of technology, can take a half hour a day to remind themselves “that we are all human,” what’s to stop the rest of us from doing the same? Nothing, I’d say. Nothing at all.  And for those naysayers who think that reading fiction is a waste of time, I have an anecdote for you. Ha. Don’t I always? One year, when I was still teaching, I was able to sign-up my whole department for a fabulous workshop given by Jeff Wilhelm, an English teacher like us, and co-author of the book Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys. Wilhelm gave us all kinds of awesome ideas for engaging kids in the discussion of literature. Fun stuff, you know. And he told the story of a boy in his class, a boy who loved cars, and had every intention of becoming a mechanic, and spending his life working on cars. And the boy said to him: “But Sir, what is reading Romeo and Juliet going to teach me? It sure isn’t going to help me learn how to fix cars.” And Wilhelm replied, “What? Nothing to teach you? You don’t plan to fall in love? No family squabbles at your house? You’ve never had to make a moral decision that you’ve come to regret? Huh?” Or something like that. But you get the point, I’m sure. Which is that reading fiction, reading stories, has all kinds of benefits. Way beyond entertainment. Beyond relaxation. Beyond that lovely sighing feeling when you sit down and open up your book and find out what so and so is up to now.  Reading helps us to be better people, I think. Teaches us to “[escape] our own egocentric bubbles and [understand] the lives of others.” Or so Ed Yong says in his article in The Atlantic. And that my friends is something we could all learn to do better. By getting off our screens and reading a book. Or reading a book on our screen…. but without checking Twitter or Instagram every five seconds.    That’s one of my bookshelves in the shot above. With a few books by some of my favourite authors. Books I love, and which I think have helped me to better understand the world in which we live. Books which I hope have made me better at “climbing into other people’s skin” as Harper Lee so famously said in To Kill a Mockingbird. Now there is a book which teaches kids to have empathy! And isn’t that what all great books teach us? That we should learn other people’s stories, climb into their skin and walk around for a while, before we judge? This lesson is valuable for us all, not just for English students, or budding doctors. But for teachers and retired teachers, taxi drivers and hair dressers, lawyers and professional athletes. And even, dare I say, politicians. Maybe especially politicians.  I know. I’m preaching to the choir. I know. Still, it felt good to get that off my chest. I read a bunch of other fascinating stuff, but maybe we’ll get to that another time. Right now, I’m going to retire to my sunroom, sigh, open my book, and find out what so and so is up to.  And it’s your turn, anyway… my non-trolling, book-loving, empathetic friends. Any stories about books you’d like to share? Any particular books that you’d like to tell us about, which might help the world become a more empathetic place? P.S. Thanks to my friend Susan Webb for the birthday card with the image at the top of the post. It’s a painting called “The Explorer” by Rebecca Campbell.  Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  31. […] Some of the best parts of The Thoughtful Dresser, in my view, are when Grant gets a little hot under the collar at those people she calls “the puritan moralists who affect to despise fashion and those who love it. Who shrilly proclaim that only vain, foolish Barbie dolls, their brains addled by consumerism, would wear anything but sensible clothes made to last.”  Strong words, Ms. Grant. Yah! Take that you…you ‘puritan moralists!’ God, I love this woman! I remember when I was reading this book for the first time…I kept taking it  to work and reading the best bits aloud to my friends over lunch. It seemed to me as if Linda Grant had awakened one morning and said to herself…”I think I’ll write a book for Sue Burpee.”  Or for anyone who loves literature and fashion in equal parts.  And the best thing about reading this book is that it made me realize how many more of me there are out there! What non-fiction books are you passionate about? Care to tell the rest of us? Linking up with:  Saturday Share over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  49. […] Some of the best parts of The Thoughtful Dresser, in my view, are when Grant gets a little hot under the collar at those people she calls “the puritan moralists who affect to despise fashion and those who love it. Who shrilly proclaim that only vain, foolish Barbie dolls, their brains addled by consumerism, would wear anything but sensible clothes made to last.”  Strong words, Ms. Grant. Yah! Take that you…you ‘puritan moralists!’ God, I love this woman! I remember when I was reading this book for the first time…I kept taking it  to work and reading the best bits aloud to my friends over lunch. It seemed to me as if Linda Grant had awakened one morning and said to herself…”I think I’ll write a book for Sue Burpee.”  Or for anyone who loves literature and fashion in equal parts.  And the best thing about reading this book is that it made me realize how many more of me there are out there! What non-fiction books are you passionate about? Care to tell the rest of us? Linking up with:  Saturday Share over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  65. […] I love that line. Hubby and I use it all the time. I cannot believe that it’s been twenty-one years since Shakespeare in Love, with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush as Henslowe.  Now, speaking of books, I’m off to book club in a few minutes, and I haven’t read the book. I know, I know. Bad book club member. I’ve just been too darned busy searching for good mysteries to do my assigned reading.  Hope I don’t get in trouble.  What about you folks? Are you addicted to books of a particular genre? Care to join Mystery Lovers Anonymous? Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  70. […] I love that line. Hubby and I use it all the time. I cannot believe that it’s been twenty-one years since Shakespeare in Love, with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush as Henslowe.  Now, speaking of books, I’m off to book club in a few minutes, and I haven’t read the book. I know, I know. Bad book club member. I’ve just been too darned busy searching for good mysteries to do my assigned reading.  Hope I don’t get in trouble.  What about you folks? Are you addicted to books of a particular genre? Care to join Mystery Lovers Anonymous? Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  85. […] I love that line. Hubby and I use it all the time. I cannot believe that it’s been twenty-one years since Shakespeare in Love, with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush as Henslowe.  Now, speaking of books, I’m off to book club in a few minutes, and I haven’t read the book. I know, I know. Bad book club member. I’ve just been too darned busy searching for good mysteries to do my assigned reading.  Hope I don’t get in trouble.  What about you folks? Are you addicted to books of a particular genre? Care to join Mystery Lovers Anonymous? Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  88. […] And you know how we can learn to be more empathetic? And teach others to have more compassion for others? By reading more fiction. I swear. This is not just something that we dedicated readers have cooked up to justify our many hours of splendid isolation, slipper-clad feet up, balancing a good book in one hand, and a nice cup of tea in the other. It’s true. Science says so. Teaching empathy is not a new idea. I first read about it years ago, in a short essay we used on a grade twelve English exam. Most high school English exams include a short text which the student is unfamiliar with, and to which they must respond. We tried to choose timely passages, and ones which we could link to the themes of the works we had studied in class. And this short essay on this particular exam has always stuck in my head. It was about how literary fiction was being used to teach medical students how to better understand their patients. Teaching them empathy, in other words. I have no idea where the original essay came from, but I started looking around on the internet this week .. seeing if I could find it. Or one which espouses the same ideas. Wow. Could I?  After separating the wheat from the chaff, I found some pretty interesting articles. Like Sandra Boodman’s How to Teach Doctors Empathy in The Atlantic, where she says that “being a good doctor requires an understanding of people not just science,” and doctors who learn to better understand people become better doctors. Mohammadreza Hojat, research professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, explains in the article that “empathy is a cognitive attribute, not a personality trait.” So we can learn to be more empathetic. He goes on to say that the time used to teach young doctors to be more empathetic is time well spent. And many medical schools are doing just that… teaching empathy. Some more explicitly, through courses which teach better listening skills, and how to decode the facial expressions and body language of their patients. Others through what is called “narrative medicine” which involves the reading and discussion of literary fiction, novels, stories, and poetry. In the New York Times article Stories in the Service of Making a Better Doctor, Pauline W. Chen M.D. says that “exposure to literature and writing during residency training can influence how young doctors approach their clinical work.” That even for young residents whose days are already very busy, it’s important to “[spend] a half hour a day to remember that we are all human, not just doctors, or pharmacists, or nurses, or patients.”  In fact several doctors interviewed for this article speak of how reading and discussing literature has transformed how they do their job. That’s pretty cool, I’d say.  And finally, the article Wrapped up in a Book: The Role of Emotional Engagement in Reading explains the science behind all this, how emotional engagement with literature can make us more empathetic, and includes links to the studies which make a connection between reading and empathy. And while most of the articles I read say that the long term effect of increased physician empathy on the health care system is still unknown, they also say that in the short term greater physician empathy certainly leads to greater patient satisfaction, fewer malpractice suits, and even possibly fewer cases of physician burn-out. So it would seem that the reality here is that everyone benefits… from reading fiction.   Now all this is not to say that doctors alone should learn to be more empathetic. Au contraire, my friends. These articles about doctors and empathy are just by way of an example. Because if busy medical residents who have enormous demands on their time, who have to learn all kinds of scientific knowledge, and master all kinds of technology, can take a half hour a day to remind themselves “that we are all human,” what’s to stop the rest of us from doing the same? Nothing, I’d say. Nothing at all.  And for those naysayers who think that reading fiction is a waste of time, I have an anecdote for you. Ha. Don’t I always? One year, when I was still teaching, I was able to sign-up my whole department for a fabulous workshop given by Jeff Wilhelm, an English teacher like us, and co-author of the book Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys. Wilhelm gave us all kinds of awesome ideas for engaging kids in the discussion of literature. Fun stuff, you know. And he told the story of a boy in his class, a boy who loved cars, and had every intention of becoming a mechanic, and spending his life working on cars. And the boy said to him: “But Sir, what is reading Romeo and Juliet going to teach me? It sure isn’t going to help me learn how to fix cars.” And Wilhelm replied, “What? Nothing to teach you? You don’t plan to fall in love? No family squabbles at your house? You’ve never had to make a moral decision that you’ve come to regret? Huh?” Or something like that. But you get the point, I’m sure. Which is that reading fiction, reading stories, has all kinds of benefits. Way beyond entertainment. Beyond relaxation. Beyond that lovely sighing feeling when you sit down and open up your book and find out what so and so is up to now.  Reading helps us to be better people, I think. Teaches us to “[escape] our own egocentric bubbles and [understand] the lives of others.” Or so Ed Yong says in his article in The Atlantic. And that my friends is something we could all learn to do better. By getting off our screens and reading a book. Or reading a book on our screen…. but without checking Twitter or Instagram every five seconds.    That’s one of my bookshelves in the shot above. With a few books by some of my favourite authors. Books I love, and which I think have helped me to better understand the world in which we live. Books which I hope have made me better at “climbing into other people’s skin” as Harper Lee so famously said in To Kill a Mockingbird. Now there is a book which teaches kids to have empathy! And isn’t that what all great books teach us? That we should learn other people’s stories, climb into their skin and walk around for a while, before we judge? This lesson is valuable for us all, not just for English students, or budding doctors. But for teachers and retired teachers, taxi drivers and hair dressers, lawyers and professional athletes. And even, dare I say, politicians. Maybe especially politicians.  I know. I’m preaching to the choir. I know. Still, it felt good to get that off my chest. I read a bunch of other fascinating stuff, but maybe we’ll get to that another time. Right now, I’m going to retire to my sunroom, sigh, open my book, and find out what so and so is up to.  And it’s your turn, anyway… my non-trolling, book-loving, empathetic friends. Any stories about books you’d like to share? Any particular books that you’d like to tell us about, which might help the world become a more empathetic place? P.S. Thanks to my friend Susan Webb for the birthday card with the image at the top of the post. It’s a painting called “The Explorer” by Rebecca Campbell.  Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  105. […] Some of the best parts of The Thoughtful Dresser, in my view, are when Grant gets a little hot under the collar at those people she calls “the puritan moralists who affect to despise fashion and those who love it. Who shrilly proclaim that only vain, foolish Barbie dolls, their brains addled by consumerism, would wear anything but sensible clothes made to last.”  Strong words, Ms. Grant. Yah! Take that you…you ‘puritan moralists!’ God, I love this woman! I remember when I was reading this book for the first time…I kept taking it  to work and reading the best bits aloud to my friends over lunch. It seemed to me as if Linda Grant had awakened one morning and said to herself…”I think I’ll write a book for Sue Burpee.”  Or for anyone who loves literature and fashion in equal parts.  And the best thing about reading this book is that it made me realize how many more of me there are out there! What non-fiction books are you passionate about? Care to tell the rest of us? Linking up with:  Saturday Share over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

  113. […] I love that line. Hubby and I use it all the time. I cannot believe that it’s been twenty-one years since Shakespeare in Love, with the wonderful Geoffrey Rush as Henslowe.  Now, speaking of books, I’m off to book club in a few minutes, and I haven’t read the book. I know, I know. Bad book club member. I’ve just been too darned busy searching for good mysteries to do my assigned reading.  Hope I don’t get in trouble.  What about you folks? Are you addicted to books of a particular genre? Care to join Mystery Lovers Anonymous? Linking up with:  #ShareEverything over at Not Dressed as Lamb and Thursday Favourite Things at Katherine’s Corner.   […]

    Reply

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