Best online love story #4

Rosemary Cairns started hopebuildingwiki as a way for people all around the world to share their own stories of hope and achievements.

"Hopebuilding wiki was created to share stories of achievement by ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things to make their world a better place to live in, but whose stories are not as widely known as they should be."

"For me, these stories show why local knowledge, and local capacity, is such a vital foundation for development at every level. New technologies have shown us that our world is an inter-connected place, and our problems are shared. It is not a world in which some people have all the problems, and other people have all the solutions; in fact, some of the most creative ideas are coming from places or groups that were once seen as 'under-developed'. Sharing our creative solutions widely means local peoples' expertise and achievements in one country can inspire local people facing a similar problem in another country."

Thank you Rosemary.

As an side note, I came across hopebuildingwiki when I tried to locate this story about how UK-based Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES) (site best viewed using IE) is using religion to promote sustainable fishing practices on the island of Pemba. And I only started looking for the fishing story because the link to the story on the Alliance of Religions and Conservation site was broken. All this from watching Planet Earth (The Future episode)----gosh! Isn't TV just amazing?

Best online love story #3

From blurbomat:

"In every relationship there is work to be done. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship. There are people who are likely to be better suited for one another, but there is no magic. While this post might sound like it’s not worth it or that Heather and I are having problems, I should clarify that it’s not like that. If I didn’t care about Heather, or wasn’t willing to do the work that a relationship demands, I’d be worse off in my life. Living with Heather is worth it. I’m in love with her and willing. I feel that she shares this feeling about me and that makes all of this so much easier to live with and deal with. In my past, I’ve shied away from doing the hard work in a relationship and in looking back using talk-therapy and a few great therapists, I’ve been able to see that my own laziness and unwillingness to work has harmed myself and others. I’d be a fool if I didn’t take what I’ve learned from therapy and apply it to the best relationship I’ve ever known."

You can read the rest of the post here.

Best online love story #2

Sweet Juniper, which I've mentioned on this blog several times, is a gold mine of love stories. Our main character, a man who calls himself Dutch, chronicles his life as his daughter's "Pop", his wife's husband, and as a documentarist of the deliberate decay that is happening to parts of Detroit city. I've yet to open his blog and find a post not written with a lot of love and feeling.
After all that gushing about Dutch, I have to add his wife, who also contributes a post here and there, is not a bad writer herself. In fact, the love story I'm sharing today is hers.

Best online love story #1

I'm starting a collection of lovely blog posts about love. Just cos'. Frankly, the world just needs to read these right now.
This first one, by Gluten-Free Girl, made me tear up in the middle, and then *dang* again at the end.

This excerpt from her post made me laugh:

This is a man who ran from the length of my kitchen to the the other side of the living room when he first ate my roast chicken, whooping and hollering at the taste of it, then stopped to do a jig on the kitchen floor.