Thank Your Mom

A very sweet and heartwarming video from Michael Marantz and his team, who went around New York City asking real people on the street to say thank you to their mothers: 

"So many terrific responses, some unexpected, some adorable, all brought a huge smile to my face."

What would you thank your mom for?

Be Thankful for Today

An amazingly kind and inspiring video on gratitude by Louie Schwartzberg. Very motivational too.

The Kindness School: "Everyone Smiles in the Same Language"

Check out the amazing Puget Sound Community School run by an education extraordinaire Andy Smallman and located in Seattle, USA. Not only is the school based on kindness, they also start and end each day with gratitude!

On Thank You Notes

In these two videos, Sally Horchow of Very Goodlooking talks to Marc Friedland of Couture Communications (they've created last year's "and the Oscar goes to" envelopes!) about how to write and present the perfect thank you note.

Should you need more of Marc Friedland's thankful tips, do check them out HERE! A few of my personal favorites from the list:

What are yours? Do you have any cool tips of your own?

P.S. Thank you to Thankuz for bringing these videos to my attention!

Merci, Paris

Remember my write up on the Merci store in Paris a while back? Merci is nominated for Superstore 2012 in Farfetch's Search for the World's Best New Boutique so they shot this video introducing the store. More reasons to love it:

Housed in an old factory building nestled among the Café culture of Le Marais in central Paris, Merci is a destination store, with its off-the-high-street location and unassuming used books and coffee shop façade - yet this young retailer still manages to see over 500,000 visitors per year. The store mixes together exclusive, and often bespoke designer fashion products with casual items, and vintage furniture with new generation interior designers - "luxury is not a matter of price or brand, but of attitude", explains Managing Director, Jean Luc Colonna. The Merci concept store also has several restaurants, along with a homewear floor, a perfume laboratory and an ever-changing visual landscape. All profits also go towards helping underprivileged children in Madagascar.

Thank You in Sign Language

Who wants to learn saying thank you in American Sign Language? It's fairly easy. I was only surprised to learn there are more than one sign language and each country has their own... Somehow I thought the language was international and believed it was easy for deaf people to interact with one another when traveling, but no. And this is kind of upsetting, if you ask me.


Video Tutorial by MySmartHands

Suggestion: Take the Time to Appreciate Your Pet Today

Our pets are always happy to see us and love us no matter what, maybe this is why it's so easy to take this appreciation for granted. I suggest we all pay it forward immediately and take the time today to appreciate our dogs, cats, fish or what have we! Even simply watching your pet sleep, or watch it watch you, just looking at it and admiring it is guaranteed to fill your heart with love and gratitude - at least I know it works for me!.. 

And as I realize now I don't know how many of you actually have pets, and whether most of you are cat or dog lovers, I'd appreciate it if you introduced the animals in your life to our thankful community!

Video by Matt Wiebe

Five More Minutes

Summer's now officially behind us here in the Nothern hemisphere, but summer memories are still fresh!.. Anything you'd want to live again, even if just for a few moments? 

I'd live my whole 2,5 days trip to Paris in June all over again! There were quite some things I didn't have time to do, enough of people I didn't get a chance to see and even more places that I didn't quite have a moment to go to, but even while being there I knew I'd want to experience that weekend again. The time that was definitely compensates for the time that wasn't! But if I had to choose just 5 minutes of something, I'd go for our Saturday night out at my favorite local club with the people I care about: getting lost in the music we love, sharing knowing looks and smiling at each other, feeling easy, content, appreciative...

What would you appreciate 5 minutes more of?

5 More Minutes from Starbucks

Food Appreciation

"There is something beautiful about the baking process. The way flour feels in your hands or the sound of eggs cracking on the edge of a bowl. Baking is a gathering of interesting materials, a mixed medium art piece of sorts, that ends in a cake instead of a canvas."

Beet Cake by Tiger in a Jar

Appreciate Summer

Appreciate summer while it lasts!

"Life, even in the hardest times, is full of moments to savor. They will not come this way again, not in this way" - Paula Rinehart

Sertac Yuksel shot this video over a couple of days on the streets of Istanbul. He took his camera, strolled through the streets alone and had a great time with the help of summer and a real life outside - Times Like This is the outcome.

Amo La Vida

Touching and deeply meaningful, it's a fascinating short film told in a very heartwarming way. If, for whatever reasons, you can't sit through the whole piece, take the time to enjoy the bread story told in the beginning, but let me warn you - you're missing out if you're not watching till the end. 

"Gratitude in so many ways is so dramatically missing in the world today. Without gratitude nothing is enough... And no matter what I do, I don't live like I deserve this, I live like I thank life for this."

Amo La Vida starring Julio Olalla by Nic Askew for soulbiographies.com

P.S. Thanks to Toni Powell of 365 Grateful for bringing it to my attention!

A Year of Personal Growth

A year of personal growth: what he's done in photos, I've done in words.

"When Jonathan Harris turned 30, he began a simple ritual of taking one photo a day and posting it to his website before going to sleep, along with a short story. He called this project, 'Today'. This is a short film about Jonathan's project, made a few weeks after he stopped it, by his friend, Scott Thrift."

All The Things to Be Thankful For

All the simple things in life we are sometimes so quick to forget, all the things to be thankful for - all in this beautifully told short video story:

"Once upon a time in a country far far away a boy lived, very different from all the others. His name was Eftichis. Everything ran smoothly in his life until one day, many many years ago an incident made him see life from a different perspective. And suddenly, a big secret was revealed."


Small Pleasures by Constantin Pilavios