Weekly Musings: Smart Books, Smart Rings, and Smart Skirts
Recommendations, reflections, and reviews from my world this week
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Hello, fellow compassionistas! Here is this week’s note where I share a couple things I’m loving right now — books, movies, food, music, podcasts, etc.
We are back from Italy, enjoying a much-deserved break from hosting two back-to-back trips to Tuscany and Northern Italy. Starting in Florence and ending in Venice, we are grateful for the time spent with fabulous people, including our partners and friends at World Vegan Travel. (Check out our upcoming trips!)
In Memoriam
Before I get into my recommendations, I’d like to take a moment to honor the legacy of Judith Larner Lowry. If you read the last Friday Musings, you might remember that I wholeheartedly recommended her book Gardening with a Wild Heart. Sadly, it was recently announced that she passed away in late May 2026 after a long illness.
A pioneering California native plant conservationist and the founder of Larner Seeds, Judith did immensely much to advance the love and cultivation of native flora. Though I only discovered her work recently, her beautifully poetic writing made an immediate impact on me. You can find her out-of-print book available on Kindle, or borrow it electronically through the Libby public library app.
What I’m Reading
Though I set a goal to read a book a week (or four books a month) in 2026, I had to give myself a little reprieve recently. It’s incredibly difficult to read for any length of time when I’m hosting trips, as I was just doing for over three weeks this month in Tuscany and Northern Italy.
Still, I managed to start and finish two, and with a few days left in the month, I may very well get to claim three for June!
The first is a book I’ve heard about for decades but finally decided to pick up after being reminded of it in The Marginalian (a gem of a publication / project if you never heard of it. I highly recommend subscribing).
Gift from the Sea was written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1955, during a brief solo vacation by the ocean. It was her way of reflecting on the distinct stages of a woman’s life, the evolution of relationships, and the deep necessity of maintaining an inner core of peace in a chaotic world.
What is most remarkable about the book is not just her profound wisdom or her beautiful use of beach-combed shells as metaphors for life, but timelessness of her observations. It could easily have been written today about our current age of distraction and relentless busyness. Take this paragraph, for instance:
For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals and so on. My mind reels with it.
One needs only to insert "social media" and "smartphones" into that list to realize how intimately familiar that feeling is today.
It’s another beautiful reminder that we humans are the same today as we’ve always been—struggling, learning, teaching, and sharing how to be more present, less distracted, and more loving.
All that’s to say, I highly recommend this book for its inspiration, wisdom, and quotable quotes!
What I’m Loving
Recently, I was interviewed on Rip Esselstyn’s podcast (it hasn’t aired yet, but I’ll be sure to share it when it does). During our chat, he asked me if I wore any wearables to track my fitness, and I told him I didn’t.
The truth is, I used to wear a Fitbit many years ago. I eventually ditched it because I dislike wearing anything on my wrist, and quite frankly, I got tired of it breaking and having to replace it every single year. That's when I switched to just using the Health app on my phone to track baseline data like my daily steps.
Eventually, tracking steps with my phone became tiresome, because I genuinely don’t want to carry it on me at all times. I wanted a way to leave my phone behind while still tracking a few basic data points, like my steps.
That led me to look into smart rings, mostly because I felt they were more low-key than a wristband. However, I did not want to be tied to an annual subscription, so I started doing my homework (you know how I love my research).
Enter the RingConn.
I found it after a lot of digging, and I am absolutely loving it.
It tracks everything seamlessly with zero subscription fees and a long battery life. Here is what it monitors:
Steps and Daily Activity
Sleep Quality and Stages
Stress Levels
And more.
The funniest part of this is enjoying looking at my sleep data. For years and years, I relentlessly made fun of my friend Brighde because she would always share her sleep stats with David, me, and Seb on our WhatsApp Group. Well, karma comes fast. I am now officially that annoying person, sharing my sleep data with the three of them (only sometimes, though!).
Anyway, I thought I’d pass this alone if you’re looking for a nice-looking, subscription-free way to track your steps and stats without tying yourself to a watch or a phone.
What I’m Wearing
Speaking of practical wearables, I wanted to recommend a skirt I recently purchased. You know me—I love my long skirts and long dresses.
After spending almost a month in Japan this past April, I came home incredibly inspired by the floofy, airy Japanese style of skirts. I’m not someone who really shops when I’m traveling, but once I got home, I lamented that I didn’t buy one while I was there.
So, I went online to look for something reminiscent of that style and was thrilled to find this gorgeous skirt by Ruti. I bought the grey one first (see photo at the start of this article), and I loved it so much that I immediately went back and bought the black one, too (and I was thrilled to find it on sale!).
I cannot recommend this skirt highly enough. Not only is it super comfortable—thanks to an elastic waist with a drawstring—but it is also an absolute dream to pack. It doesn’t get wrinkled, or at the very least, any lines shake right out once you give it a good fluff. I’ve received so many compliments on it both while I was away hosting my trips and since I’ve been back, so I just had to share it with you! ENJOY!
Those are my Weekly Musings. Tell me about yours, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Additional Resources
👉 Connect with me 1:1 – Get personalized guidance whatever you are looking for. (One one-on-one connection is also a perk of the Founding Member/VIP level here on Substack.)
👉 Read A Year of Compassion – Daily inspiration to help you live with intention, kindness, and clarity.
👉 Check out my Recipe E-Books and my library of On-Demand Cooking Classes for recipes.
👉 Travel with me! I host animal-friendly, luxury, all-inclusive vegan trips around the world, specifically curated to ensure high-quality, high-touch premium experiences. Check out our upcoming trips, and let me know if you have any questions. Please remember when booking to mention you heard about the trips from COLLEEN PATRICK-GOUDREAU. 😊
My Favorite Supplements
Even with a nutrient-rich plant-based diet, we can thrive even more with thoughtful support. That’s where Complement comes in, I take Complement Essential as my daily multivitamin for B12, D3, iodine, zinc, and magnesium; Omega Complex for essential fats; and as part of my strength-training and muscle-building routine, I fuel up with their clean Organic Protein. With Complement and my nutrient-rich diet, I have everything I need to fuel my body, support my strength, and thrive so I can do my work in the world for animals — both human and non-human.
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