What if you lived in a planned community where hiking trails, spas, gyms, and a team of nutritionists, personal trainers, and other health professionals were readily available nearly 24/7? At wellness blog The Oasis, Ellen Britt writes about “wellness communities” where keeping healthy is a neighborhood endeavor - and the rents are sky-high.

For the modestly salaried among us who still want to live well, Ellen offers some suggestions on creating your own at-home wellness center. A few of our favorites:

“Set aside a mini-spa day for yourself at home. Be sure to plan for one and a half to two hours when you won’t be interrupted. Be creative and formulate your own routine. Put on some relaxing music. Add your favorite bath salts to a hot tub of water and soak your cares away. Take time to really relax. Slather on a moisturizing lotion after you get out. You get the idea!”

“Sign up for a new body class. Make a commitment to explore yoga, Pilates or even a martial art.”

“Take some time each day to quiet your mind, either by meditation or just listening to beautiful music.”

Grandinite is a green blog that goes into some unexplored corners…including uncovering this remarkably simple and rather wonderful idea: PlayPumps.  “It’s a simple idea,” the mysteriously named-and-numbered bloggers tell us.  “As children spin on a merry-go-round, water pumps from below the ground. It is stored in a tank just a few feet away, making a safe, plentiful supply of water available in the community.”  Nearly 700 PlayPumps have been installed in South Africa, providing safe water to a million people living in rural communities, and thousands more PlayPumps will be installed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the many benefits of ready access to clean drinking water to millions of underserved people.

Hatred usually divides, but it can also unite. Take, for example, cilantro. You pretty much love it or hate it, and if you hate it, then IHateCilantro.com is your new home away from home. Hundreds of members from around the globe convene to vent about the noxious flavor of, to share heart-breaking stories about and to shop for apparel to further express their extreme distaste for this herb. And if you happen to be visiting from somewhere other than the good old U. S. of A., you can also access it via IHateCoriander.com.

Andy Towle knows a thing or two about the gay community. The former editor-in-chief of Genre magazine, Towle’s “blog with homosexual tendencies,” Towleroad, is among the smartest, savviest and sexiest out there. Equal parts politics, gossip and commentary (with a healthy dose of science geekery and Apple worship thrown in for good measure), Towleroad serves up the juiciest bits of information well before it hits the major media – if it ever does. And the occasional pics of shirtless sports figures aren’t bad, either.

The parenting blogosphere — especially the Mommy blogosphere — has been very tightly knit for a long time, a home of great community and great warmth. And there are some blogs that seem to show up on just about everyone’s blogroll — one that are just so charming or resonant or passionate that you want them to be part of your own community. Mom 101 is a prime example. Everybody reads and participates in the adventures of Liz, a NY-based writer and new mom at at 36, as she covers everything from current events to advertising to the ineffably joy of watching her toothless baby work on eating a single french fry. Join the gathering throng and enroll in Mom 101.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ThisNext is all about discovering and celebrating and sharing great design with people. Because of that, independent design community Trunkt is something that excites us: they help bring fresh, quality design to the world. It seems like more and more communities like this are popping up, one of which I just found via Josh Spear’s blog:

“Swedish design company Launch Design Partner works together with some of the finest product designers in Sweden. On a mission to help designers produce and market their projects independent of big brands and limited product scope, LDP provides avenues for artist and designers to express their creative freedom and help reinvigorate Swedish product and furniture design. I really like the Palmett pendant lamp by Folkform (Chandra Ahlsell and Anna Holmquist) which is constructed of layered acrylic plastic profiles and is available in multiple sizes and additional configurations for floor and table.”

Home Schooling is an extraordinarily personal (and persaonalized) approach to educating your kids…but how does it work on a practical, day-to-day basis? Anna Noack-Brown’s Kindleseed is an inspiring “digial journal” of the homeschooling process, with great pictures of trips to everything from bee farms to glass factories, entries that show how a simple trip to the Farmer’s Market can become a spelling lesson, and a huge array of resources and links, all offered with a gentle and loving point of view.

Now here’s a blogger who is truly committed and connected to green business. A marketing expert, a green business consultant, a committed participant of his own, Ivan’s clearly one of the “connectors” — somebody who knows everybody, and can hook you up pronto. How can you NOT like a guy whose three guiding principles are “hire smarter than yourself” , to simply “leave things better than when you found them”, and “design ecstatic experiences”…and who titles enthusiastic coverage of a recent green biz networking event as “One time, at Wine Camp” …

When Kurt Repanshek isn’t researching (read: hiking in national parks) or writing books like America’s National Parks for Dummies (one can only imagine the helpful advice he is able to share, like “Don’t light them on fire every August.”) he blogs about issues facing parklands and significant events therein on National Parks Traveler:

“Back in April I talked about an ambitious vision to create a green corridor from Yellowstone to the Yukon in a bid to ensure that wildlife populations along the route aren’t isolated by development. It’s a noble cause, one that some day I hope becomes reality. Well, today I’m happy to tell you that a group of Montanans has successfully banded together to, in a small way, help that cause by backing not only tough new regulations that will pertain to coalbed-methane development but also to prevent urban sprawl on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park.”

National Parks Travler is a great resource for anyone wanting to track the goings on in the wilderness. Which is to say, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it’ll probably make a sound on the National Parks Traveler blog.

Apparently a bagger is someone who is climbing (or already has climbed) all 284 mountains over 3000ft in Scotland… and this bagger blogged about how a local municipality was asking local hikers to pitch in and help maintain their trails. The program is voluntary and would include brewing an ale for sale whose profits would go to the trails, hosting festivals and such. Doesn’t sound like they’ll struggle too much finding volunteers.

Trail stewards in the states should likewise tap their communities to throw parties for their trails, sell beer for their trails and otherwise cavort productively. Nothing like a little honey to catch a bunch of bees…