John's yard was a meadow of clover and Queen Anne's lace long before the anti-lawn movement spread to Harvard orTikTok. Our section of the street was a curved tail-end of a longer road, a detour along an otherwise linear path. There was (still is) a cove in the middle of the curve, which gave our … Continue reading A few things: April 2021
A scene from Brené Brown's 2019 "The Call to Courage" (which, if you haven't yet watched, is well worth your time - this story is at the 18:00 mark): A guy walked up to Brené after one of her talks, and he said, "Your work changed my life." He then told her the story of … Continue reading A few things: March 2021
A few years ago, when I first had an idea of starting a small stationery business, I wanted to start with Valentine's Day cards, which have always been my favorite to send (and, of course, to make). "Who would buy these in a set?" a friend asked. "I mean, why would you need more than … Continue reading A few things: February 2021
First of all, in case you're curious: Yes; she actually sleeps just like that, standing up, with her head resting on me. She is ridiculous, my sweet, old (so old) brown doggie. We are ridiculous together, in this ridiculous , ridiculous year. On that note: https://vimeo.com/488363490 What creativity sometimes looks like. And yes, I did … Continue reading A few things: December 2020
OK, here's the idea: Write your way out. If you're in a funk, feeling unsettled, whatever, then writing might be just the thing to help you move on. What else might writing do? Well, for one thing, it will give you perspective as time passes. An example? I wrote that first line of this post … Continue reading A few things: November 2020
I don't know about you, but I had some plans for 2020. For one, I planned to get my 2015 on and add video content to these monthly round-ups, finally taking the advice my (much younger) friend Emily offered about expanding the array of content to include some tutorials or other little clips that would, … Continue reading A few things: October 2020
As others have written recently, happy six month anniversary of "2 weeks to flatten the curve." Still relevant, six months in: Mental health strategies for coping with the pandemic. If you don't take good care of yourself, then you won't be any good to anyone else. Is it harder and harder, day by day, to … Continue reading A few things: September 2020
OK; so, things are bad. They are actually pretty seriously bad. But there are also reality-based reasons to remain hopeful. So how about we agree to acknowledge that things aren't rosy, but we'll look for the good here, together, because it feeds the kind of hopefulness that, in turn, feeds action. Game? Great. Let's go: … Continue reading A few things: August 2020
