I have farmers but one generation removed from me in my bloodlines and my family has always had a garden. I never tasted a green bean that wasn’t fresh out of the garden or canned by my mother until I was in college (and boy did it taste … [Read more...]
Gardening book review: How to raise vegetables without breaking a sweat
March 14, 2011 By 2 Comments
Valentine’s Day reflections: Difficult is the loving, and also difficult is the not loving
February 13, 2011 By 3 Comments
In college, I took ancient Greek for my required language because I was in love with the professor and a boy. So while other folks were learning practical languages like Spanish and French, I was translating Sappho fragments. The fist bit of ancient … [Read more...]
What I’m reading right now
February 4, 2011 By 14 Comments
This week's question from the Crazy-for-Books blog hop is...what I'm reading, right now. Right now I'm not reading anything, I'm writing a blog post.At some point today when I finish this blog post, I will again be reading. Before I met my lovely … [Read more...]
Random Wednesday
February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Not actually my hand, but it is the one that's suffered the fiddling injuryI’m in something of a reading void. Well, I did read a book for one of the book groups I’m in, but I just can’t bring myself to review it, or even, in fact, mention it’s … [Read more...]
Madison Monday: Our local art scene and lessons from a self-portrait
January 31, 2011 By 5 Comments
Galatea's Art Supply StoreYou might be surprised at the scope and variety of the art scene in Madison given the size of our town and its location (not being in France or New York or the Southwest or whatever particular location you associate with … [Read more...]
What do you think about while you knit?
January 22, 2011 By 5 Comments
My first and only knitting project, about 2 months inSo I very recently (as in a month or so before Christmas) began knitting. And when I say knitting, I mean I’ve been working on one scarf for that whole period which my gracious friend cast on for … [Read more...]
The problem with happiness?
December 29, 2010 By 3 Comments
Somewhat ironically in the service of my own happiness project, inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s book of the same name, I’ve been looking at psychology blogs and stumbled across this one by Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D. In this article, Kashdan cites research … [Read more...]
How to be good
December 25, 2010 By 2 Comments
If I had to pick a super power, the ability to read people’s minds would not be high on my list. I feel all in all, we really should not know what other people are thinking most of the time, but one thing I would like to know is if other people spend … [Read more...]
The top five nonfiction books I read in 2010
December 14, 2010 By 4 Comments
I sat down to write about just the 5 best books I’d read this year, but surprisingly found that the first 4 I put on the list were nonfiction. I grew up a hardcore fiction reader. I was the kid who jonesed to get to the library in the summer. There … [Read more...]
Straightening the bathroom towel and other acts of love
December 3, 2010 By 2 Comments
I have discovered about myself, with the help of a trained professional, that I don’t like to do things the normal or necessarily “easy” way. Meet someone you love, get married, spend several years in childless wedded bliss before you either become … [Read more...]
