No Mow May, Year Two

After getting a citation last year for our first attempt at a May Without Mowing, this year, I’m taking a more pro-active approach: I made my very own No Mow May sign! Oh, but first: in the foreground, please appreciate our baby tree, which was only a tiny stick when we acquired it for Arbor … [Read more…]

Trips and Trials

I was still getting over my jet lag when I became so sick. Ugh, I’ve been sick! I am still not entirely well, but I think there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The most marked characteristic of this particular illness–not Covid, but apparently going around locally–is a hacking cough. The kind of cough … [Read more…]

The Last Few Days

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately. . . . Figuring out if we accidentally stole my daughter’s shirt. . . . Eating salads. . . . Catching up with laundry and finding spare change. . . . And watering my thirsty plants. That’s right! We just came home from a two-week trip to visit … [Read more…]

Spring Weather

Wow, it’s pretty snowy here. It’s already melting, but here’s a picture from a few days ago. On the one hand, I do not support snowfall in March (or — yikes! — later). On the other hand, I realized that I’ve become an Upstate New Yorker in terms of being acclimated to the weather. I … [Read more…]

Just Call Me Crafty Katie!

I am feeling extraordinarily pleased with myself. Remember that I mentioned that I’ve been doing embroidery lately? Well, I did my first-ever, all-by-myself project. I wasn’t sure how great it was going to be, so I rooted around in my drawers and unearthed a basic white t-shirt, one from a pack of men’s undershirts I … [Read more…]

Things I Couldn’t Do

A person whom I follow on Twitter is currently mothering both a little one and a new baby, and it is giving me serious flashbacks. It is so hard! And no one realizes that it’s hard until they’re doing it. People quibble about whether that’s because parents act like it’s easy as part of a … [Read more…]

Books

Last week I made another trip to the Savannah Book Festival. Part of me feels like it’s pretty silly that I’m such a devoted fan of this book festival when I have yet to show up at an Albany Book Festival. In fact, I just marked my calendar so that I remember to look into … [Read more…]

“It’s Not My Time.”

Have you heard the recent chatter about Marie Kondo, who famously taught everyone to ponder whether our possessions sparked joy and specifically taught my daughters how to fold laundry? Apparently, she has “kind of given up” on being so tidy now that she has three little kids. Well, of course she has, and more power … [Read more…]

Missed Milestones

As the girls were growing up, I’d always assumed that the passage from teenager to grown-up would be marked by two big milestones: high school graduation and the emotional college-drop-off. As with many things that I’d assumed about parenting before I actually parented, I was wrong. M’s high school graduation happened, of course, but since … [Read more…]

Cutest Garage on the Block

I realized that I never shared our garage painting project here. Well, I mentioned Part 1, which was when the girls transformed the rather grim grey cinderblocks with blocks of color, a nice way to perk up the mostly-depressing Summer of 2020. At that time, I’d said that I’d love for the girls to do … [Read more…]