Day 177
In my house, these are leftoversBack to the regular routine means back to the usual round of chores, errands, and meal planning; unfortunately one of the effects of grief that I discovered four years...
View ArticleDay 224
This week marks 32 weeks of quarantine life. We’re not quite as strict as we were at the start, but generally speaking our interactions and excursions are still pretty limited. We ate dinner at a local...
View ArticleDay 235
Today's the day, friends. Time's up. Whatever else you do today, if you haven't already, please, please vote. Email me (roving lemon at yahoo.com) if you need information on where to go and I'll try to...
View Article35 weeks
Today marks 8 months of quarantine. School was initially canceled for Miss B on Friday, March 13th, and for me that marked the beginning of this interlude. Here we are at our second Friday the 13th of...
View ArticleDay 256
Photo credit to a sister who was there - I was only a virtual participant!It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the US. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not hosting anyone, I’m not doing any of the...
View ArticleDay 265
One afternoon recently I got a Slack message from one of my co-workers who lives in a different state in my time zone.“I bought a pre-seasoned steak at the supermarket,” it said. “How should I cook...
View ArticleWelcome 2021
Coming to the end of a much-needed holiday break spent in more or less the same routine we've been in since mid-March (today is Day 293, 42 weeks). Normally we would have been in Boston this week for...
View ArticleDay 330
Sorry I went quiet there for a bit; most of January felt like walking through a dark tunnel of anxiety. January 6 was a realization of so many things I’d been worrying and catastrophizing about for the...
View Article50 weeks
This weekend marks 50 weeks of quarantine life - just two weeks shy of a full year since we went into lockdown - and the final weekend of this longest shortest month. I had a look back through my...
View ArticleExeunt 2021
...pursued by a bear? Actually a straightforward bear might make a welcome change from much of the fun-house tour, conducted at dizzying speed, that has characterized this year. I keep saying to people...
View ArticleSnow days
Happy 2022! We got an unexpected bonus weeklong extension of holiday mode around here when Virginia got the first snow of the season last Sunday night. It turned into the biggest snowstorm in 3 years...
View ArticleScallion pancakes
Lunch, complete with iPad (because reading) and spilled sauce (because real life)One of the unexpected benefits of my new fridge-dwelling friend is that it has multiple uses. In addition to the whole...
View ArticleCircuit 53
This past week was pretty packed with meetings and deadlines, and so I didn’t have the time or the brain space to cook anything new or different. I only made one thing that I wouldn’t usually make in...
View ArticleJanuary snapshots
I feel a certain loyalty to January because it’s my birth month, but even I have to admit that it’s kind of a drag. It feels even more so than usual this year, probably because today, as my Timehop...
View Article15 minutes
My corner of northern Virginia has 15 more minutes of daylight today than we did last Sunday - a useful reminder of the impact that a seemingly small chunk of time can have. Particularly useful at a...
View ArticleWeekend schedules
Do you have a schedule for your weekend? Following on from last week’s post, I’ve been thinking more about time blocks and how useful they are - but also how important it is to not fill up all those...
View Article3-day weekend
The third Monday in February is a public holiday in the US - Presidents’ Day. I can’t say I commemorate this in any meaningful way, other than this year by being even more grateful than usual to get an...
View ArticlePoints north
This week was another busy one - a visit from our oldest nibling, more mitigation on the recent water issue, plus the usual round of work and family commitments crammed into four days - and we wrapped...
View ArticleMacGyver gnocchi
The pace of work and home life this week continued to dictate yet again the need for dinner solutions that could be produced on a short turnaround. Gnocchi in the pantry and leftover sausage and kale...
View ArticleMarch roundup
March got away from me, so here are a few recent highlights:I’m continuing to find new uses for my sourdough starter and this one is right up there: a recipe for nearly-instant crumpets, aka...
View ArticleEaster 2022
Here's this year's edition of my annual Easter post......freshly completed tarrale......a piping-hot pizza chiena......a bouquet of tulips from my visit to the first farmers' market of the year on...
View ArticleWork/life balance
I know that I have infinite company in feeling that the roller coaster of the last two years has thrown this balance off completely, that the mental load that work entails has expanded to encroach into...
View ArticleNo words
A while back I learned a technique from a counselor: I was struggling to deal with a crisis situation and she asked me to start processing by listing five emotions that I was feeling in that moment. At...
View ArticleFour months
Well, that was an unplanned hiatus. Here’s a quick recap of key events since my last post:The month of June was dominated by a two-week trip to England which was a combination of work and holiday. We...
View ArticleGraduation day
DP, Miss B, and I often joke that we’re “not a math family.” Words, rather than numbers, are our preferred medium, by a long way, to transmit information. So when DP suggested that I say a few words at...
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