Quick: please tell me something on the subject of what a wonderful human being I am. My ego is in shreds from my own personal version of dementors.

Extra points if you can tell me how I am different from my mother.

15 years ago this week-end we had a tag sale.  I remember that, because unfortunately it was that memorable ( Read more... )

In the late seventies there was a hippie movement to go "back to the land" that landed me on a mountaintop in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.  My mother and step-father decided to build a subsistence-level homestead and I got pulled along for the ride - and to be cheap goat-tending labor.  I have many stories and lessons from those days, but this ( Read more... )

Recently a friend who I respect commented that people didn't get fat by eating too much and exercising too little.  I put a pin in that discussion and I'm ready to come back to it now.

I just finished reading "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It" by Gary Taubes, probably the principle author running around now contending that calories don't ( Read more... )

 forestmaster and her husband arrived at my mother's house this afternoon and whisked me away to their home, where they nursed me back to mental health with whiskey and chocolate and evidence that loving families exist in the world.  I'm safe tonight and getting on the plane tomorrow.

That last post made me feel anxious. I'm going to center myself a bit with this next one. I was just reflecting that I was very much myself today.

( This is, I swear, the most boring post I've ever written. )

I ripped out 8 more barberry bushes today, after buying a new shovel.  I made sure to get one with a steel blade that I can sharpen.  I also announced our impending apiary to a bunch of our neighbors.  They all seemed fine with it.  One of the ones with a swimming pool, the ones I was possibly most worried about, said exactly the most perfect thing ( Read more... )

When I was a little girl I remember my grandfather sharpening a scythe on a whetstone that he had mounted on a wooden frame with a trendle.  I'm dragging this memory out of my brain and have to go look up the word trendle, but he turned the stone by pumping his foot on a rocker board.  (ETA: correct word is "treadle".)  Grandpa was born in 1900 and ( Read more... )

I've been training hard at not killing my mother, and today, after lunch, I successfully executed my best max single rep ever at not killing her ( Read more... )

My East Coast Swing class started last night.  I'm not sure how I convinced B. to go with me, but I did.  Oh, it was worth it!  I think I'll continue to be happy about that today ( Read more... )