• Mindful Reflection,  Winter Interest

    Virtues of Snow

    “What’s this? There’s white things in the air!” sings Jack Skellington in wonder when seeing snow for the first time in the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. While I can’t really recall, I like to think that my introduction to snow was met with the same sense of awe. That feeling never got old for me. It only intensified as I got older and became a harbinger of good things. Growing up in Northern Virginia, we lived in perpetual denial of the historical average snowfall of about 20 inches each year. That lack of planning for the snow meant that I learned to equate frozen precipitation with the high likelihood of school cancellations. That…

  • Lifestyle,  Mindful Reflection

    Ankle injury sparks an existential gardening crisis

    Yes, that’s a dramatic title, but I’m not exaggerating. I’m a pretty intense person. It’s doubtful anyone ever used my name and “easygoing” in the same sentence. And gardening is incredibly important to me. When it was suddenly taken away from me in August 2022, it sent me into a tailspin. In August, we took a short trip to Maine. We did some whale watching (protip: natural remedies for seasickness may not actually work!), visited Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (which I’ll have to talk about later), and then planned to hike at Acadia National Park. Luckily, I managed to get through the first two activities physically intact. But almost as soon as we got to…

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