It’s come to my attention when comparing what I typically rate a book and how a book is often rated by my peers that I’m harsher than average. And since I’ve reviewed a few books now, I want to lay out the thought behind the rating system you see for each book.
Continue reading “A Word About My Review Rating System”Review: The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups
Erika Kristakis recognizes the mystery and marvel of young children, and her passion about providing them the best early childhood education experience possible is palpable. Certainly, it is one of the best parts of her book, “The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grown-ups.“
Continue reading “Review: The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups”A Little Nebari For Your Day
As you know, I have a passing interest in bonsai. One aspect of bonsai is the nebari, which is the exposed roots of a tree. I love a good, mossy nebari. Well, I haven’t done much with bonsai recently, but I was on a walk last week and saw a natural root structure that I just couldn’t resist photographing!
Continue reading “A Little Nebari For Your Day”Making the Bees at Home in My Backyard
A hundred happy little bees, nesting, resting, in their cells. A hundred thousand eggs to hatch, and fly into a flower's bell. A hundred million insect kisses like a wish on wings that flit: A single earth to spend our lives, so Leave it better than we found it.
There I was, walking out of Lowes, looking forward to being done shopping, when a bright shock of yellow caught my eye. It was a painted bee home, a wooden construct divided into two parts–the top with hollow tubes and the bottom with holes drilled into wedges of wood.
Continue reading “Making the Bees at Home in My Backyard”First of February, 2021
stand outside with a hot mug of cocoa—spiked— snowflakes mixing like impromptu marshmallows —there on the surface of your cup and then gone as quickly as this moment—you blinking, beside your bundled husband, your blanketed son— it is a gray day. you breath—you are grateful.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Writer’s block
Were you not enough or was it all too much and the emptiness meant you were just tired?
Photo by William DeHoogh on Unsplash
Pandemic, winter again
Without agenda, another cold day slips by, in food and sleep and little chores, in tussling the boy to the floor. The house moves in sighs, a tiny capsule on a small planet in a strange time. The year moves in an endless round ring.
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
A lifetime at the computer
It takes one stretch to wrench a new, more painful shape to the day; years to relearn good posture.
Photo by Daniel Lanner on Unsplash
Merry Christmas, 2020!
And we’ll make it merry, whether it goes willingly or not. I hope you are having a lovely holiday season, as we journey toward the end of 2020.
Continue reading “Merry Christmas, 2020!”In Which I’m Angry About the Virus in General and Childcare in Particular, or I Finally Got a COVID-19 Test
I don’t know when we are counting the pandemic as officially beginning here in the States, but whatever, I made it until December 2020 before getting a COVID-19 test.
Continue reading “In Which I’m Angry About the Virus in General and Childcare in Particular, or I Finally Got a COVID-19 Test”