grocery shopping: use all your senses!

Let’s talk about grocery shopping. Do you shop in person or online? Trawl the aisles or opt for curbside pickup? The world is experiencing a flare-up of Covid, and as…

an ounce of prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As Covid flares across the country again, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the pandemic made possible…. And all…

and then along came covid

In a weird way, I have the Covid-19 pandemic to thank for getting me back to Vermont. My husband has worked at five different universities over the course of his…

an ounce of prevention

I was pleasantly surprised to receive this answer to part of a survey I’m running: “I’ve always been more interested in prevention than cures!” Let’s back up: if you’re on…

the opposite of presenteeism

If the problem of presenteeism existed before the pandemic, I can’t imagine things have gotten better. Before the pandemic even hit the western hemisphere, Forbes reported: Employers who have struggled…

colonoscopy | it’s that icky prep

Like the upholder that I am, when I turned 50, I obediently had my first colonoscopy. YUCK. Are we really going to talk about this? Yes. Because I often invite…

pandemic update: plans for the second autumn

Most Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted in Michigan on July 1, and it seems like a lot of people have taken this as a sign that the pandemic—or perhaps the…

2 types of summer menus

What’s on your menu for the summer? Lest you cry “click bait,” here is a link to some menus I put together for my first blog—on Chinese home cooking: here…

1 deceptively shiny silver bullet

Silver bullet: something that provides an immediate and extremely effective solution to a given problem or difficulty, especially one that is normally very complex or hard to resolve. TheFreeDictionary.com  …

happy new year 2021—i think?

Has 2021 started off with a bang, or is it a continuation of 2020? Two clever Facebook posts I saw on January 8: “Get back on your side of the…

Puzzle it out

When I was growing up, my family often did jigsaw puzzles—usually the same ones over and over: a variety of birds, a variety of flowers, a variety of butterflies. We…

dissolving boundaries

Phew! It’s been a looong week. A lot of boundaries being drawn more firmly—from newly-declared lockdowns and PPE regulations to shifting (and even more entrenched) blue/red divides. And as usually…

world gone to hell? give thanks.

Has the pandemic got you down? What about all the racial injustice and inequity? How about the political climate? How about climate change? Stop. Before you spiral into all that…

walk this way | 7 simple suggestions

I’m sure your age probably determined what popped into your head when you saw “walk this way” as this post title; if you’re older, you probably flashed back to Monty…

being in control

The pandemic. The killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed. Increasing political polarization. Something I’m hearing over and over in 2020 is that the world is spinning…

i’m privileged, thanks

Full disclosure: this week’s post is a detour … sort of. It’s about the health of communities—and it’s mostly about privilege. It’s been a week (and a few months) of…

w(h)ither the food system?

The pandemic has certainly made very clear just how many of and how deeply our policies and systems are flawed and how tightly they are intertwined: just for starters, in…

stuff energetics | home energy purification

I’ve blogged about our relationship with food, our relationship with tech, and our relationship with time, and this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about another relationship—with our stuff. Yes,…

what does the pandemic make possible?

In scrolling through my most recent blog posts for a little inspiration for this week, my post about catalysts, catastrophes, and cataclysms from February 27 feels eerily prescient given that…

meal planning for the pandemic

feel like you’re chained to the stove just now? Struggling to make mealtimes feel more manageable, especially now that you’re cooking at home more often? Get help this week with…

st. francis + the virus

This prayer reminds me of St. Francis’s Prayer for Peace, updated for our contemporary world. A dear friend shared this with me, and I think it’s worth sharing far and…

love in the time of corona

in the (good) news There’s been a lot written in recent days about what we can do to keep our small businesses and community services up (if not running at…