Sometimes a course correction is needed. I’ve gotten better at identifying these situations more quickly and coming up with solutions. Recently, I wrote about this on my old school blog. Call it the Great Resignation or Reshuffle or what have you. But I needed a career reset. This week I started a new job. I […]
Nature
Have Fun Storming the Castle
Last Sunday we experienced a mid-winter heatwave with high temps of nearly 50 degrees. Today, just a few days later, we were back down to -3. Minnesota is all about those wild swings. But during the brief warmup, I was able to drag my young adult out to see the Ice Castles in New Brighton. […]
Letting the Days Go By
In the past, I’ve written about how challenging Minnesotan winters can be. And that was without the added obstacle of a pandemic, when it was still safe to gather indoors with friends and family. Now that we’re into our third pandemic winter, I know I took past indoor winter hangouts for granted. Or just anti-social […]
Swan Dive
Walking has been my main form of exercise for many years now, but especially during the pandemic. Early last week I was looking ahead to the impending polar arctic vortex. While the weather was still mild, I forced myself outside. In the last few weeks, I’ve been making more of an effort to take my […]
Spectrum of Risk
I have posted about being Minnesotan. And the need to seek out activities over our long winters to avoid cabin fever. Or to get out on hot summer days, when our homes don’t have central air conditioning. I experienced an added dimension to this as the single parent of a child with autism. Early on […]
Such Great Heights
Father of Waters Though we live in Minnesota, somehow my son and I saw the end of the Mississippi River – in Louisiana – before we made it to the headwaters in our own state. I’ve since rectified this. Life has become seriously overscheduled. Not uncommonly so but we hadn’t made it up North in […]
Here We Goat Again
Happy Vernal Equinox! We celebrated Spring a little early. Technically it was St. Patrick’s Day but that doesn’t mean a whole lot to us. We were just excited to hang out on a friend’s goat farm and use his sauna. That was a fantastic way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon. It will be even […]
Summer’s Long Shadow
This summer started off with so much promise, with my son’s high school graduation and subsequent party. But things quickly went downhill from there. There have been many missteps, some on my part, but mostly factors out of our control. We had to move suddenly from our home of 4+ years due to an unabated […]
Sun-Stopping
We marked the Summer Solstice last week and it’s been on my mind. Meteorological Summer has begun in Minnesota, but this was a particularly oddball year without a Spring. I’ve lived here all my life but I’m still taken aback often by the weather extremes. And my friends who live elsewhere are downright alarmed by […]
Spring Cleaning
It was a brutally long winter but signs of life are all around us, finally. I stuck with my daily lunch walks nearly every day through the cold months but during the coldest snaps I stuck to a treadmill. Walking in place staring out a window is not for me. I love watching the changes […]