Here in Woodstock, a group of people, mainly teachers and students, meet on Friday mornings in the winter to climb to the top of Suicide Six. Some carry snowboards, some use climbing skins attached to their skis, some use snowshoes or crampons and lug their stuff. They reach the top, hopefully watch the sun rise, and ski down—once.  Go to […]

Well, the wait is over.  On Tuesday I got my first COVID vaccine.  In the end, I showed up for my appointment, waited about five minutes, and got a very small—not scary at all—shot in my arm.  I got a small card with a signed acknowledgment of my first dose of the Moderna vaccine and an appointment for my second.  […]

I am easily overwhelmed.  I have finally said it and I know it’s true.  These days I escape to my car and sit in a sunny parking lot with my computer to get anything accomplished. Why?  Because in my car in the parking lot at Billings Farm ( my favorite sunny spot when the cows are out),  I get no […]

It has been a wild year—much of it not good, some of it just ok, some of it actually really good.  On Saturday I got an e-mail from Susan asking about swimming lessons for the summer.  It took me by surprise.  I have taught swimming lessons at my home every summer for over thirty years.  Last summer, I didn’t.  The […]

Woodstock Area Job Bank Pilots Virtual Networking Group  for Recent Grads/Early Career Job Professionals In addition to the devastating health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the virus has taken a big toll on our national and local economy. Many are looking for work, and competition for available jobs is fierce. A job search can be lonely and overwhelming. The good […]

The changing seasons are upon us.  Summer has become fall, and fall is slowly and gloriously turning into winter.  Here at the Job Bank, it is time to add to our list of Bit Time workers.  What are Bit Time workers?  They are community members who would like just a “bit” of work that pays a minimum of $20 per […]

I have cast my vote—done, finished, stamped, posted.  I have exercised my right to place an absentee ballot for the November election. Now, I can turn off the news and wait it out.  Finally!  This particular election cycle has been unusually difficult for me to endure.   I know there is a big, wide world out there, but the only […]

Yesterday, my husband and I visited Killington and decided to walk down the mountain.  Ok. I admit it would sound better if I said we hiked up Killington on a beautiful fall day.  But the truth is we had passes to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain and because the day was so magnificent we decided to […]

When my children were little, I knew the benefits of having a schedule: breakfast at 7, naps at noon, go outside, dinner at 6, two books at bedtime, lights out at 7. We rolled through our days with mundane predictability. I knew it was important for them but I also knew it was important for me. Little children can be […]

Last weekend, my husband finally tackled the one project he has been dreading —uncovering exactly what lies underneath the old kitchen floor.  When you own a house that was built in 1840, you expect a lot of “decorating” and “modernizing” has happened over the years.  With this house we have already had to wrestle with whether or not to save […]

When you live in glass houses, expect to wash windows.  My husband and I always choose to live in old houses that have more windows than walls.  We generally don’t replace windows to save heat because we love old, wavy glass,  especially wavy glass in windows with lots of tiny little panes.  This year on Mother’s Day, four of my […]

I am not much of a baker.  It’s not that I don’t love all things bread, but more than ten years ago I developed an allergy to wheat.  Not just a gluten sensitivity, or even celiac disease, but an actual allergy to wheat.  With that, baking became the one thing I couldn’t do.  I gave up bread, cold turkey and […]

The Job Bank is here to help people find jobs and to help employers find workers. But what should we do when businesses are closed and thousands of unemployed workers are collecting unemployment and hoping to be rehired?  Good question!  The fact is, some businesses won’t make it.  That’s a hard fact to accept, I know.  Closing for a week […]

By nature I am not a Gardener.  Although I often get spring fever and dream of having  amazing flower and vegetable gardens, execution is not my strong suit.   This spring is different.  Way back in February, when a pandemic was just a remote possibility, I bought 100 packets of seeds to be used as wedding favors for my son’s […]

What would you do if your twice-daily romps through the woods had been cut down to a few measly walks around the meadow and confinement in a tiny backyard? Maybe, like Parker you would excavate in earnest.   Parker has always been a digger.  Last summer when she was a baby, we thought it was cute.  Her little snout, buried […]

I admit I have a bad case of both cabin fever and spring fever.  Having both at the same time sends me out into my little yard in hopes of finding some garden chore ready to be done—not yet.  For once I seem to have put the garden to bed properly and all the little stems have been cut back. […]

Monday morning, half past eight, I harness Parker and open the gate. We trot along past the house next door Down to the meadow, for our morning chore. While Parker plays at the river’s edge,  I take the laps I’ve solemnly pledged. One time, two times, three and four Around I go and then once more. I call to Parker […]

Last night, we had our first family Zoom meeting.  Zoom is a cloud based video conferencing platform. I set it up all by myself, almost.  Sadie swooped in at the last minute to actually get me into my own meeting.  It was weird, fun, ridiculous and comforting to have all of my family members tuned in at one time—eleven little […]

In moving ahead with our family plan of taking forward steps during this time of hunkering down, Sadie was delighted to learn that our plan for Saturday was to take her mud driving. She just turned 16 and all things driving are exciting—even spending two hours in Dad’s truck cruising the soft mud roads in Vermont with her parents.  We […]

I have lived in Vermont long enough to know that a few warm days in early March are not enough to herald the arrival of spring.  I also know that a few warm days in March IS enough for me to check my current list of Bit Time workers and realize that there are not enough people listed to tackle […]

This past weekend, we took our five-year-old granddaughter to see the new summer house in Maine.  We finally own it.  The first thing my husband did was to rip out one of the walls in the little office downstairs so we could enlarge it for our bedroom.  To do that, he had to rip out a little back hall, and […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote a newsletter about my frustration with a Trojan virus that had infected my computer.  It was a virus I downloaded because I was impatient and clicked on an update for Adobe Flash— a program I now know Mac doesn’t support.  When I took my computer to Best Buy, I told them how I thought […]

I have a piano taking up space in my living room— a big brown, behemoth I don’t play.  It should have been the first thing I let go of as we continue to downsize before our big move.   Strangely, it is the only thing I can’t seem to make a decision about.  I am letting go of a house […]

My family uses Apple computers.  We have, ever since my oldest daughter got a PC for college that cost more than any computer we have owned before or after.  It was a thing of beauty, huge and important looking. It was 1990, and bigger was better.  The Gateway, with lots additional software met the university’s specifications.  Within a week, it […]

Over the weekend, we got a little snow.  It wasn’t a big storm by any means.  It was a pretty storm.  I have windows that look out over the Ottaquechee River and the flakes were very beautiful coming down.  My husband took this gentle storm to mean that the skiing would be fantastic on Sunday.  Jake was up at the […]