January may have been long and cold, but God, didn’t it seem like we got a lot of snow in February? Charlie and me tried to make the best of it. I don’t go in for cross country skiing. Too steep a learning curve. But, I love snowshoeing. Well, I come from a long line of snowshoers, so it’s in my blood. I still have my mother’s snowshoes from when she was a kid. They were handmade by her uncle, Octave Pease. The webbing was made from the hide of a deer he shot himself. I get them out every winter for decoration. Octave: now there was a character. He came from a big family, …

I run into Bucky Dumont down to the A&P on Friday. He’s the fella with the horses who gives sleigh rides during our Down Home Holiday Festival. I was doing a little shopping after work, and he was “picking up a few things for the Mrs.” Sure enough, there in his shopping cart were milk, sugar, and a dozen eggs. “How ‘bout that case of Pabst, Bucky. She ask you to pick that up?” “Nope. Them’s what I call my “office supplies!” I’ve seen Bucky’s “office.” It’s that shed off the barn where he fixes his farm equipment and maintains the horse tack. Oh, he’s got it all decked out: ole pot bellied stove, TV, …

Just a gentle reminder, folks: we have officially reached the cut off for all Christmas decorations. Do it now, and avoid the shame of being one of those houses where the crocuses have to nudge aside a deflated, inflatable Santa. Oh, I can get a real bee in my bonnet about this! There are some people in Mahoosuc Mills who never seem to take their decorations down. (White Hebert? I’m talking to you!) I’m sure this happens where you live, too. Folks who figure they went to all that trouble to put ‘em up, why take ‘em down, just to do it all over again next year? Thing is, as the years go by, the …

Happy 2014! I hope your holidays were wonderful, and if they weren’t all you wanted ‘em to be, well, at least they’re over! Time to take a deep breath, regroup, and move on. As you may or may not know, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. No, I do what my niece Caitlin calls “setting an intention.” She’s works down at Mahoosuc Health Food, and seems to have the inside scoop on all things New Age-y! “An intention is gentler,” she says. “When you break a resolution, well, it’s done. With an intention, you may lose sight of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost forever. All you have to do is refocus on …

Well, it’s the last first blog of the month. (Kind of confusing, huh?) Well, I’ll bring you up to speed. My book, Finding Your Inner Moose, has twelve chapters, so all this year I’ve been dedicatin’ the first blog of the month to a chapter. We’re trying to incorporate a little change into our life each month, hoping it becomes habit. If you haven’t been tunin’ in, or want to revisit one of the past months, you can just scroll back. Pretty swanky, huh? Chapter Twelve in the book is about summing it all up, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Ready? January: Don’t bother with resolutions. Instead, set an intention to make little changes …

It’s the first blog of the month again. I know, November kinda snuck up on me, too. You know the drill. We’re trying to incorporate a little change from my book, Finding Your Inner Moose, into our life each month, hoping it becomes habit. Our aim? Livin’ the good life, of course! We’re on chapter eleven in the book, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Especially as the holiday season gears up, we don’t want to lose track of the main ingredient. You can’t underestimate the importance of fun: follow-your-bliss fun, take-a-mental-health-day-from-work fun, good, silly fun. Adding more fun to your life will make you happier and healthier, and as a result, voila! You’ll end up …

It’s the first blog of the month again, and you know what that means. The year’s winding down, and we’re on Chapter Ten of my book, Finding Your Inner Moose, called “Getting Rid of Frogs and Toads.” No, it’s not about amphibians. This chapter’s about self care. Hey, it’s a self help book. You gotta have a chapter on self care, right? I don’t know about you, but my life tends to be plumb-chucka-full of what Charlie and me call the gottas, gotta do this, gotta do that. So much so, it’s real easy to get overwhelmed. And when I get on one of these benders, seems like every time I open my mouth to …

Well, folks, it’s the first blog of the month again. Is it just me, or is time speedin’ up? Seems like Fourth of July was just yesterday, and here it is, September. Yikes! It’s the ninth month, so we’re focusing on Chapter Nine of my book, Finding Your Inner Moose. This one’s called “Listening to Your Inner Moose,” and is about intuition. I know, kind of woo woo, but basically it’s all about listening to your senses and trustin’ what they tell you. Sounds simple enough, but problem is, when your head gets involved, it makes it harder to hear your inner voice. My husband Charlie says it best. He has a little section in …

It’s the first blog of the month again, so you know the drill. We’re trying to incorporate a little change from my book, Finding Your Inner Moose, into our life each month, hoping it becomes habit. Our aim? Livin’ the good life, of course! July just flew by, didn’t it? We’re already on Chapter Eight, “I Can’t Die Today (Because If Anyone Saw the State of My House, I’d Die)”. In other words, we’re talkin’ declutterin’ folks: declutterin’ your house and your mind. The moose sheds its antlers every fall, and grows new ones in the spring. So all winter long, the moose doesn’t have any antlers. This makes it easier for him to forage …

Wow! Time’s flyin’ by. It’s already the first blog of the month again. We’re up to Chapter Seven in my book, Finding Your Inner Moose, “A Moose Does What a Moose Does Best,” and it’s about work. More specifically, findin’ the job that’s right for you. Like in a lot of self help books, this is the section where I talk about leaving your job as a receptionist and turning your design for the perfect paper clip into a multimillion-dollar corporation. Well, not exactly, but I do see articles like that all the time. I find them inspiring, but a little depressing—kind of like that “half their size” issue of People magazine. I don’t have …