Holly's Blog
Adventures in Living Intentionally, Playing Outside, and Reading Good Books
The Place of Play
What does "play" mean to you? I've been thinking quite a lot lately about the place of play in my own life. As a serious mostly-only-child (until I was nearly 10), I sometimes feel like play does not come naturally to me. And if you have to work on it, to...
Things I Loved About The Shape of Water
If I spoke about it - if I did - what would I tell you? I wonder. Would I tell you about the time? It happened a long time ago, it seems. In the last days of a fair prince's reign. Or would I tell you about the place? A small city near the coast, but far...
April Creative Rhythm – Week 1
How did I do in the first week of my April Creative Challenge? Meet or Exceed my Fiction Word Count Every day -- Achieved 3/5 days, with bonus writing on the weekend. Make progress on The Artist’s Way and publish a short blog post on M-F - no progress on...
Eating Local
Where do you get your food? And more specifically, where do you get your produce? I've been working to upgrade how I fuel my body, from sustainably caught (although clearly not local) seafood from Salmon Sisters, to our CSA from Lower Valley Farm. (is it...
Ice Is Hard: Climbing and the Immediacy of Experience
I took my husband ice-climbing for his birthday. And it was difficult. Sure, it was fun. It was intimidating, until I realized how securely we were roped in and how well we were guided. The worst I could do would be to slice myself on an ice ax or...
Dust if you Must, but the World’s Out There
A few short things that inspired my day yesterday: Busyness is NOT Productivity Meeting a friend and her brand new baby for a (mostly) business meeting at my favorite local coffeeshop -- which now has punch cards for frequent customers. Dust if...
Recent Fantasy Binge Reading
“Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing:...
My April Creative Rhythm
I’ve been more focused this year on tracking my activity and choosing where I focus my time. While I haven’t been perfect about it -- my daily journal fell off the rails due to illness in mid-February, and I didn’t get back on track for the rest of March...
Winter Wellness: My Favorite New Products from the Mountain Beauty Collective
I love the winter. I love the snowsports as well as the cozy days inside with warm drinks and a good book. I even love the cold temperatures that let me bundle up in my favorite hat, jacket, boots & gloves. To be fair, if you live in Montana it's...
January Reading, Living Small, and The Circle Of Life
January. A fresh start. A new page. Frantic energy and the hint of a rhythm emerging. Snow, sunshine, observances of nature, loss, and electricity. These were the elements of my month. What I Read (& Listened To) In January: 10 books this month, a...
Create & Complete in 2018
I thought for quite some time about what my word for 2018 should be. I've never explicitly chosen a word of the year before. I've played around with various goal-setting and tracking mechanisms, from an excel sheet with monthly breakdown to...
Year-End Thoughts, My 5-Star Reads, and Unfinished Reading Challenges
I'm sitting here in my Airstream, surrounded by feet of snow, Indigo Girls playing on the speakers, and the sun breaking through the clouds to bring some clear blue skies, working across from my husband as our rabbits dance in the snow. As the final hours...