Although there are some people willing to sleep outside in sub-zero temperatures amongst the other bargain hunters who will eventually attempt to trample them in order to get the last Elsa costume pajama set (insert your own “Let it Go” joke here), I have never been tempted by Black Friday sales. As I explained in my last post,…
Read MoreHow to win at Christmas – Handmade holiday gifts
I don’t celebrate Christmas. This means I don’t really feel the stress of the holiday shopping season (and judging by the looks on other people’s faces, it’s really stressful). That being said, I still do like giving gifts. I don’t reserve my gift-giving just to Christmas. If I see something I know a friend will like,…
Read MoreFaking it – Crock pot apple crumble
Pumpkin is, without question, the star of the Thanksgiving season. It’s versatile, preserves well, and easy to incorporate into both sweet and savory dishes. But I’m not here to talk about pumpkins. The thing is, as much as I love pumpkin in almost anything, I don’t like pumpkin pie. I’ve never been a fan, which…
Read MoreThe hibernation of the mind
I have two basic states of being – creating and consuming – and I’ve found that they tend to be mutually exclusive. The interpretation of either state is relatively broad, but the main constant is that they remain separate. When I was younger, the transition was seamless. I would write feverishly for fifteen minutes, then…
Read MoreFrom the mouths of babes
When I was a teenager, over the course of about a week, three different companies starting building self-storage facilities along the same block. It was as if, unbeknownst to each other, they all bought the same consumer research poll that indicated my neighborhood was full of people with too much stuff willing to pay for storage.…
Read MoreWhy net neutrality is worth fighting for
For a large majority of people, the term “net neutrality” doesn’t really mean much. It’s probably something you’ve heard mentioned a few times over the past year, but you likely dismissed it for sounding too technical or too boring or too… virtual. So, I’m going to ask you to think of it in a different way.…
Read MoreFaking it – Low carb pumpkin pudding
The only thing about autumn eating that I love more than pumpkin is pumpkin spice. I find it fascinating that this particular blend of spices really does only work in the presence of pumpkin. You could put cinnamon and cloves together; you could put cinnamon and nutmeg together; you could even put cinnamon and ginger…
Read MoreThe weaving of a tale
There is a spider who lives in the window over my bed. Her web is strung like a safety net, woven horizontally between screen and glass so that she’s able to perch herself in the joint of the window frame. At the point in the morning when I open the blinds, the sun is at…
Read MoreMy summer vacation in Detroit
“I’m taking a long weekend in Detroit,” is not a phrase I ever thought I’d say. It’s also not a phrase people expected to hear. But some of my Beijing friends were going to be back in the states for a few weeks, visiting their families in Michigan, and as it turns out, airfare from…
Read MoreThe lost art of the letter
There is something inherently magical about a letter. It’s tactile communication – paper touched by the hand of another, tucked into an envelope that traps their air inside and transports it to you. I find it fascinating, and even slightly romantic, that we still lick envelopes to seal them shut. In a sense, peeling a…
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Positively Natalie 