Liatris acidota in the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit of the Big Thicket NP Hello friends! As you can tell, I have not written here much in the last few months. To be honest, I’m struggling with where to go with this blog. I’m not ready to close up shop or stop writing but I feel the need to be quiet. I’m also overwhelmed with writing trip reports and keeping on top of that because I just simply can’t keep up anymore. I’m finding more joy in editing the photos, uploading to Flickr, and just revisiting them as a digital photo album than I am in writing here. I am spending more time on the Substack writing targeted Texas nature essays, which is one reason why I don’t feel the need to write here. I’m less into random thoughts and dispersing them into the internet ether than I am in being intentional with some writing. I don’t know, it is a weird time. I also blame social media for how we put things on the internet and where. I keep trying to come back and figure that out but also, I like some social media. Those connections aren’t here so I have to go there, too. And that’s probably why it feels overwhelming, there are too many places to be. Forest turned 10 last week and I increasingly just want to spend more time with him and hang out with him before he is all “Eww, mom, I’m an independent teenager,” and moves onto other priorities. It was one thing to feel and want the need for my sanity and alone time when he was a clingy toddler, but those years are gone and now we’re in a new phase. So I’m trying to connect with some of that while I can. 10 years went fast. Did I do some quiet crying about it last week? Yes. Will I do more and am I tearing up about it now? Also, yes. I think back to how much I wrote about those early years because I needed to. Now there are so many Reels and YT videos covering so many aspects of what I felt in those early years that didn’t exist back then. I wish I’d had them. I needed them. But then again, I’m also glad I didn’t have a phone to scroll while nursing him and had the chance to connect with him as a baby at that time. So yeah, there are things I want to write about, just not on here. And I take too many photos now that blogging trips and hikes becomes too much. I contemplated with a photo blog of sorts but even that feels too cumbersome. Post a photo and a short caption? Maybe. And then there’s the part about too much content. I can’t even read all of the things I used to read on the internet, the blogs and now newsletters. So I feel guilty about not doing that, why would I want to put more content out there for others who also can’t keep up? Which comes back to, why do it in the first place? Which I take that as my cue to just pause and let things be for a season or two. Will I possibly pop in here once a month for these continued updates? Yes. But give me some time and I am sure I’ll return in some capacity with longer writings again. A few brief things: Reading: A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown and Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing by Janisse Ray Watching: Season 8 of Dexter and a week or so ago Kevin Can F Himself. Listening: Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n Sweet album

Hello out there! It’s been A Month! Both in terms of time but also with how busy the month was. Shortly after I wrote the last post we took a 5 hour flight south, crossed the equator, and landed in Quito, Ecuador to kick off a 2.5 week adventure around Ecuador! I’m still reeling from how awesome our trip was and just how much we saw and will eventually write more here. We spent 3 days in/around Quito before taking a short flight east to Coca where we then boarded motorized canoes and took a boat ride up the Rio Napo where we got on our floating accommodation for the next few days, the Anakonda river boat. I hated leaving the Ecuadorian Amazon but we had to fly back to Quito and get ready for our next adventure: the Galapagos! We flew west over the Pacific and landed at the Baltra airport where we boarded our other floating accommodation for the next 8 days, the Galapagos Legend ship. It was our (Chris and me) second time in the Galapagos as we had been in college back in 1998. But this refreshed our memory and took the adventure even further. I didn’t want to leave! But we flew home very late one night from Quito where shortly after we arrived home I walked upstairs and took out a Covid test to verify my suspected Covid, which had manifested in a sore throat, cough, and laryngitis type symptoms. Chris, Forest, and my mother in law had all had this mysterious illness before I did and suspected it was probably Covid but had no way of testing, and they had mostly recuperated before the end of the trip. I had only had some sinus pressure mid-way through but nothing significant but I think where I went wrong was when I ran out of my own toothpaste and proceeded to use Chris’ tube, which was our shared tube from home, but of course he’d been using it when he was sick. That was about two days prior to me having symptoms…so, my guess is if I hadn’t done that I may have escaped being sick. Anyway, so I was sick for the remaining part of the week when we returned, which meant I was working from home, which wasn’t much because I was in bed sleeping between coughing fits. Then we had to take Forest up to my parents for a planned week visit with them (plus it was my mom’s birthday and we also had to deal with some stuff pertaining to Chris’ dad’s apartment since his death back in June), which by this time I was Covid negative but still having a very phlegmy cough, something I haven’t had with any of my other two Covid illnesses. It took nearly a week for it to dry out a bit but I’m still coughing phlegm at times and my voice has not recovered and is still gravelly and gets weak if I hold long conversations. Then Chris and I came home to do a week of hell field work. Ecuador had the most amazing weather and coming back to Texas’ humidity and heat was obnoxious. I wasn’t hating summer until suddenly I was! Then this weekend I had to pick Forest back up from my parents and my niece’s 16th birthday party was this weekend. Chris ended up staying home because he’s had a bit of a relapse of symptoms from his Covid, with a return to strong coughing and an intense tiredness. I’m concerned this is the beginning of Long Covid but I guess time will tell. Everything I’ve read in the last four years has said to rest, rest, rest and do nothing for weeks after having Covid in an effort to prevent LC, not even working out, but it has been practically impossible this time around with work. I’ll refrain from complaining about work but I’m very frustrated right now with things on that front. Chris is back in the field this week and has a very full schedule of travel and field work this month. School starts later this week. And I need to start outlining hikes for my book for fall. I haven’t done anything hiking wise with that since June and need to get out at least twice this month if I can. I missed a penciled in hike I wanted to do to see an orchid that blooms this time of year along one of the trails I am highlighting and am going to have to get that one next summer now. I probably need to write a more dedicated post to updates on the hiking book soon. So yeah, life has been extremely full the last 4-6 weeks. I don’t see many signs of it slowing down either, though we have nothing on the horizon for next weekend. Oh, and we had hurricane Beryl while we were away so we still have a couple of down trees from that we haven’t even cleaned up and I don’t know when that will even happen. We’ve been home for nearly two weeks now and I am just now feeling like I can get my head on straight. I’m craving routine right now so school starting will help a lot with that. In between all of this I’ve mostly been whiling about my time scrolling on Instagram and watching Dexter on Netflix. It’s time to end my two week Reels addiction and slow down on the Dexter binging. I only caught a couple of episodes here and there when Dexter originally ran but after finishing Killing Eve back in late spring I needed something else to watching in the evenings and saw Dexter and gave it a go. Since it takes place in the time period I lived in south Florida, it has been really fun to connect with some of those aspects of place within the show. I roll my eyes at some inaccuracies pertaining to the Everglades and one particular set of scenes about Pembroke Pines and an officer talking about traffic on Brickell—those are each in different counties! Pembroke Pines is nowhere near Brickell! Overall it has been a very interesting show! Reading wise…I read one fiction book during our trip. All Fours by Miranda July. It was bizarre but good! I am long overdue on a book report update here so I’ll try to work on that soon. This has been the summer of Gen Z inspired pop music for me. In mid-late June I started hearing about an artist called Chappell Roan and so I listened to a few of her songs on Spotify and was instantly hooked. She’s rocketed to stardom this summer with a few of her songs and so I’ve had her latest album on repeat. Then when looking up one of her songs on YouTube I came across a cover sang by Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter started off on Girl Meets World, the Boy Meets World reboot, and then produced some teeny-bopper type music about a decade ago. Since then she’s made more adult pop and has a new album coming out this summer so I’ve been listening to her more recent back catalog and some of the newer songs and am also addicted. Throw a few Olivia Rodrigo songs in there and I’ll just pretend I’m 24 and not 44! And Charli XCX dropped her album Brat recently and there are some good bops in there! Mix in the Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit into the rotation and that’s the summary of my summer music listening right now! And before I go: Let’s go Kamala! More soon, friends!

Hello friends out there! Long time, no write! I didn’t meant to let June get away from me but this has been a busy summer. Most of it was planned out months ago as we had to figure out when Forest would spend his few weeks with grandparents. Due to various scheduling conflicts between two sets of grandparents + a summer vacation in July, it ended up being instead of two weeks back to back, once in June and once in July, single weeks spread out through June and July/August. Which has meant more driving back and forth for us to and from DFW. Such is life but I’m glad we and his grandparents can accommodate him coming to visit for long periods of time in the summer! And Forest loves it, especially when he gets to hang out with his cousins, so I’m glad it is now something of a summer ritual around here. That has meant a lot of busy weekends, trying to pack in time to hike and botanize/naturalize in between it all, plus working during the week. Chris managed a small house project in early June with painting our living room. It hadn’t been painted since we moved in 12 years ago and was in need of a freshen up. I’d honestly thought we’d make it through other house projects this summer, too, but the one week we could have done it didn’t pan out, though I did do a lot of gardening that week. And the other week ended up being one for a lot of grieving as Chris’ dad unexpectedly died two weeks ago. We didn’t find out until several days after and so the chaos of that situation has bled over into the weeks after. Paired with preparing for our upcoming trip, I haven’t felt much like writing here or anywhere. I’d also hoped to do more hiking this summer for my book and have only been able to carve out a bit here and there. Progress is progress but I would have liked more. I love/hate how busy the summers are right now. I think part of the busyness is nice for memory making and looking back upon in the future, but in the heat of it all it feels difficult to work through. There’s not enough time to “do it all” and all of the ideas I had on my list for the summer are quickly evaporating. I told Chris that next summer I wanted to take a week off from work and stay home and do things at home that a stay at home mom would normally do with their kid in the summer, like going to the pool and the museum and zoo…I want to do that with my kid before he’s a teen and not interested in doing these things! I got to enjoy a lot of that with my mom growing up because she didn’t work in the summers (for the most part) and as a working mom I have definitely felt like I’ve missed out on so much of that. Especially when he was a baby/toddler. I didn’t get to have any of those mommy and me groups. It was one of the most infuriating and isolating things about the early baby years because all of those groups met at like 10am on a Tuesday and they didn’t do shit on weekends. Not like I would have wanted to on every weekend anyway, between catching up on chores and sleep…but to have that option would have been nice. What else is up?? I’ve been gardening some. I worked on removing invasive Perilla frutescens from our right-of-way out front. It has slowly been becoming worse in that area over the last few years and I was tired of looking it so I started hand pulling it. It took several nights/hours to get it done but it looks good for now. I’m sure I’ll have to spot check it in the coming years. I also went through and removed invasive Scutelleria racemosa, South American skullcap, from one area of our front yard a few months ago and need to go back through and do it again. This last week I weeded most of the pathways in the edible/fenced garden, though will have to attend to more of that later this summer. At least the whole situation looks manageable again! As someone who was always a “summer person”, as I’ve aged I’ve become more reclusive in the summer than I used to. But I find if I make myself just go out and get sweaty and covered in dirt from gardening I end up feeling a lot better. Embrace the sweat! And I think it builds my heat tolerance up somewhat, too. Writing and art—not much on that front. I’m working through editing photos for my book and photos from our Spring Break trip to the Smokies. I’m still trying to figure out how to use this blog going forward. I miss writing as often as I used to but I can’t keep up with bloggers who write daily or even multiple times a week so I know I can’t expect people to keep up here. But then I’m also like, “Write for yourself, Misti” and that’s valuable because this is basically an archive of my life in some ways. I don’t know, it just feels a lot different than it used to. I need to do another book report here but that might not come until August. I have been reading a lot, or more than I was planning to this year. I’m currently in the middle of The Nineties which is about the ’90s of course, but a reflection on its cultural and political/historical value 30 years later. Obviously having lived through it I remember a lot of what the author writes and some of the details I read more about later because obviously at 11 I didn’t fully grasp the consequences of Ross Perot, but I’m enjoying the book so far. Especially because I know a lot of folks my age tend to look back nostalgically at the 80s and 90s when we’re dealing with everything now, but really the 90s gave us everything today. TV/Movie wise: I told myself I’d try to pull back on how much I was binge watching on streaming this summer and I have kicked it back a bit but I’m currently going through Dexter on Netflix. I recall watching one or two episodes in the past but never the full series. So I’m towards the tail end of the first season and am loving it so far. It makes me miss aspects of living in Miami a lot. In late May/early June I went through all of the Killing Eve episodes and loved, loved, loved that! Season 4 was a bit of a miss but the first three seasons were really great! And of course Bridgerton! But S3 was also a slight dud, too. I wish I could fill some of this time with reading but I find myself not being able to focus, especially in the evenings, and I enjoy zoning out to a show to decompress. I could also probably just go to bed… And that’s really about it. Life is very busy, Forest is growing like a weed (a quarter inch in June, apparently, according to my mom), and we’re trying to find time to get outside in between it all. My brain is full of creative projects that I don’t have time for/need to make time for. Oh, and don’t get me started on SCOTUS right now. Good god. The consequences of the 2000 election reverberate through time. I actually started thinking about alternatives to that election if Gore had won. We likely wouldn’t have had Obama in 08. I’m thinking it would have been 2001-2009 Gore, 2009-2013 McCain or maybe 2009-2017 depending on his health, and 2013/2017-2021/2025 Obama, likely not Biden as his VP, maybe Pete Buttigieg if it is 2017. We skip out on TFG in 2017 because no Obama and by the time Obama comes around later he’s too old and we all know what a shit head he is. I don’t know, but we can dream. What a different, and likely better, world we would be in now. Anyway, none of that matters. But it is nice to play make believe sometimes. Please comment and let me know how you are and what you are reading/watching and if you have any great hiking plans this summer!