The Happy Monk Baking Company

When Aunty Betty came to visit, it was an occasion. To my brother, sister, and myself, she was the proverbial “fun aunt,” often arriving with gifts, always full of uproarious talk and laughter. A short woman with a pile of gray hair and a ball of energy.

… Continue reading

I’ve confessed here that I love swimming in cold water.

People shake their heads in disbelief or question my sanity when I talk about this.

Yet last week, the New Yorker published an article by Rebecca Mead entitled, “The Subversive Joy of Cold-Water Swimming,” and I found a community! I’m not the only crazy one!… Continue reading

It’s the end of the year. A brief pause to look back, then to cast my our eyes forward to the coming year.

And what arises immediately is gratitude for what I have and hold in front of me. The Happy Monk Baking Company has occupied much of my time and attention. It has been a big blessing.… Continue reading

I’ve been feeling a little of the blues these past days. Maybe it’s the grey weather, the cold. We’ve nothing to compare with our eastern counterparts, who’ve had bitter cold and snow already. Still, it’s the relentless blah of winter onset that contributes to the winter blues.

That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.… Continue reading