Jane Roper's Blog, page 11
March 19, 2020
The Pandemic Will be Blogged
Oh yes. It will be blogged. That is, when I’m not (remote) working / homeschooling / reading the news / watching inspiring videos of Italians singing from windows / building a smokehouse in my backyard a la Pa Ingalls for the day when shortages force us to resort to subsisting on raccoon jerky and pulled […]
December 31, 2019
The Life-Changing Power of Ancient Gum
I’ve never been a fan of celebrating the New Year—not the one that starts in January, at least (September is another story). It feels like an arbitrary division of time into then and now, and, coming right on the heels of Christmas, Hanukkah and my kids’ birthday—the yearly, exhausting triple threat—it’s a holiday I wish […]
October 30, 2019
My first and only Halloween book
On a recent trip to Maine, my parents gave me a big box of stuff from my childhood that had been living in their attic ever since they moved out of my childhood home 17 years ago. It contained many a gem, including teen heartthrob magazines from 1986 and 1987, Michael J. Fox pinups removed […]
September 23, 2019
The Circle Game
I spent this past weekend at a camp reunion at Hidden Valley Camp in Freedom, Maine. I spent every single summer there between the ages of zero and thirteen, as a “staff brat” (my mom was the program director) and then camper. It was and still is a magical place—an elemental ingredient of my childhood […]
September 3, 2019
Getting schooled by my kids
Happy September! We recently got back from an epic vacation through Colorado, Utah and a slice of Navajo Nation in a rented RV. (Pics over at Instagram) So I’m tempted to devote a whole post to that, and maybe I will at some point. But in the meantime, in honor of Ye Annual Back to […]
July 3, 2019
This Time it Worked
Back in January I attempted to do a little writing retreat and failed spectacularly. There were a number of factors at play—personal, logistical and otherwise—but one of them, I’m pretty sure, was the fact that I didn’t have one big, fat mega project I was working on at the time. In other words, I wasn’t […]
June 8, 2019
Early Morning Writing is Magic
When I was in my early twenties, and discovered that I wanted to be this thing called a writer, as opposed to just a copywriter, which I already was and continue to be to this day, I would get up an hour earlier than I needed to before work, pour myself an extremely large cup […]
March 21, 2019
Out with the old, in with the older
One of the household tasks I find most unpleasant is dealing with the things the girls have outgrown: Clothes, shoes, toys, etc. I regularly put off sorting through their cast-offs to determine out what to give to friends or others with younger kids, what to donate, what to save for posterity, and what to chuck. […]
February 20, 2019
“Mom, I Want to be a Vegetarian”
A couple of months ago, Clio spoke the words that strike terror into every meat-eating parent’s heart: “I want to be a vegetarian.” OK, maybe not terror. But that feeling you get when you realize that you’re going to have to expend more of your mental energy. Which, if you’re a working parent, you know […]
January 25, 2019
Failure to Retreat
As I’ve shared here many times in the past, I love taking the occasional writing getaway—sometimes by myself, sometimes with friends. Having the time and space, the detachment from work and family and household responsibilities, and a change of scene always works miracles in terms of my productivity. At least, it always has before. But […]
