I knew, but I don’t think I actually knew knew just how all encompassing a baby is. At over six months in, life is finally settling from the chaotic feeling of wondering how we’re going to get through the day to having routines and bits of time in the evening to read or putz around. And I’m starting to feel pretty confident at this whole dad thing.
My other big project was transforming a typical Dutch back garden (read: all cement pavers) into something inspired by wildlife gardens. It’s a mix of grass, herbs, vines, perennials that bloom throughout the season, and a mini-pond. This all attracts a steady stream of bumblebees, dragonflies and other pollinators. When I started, the whole thing was overrun with slugs, but predators that eat slug larvae have appeared, so my mini-eco…
I knew, but I don’t think I actually knew knew just how all encompassing a baby is. At over six months in, life is finally settling from the chaotic feeling of wondering how we’re going to get through the day to having routines and bits of time in the evening to read or putz around. And I’m starting to feel pretty confident at this whole dad thing.
My other big project was transforming a typical Dutch back garden (read: all cement pavers) into something inspired by wildlife gardens. It’s a mix of grass, herbs, vines, perennials that bloom throughout the season, and a mini-pond. This all attracts a steady stream of bumblebees, dragonflies and other pollinators. When I started, the whole thing was overrun with slugs, but predators that eat slug larvae have appeared, so my mini-ecosystem is balancing out.
IJburg has no actual dirt. It’s just sand, and the garden has a brutal southern exposure. It’s taken a lot of trial and error, compost and patience to get anything to grow. But it’s been worth it to have a little bit of simulated nature right out the door.
I’m coming up on the end of my first year of my MA in Buddhist Studies. This has been a rewarding experience. It’s one thing to have opinions about practice and Buddhist theory; it’s another thing to be able to back those up and thread a coherent argument. I’m already starting the slow process of dissertation research in the area of lay practice in the Pāli suttas. I’ve looked at these texts haphazardly for years. Now I have a completely different perspective when I organise dozens of of them into charts, broken down by phrase by phrase, and am trying not to read them through the lens of commentaries composed hundreds of years after the original texts.
I think this is the first year I’ve enjoyed Halloween. I’d never noticed how transitional it is. The days are now much shorter; there’s no mistaking that summer is long past. We had 29 trick-or-treaters. Not a lot, but enough for a festive evening. There’s something special about this time of year as we start spending the long, dark evenings inside and together. The house gets cosier, we always celebrate American Thanksgiving, and Christmas is a nice time to look forward to.