It’s been a pretty chilly January in NYC so far, and I’m writing on a holiday Monday that happens to be especially frigid. Tomorrow will supposedly be the coldest day of winter so far. To be honest, I’m loving the coziness and quiet of this month. It’s similar to my love affair with January last year, though with a little more indoor time. In any case, the thing I wanted to touch upon today was a series of conversations that I had with…

I’m sure that I’m not the only person who felt the jolt of the first full work week of the new year. I was ready to be back in the swing of things, but as soon as Monday morning came, I felt myself battling overwhelm. It was happy timing that I had a copy of Tarthang Tulku’s The Gift of Work queued up in my Kindle. Tulku, a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, writes, “through work we contribute energy to life, investing our body,…

A quick little story about cookie boxes. For the past two years, it’s been my intention to make cookie boxes as holiday gifts for my friends and family. I haven’t gotten around to it, thanks to long work hours and busy months of December. When I told this to a friend a few weeks ago, her reply was, “God, Gena. That’s a lot.” Moments later, she qualified the reaction, noting that half of the effort would be to gather up the requisite materials:…