My kids have spent approximately 1 million hours staring at screens this summer, and this morning my horror at my own lazy parenting came to a head. “NO SCREENS!” I intoned. I helped my distraught 10-year-old recover from the shock by brainstorming what she could do instead. Number 1 on her list was “Have a lemonade stand,” an activity I … Read More
Issue 13: It Was Like an Episode of Fixer-Upper
This is how my town works. A couple issues back, in this very newsletter, I said the following: My husband complained about a pothole the other day and I thought, “We really need this app.” And within, like, 5 minutes of pressing send on that puppy, Blacksburg’s community relations manager, Heather Browning, emails me. “Hey Melody, we have just what … Read More
Issue 8: It’s Hard to Love Your City When It’s Cold Out
On Wednesday it was 62 degrees here in Blacksburg, and it felt like the earth had been reborn, and all of us right along with it. A teacher at my daughter’s school said, “This weather is tricking me into being happy.” After the bell rang, families lingered. Kids swarmed the monkey bars while their parents peeled off the layers of … Read More
A 2-Minute Exercise for Feeling Happier Where You Live
When I was a bummed-out teenager, I hit on an exercise that seemed magically to make me feel better. I called it the Happy List. I took out a few sheets of notebook paper and brainstormed as many things that made me happy as I could. Sleeping in crisp white sheets. Sitting in the sunshine. Cuddling with my cat. Watching … Read More
Love Where You Live experiment: Go to a parade
It’s Wednesday night, dinnertime, and I’m weaving at top speed through the back roads of Blacksburg, trying to make it downtown before the snare drums do. Cranking my window down as I parallel park, I cock an ear. Are they coming? Is that a distant brass section or just the complaints of Main Street traffic? Finally jammed into a mostly … Read More