Jess Ann Kirby

6 days ago | jessannkirby.substack.com | Jess Ann Kirby

I’ve been feeling particularly nostalgic lately. Perhaps that’s not the right word, but longing to freeze time. Mothering didn’t come easy to me. I never felt born or destined to be a mother. I didn’t savor those early days or months, or long to go back. My lack of fondness for motherhood when my daughter was a baby sometimes left me questioning my fitness to be one. The first few years felt like the getting to know you phase. I longed for these days, when mothering felt easier (for me).

1 week ago | jessannkirby.substack.com | Jess Ann Kirby

There are few things I love more this time of year than a greenhouse, and when I realized our middle/high school has their own, I thought it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Not only that, but they start tons of plants from seed, and sell them, for a fraction of the price you’d find at a big box store (ahem, Home Depot). We stocked up on plants this week, and we may or may not be purchasing a log injected with mushrooms so we can grow our own oyster mushrooms.

2 weeks ago | jessannkirby.substack.com | Jess Ann Kirby

Almost halfway into my second no buy year I’ve gone approximately 550 days purchasing nothing new (save for a few exceptions). For someone who used to get packages almost daily, it’s been quite a transformation. I’m embarrassed by the sheer amount of stuff I used to acquire and cycle through because it was just a normal part of “doing business.”But having that amount of stuff is NOT normal, and I regret that I was a part of normalizing it. Looking back, the consumption cycle was like a drug.

2 weeks ago | jessannkirby.substack.com | Jess Ann Kirby

Hey there, CRL is a day late because Iā€™m coming off a week that included me getting food poisoning mid-flight (absolute worst case scenario, will never eat sprouts again). The flight was also delayed, so we missed our connection and got stuck in Detroit (slept 4 hours), then were re-routed to New York before finally flying back to Vermont. Needless to say, it wrecked me a bit. Silver lining, my 5-year-old was an absolute angel.

3 weeks ago | jessannkirby.substack.com | Jess Ann Kirby

Every week things get more disturbing. Now, it’s hitting very close to home. Vermont state prisons are now increasingly being used by the federal government for immigration detention. This week a Columbia University student was tricked into going to an “interview” for his citizenship process only to be arrested, handcuffed, and taken away by masked people in unmarked cars.