I’m excited to announce a new venture of mine, grounded in two of my passions: poetry and photography. It’s Haiku Austin — a poetic, pictorial ode to all things ATX — and it’ll be published in late April/early May.
Having recently been “made redundant” at work, I’m happy to take this opportunity to dive into this passion project head first. In a few days, i’m launching a Kickstarter to pay for the printing costs. I hope you’ll check it out and consider backing it. In the meantime, if you like what you see here (you don’t have to be an Austinite to appreciate cool pics & fun poems, after all) then go to the site and get yourself on the email list.
I’m sending out fresh little haiku every now and then, along with updates on the Kickstarter and the book’s printing. Feel free to follow along on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, too. The more the merrier!
I’ll still keep writing my Well-Versed Mom blog, as inspiration strikes.
Go ahead, check out Haiku Austin, and (as always) thank you for your encouragement and support.
You should see Austin right now.
It’s sunny…crisp….breezy…and horrible.
We’re experiencing a major pollen apocalypse (apollencalypse?) — courtesy of the “mountain cedar” (Juniperus ashei) that calls the Texas Hill Country home. Thanks to just the right combo of abundant autumn rain and early winter cold snap, these trees are producing copious amounts of the burnt orange pollen for which they’re infamous.
Check out this video making the rounds on Facebook. A friend of a friend filmed it from his back porch. That’s not smoke you see wafting through the hillside.
The stuff is making everyone here miserable. Snot-streaming noses, puffy eyes and migraine-grade headaches are par for the course. All the free tissue boxes at my office have been nabbed. I even heard that two moms got into a kickboxing brawl over the last neti pot at Whole Foods.
Some folks propose reducing the juniper population, while others want simply to eradicate the hated tree — an impractical if not impossible task, given that it covers millions of acres throughout Texas. Me, I’ve got a different idea, noted below. Of course, I’ll still be keeping the Benadryl and Kleenex stockpiled next to my bed…along with my new neti pot from Whole Foods.
Spring in the Texas Hill Country brings balmy weather and bluebonnets, bleary eyes and beet-red noses. It’s allergy time, after all, thanks to the lovely trees and flowers that grace our landscape and produce pollen by the pound. It’s really a shame, because the weather’s just so wonderful right now — but if you’re an allergy sufferer in Austin, it’s anything but enjoyable.
The Well-Versed Mom 