Melissa Westemeier

I feel like I sat down to write this month and never came up for air but that's not entirely true!

It's RASPBERRY SEASON! When I was growing up my grandma had a raspberry patch behind her garage and I thought the coolest thing was picking and eating my fill back there in the summertime. I couldn't wait to start my own patch, and my sweet neighbors Jim and Janet, donated my first canes from their abundant garden. After we built our shed in in 2013, I transplanted those canes and added more to this strip between the building and the sidewalk. It's an ideal location because t

After a slow, cold, wet spring, Wisconsin finally got a blast of proper balmy weather! I spent last weekend outside making some sweet discoveries. A year ago my favorite nature preserve underwent extensive logging. I felt sad to see the trees go, but many were dead from disease and compromised the health of other trees. Naturally, losing so much canopy meant many new grasses and plants took over the ground below and I worried I'd seen the end of the trillium. Trillium are the

When I was young I remember making umbrellas out of construction paper and our teacher hung them on the classroom wall with the words " April Showers Bring May Flowers ." In May we cut tulips and other flowers from the stack of construction paper to replace those umbrellas. The smell of Elmer's Glue brings me back in time... Spring's a sloppy season for Midwesterners. In a single day we can get snow, sleet, seventy degrees and sunshine, a tornado warning, and torrential rain.

I blinked hard the other day when I saw the calendar. How was it only January 11? It felt like February 20. I'm not built for so much stuff happening at once, my mind cannot process it. Obviously when the world gets crazy, it makes sense to hunker down occasionally and re-calibrate so the stress levels don't go totally bonkers. For me that means writing a new book, and readers, I AM OBSESSED with this project. I'm closing in on 48,000 words this week (which means nothing to

This will always be my favorite turkey--disguised as Darth Vader to escape slaughter. Hearing my favorite song on the radio when I start my car Finding exactly the right amount of a spice or seasoning (or flour or oil or whatever) in my pantry when I'm in the middle of making a recipe Sleeping through the night and waking up before my alarm, feeling well-rested Waking up without that stupid ache in my right shoulder Reaching something on a tall shelf without needing to find a