This week was all about slipping back into my routine after my time in Iceland.
ONE. VOLUNTEERING W/ FRIENDS OF EAST END CEMETERY.
East End and Evergreen Cemeteries are historic African American burial grounds, just outside the city limits of Richmond Virginia. For a lot of years, these cemeteries were neglected, especially while they were privately owned. Now, they’re under city ownership, and an incredible group of volunteers is working diligently to clear back brush and debris, uncover gravestones buried under decades of neglect, and generally restore what was and is an integral part of our city’s history.
I’ve volunteered twice, including on my very first Saturday back from Iceland, and both times I’ve found the experience impactful and rewarding. At the end of a three-hour shift, you can see the difference you’ve made, and it’s incredible to see new gravestones unearthed, cleaned up and remembered.
TWO. STORYGRAPH.
This is for my fellow readers. It is a plea. If you are a reader, chances are, you have a Goodreads account. Maybe you use it often to track your reads or to compile an ever-growing list of books you want to read, but however prolific your pursuits with Goodreads, I feel confident that if you’ve ever used that platform, you have, at some point, become annoyed. Maybe even enraged. That’s because Goodreads is not, as the name might suggest, good.
Enter StoryGraph, a platform for tracking your reads that works, one that really is good, one that gives you data and graphs, and real recommendations. Follow me there, in the Better Place, on StoryGraph, @terragoes.
(And if you’re like, oh, no, I don’t want to lose all my Goodreads history, I don’t want to hear it, you can import that history into StoryGraph.)
THREE. THE NOBLE PODCAST.
This is horrifying, truly. It’s about the town of Noble, Georgia – and calling it town is quite generous – and that one time in 2002 when more than 300 bodies were found on a crematory property. It’s devastating and despicable, but also, asks questions about death and what, especially, do we owe the dead?
FOUR. BROWN COW MAPLE YOGURT.
In December, a family member from Maine stayed with me and introduced me to this yogurt and I’ve eaten it with a pile of fruit & nut granola pretty much every day since. It’s so good, so creamy, and it keeps me feeling full for the whole morning.
FIVE. THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB BOOKS.
I love this series so much. It’s set in the UK, and centers around a group of retired seniors who meet on Thursdays to discuss – and assist in solving – murders. That’s the basic premise, but these books are about so much more than that. The characters are all so lovely, the tone is quippy, light and fun, and, for me, they’re the perfect books to read in between a few heavier, more literary tomes.
I really didn’t intend for this week’s list to be so death heavy, but alas.