By Jennie Reichman We are entering the time of year when shopping is tantamount. Somewhere around the week before Thanksgiving, everyone really gets it that summer is over, winter is in the wings, and Christmas is (yikes!) a few weeks away. For several days before we...

Sometimes I think my cats do hilarious things just to give me something to write about.  Often this involves chasing a mouse, although it's not so hilarious when they do it in the middle of the night. Here’s how it unfolded recently: They had been...

By Jennie Reichman Have you ever been brave?  Even if your initial answer is “no,” I bet you’ve done or said things that have challenged your sense of safety, things that have involved risk, that evoked the sense of jumping off a cliff into the unknown....

By Jennie Reichman I had the opportunity recently to travel somewhere I’d never been, a place not necessarily on my bucket list and that I’d not given much thought to: Annapolis, Maryland. My longtime friend Carol’s sister Cathi (who lived in Annapolis with her husband Robin)...

NEW VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES Experienced Goods is looking for volunteers to complete our team! This is a great chance to work at a vibrant community-based nonprofit whose mission is to raise money for Brattleboro Area Hospice. Are you interested? Here’s what we are looking for: SALES FLOOR ASSISTANTS This position...

by Jennie Reichman It's August. It's hot. My tomato plants have lost their minds and are trying to take over the world. I am to blame for this because, even though I put cages around them when I first planted them and staked them up when...

by Jennie Reichman Lately I find myself doing battle with a word: Aging.  I rebel against the idea that after, say, age 50, I should think of myself as “old” and act, dress, talk and engage in the world differently than I previously did when I...

by Jennie Reichman My friend Carol is a devotee of the spice company Penzey’s. Every year for Christmas and my birthday she gives me a little jar of their Vietnamese cinnamon and a couple of their signature herb blends, all very inventive and delicious on any...

by Jennie Reichman There are so many reasons I love living in Vermont, but the month of May is definitely near the top of the list. There are bright, blooming colors everywhere: daffodils, tulips, forsythia, azalea, tiny electric green leaves emerging on the trees. The sun is actually warm,...

by Jennie Reichman I recently heard an interview on NPR with David Frum, a senior editor and writer at The Atlantic.  He had written a piece for the magazine called “Miranda’s Last Gift,” about the sudden death of his 32-year-old daughter and the grief he and...