vanwestervelt

  • Slow Down: Abandon the Speed of Your Newsfeed

    My newsfeeds on multiple social media sites stream by me at a too-fast rate, pushing news and updates across my screen faster than I can refresh them. Emails await my replies in an overflowing inbox, and text messages are still unanswered from last night. The world is too much with us…. wrote William Wordsworth in…

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  • An Afternoon in Butler, MD

    The following photos were all taken in Butler, MD, earlier this afternoon while on our way to Maryland Saddlery. Madelyn needed a new bit for her bridle, so Braeden and I took to the back roads to snap a few photos. All of these pictures were taken within 2 miles of the Saddlery. There’s beauty…

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  • When Mom’s Organics first opened in Lutherville a few years ago, I scoffed a little at the charging stations they reserved in the front spaces of their parking lot. I just didn’t think the whole electric car thing had caught on in this area to justify reserved spaces. Well, today I stand corrected. It makes…

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  • There’s an old barn on Deer Park Road in Finksburg, MD, that I have passed over 2,000 times in the past 7 years. It stands rather defiantly, showing the wear of decades of harsh weather. Each time I pass it, I am drawn to its stand-alone beauty against a backdrop of rolling hills of farmland and…

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  • Moving Day

    This moving day was long overdue. For the last week or so, I have been planning the best way to simplify and streamline my writing and my social media experience. Many years ago, I decided to use BlueHost to handle my various sites. At that time, it was a good decision; the difference between free…

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  • Christmas Is For Children, But They Give Us These Three Greatest Gifts

    We hear and see it everywhere — from the non-stop Christmas music being played on radio stations to the holiday movies that we love to watch in the comfort of our own homes: Christmas is for kids. I remember those early mornings, waking up before sunrise to see what magically appeared under the tree overnight.…

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  • It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Put YOURSELF first to be selfLESS? Such a contradiction, right? I mean, it goes against everything that we’ve been taught. How HORRIBLE of you to think of yourself first! Do you realize how much more helpful you could be if you devoted more time to others? Instead of taking that…

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