All posts tagged: self-care

KATHERINE MAY’S NYT BESTSELLER: WINTERING & HOW IT RELATES TO A PERIOD OF TIME IN MY LIFE

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By Leslie Lindsay How does one care for and repair ourselves when we find ourselves slipping through the cracks? ~NONFICTION SPOTLIGHT|ALWAYS WITH BOOK~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A meditation in what it means to winter, this intimate, part-memoir, part exploration, part essay, WINTERING by Katherine May (Riverhead, November 2020) explores all the ways winter is a lesson in self-care, healing, and rejuvenation. I once believed I could live in the northern climate of Minnesota. My mother scoffed, “It’s one of the coldest places we have in the U.S. Why would you want to go there?”  Simple: I had a job at the Mayo Clinic. I also wanted to get away from my wildly unstable, mentally ill mother. Still, her warning, her motherly instinct to shelter me from the harsh realities of a 6-8 month long winter, was somewhat…comforting. As children had been doing for eons, I defied her. I moved to Minnesota. Encapsulated in the snowy drifts and what I am sure was my first real blizzard, I hunkered down. I sat in the bay …

Wife, mother, and advocate Teresa Unnerstall dives in head-first with her all-hands-on-deck approach to navigating an autism & Down’s syndrome diagnosis in her new book, A NEW COURSE

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By Leslie Lindsay  With humor, kindness, and practical advice, mother, writer, and special needs advocate absolutely has all-hands on deck as she traverses the choppy waters of a child with a dual-diagnosis. ~BOOKS ON MONDAY|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ Teresa Unnerstall doesn’t tip her toes into the water of Down’s syndrome and autism, she dives head-first into the deep-end. Told with wit, compassion, faith, empathy, brutal honesty, and gentle advocacy, A NEW COURSE: A Mother’s Journey Navigating Down’s syndrome and autism (Kat Biggie Press, May 5 2020) is a beacon of light for a parent traversing the rocky waters of a DS-ASD dual-diagnosis. I found myself wholly engaged in this book—the worries, the fears, the emotional ups and downs. Teresa proves that she is just like any other mother—but so much more. She created laminated picture cards for her son and taped them to the shower wall so he’d know the steps for self-hygiene. When she wasn’t doing that, she researched behavioral therapies and looked into school programs and advocated for her son. Somedays, she’s cleaned …