Published in February and March 2020
It hasn’t happened to me – I’m busy juggling my home-based business with home schooling these days. But I hear that a lot of people have a lot of extra time on their hands these days. If that includes you, here are links to all the articles I published in February and March. Maybe you’ll read them all and find something useful.
Earth911
Easy Carbon Sequestration You Can Do Yourself (hint: plant a tree)
What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Power This is the last article in my series about energy. It seems so long ago now, I’d almost forgotten about it.
Pesticides in the Pantry: Do Food Manufacturers Care? (Preliminary results: not really.)
Home Energy Audit Basics This is actually a reprint, but if all this at-home time has you think about energy efficiency, it’s a good place to start.
Slow Travel Is More Sustainable Travel It also slows the spread of disease, but I wasn’t thinking about that yet when I wrote it.
Breaking America’s Paper Towel Addiction Another reprint. Considering our current concern over germs, I don’t think the switch to reusable products is going to happen this year.
Efficient Toilets: A Buyers Guide It’s been a while since I did a buyers guide.
EARTHRISE for Earth Day 2020 The first in a series of articles for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
The Great Global Cleanup – Earth Day 2020 The second in a series of articles for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
.
ParentMap
Virtual Outings and Field Trips for Seattle-Area Families Since most physical outings are off the table.
6 Great Geek Conventions for Families This was a reprint, and I’m so glad I did the work last year, since most of these probably won’t be happening now.
Take Your Kids to the Children’s Film Festival Seattle The festival would have been over by now anyway. As it stands, they had to shut down partway through, so many of the screenings may eventually find their way online or be rescheduled later in the year.
What’s Your Financial Strategy for Your Kid’s Education? Well, do as I say, not as I do.
Every year, ParentMap’s April issue is dedicated to local superheroes. Meeting these people is always one of my favorite projects of the year. And since digital stories publish sooner than print, they get to show up now in my March roundup.
.
Seattle Times
‘Frozen’ at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre: Let go of prior expectations as Disney’s blockbuster film hits the stage After years of fighting the Disney princess juggernaut, I loved the musical theater version of Frozen. Go figure.
Celebrate love and art with these Valentine’s Day events around Seattle Well, maybe you can use the ideas for next year.
Seattle Opera may have the country’s only opera scholar in residence, helping make the art form more diverse and relevant This was one of my favorite stories ever. Naomi Andre is so cool, and getting a peek behind the opera scenes was a treat I’ll not soon forget.
What do our 11- and 15-year-old reviewers — and their mom — think of new musical ‘Bliss’ at Seattle’s 5th Ave? How ironic. Only weeks after enjoying a musical about why shouldn’t lock your princesses in a tower, we’re required to do just that. But at least my kids got their first major metropolitan newspaper byline out of it.
Meet Lina Gonzalez-Granados, one of the first Latin American women to hold a conducting position with the Seattle Symphony There are so few female conductors in the world, it was a pleasure to learn about one of them.
Seattle has one of the largest youth orchestra training programs in the U.S. Meet its new leader. What are the odds of getting to interview two Colombian conductors in Seattle in one week?
Resources for child care and at-home learning for kids to teens as we wait out coronavirus closures I rewrote this article at least four times in as many days. Every time it was almost complete, the situation changed significantly. I’m glad I usually write features instead of news. That stuff is stressful.
.
Crooked Road Blog
In February, I posted 9 times on the blog. In March, the number spiked to 14 thanks to the addition of near-daily Pandemic Home School Diary posts.
The top two posts in February were ballet related:
Pacific Northwest Ballet Completes My Cinderella Season
The Evolution of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake
They were followed by the category page for posts about China, which was a first for me. I’ve never seen a category page show up in my stats before.
The fourth and fifth most popular posts are old favorites and show up most months:
The Looney Tunes World of Marriage of Figaro
In March, the most popular posts were:
Appropriations – Maybe people looked at this Constitution post because of the coronavirus package?
Necessary and Proper Clause Same as above?
Declaring War Or maybe some homeschool high schoolers had to research the Constitution?
The Evolution of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake
Looking Forward to Seattle Opera’s 2020-21 Season Well, since the rest of this season got cancelled, I can see why people would be interested in next season.
Referrals
The top sources of traffic in February and March were the usual suspects: Twitter, my author bio on Earth911.com, my personal Facebook page, and my byline links on ParentMap. More interesting was the fact that my referrals from search results on Baidu were almost as high as Google. Speaking of search results:
Yay! I finally found search queries! In February, the top searches leading to my site were:
backxwash – this was music I liked
bruno roque – I didn’t recognize the name at first, but Roque choreographed Anamnesis, performed by Seattle Dance Collective last summer. I really hope they get to perform again this summer.
gemma alexander – They like me! They really like me!
growth of the soil – I read this interesting work by a Nobel prize-winning racist author as trip preparations for Norway.
is porgy and bess racist – The question of racism in Porgy & Bess is much more nuanced.
In March, the top search terms were: constitution; growth of the soil; what is constitutiom; what is constution; and que es una constitucion. Does that mean I have misspelled the word often on my blog? I dunno.
About The Author
GD
I'm a freelance writer in Seattle specializing in parenting, arts and the environment.