Below are some links and books that I came across when doing some research on the subject:

Links

Dallas Chapter for the Native Plant Society of TX

Easy Native Garden Plans from NPSOT

Inviting Nature Back Home - A guide for native planting

Books

Easy Gardens for North Central Texas

Lawn Gone!

Texas Home Landscaping

Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region

Planting in a Post-Wild World

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki

So I took about 3 full weeks off of running in July — I swam for a couple of weeks (which I hated), and just continued lifting and doing some rehab exercises.

I started running again this week, but I have also added daily taping for my foot. One of the major things I noticed in this timeframe was if I wore running shoes during the day, I had significantly less tightness/pain in the mornings. After more research, I started taping my foot as well. I have never been a believer in taping of any kind, to be honest. But it has truly been a game changer for me. Far less pain, and even when I'm sitting for a while and get up to walk around, I experience almost no tightness in my heel. Great indicators that it's working.

Anyway, I'm only writing this as reminder to my future self. Some of the resources I have been using are below:

Foot taping technique - biggest win

Plantar Fasciitis Handout - NHS UK - particular the heel raises on a raised step

Fixing Your Feet - Still haven't read this yet, but it's top of my "next athletic reads" list.

But the truth is the things that happened last December have continued to have lasting impact on our family. Our daily life got turned upside-down, as we reckconed with the problem of Elaine's chronic migraines. They are debilitating, and while there have been moments, days, sometimes weeks of respite, the migraines always seem to be on the peripheral — an wanted house guest that has decided to make its way into our daily rhythms.

In many ways, life is "the same." I still work for Green Line, the girls still go to school, I still coach. Much of life now, however, is tinged with a melancholy that is hard to describe to people who do not have a similar experience. We are constantly trying to find new ways of fighting the migraines, constantly looking for the potential solution to the problem, and always wavering between a hope that things will get better and an acceptance that we are living in some kind of new normal.

The truth is also that our lives are strangely, severely cut through with new glimpses of the beauty surrounding us. In January and February, we were completely surrounded by the love and support of family and church community folks. I learned all year long that I have far more energy to give to my family than I ever thought possible before. We have all come to a deeper appreciation of our faith; I'm even praying and reading scripture regularly again, and often find myself wondering if pastoral work may be in my (distant, distant future).

It's true what they say. It is often the experiences in life you would never choose, the ones you avoid at all costs, that help tranform you into the person you ought to be. I can tell you that I will never, ever look at 2025 with any kind of simple fondness. But I may look at it as the year that changed me, that changed our family, that helped us to become strong and courageous and to learn to have faith again.

Music

Favorite Songs

As always, I've tried to keep track of my favorite songs of the year. The ones I returned to over and over again:

Spotify Wrapped didn't capture much of this because I used Apple Music as a test from August to October.

Favorite Albums

Not as big of a hip-hop year for me, especially in terms of new releases. Many of these albums are older, because I was heavily influenced by the Last Song Standing series this year on the best albums of the 21st century. My biggest, favorite albums this year:

• Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party - Hayley Williams
• Discovery - Daft Punk
• Snipe Hunter - Tyler Childers
• The Blueprint - Jay-Z
• Welcome to my Blue Sky - Momma

Movies

Lots of new movies were "meh" this year. Mid as the kids say.

• Inception - rewatch with Lyla, with her watching for the first time. Her mind was blown.
• K Pop Demon Hunters - okay, so it was actually good
• Marvel: Thunderbolts, Fantastic 4, Captain America: BNW (Thunderbolts was not bad, FF was just "okay", Captain America was pretty weak)
• Together (strange)
• Meet the Roses - provided some laughs, probably forgettable
• Superman (7.5/10)
• Materialists - one note the entire movie, boring
• Mickey 17 (weird, but okay sci-fi)
• The Woman in Cabin 10 - meh
• Companion - solid, Black Mirror-esque
• The Assessment - great concept, pretty bleak
• A House of Dynamite - not exactly realistic but a great thriller
• Wicked: For Good - okay, not even close to the first movie
• Sinners - a surprising vampire movie, enjoyable
• Die My Love
• My Neighbor Totoro
• Kiki's Delivery Service - these two Studio Ghiblis were maybe my favorite watches of the year
• Zootopia 2 - standard Pixar fare

TV

• The Pitt - show of the year, and it came out in January
• Andor - maybe I take back show of the year for the above, this was also incredible
• Your Friends & Neighbors - never disappointed with Jon Hamm
• Love is Blind (season whatever) - as always, trashy and great
• The $1 House - Tia Weston's YouTube channel, which we now look forward to every Sunday
• The Diplomat
• The Bear season 4
• Nobody Wants This season 2
• Pop Culture Jeopardy!
• US Open
• The Four Seasons
• Black Mirror season 7
• Daredevil (season 3 and Born Again), season 3 was definitely a top tier season of television

Books

• Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
• Dune (reread) - Frank Herbert
• Dark Matter - Blake Crouch
• The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (reread) - Susanna Clarke
• Prey - Michael Crichton
• Daniels Running Formula - Jack Daniels
• The Dream Hotel - Laila Lalami
• Annihilation (reread) - Jeff VenderMeer
• Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
• Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
• The Deep Places - Ross Douthat
• Your Money or Your Life - Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez
• Persepolis Rising - James S. A. Corey
• Tiamat's Wrath (finishing now) - James S. A. Corey
• Dilla Time - Dan Charnas

Everything Else

• One major milestone was my goal over the summer of training for a 5:30 1600m. I trained myself all summer using the Daniels' Running Formula method, and boy did it work. I started the summer at 6:00 flat, and by Labor Day was able to run a 5:36. I have not been that fast since high school, so that was a fun experiment.
• Speaking of running, the cross country season was excellent this year. I also used much of the running formula to help train the team, and nearly all students PRed at the state meet, along with all running PRs at some point during the season.
• I know a lot about migraines. And treatments for migraines.
• I became the athletic director for the girls' school. TBD if that was a good idea or a terrible one.
• A couple hunting trips throughout the year, and although I'm sure I've gotten my own birds before, a recent trip resulted in me nailing a teal with 100% certainty! (no one else was shooting at the time). Felt like a big moment.
• Favorite podcasts this year were The Bible Project, Ross Douthat's Interesting Times, some Ezra Klein Show, the returned Heavyweight, and Last Song Standing/Dissect

But what if Christianity is not water? What if, instead, we understand the Christian era as a clearing in a forest? The forest is paganism: dark, wild, vigorous, and menacing, but also magical in its way. For two thousand years, Christians pushed the forest back, with burning and hacking, but also with pruning and cultivating, creating a garden in the clearing with a view upward to heaven.

-Louis Perry, "We Are Repaganizing"

Great and thought-provoking piece from a 'non-Christian.'

This particular quote connected for me to the recent Bible Project series on the wilderness, an excellent theme study of how the notion of the wilderness shows up in the Old and New Testaments, and how they are connected to the Creation narrative, Israel's ancient history, and Jesus' life.

One of the ideas surrounding the wilderness in Genesis is that the Garden of Eden itself is surrounded by the wilderness, and that is where the humans are cast out after the Fall. Throughout the Old Testament stories, the wilderness is a place where God's abundant life is not often found, outside of "little gardens" or surprise encounters. God often also uses the wilderness to teach and prepare humans for what he has for them. This particular quote brought this to mind though — the wilderness is something constantly encroaching or surrounding the fertile places. It's a harsh place. Not necessarily devoid of life, but devoid of abundance and God's generous good gifts.

In Perry's piece, she notes that the world looks like it's repaganizing, turning to "older" ways in which humans have structured society. She sees Christianity as a small area in a dark, wild forest. A place where humans have cultivated societies which actively care for the poor and weak. Given that this has not historically been the norm for human societies (quite the opposite), she views the historical period we've lived through as an anomaly, one that has had paganism encroaching on it, waiting to overtake it. Much like the wilderness in the Creation narrative.