monastery — Hannah Elise Schultz

Adventures in
Serendipity

— Hannah Schultz (biographical name): a Kentuckian, traveler, professor, hiker, environmentalist, and Great Pyrenees enthusiast

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

Travel With Me: A Toddler-Friendly Trip to Ireland in January (Dublin & Belfast)

If you’ve been a long-time follower of the blog (or know me personally), you might remember that I last visited Ireland in 2017 as a new college graduate on a whirlwind backpacking trip with one of my oldest friends. On that trip, not only was I a fresh-faced, sprightly new college grad, but I was on an incredibly tight budget and visiting in the summer. This time, I approached my visit to Ireland as an exhausted toddler-mom with a slightly larger budget and less flexibility, and we also had to navigate the various difficulties of Irish winter weather.

A Reflective Walk in the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother (Portland, Oregon)

In 1924, three thousand people gathered for the first mass and dedication of the Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother. At the blessing, Archbishop Alexander Christie offered this prayer: “Let this be a sanctuary of peace for all peoples of the earth and surely in this day a sanctuary is needed. Torn with differences, strife, and grief, the world needs sanctuary where the human spirit can seek peace and consolation.”

Hiking, TravelHannah SchultzApril 14, 2019portland, oregon, national sanctuary of our sorrowful mother, grotto, servite order, monastery, botanical garden, catholic, mass, cave, shrine, pilgrimmage Comment

Jan 18, 2026

Travel, Hiking

Life

A Year in Pictures: 2025

Unsurprisingly (at least to those familiar with my daily life), I missed my annual year in review post for 2024. I had my daughter in the fall of 2023, then scraped together my last remaining brain cells to balance teaching and finishing my dissertation in 2024. Fall 2024 was also when we lost Argos, my soul dog whom I’d had since childhood; he survived osteosarcoma against every odd but died unexpectedly in his sleep from a heart condition. In the midst of parenting, dissertating, and grief, a year in review post on my now seldom-used blog was not at the top of my priorities list.

Mar 5, 2025

Our (Mostly) Secondhand, Low-Waste Nursery

One of the things I’ll emphasize throughout this post is how much money you will save by going the more sustainable route (hint: it’s A LOT), but it is by no means the only positive outcome. By being a conscious consumer, you’re creating less waste, making a more stress-free environment for both you and baby, choosing materials and ingredients that are best for baby’s health and development, and more. Babies don’t actually need that much stuff and while we’re by no means minimalists, one of the first sustainable choices we made was to forgo a lot of the extraneous baby things that our consumerist society tells you that you need (even though you really don’t).

Adventures inSerendipity

— Hannah Schultz (biographical name): a Kentuckian, traveler, professor, hiker, environmentalist, and Great Pyrenees enthusiast

Adventures in
Serendipity