Blog

I launched my blog in 2009 when I was wrestling with a midlife crisis. Since then, the digital world has changed so much. I was new to both Facebook and Twitter when I started blogging, and I was still rocking the BlackBerry for email. Instagram hadn’t launched yet. Podcasting and short videos are what the cool kids do these days, blogging is considered old fashioned. But I still find it the best way to share my thoughts and to profile people who inspire me.

I hope you’ll find something here that inspires you, or at least sparks a conversation. Some of my favorite posts are pinned to the top, scroll down a bit more to find the most recent, or check out the categories in the sidebar.


Would you like to take a manageable sabbatical?

Would you like to take a manageable sabbatical?

We’ve taken extended trips to New Orleans and San Francisco. We also lived in New York for a month before ultimately moving.
Because so many people have asked how we’re able to pick up and live elsewhere for a few weeks, I’m starting work on an e-book answering that question.

Turning around to face my fears

Turning around to face my fears

One night, when I was having a recurring nightmare of being chased by an unknown attacker, I just stopped.
I turned around to finally see who was chasing me.
When I stopped running, he stopped running.
And I woke up.
I have never had that nightmare again.

Pointers on hosting simple weekday suppers

My husband and I have thrown dinner parties for years, but I always thought of them as big social occasions — a reason to haul out John’s mom’s silver, to set a proper table with fresh flowers and present a multi-course sit-down meal. We started hosting weekday spaghetti suppers late last year, inspired by our friend Pableaux’s weekly red beans…

Making our own luck by being open to possibility

Late in the summer, I finally made it through an aging copy of Psychology Today in a magazine stack next to the bed. I kept that magazine since 2010 because its cover promoted an article on making your own luck, though I can’t begin to explain why it took me two years to read a well-written piece on a topic…

Day 29: Life's messy and that's OK

There are certain life events that seem to amplify our natural tendencies toward perfectionism — planning a wedding and hosting Thanksgiving dinner among them.
We pull out a Martha Stewart yard stick to measure our efforts and almost certainly fall short. In real life, most of us don’t have a staff of dozens invisibily helping and we won’t make five turkeys so we can photograph whichever one looks most perfectly golden, then Photoshop out any flaws.
In short, real life is messy.

Lucy and Ricky beds might help your marriage

What do you think when you watch re-runs of old TV shows where married couples retire to a bedroom with two twin beds a very safe distance from one another? You might make a joke about how Lucy got pregnant with Ricky way over there — remember, it was a time when you couldn’t even say “pregnant” on TV —…

What adventures call to your heart?

What adventures call to your heart?

How the hell do you do that? It’s a question my husband and I have gotten frequently since 2011. That’s when we first went to live in New Orleans for two months. Since then we’ve returned to New Orleans multiple times, we have lived for a month in San Francisco, then after that in a small town in southern Long Island close…

My husband has helped me become a better person

We just celebrated 21 years of marriage John and I got married 21 years ago today. I can confidently say I love him more today than I did back then. One of the reasons I love him more is that I love me more – and that’s in part because he’s helped me grow into a happier, healthier, more loving and generous…

Have you told yourself it’s too late?

Where did you get your ideas about what it means to get older? Are they serving you? Too late I have this vivid memory: I’m in middle school, that time when being cool becomes so intensely important. I get a too-short haircut I hate. I worry about how long it will take to grow my hair back out, because what if…

What kind of love do you love?

Getting clear on what you need can help you teach your loved ones what to do for you And you thought the Bernie memes were done … What is your ideal Valentine? If you watch Valentine’s Day ads, you would assume every woman is pining for roses, diamonds and a car. If they are moms in pandemic, they might actually just want…

Were you hoping 2021 would be easy?

Even though we knew a new calendar doesn’t fix anything, so many of us were looking forward to a fresh start. The occupation of the U.S. Capitol showed us the error of our ways. Are we really still only in January? Just this month, we’ve watched video of armed protesters overtaking the U.S. Capitol, read about a new more contagious…

Just make a choice that’s 1% better today

Even if the external environment stays as troubling as it is, we can make small tweaks to improve our day-to-day lives. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear advocates for small improvements compounding over time. He calculated that if a plane takes off in Los Angeles bound for New York but it’s off course by just 3.5 degrees, it will land in Washington,…

Playing is not goofing off. It’s essential.

With all the extra work of staying on top of 2020’s challenges, have you lost the time and energy for fun? Girls just wanna have fun … I bet you do, too. Just like kids, we need recess, too. When you hear “play,” do you translate that to goofing off or wasting time? Do you feel you’re just too busy for…

What’s changed for you in the pandemic?

Do you know that adage about the frog in a pot of boiling water —  the frog doesn’t notice as the temperature slowly rises until he’s eventually boiling? If you’ve been too busy just staying afloat to reflect on how your life has changed during the pandemic, maybe it’s time to take the temperature of your water. What’s better? What’s worse?…

There is no status quo, life is always changing

We can get so attached to the way things are, which can mean working really hard to protect against any dangers we imagine. But who imagined the coronavirus pandemic and related recession rocking our worlds, followed by demonstrations for racial justice? Could you have planned for 2020’s many jolts to our before lives? The truth is: Life is always changing. Once…

I am the daughter of survivors

I am the daughter of survivors

We are here, you and I, because our mothers lived long enough to bring us into the world. And their mothers survived and their mothers before them.

We inherited the DNA of survivors.

Whatever your family suffered through, whether that’s slavery, war or the Holocaust, your bloodline was not snuffed out. The women who delivered you here endured.

Marking the darkest day in the year's cycle

Happy winter solstice! For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Dec. 21 is when we get the shortest day in the sun’s light. So many people are racing to get holiday shopping done, to get to one more party, or to get to their family gathering, that it sounds like many of us are locked in a battle with…