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.
I feel strongly about supporting local businesses — they contribute to the character of my community so my job is to financially contribute to their success. Their job is to make that possible. If you make it hard for me to spend money in your shop, depending on how much I like you and your establishment, I might try try…
John and I both committed to daily creativity in November: I launched the Month of Thanksgiving with the declaration I would blog every day, and John rolled out 30 Paintings in 30 Days, in which he created a daily series of art works themed on things we love to eat and drink. So I felt a kinship as I watched…
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming … I’ve been blogging about gratitude for the last month and now it’s time to shift back to writing more broadly about reinvention and transformation. Apparently the New York Times knew I might need some help with blog topics, since the business editors packed three good stories of reinvention today: Wines,…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 32 — the final day: For every comment of Thanksgiving, I will make a $1 donation to Feeding America Lots of us…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 31: How will you celebrate your gratitude tomorrow? Is it a long tradition or a new idea? When I launched the Month…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 30: Tweeting about thankfulness and getting ideas from a blog Thanksgiving is this week and that means lots of other people are…
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.
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 28: Giving thanks for my family The New York Times had an article earlier this week about breathtakingly bad behavior family members…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 27: Giving thanks for my friends Yesterday I gave thanks for my hubby, John Tebeau, my best friend. I’m also grateful for…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 26: An open love letter to my husband, who I am beyond grateful for Earlier this week, I wrote a post giving…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 25: Some of the early contest entries from people sharing why they are grateful I assumed when I embarked on a Month…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me in a Month of Thanksgiving, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 24: Giving thanks for the simple pleasures in life Many Thanksgiving dinners I’ve been part of have included everyone going…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 23: Join me in the Month of Thanksgiving and you have three chances to win prizes With just a little more than a week between now and…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 22: Finding gratitude while we grieve It’s been a sad weekend for us. On Friday, we put down our 18-year-old cat, suffering from advanced heart disease. Then…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 21: We’re three weeks in to the Month of Thanksgiving so let’s recap Since I’m blogging new ideas and things to do each day, it might feel…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 20: Why should you bother to say thank you to someone who’s made you grateful? All week I’ve been writing about not only feeling gratitude but expressing…
Do you feel you’re good at giving verbal thanks? How about receiving? Could you work on getting better?
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 18: Clearly my mother wasn’t the only one brainwashing kids about thank you notes I love when a post gets people talking! Your input makes the conversation…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 17: Give someone a gift that reminds you of your gratitude Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William…
My mom was the thank you note enforcer. Writing them was non negotiable.
When I graduated from high school, Mom took custody of my graduation presents. Only after I had written a thank you note could I get possession of each gift.
So I admit to having a strong bias but I believe in the power of the thank you note — especially of the hand written and mailed variety.
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 15: How do you express your gratitude? The GratiDudes made this video below encouraging people to first make a daily list of the things you’re grateful for…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 14: We’re about halfway through the Month of Thanksgiving. How are you doing? Sunday is a day of rest so I’ll take it a little easy on…
Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas. Day 13: Taking a look at what a few other sources say about gratitude I am hardly the first person to think of the idea of being more…
I’ve noticed that the socially appropriate way to answer when someone asks how you’re doing is not necessarily “fine,” but instead “busy.” Maybe you add a flourish like “crazy busy” or “swamped.”
