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…
Lately I have been marveling at my friends’ capacity to surprise me. Which makes me so happy! When I love someone and I think I’ve got her figured out, it’s a joy to be reminded that humans have infinite potential to change and evolve.
Few people are brave enough to own their honest story in the way Jojo did, even fewer would put it on their business website. I asked for her permission to share her story of finding happiness through trial and error and eventually getting brave enough to listen to her heart.
I’m grateful she and Rachel both said yes so I can share with you this story of loving hard.
At a fantastic New Year’s Day party, I talked to another guest about how smart we were in college, how our 20-year-old selves had it all figured out. Then we laughed, making affectionate fun of the cockiness of youth and the perspective we now have that our youthful selves had oh so much to learn. But here’s the thing: apparently…
Watching the Olympics this summer has been fun and not just because Ryan Lochte is about the cutest thing to happen to swimming. Seeing all the images of Big Ben and the Thames make me nostalgic for my experience on a Temple University summer program in London 20 years ago. Now I feel like it was a bit of a…
Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012. Today’s question comes from Kay Hoffman Goluska, who blogs at Pen on Pointe. She’s @PenOnPointe on Twitter. What have you…
Facebook can be an incredible tool: thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, I reconnected with a high school friend I’d known as Lisa Crozier. At the time, she was a young widow with two small girls, grieving the loss of a husband she deeply loved and trying to be a good single mom. Even better than us getting back in touch, Facebook…
Some of the decisions I have made this year — choosing a part-time job over full time so I could launch my own business in a tough economy, spending two months in New Orleans when we have a cozy place in a great Brooklyn neighborhood — don’t make sense to some people. Ditto our choice not to have children, not…
A mutual friend introduced me to Heather Newgen when Heather was moving to New York from LA last year. After trading several messages, we met for the first time in New Orleans — I was there on our semi-sabbatical and Heather was shooting a TV pilot she’s pitching called The Voluntourist. I was impressed by her passion for this new…
I moved to New York City from Ann Arbor five years ago this month. Earlier this week I shared a laundry list of tourist tips, in part because visiting friends often ask for “real” guidance beyond what they’d get in a guidebook. Today’s post is more about the experience of being a New Yorker — five reflections on being a…
Five years ago, I packed up and moved to Manhattan for my first post-MBA job. John followed about a month later, after managing a speedy sale of our house, thanks in part to our fortuitous timing before the real estate crash. I think five years is long enough to consider myself a real New Yorker. Obviously not a native, but…
A few days ago I offered a list of Newvine Growing’s greatest hits — the posts I’ve written in the last two years that have gotten the most traffic. Today I’ll do the opposite and serve up a list of some of the least-read posts. I’m curating these to look for posts I actually liked that never got traction, as…
I have always been a girl with a plan. I lived life like a chess game, thinking through how my current move will ripple through three moves ahead: Getting good grades in high school would help me get into college Doing internships during college would help me land a job after graduation Taking a job at a small newspaper would…
Food writer Mark Bittman recently ended his long-running Minimalist column in the New York Times to shift into a new role as an opinion writer for the Times. This change of perspective, that food is about so much more than filling our bellies, is apparent in his book “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.” Bittman wrote in the announcement…
Earlier this week I wrote a post headlined “Feel the fear and do it anyway,” about not letting fear limit our decisions. I’ve been reflecting on major forks in the road in my life and how often I have self limited by taking the conservative path — what my husband, John, calls being a good girl. If a…
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back — concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.…
It’s easy to see why Four-Hour Workweek is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller – working four hours a week and having a comfortable lifestyle is just short of winning the lottery in terms of fantasy freedom. After I heard author Tim Ferriss speak at MediaBistro Circus, where he shared many of the ways he’d marketed…
