After years of looking for the perfect home, my friend Jack recently bought his dream house. The consummate host, Jack and his partner Tom love throwing lavish sit down dinners and wanted a house with a backyard they could transform into a garden oasis. The previous owner, a widowed retiree with a green thumb and […]
Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty. You don’t have to fix everything. You don’t have to solve everything. And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing things. ~Morgan Harper Nichols, from How Far You Have Come My factory settings lean towards hope. […]
“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: Like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” ~Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien The first half of 2023 has left me overstretched, overtaxed, and overextended. David quit his second job in two […]
Enjoying apertivo Oggi devo propprio togliermi questo sfizio. Today I really must take this craving away. Italians have a deep and loving relationship with pleasure. Whether it’s an espresso in the middle of the day, an evening strolling the coastline with a gelato, or a morning spent in bed eating pastries and then […]
This week I turn 50. My golden jubilee birthday signifies that I am half a century old. To celebrate, here are 50 things I now know to be true. Curiosity equals lasting contentment. I am never as right as I think I am. Don’t let the noise of your mind drown out the […]
I’ve never been someone with an addictive personality. Alcohol? Drugs? Gambling? Sex? I can enjoy all of them in moderation without feeling a tug to use them to fulfill me. But I am dismayed by my increasingly toxic relationship to my phone, especially as it relates to social media. I’ve long said I only stayed […]
