We’ve had easier months. We’ve been blocked from driving the 1/4 mile uphill road from a monstrous snowstorm that brought with it Siberian temperatures. Our days have been dictated by bringing pellets up the hill (by hand) and groceries up the hill (by hand).  It’s been sixteen days since we could get up here with [...]

Source: thumbpress.com via Lesley on Pinterest It’s there. Hiding behind the noise, interactions and social negotiations that take place daily, it lingers, waiting sometimes months, sometimes decades to come out and and embrace you. Oh, the subtle ways we compromise our lives away.  Behind statements like “it’s not worth it” or “yeah, you’re right”, a [...]

New beginnings?  The world is full of them.  Just look at opportunities that today presents. It’s really not that hard to embrace the possibilities that this day offers. Cultivating habits that move you forward and into the world around you are fundamental if you want to maximize your creative energy, create a new direction for [...]

So many gifts have been extolled on me in the past year.  I don’t have to look very far to see blessings all around me, in so many shapes and sizes. A fun, interesting, and very busy season.  We had so many great guests this year, and spent so much time laughing and talking.  I [...]

Whether it’s snowy or simply chilly, December is a welcome arrival.  With its hearty foods and layered sweaters, it’s a chance for us to experience nature in a way that we simply can’t any other time. It’s the month of the solstice, the short days of the year, when the flickers of candles glow against [...]

After seventeen years at this expat game, I’ve had my share of friend requests. Not Facebook, mind you.  I’m talking Americans, Brits, other native English speakers who believe that they and I might really have something in common simply by nature of a shared common language. This has always baffled me.  I mean, turn around [...]

   This TED video featuring director, producer and cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg made me feel very blessed to be alive and human.  I hope it does the same for you. Have a wonderful holiday weekend. 

We exist on this planet for such a short time but are given so many opportunities, despite pain, sickness and suffering, to do good and help with the happiness of others. This should give us hope. Even if we are mired with personal setback, we have the capability, and maybe even the responsibility, to make [...]

We all have different sides to our lives. We carry them around inside of us, trying to reconcile them to each other, a task that challenges us. But we keep trying to bring who we are together with who we were, and with who we want to be. Sometimes it’s hard to find the continuum. [...]

It had been my first vacation in Italy, and it was a vacation from hell. For six days we had suffered through icy wet weather, although May was supposed to be nice, at least that was what we had read in the guide books. Instead, pear blossoms were freezing in Siena, and there was snow [...]