Some of my favorite conversations with people I don’t know have come about because of the car I drive, a 2020 Ford Mustang Convertible in “Race Red”. Things you may or may not know about this car: I had two funny conversations just last week. The first one was in Nashville, when I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch. The car top was down, of course (June!), and my music was blasting, as usual. I exited the highway and stopped for the traffic light at the top of the ramp. A small white sedan was in the left lane, and the driver and her passenger were…
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A Picture Is Worth 1037 Words
Sometimes the really great stories aren’t really great because something extraordinary happened. Stories can be really great if you’re with exactly the right person at exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing. This is one of those stories, and it happens to be a favorite of mine (and was a favorite of Liz’s, of course). In December 2016 we were on the BlogHer conference team, and we all traveled to Orlando, Florida to do a site visit for the conference we would present six months later. Site visits were always fun because we all worked remotely, all around the country, and they were excellent opportunities to get everyone…
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Sea Glass Beach
While I’ve never once lived in the Northeast, I have traveled to New Jersey many, many times. Having a second family there courtesy of my best friend resulted in my visiting multiple times each year, sometimes for a long weekend, sometimes for a week. Once I stayed for ten full days. Naturally I became very familiar with Central New Jersey (the home of Liz and her family) as well as many places along the Jersey Shore, all the way down to Cape May, the settings for many of our shenanigans. I have always felt very much at home in that state which, by the way, is more beautiful than most…
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Protecting My Peace
I want to tell you about a new writing project I’m very excited about: I got started over on Substack so I could connect with a lot of my writer/OG blogger friends: it’s easy to read and comment on each other’s posts because they’re all under one umbrella. I started a publication over there to claim a little more world wide web space but I have NO plans of giving up this site, my little corner of the internet that belongs to me and me only. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I don’t write nearly as much here as I used to, and it might bug you…or it might not.…
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A Visit
I'm not a huge fan of cemetery visits. I mean, probably most people aren't, but while I see the value in the ritual of visiting a loved one who has passed and experiencing all of the emotional things that come with that, it's not something in which I find a lot of comfort.
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How I Travel: Prepared
I travel a lot (definitely more than the average person but usually not as much as I want to). When I share pictures of my adventures online I always receive lots of lovely compliments, like: There is a huge difference between experiencing mainly what a destination is “famous for” and actually doing a deep dive to see what hidden gems could be discovered there. The latter involves being open to new experiences, being curious about how people outside your own city or state live, and the desire to learn about a myriad of things along the way. It is how I prefer to travel, and I always encourage others to…
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No Such Thing As Too Much Cake
This cake. I can’t remember if I enthusiastically volunteered to make Momo’s wedding cake or if she asked me to make it and I enthusiastically answered “Yes of course!” Either way, I was very enthusiastic and it was a true labor of love. I was also a little terrified; making THE WEDDING CAKE for someone so special to me was daunting, but I tried to push that fear down. I had a concept right away: I asked her what she thought about a cake that would be solid white on the outside but would reveal a tie dyed look on the inside and she loved it. That was the last…
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Positively Unquantifiable.
Last week, the last one of 2023, I was seeing so many people post their Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge results. I thought every single one of them was so impressive, but I noticed there were some sour grapes. For some reason, there are people out there who take others’ achievements personally, as if it makes them “less than.” That really bugged me, so I did two things. One. I wrote in my Instagram stories about when people we know achieve their goals (or get things done), it’s not an affront to everyone else. It is ridiculous for people to feel badly about themselves just because others have success, big or…
- Best Thing Ever, Blessings, Childhood Memories, Proud Moments, Something That Could Change Your Life, Travels
A Gratitude Story, 40 Years Long
Part 1: June-July, 1982 and 1983 Starting in the summer after 8th grade, I was part of a student interchange program from CISV International. (“CISV was founded in the belief that peace is possible through building friendship and mutual understanding, starting with children.”) In 1982, a delegation of about a dozen German kids from the Frankfurt area came to America and stayed for a month in the homes of about a dozen Knoxville-area kids. The following year, we Americans went to stay with our interchange partners in their homes for a month. The idea was that the hosting families would both participate in large group activities as well as take…
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Talk to Strangers
Who’s trippin’ down the streets of the citySmilin’ at everybody she sees?Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment?Everyone knows it’s Windy The Association, 1967 I am a huge extrovert. I’m often told that my laughter can be heard in a crowded room (sorry, not sorry!) and I absolutely love talking to people, any people. I’m from the Midwest which means it’s in my nature to say “Hey there! How’s it going?” as I walk past strangers on the street. Sometimes they smile and answer back and sometimes they don’t, depending where I am at the time. Sometimes I even surprise myself with who I talk to and where those conversations…
