I was a latchkey kid and spent a lot of my time in my childhood sitting on the floor in front of the television. I would watch truly terrible television and either not know the difference or not be particularly bothered by it. Growing up in Northwestern Pennsylvania didn’t provide us with a lot of [...]

2012 is not a year I made a formal resolution. It’s the year I made a decision to live the way I wanted to and to take action to live that way. It’s amazing when you look back at your day/week/month/year how often you do things you know are contradictory to how you want to [...]

Reading through quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is both awe-inspiring and humbling. It is proof about the power of words. In looking through them, I found one that is especially relevant for me personally lately. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. I have a [...]

There is a demarcation. It’s not invisible. Creatures of nature are allowed to be, as far as I’m concerned, relatively undisturbed – if they do their part and stay outside. If they cross the line and enter my home, all bets are off. Bugs are not allowed. Spiders are generally captured and set free as we [...]

I saw a really cool vintage ad the other day on Jezebel. When I saw it, I loved it. It resonated with me. Very simply, it was an ad about how great Legos are. The hint was that it’s a great toy for girls, too. There was something empowering about the ad. The toy wasn’t [...]

Tags: Gender, parenting, Toys

When I was in college, I had 2 epiphanies. The first was that I was taking myself too seriously, which was leading me to live a very unhappy life. I did a 180 and became the person most people called “silly.” I still stand by that decision to let myself be silly because people also often [...]

Tags: decisions, priorities

2011 was an eye-opener for me. I’ve been through a lot this year – both good and bad. What I can hope that I gained was some improved insight and perspective. My most painful moment was losing my father, and this has been made worse by some of the fallout that happened after (I’ll save [...]

Tags: buy local, eat local, ows

I know I only revamped this blog a year ago, but in that time my priorities and interests in how I want to blog have changed. So, hold tight while I don’t update this blog and instead prepare for my new one. I have a lot to say, and the new blog, while preserving the [...]

A post on Facebook by a friend made me want to post about this. He woke this morning to find that a missed call was labeled from his brother. But his brother passed away a year ago. In that time, he hasn’t been able to bring himself to remove the entry from his contacts. I [...]

Tags: iPhone, loss, phone

As I get up  a little earlier than usual and think about the quiet and the sunlight just beginning to break the darkness, it occurs to me that I spend most of my waking hours in noise. I pay most attention to the things that are right in front of me. But I also know [...]

Tags: appreciation, morning, quiet