Month: July 2017

He is free-spirited.  He is spontaneous.  He doesn’t use his calendar to track activities.  He lives his life with confidence that the next step forward will take him where he needs to be – wherever that may be.  His thoughts are mostly the after kind. She is organized.  She is predictable.  She is meticulous in her planning and preparation. Her life is well-managed in all its details.  She has already started filling out her 2018 planner along with an outline of goals. You know the story – opposites attract.  They fall in love.  Wed.  Then divorce.  Now they find themselves

We nearly broke into a run when we first spied it.  The wind whipped through our hair and the telltale smell of fire-faded driftwood blew through our bodies.  After awkwardly walking through the dry shifting sand, we reached the stable ocean line where the waves tickled our toes – easily mesmerized by the methodical movement of the ocean tide. My daughters and I spent the last week at the Oregon coast.  Several times we made our way to the beach and as I watched them delight in dancing in and out of the frigid water, I found myself thinking of

There is a place in the upper Northwest corner of our country that is filled with magic.  I seek annual refuge in this place to clear my mind by breathing the salt filled air and watching the ebb and flow of the ocean tide.  My favorite place on Earth is the Oregon coast.  The Pacific Ocean is lined by rocky cliffs, at the top of which the evergreens grow and down below the starfish cling to rocks in tide pools.  My temperament is most suited to the mild temperatures and rain dappled days this coast has to offer.  I find

My girls are having a magical summer.  It has included a trip to Mexico with their dad, stepmom, and stepbrother to celebrate his high school graduation.  Then they hit the water slides in the Wisconsin Dells with me for our annual family vacation with my parents, my sister and her family.  They were home one day before packing up and heading to their annual summer camp for the fourth consecutive year.  Now they are spending a week in Yellowstone National Park for the first time with their paternal grandparents excitedly telling me in nightly phone calls about where the buffalo