cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Madeleine L’Engle This afternoon my family and I arrive at the beach for our twentieth annual trip with my parents. Soon after we unload the car and unpack our suitcases, we slip into our swimsuits…
Read More
I will never forget the based-on-a-true-story movie, The Impossible, about a family who, while vacationing in a paradise resort in Thailand, was hit by the 2004 tsunami. The scene that grips me most is when Naomi Watts is reading on a lounge chair and suddenly sensing something is not right. That something terribly powerful is…
Read More
I miss my son. College is a brutal separation and makes me more sentimental than I have ever been. Scrolling through photos taken during our summer vacation, feeling a bit weepy over the ones with him and me, I am full of gratitude. Beyond the memories of the adventure, I marvel at the textures, the…
Read More
Above my desk hangs a framed black and white photo of two sets of feet. I took it on our first vacation as a family of three. My husband’s feet are covered in white sand and my one-year-old’s chubby toes sit atop. The vacation was paid for by parents and preceded our move overseas by…
Read More
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” – Rainer Maria Rilke A few weeks ago, as I drove my son to camp, he asked, “Mommy, how much did I cost?”…
Read More
He was just over two when we took the fun vacation to Greek ruins, waterfalls, and the sea. In the newness of our discoveries and the delight of our first trip as a little family of three, I snapped photo after photo of my cute blond-haired boy, always standing out amidst our Middle Eastern surroundings.…
Read More
I knew I had to bake a cake and be present to the past. It was not at all what seemed possible on these busy few days before the holidays. Everything within me wanted to stay disconnected from the weight that was creeping into my “to do” list.
Read More
There was a flurry of excitement with people arriving at “The Castle” in Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs.
Read More
My son and daughter-in-law needed a break.
Read More