Quality Time: A Family Vacation in La Quinta, California

Family Vacation Last week, my kids were off from school from Spring Break, so I decided to take the kids to the desert for a few days to party at Coachella and watch the shows. Just kidding. We headed out for a family vacation to La Quinta to squeeze some play time and a little

Turning, Turning: Days Three and Four of a Family RV Trip

In the context of this song, which I refuse to believe it’s merely instructional and lacking poetry (see last week’s post), simplicity is defined relative to shame. According to the author, we’ll know we’ve gained true simplicity when we can bow and bend without shame, so we can infer, conversely, that to not bow and

Life in the Valley of Love and Delight: Days One and Two of a Family RV Trip

Apparently, this old puritan hymn is a dance tune meant to help young, chaste dancers follow the right steps and keep time with the choreography. How disappointing if that’s true. Even if it is, I choose to hear it instead as a gentle charge to continue following my conscience, finding my True North, remaining on

Where Are Your Roots (…and Things To Do in Portland, Oregon)

I grew up in a family with shallow roots. That’s not meant to be an insult – I’m merely stating a fact. Like many other adults I know, my parents chose not to raise my brother and me in the same community as either of their respective families. Instead, we spent our childhoods several states

Deltacation 2016

When my husband and I were dating, it was extremely important to him that I be able to handle his annual waterskiing trips to the California delta – a 700,000 acre maze of tributaries, sloughs and islands, located east of the San Francisco Bay Area, stretching nearly 50 miles from Sacramento south to Tracy.  I