Leisure Preparing for the Trip of Any Lifetime Whenever I go away, there's typically a ritual I follow of preparing for a trip. It doesn't matter if it's a weekend trip, like the one I leave for tomorrow morning (Polkafest here I come!) or like last year's venture to Costa
Leisure My Obsession with Road Trips If you have never taken a successful road trip, you could not understand why they are fun. As a kid, we traveled to and from the cabin (4 hours North), the beach (4 hours South) and one time Walt Disney World (24 hours South). As the youngest, I recall being
Leisure How to Travel Green Today's society demands that we at least attempt to go green in most of our daily living. One of the toughest challenges in going green, is to do so while traveling. Jetsetting away to an exotic island isn't exactly the best thing you can do for
Leisure How to Grow Vegetables in Pots I have never had a green thumb. If a plant is alive and I take possession of it, it is sure to die within weeks, sometimes even days. I decided two summers ago to attempt to grow some fresh vegetables on the front porch of my city apartment. I had
Leisure How to Take a Last Minute Vacation on the Cheap I know we have all heard of a mental getaway. Sometimes, we look ahead to holidays, family visits, or whatever other stressful situations are constantly surrounding us, and say, "I think I'm going to be 'sick' on Friday." When you say this, you know
Leisure You Will Not Be Forgotten - Supporting a Historical Project Imagine your life having no marker on earth. Buried in the ground and 100 years later, no one knows your body is there. Passed away without a record of your life except for the ticket of sale for your body. This is where my friend Andi comes into this scenario.
Leisure Embracing Home I sat in front of the lapping water at a nearby wildlife preserve here in Central Pennsylvania. I had a goal to hit 40,000 words in the memoir this weekend, and I knew if I didn't escape the walls of my apartment, or Roku, they would never
Leisure Broken and New Excerpt from "My First Summer in Sierra" by John Muir - July 22: "Many others, pines as well as firs, bear testimony to the crushing severity of this particular storm. Trees, some of them fifty to seventy-five feet high, were bent to the ground and buried like
Leisure Now What? I returned yesterday from 4 special days in San Diego attending Camp Widow. When I arrived, I was overwhelmed. I had hoped I would see faces and just "know" who they were. I was hoping I wouldn't feel lost. I was hoping I could instantly connect.
Leisure Looks Good Ahead This is a taste of my future. Come May 4, I'll be flying into San Jose, Costa Rica with my boyfriend. It's all courtesy of the travel writing contest I won through Wyndham Women Local Nation. I have never left the country, other than to Puerto
Leisure My Spontaneity Done Gone Missing I like going back to the places I have visited before, which I know I love. Assateague. The Cabin. There are a few choice spots that I visit regularly because it feels like my second home there. It's not a bad thing - I have great memories at
Leisure Surrender to Nature I want to find somewhere new, that's just me. I want to be somewhere, unrelated to Kevin, myself, the boy, unrelated to anything. Something that is just new and only has new memories. Someplace that doesn't take me a back to a time that I will
Leisure Inukshuk "The Inuit inukshuk has evolved into more than just stone markers. It has become a symbol of leadership, cooperation and the human spirit. Each stone of an inukshuk is a separate entity but was chosen for how well it fits together with other stones. The stones are secured through
Leisure The Great Escape All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape. -Walter Bagehot This is how you will often see me. In a car, going up a
Leisure Soulspiration: Places My people soulspiration blog REALLY hit home for a lot of people. It just inspired me to tell you about them! Besides people, however, many places inspire me as well. These places are a combination of businesses and places I love to visit on vacations and getaways. I hope you&
Leisure Climb That Mountain God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. -Psalm 46:1-2 (NRSV) I love the mountains. I, often, purposely plan my trips to travel to them.
Leisure Sea Zen I'm at the beach. My view is of the water, and finally, I feel some calm, a bit of relaxation. As usual the drive down was "difficult". I put in a book on cd which helped pass the time since I was cruising by myself. I
Leisure I Don't Wanna Growup My friend Ashley & I after running fully clothed into the Binn's Park Fountain and having a sit... Sometimes you need to be a kid again, but do you remember when we were kids and all you wanted to do was grow up and live out your dreams?
Leisure The Trip The trip to Kevin's hometown of Winnipeg was good, but tough, as is anything involving the reminder of his passing. My parents and I drove a scenic route North through Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario and across Thunder Bay and the Whiteshell into the Winnipeg. The last day of
Leisure Speaking in Nature I wrote this blog during my trip to the Smokies last weekend: I feel alive in nature. It is where I can breathe, where there are no expectations of how I should or should not look, where no one cares what I wear, that I burp or fart, that I
Leisure Pessimism, Optimism, Realism-What's the Truth? At my bi-weekly twitter breakfast this morning, I was discussing my anticipation for my trip to the Smokies next week, and the likelihood that I would get a speeding ticket. It has been a few years (Trip back from Wisconsin while visiting Kevin I got nailed in Ohio by Airplane
Leisure Nature Discovered While today I am back to wearing my faux-patent leather sandals at work, with my hair cleaned and combed, and even a little bit of makeup, this weekend I was sans all of that; and I loved it. I love sleeping outside, cooking my meals over a fire, getting dirty
Leisure Disconnect This weeked, 9 girls (including me) enjoyed a weekend of nature and solitude at my family's cabin in Northern Pennsylvania. It was beautiful and what many of us needed to just disconnect from the craziness of our daily lives. Throughout the weekend, I've been fighting a
Leisure Blessings in Disguise Someone told me last night about how life is 10% exactly how we worried it may turn out, or worse, but often, those situations are blessings in disguise. I had to swallow that one. One of the things I have hated hearing when I lost Kevin has been "it&
Leisure Nothing to Tie Me Down I love National Parks. When the Ken Burns PBS special on 'The National Parks: America's Best Idea' was aired, I DVR'ed all the epidsodes and have watched them repeatedly. I'm a park geek. I am trying to figure out what it is
