Arm-wrestling my inner June Cleaver.

Though I’ve always considered myself the polar opposite of June Cleaver, lately I’ve been a cooking WIZARD.
Well, maybe “wizard” is overstating it a bit, since I’m just following a magazine’s plan for a month of simple dinners. But for a gal whose previous culinary stylings were limited to heating and serving whatever I happened to [...]

“Fireflies” Obsession: Art & Life Intermingled.

At 40, I know I don’t exactly have one foot in the grave. But having walked the Earth for this long, I do have a better appreciation of the here and now. (Better than the clueless, flaky 20-year-old me, anyway.) I now understand that the “here and now” will be “done and gone” just as [...]

I may be 40, but I’m “snugglish.”

One of my favorite things about living in this new/old house (new to us/actually 101 years old) is our morning ritual. One or more of the girls pile into bed with me, and for a few precious minutes, we snooze and snuggle quietly, listening to our particular tangle of suburban morning sounds through the open [...]

Holy Hill Arts & Crafts Show Forecast: Crowded, with a Chance of Cranky?

I love art. I love crafts. And while I appreciate and respect the 35th Annual Holy Hill Arts & Crafts Fair — not to mention all the talented artists represented there — I know that at least a handful of the 7,000-10,000 attendees will, at some point, get sick of the mob scene, pack it [...]

Doing anything this weekend? It’s the Lee Curtes Pottery show!

Listen up, pottery lovers — and anyone else planning to hit the 35th Annual Holy Hill Arts & Crafts Fair (yeah, you and 10,000 of your closest, sweatiest, pushiest friends… ick!). Ahem. The Fair will be fabulous, of course — but when you’re ready for some crowd control, head to the Lee Curtes Pottery show [...]

Minnesota Memory Overload.

Lately it seems like everything I do here involves a trip down memory lane. Which would make sense, I guess, given that I spent nearly a decade of my life here in Minneapolis. Except that it was a decade ago, as well. So much has changed in my life since I left. But so [...]

Writing as Exercise (Plunge Like There’s No Tomorrow)

It’s Day 2 of my new, nearly-daily posting habit. Or maybe it’s Day 1, since I skipped a day and just basked in the glow of having written one post. Don’t you need to do something 30 days in a row to form a new habit? Oh honey, you got a ways to go.
At any [...]

Practice Makes Perfect?

Lately I’ve been wondering why, if I think I’m some kind of writer, I don’t write on a very regular basis. As in, sitting down every day to practice, like I used to practice the piano.
I know why. I get bogged down mentally by the Should Do List:
I should clean my house. I should design [...]

Cross-Country Moving: A Complete Guide to Doing it Without an Ounce of Style.

You might know that we recently sold our house and bought a new one in record time. Sure, we did some things right: purging our home of clutter, staging it and even getting creative by attempting to sell it on Twitter (which got us on local TV, a real hoot!). Many other things just fell [...]

My bratty eyes want the ocean back.

My eyes are still seeing palm trees, ocean and sand.
Thing is, we’re back home after a wonderful trip to Florida — and it’s mountains as far as the eye can see. I know that sounds completely bratty — oh, it’s so hard living here next to the majestic Rocky Mountains! I want the ocean, too! [...]