Have you revisited your New Year’s Resolutions lately (or ever)?? In case you somehow missed it, we have arrived in the second trimester of 2024. Mid-May is running our schedules into manic chaos, and the weather (at least in the Midwest) is propelling us outside every moment of the day, tempting us to shirk responsibilities….
Tag: Personal development
Death of a Dream
Every opportunity in life has a unique season in which it flourishes, but the timeline of that season of maturity can vary greatly from one thing to the next. Sometimes we reap the rewards of a fruitful business or relationship for decades, but in other cases, the glory is short-lived. Try as we might, it…
Open call – closed to your submissions
“Open call for poetry,”the zines and mags announce emphatically.“We want you, we need you,trust us with your words.”They aren’t lying, they aren’t false,but the actual requirements tell a skewed story;dry prose in small print which dulls your dreamsand drags you back into the realitythat it is unlikely that you,the writer of poetry,will likely be a…
Centered
The obligatory end of the year blog post reflection. I REALLY waited until the VERY end of 2023 to get this done. In part, because I’ve been convalescing from hip surgery (torn labrum/impingement repair), but to be honest, I’ve just been avoiding looking back or forward. This year has felt a bit out of control…
Book Review: A Season of Second Chances
When a friend loaned me her copy of A Season of Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss, I was skeptical at best. Despite the saccharine description of a chef hosting a book club in a coastal British town (all things that are near & dear to my heart) and a promise that there wouldn’t be too…
Book Review: The Complete Fairy Stories of Oscar Wilde
The Complete Fairy Stories of Oscar Wilde is a lovely collection of nine children’s stories which were originally published in two volumes. This version, enhanced with intricate illustrations by Philippe Jullian, stood out on a shelf the Winding Stair Bookstore, in Dublin (where I also picked up Virginia Woolf’s “How One Should Read a Book”)….
Coming Home
There’s an understandable mix—a collection of feelings: a burst of joy, a sigh of relief,a pang of regret, a whisper of trepidation. We go away, but then come to:A return journey or a fresh start—perhaps both. We may venture to a familiar place,but that doesn’t mean we’re traveling in reverse. The sands of time continue…
Dubai | 2023
We entered Dubai somewhat unconventionally by driving across the Al Hajar mountain range that separates Oman from the United Arab Emirates. The drive was long—16 of us in a 17-passenger van plus some of our luggage that didn’t fit in the trailer that we were pulling for six hours—and included an inconveniently-long delay in passport…
Book Review: The Artist’s Way
I am a bit shocked that I hadn’t yet written a review on The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, for how profound of an impact it has had on my life this year. Perhaps that is why—it felt too personal or too close or like I was still in the thick of it, even though…
Oman | 2023
Before traveling to Oman, I knew little more than the country’s general location on the Arabian Peninsula, and the few travel blogs I found mostly focused on outdoor activities (visiting the famous wadis) and on proper attire. Definitely worth noting: Oman is a Muslim nation and women are expected to cover themselves from neck to…
L.M.Beatty 