family
Philanthropy and Family
Whether you have ten dollars or $100,000 to give away, involving children in philanthropic giving helps connect them to the world, their own values, and the power of generosity. My husband and I have always wanted our family to have a strong philanthropic focus. We want our kids to be involved in deciding which causes…
Read MoreHoliday Treasures and a Family-Infused New Year!
Part of our New Year’s Eve involved packing up the holiday treasures and decorations. As we only had a very small artificial tree this year due to location, I had to be highly selective about which decorations I used. I didn’t go for fancy or beautiful or the most expensive, I chose the photo ornaments…
Read MoreKids, Parents, and Too Many Holiday Presents
It didn’t take us long to realize we had a problem. Our first holiday season as parents was an initiation into overwhelm! My husband and I each have divorced and remarried parents. That means between us we have given our children eight grandparents and nine aunts and uncles (premarriage)! Our first born was the first…
Read MoreThings Don’t Always Go as Planned or Expected
For the last three months I have been eagerly awaiting June 4th, the day I would get to welcome a group of birth worker sisters to my workshop space and home for a sisterhood retreat and sleepover. Together and individually we prepared for our time together: gathered necessary items, planned our time, prepared the space,…
Read MoreNurturing Charitable Giving in Children
When I thought about my kids before they were even born, I had ideas, like most moms-to-be that my kids would be good kids, loving and caring. I knew I wanted them to be warm and be able to feel deeply into the lives of those less fortunate. I wanted my kids to want to…
Read MoreGestating Our Journey: Re-entry After a Year of Traveling
I guess it should be no surprise that I didn’t do a single post in October. Yes, it was a busy month, but I think it had more to do with how I was holding the trip last month. In many ways, I wasn’t. Re-entry took precedence over gestation. There is a difference. We’ve been…
Read MoreWhen the Tentacles are Gone and I am Left with Myself
It hit me while we were in Tuscany this summer, that now with my graduate course work done, I would no longer have three day school trips to mark my month and give me two nights a month in a hotel room, ALONE. That obligatory time away was over even if the amount of work…
Read MoreThe Gifts of Seventh-Grade: The Joys of Traveling with Teens
There are many gifts we’ve received from our journey away, some were expected, others less so and some were complete surprises. Enjoying spending nearly every moment for a year with my seventh-grade son was not something I expected. First off, I hated seventh-grade. I mean hated it. It was a rough year for me on…
Read MoreAudiobooks, Routines, and What it Means to be Home
Audiobooks are a part of our life…before, while traveling, and again now that we’ve returned home. While traveling, we listened to audiobooks (most often referred to as “books on tape” proving the age of the parents carefully selecting books for our family’s education and entertainment). We listened to many while in Europe as that was…
Read MoreThe Alchemical Shift from Stuff to Treasure
Tonight, I’m so tired. I’m tired of living out of boxes. I’m tired of the smell of the guest house when there are four of us living back here with our dog and all our crap (both in boxes and oozing from them) where little bits of food can easily hide and worse, rot. My…
Read MoreTraveling Nomads and Memories
The strange truth of our re-entry so far is we are living all in one room, not all that unlike how we lived as traveling nomads. Our home currently is a one-room, yoga-studio, guest house that has many boxes and a few crammed beds. The boys’ bunkbed is at the foot of the one…
Read MoreComing Back…Still living out of suitcases
Back. Yes, we are back. It is a strange sensation really to be here and at the same point so very normal. We are altered and changed in ways we know and have yet to discover. We came home to an empty home, our master closet covered in cat pee, roots growing into our septic…
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