I just broke a major personal taboo: I skipped and skimmed my way through a novel. Gasp!  (Those of you with truly exotic piercings and kitchen appliance fetishes are rolling your eyes about now…)  I’ve always been a reader, and I’ve felt it part of the Reader’s Code that if you start a book, you [...]

Today I’m excited to present a guest post from author Paul Maurice Martin.  Paul’s experiences with Trappist monks as well as years in education help him lend a unique perspective to the topic of meditation.  Enjoy! —S.
Meditation is often discussed online today. But sometimes I think it’s discussed to the point of making it sound [...]

Life is serious business.  There are bills to be paid, friends and family to attend to, and jobs to be done.  That’s all essential.  Focusing only on the essential can be a lifesaver when you’re in a stressful situation.  But the rest of the time, it can simply make your world very small.
And as my [...]

I’m not one to worry about getting older or avoid birthdays.  (Give me another decade and I might get a bit more concerned, but I hope not.)  In fact, as another birthday approaches, the overwhelming feeling I have is, “Thank goodness I’m older!”  Think I’m kidding? Try these reasons on for size:

You can live the [...]

This year, summer took forever to arrive, or at least it seemed so in southwestern Idaho.  Now that we’re in the thick of it, it’s time to stop and enjoy the best that the summer season offers before the nights get much shorter.
1.  Drink a glass of lemonade (from a mason jar, if at all [...]

Whether we like it or not, days bleed into one another and weeks slip by quickly.  I hate the feeling of looking back on a month and thinking, “Wait…  Now what did I do again? Anything?”  One way to ease your mind that your days have been well spent is to focus less on checking [...]

When you live simply, days run together beautifully.  Evenings spent relaxing with a good book blend seamlessly into morning walks and late afternoon glasses of wine into… evenings spent relaxing with a good book.  It’s all well and lovely, but where’s the adventure, the drama, the stuff to tell grandkids about? In the end, are [...]

When a device or component stops working, what do we do? We reset it. And pretty much every time, that item starts working again.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do the same with our lives?  That’s a theory I’ve been putting to the test for the last few weeks.
When Is a Reset in [...]