I have always wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago. Well not exactly always… In 2012, we took the kids to Spain and Italy over the Thanksgiving break (the perks of work travel are all the airline and hotel points – thanks Delta and Marriott!) and while we were in Madrid I learned about the Camino de Santiago. You can walk the entire thing over a month or two or you can do shorter sections. I instantly wanted in – walking across rural Spain, an outdoor adventure with spirituality...

As a creative director, my husband has an eye for details and when things are out of place, he gets a bit fanatical. He knows if a font is incorrect or if Jay-Z has sampled a blues song from the 50’s or if you added Marmite to the chili recipe. Details are his thing (except for the mundane things in the house that he claims I move just so he will have to ask me where they are now – P.S. I DON’T move things, I just put them...

I’ve traversed an ocean, a desert, and a mountain in the last three months. The funny thing is I’m not even winded – just completely relaxed. Crossing and exploring so much territory is the stuff of true adventure and I am drinking in every last experience, conversation, and feeling - some existential, some utterly benign and others quite disruptive. In all these metaphorical expeditions, I am seeing and learning and the biggest reflections are being imprinted onto me like a new tattoo… Be small. Really small. On purpose. Mama...

I stood in my kitchen plating up the Mexican food I had cobbled together and listened to the sounds of seven women laughing hysterically in my sunroom. I smiled. It was exactly the soundtrack I’d imagined a month earlier when I sent the invitation out to each of them. They didn’t all know each other. Would they think I’d lost my sappy sabbatical mind inviting them to some random Supper Club, with random women, on a random Wednesday night? Would anyone come? They showed up. All of them. And we...

I am a goal slayer. If you cast me in Game of Thrones and put me against Jon Snow and the goal was to kill a white walker, I'm pretty sure I'd win. Goals have always been my thing. 1000 origami paper cranes? Poof-done in a week. Or so I thought. 100 cranes and two weeks in and there are three main truths that I have discovered… My mind is a toddler that got into the 5 Hour Energy and there are no baby gates or locks on the doors in...

Dear Daughter, You are little with serious eyes and a determined attitude – “Emma see, Emma see.” That is who you are in my mind. You are suddenly tall and gangly with a dry wit that loves to entertain us – “Watch me, watch me.” That is who you are in my mind. You are riding off on your bike to your first job as a soccer referee and then suddenly you are driving there on your own in that old car we had been saving for you. That is who you are in...

As much as I love numbers and find comfort in facts, History has been an on-again-off-again friend in my life. I’m never mad at History or want to permanently un-friend the study of the past but I often forget to call or write. Sorry History, but sometimes you put me to sleep with your dates and timelines. You don’t catch my attention with your monotone PBS news hour voice… For me, I often need something more for history to come alive. But last year WWII showed up with a FB...

For some reason last December over the holiday season break from work, I started making origami paper cranes. I don’t know where the box of origami paper even came from – random birthday gift to one of the girls maybe – but it was in a closet where random things go to die and I happened to stumble upon it. As I stood in front of that closet full of forgotten junk holding a box of colorful six-inch squares just waiting for their big moment, a childhood memory flooded...

Yoga. It has saved my life this year. I can clearly see that. All those hours on a yoga mat have given my inner voice its own dedicated airspace to podcast messages to one very important listener – me. It has also made me very uncomfortable at times – to the point I wanted to hide under the covers and rip up my yogi membership card… Being impossibly bad at something is hard. I don’t care if you are the most laid back chap on the block, it is human...

I have a confession...