Hi, friends! I’ve written before about how I always have a movie of the month. In September, my movie was Dead Poets Society, which made me nostalgic for my undergraduate days. It’s funny that the movie had that effect on me, though. For the most part, the boarding school in the movie is a place of conformity, restriction, and heavy-handed (literally)

In the last couple of weeks, all the parents I know have been preoccupied with getting their kids back to school again. They’re doing back to school shopping for supplies and clothes, thinking about first day outfits, and rearranging schedules. For a long time, school wasn’t a happy place for me. I was always forgetting things, and other kids didn’t

It’s been a few years since I’ve written about Lughnasadh, and it’s on my mind today. What is Lughnasadh?  It’s an ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the sun god Lugh, and it inspired Lammas Day, a festival in Christianity that celebrates the harvest of wheat and other early crops.  I’m always interested in somewhat obscure holidays, and I was especially

On Saturday I worked on my novel-in-progress for hours, and then we went to the beach. I’ve written about this before, but sometimes I have trouble taking a break and going to a park or the beach, and I’m always glad when I do it. Honestly, for me, connecting with nature is a key to happiness.     It’s easy

On the morning of June 25, 2014, I had an early morning surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. The surgeon took out my left kidney and put it in a container that looked like a beer cooler. It was sent to the greater San Diego area and put in a man who was suffering from late-stage kidney disease.