I’ve had this crazy secret goal for ten years. I consider it a secret, well up until now, because if I didn’t say it out loud, people wouldn’t know it or see me fail. Crazy because well, if you know me you know I hate to run. The goal? To run a marathon or 1/2 ...
Write every day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes. So at 1:58 I started to write. I was in a slump since I came back from Toronto and had written a lot, just not a lot of good stuff. I’m struggling with my life these days. I’m bored, and I don’t know what to ...
Like I’ve said before, I idolize the Author, Elizabeth Gilbert. I have learned so many things from her latest book Big Magic, but probably the biggest was that you needed fear to be creative, you just can’t let it drive the minivan. It has to come along, but it has to sit in the back seat, with ...
We were watching Public Morals on television last week, and one of the characters was sitting on the tub in her teeny tiny apartment, crying because she felt trapped. She was genuinely sad. The Gina of the past could 100% relate. The present day Gina isn’t sad anymore. Even though I am constantly in search ...
I look for inspiration everywhere, and often I get it from Facebook. Sometimes all it takes is a quote from Gandhi or Julia Child, but it will usually set the wheels in motion. Yesterday it was from the Author Elizabeth Gilbert; I have become slightly obsessed with her these last few weeks and for good ...
Writer’s block I’m sure for the experienced writer is hard, but for the inexperienced writer like me, it’s terrifying. I have written 62 posts and never once have I had a hard time putting the words down on paper. I usually have 3 or 4 posts written and stacked just waiting for their turn ...
As I sat in the back of the theater watching life-sized chipmunks run around on stage, in a different country I started to yawn. I was tired because I woke up out of a sound sleep at 1:40 am with an idea. I tried to tell that idea it was a ridiculous time to be ...
As I sat in my apartment the Monday morning after my son’s wedding, I practiced “Just Being.” Rob, my husband, was out of town; my parents were still at their hotel, and I was 100% completely alone. I sat there on my couch, no television, no radio, nothing to distract me but my thoughts ...
A blank page can be the scariest thing out there for a writer, but it can also be the most exciting. As I sat staring at the empty page, I wondered, wondered if I had anything new to say. I felt like I had written all that was in my head. The bakery ...
She said yes and just like that, Sweet Baby Raymond became a man. When you have kids, you are not provided an instruction manual. So, as a parent, you are fundamentally unprepared for any significant milestones in that sweet baby’s life. You have no idea what to do with that baby the second you walk ...
So here’s the thing. Rob and I recently found out that our jobs have changed, and there will be less traveling and more of being home. That had sent us into a tailspin the last couple of weeks. The best way to describe it is this, I was going a 1,000 miles an hour with ...
Anyone who knows me, knows there are days when I would trade my iEverything for a plain ole’ flip phone, however, because of this technology I can talk to my friends almost every day. The problem is that I rarely get to see their faces in person, and it is even more rare that I ...
As I sat in a new coffee shop on a comfy couch. Next to me there was a life-sized. As I sat there, I thought of something an old friend said to me after reading one of my blogs. He said, “Do you think you’d be so happy with getting older if your life wasn’t ...
Rob and I were sitting on our balcony last night, and I was deep in thought about my bakery and my blog. I was so deep in thought I didn’t hear Rob call me. When the water bottle hit me, and I looked at him, he said, “What are you thinking about, I ...
I miss those babies so much, but more now since we received some somber news a few weeks ago that one of their childhood friends died. She was only 22; the same age as my sweet Alison and she died trying to save someone else’s life doing CPR. I can’t even imagine what the family ...
As I stood in the middle of the older, but cute, tiny apartment, drenched in light and beautiful hardwood floors I was a bawling mess. All I could hear was “Mom, why are you crying?” You see Raymond moved into his new apartment over the weekend, and it will be the apartment he and Alyssa ...
I have a friend who has decided to take 2015 and volunteer her way through the United States. Stopping in each state and making sure she volunteers in each one. She works jobs in the towns she is volunteering to help support her quest. She inspired me every day that I worked with her with ...
It was a Sunday Morning. I was sitting in bed drinking coffee and looking out the window while listening to my husband; Rob read a food review from a critic that once came to my bakery. As usual, there were a million things going on out that window and this morning did not disappoint. ...
I walked past two bakeries on my way into my first acupuncture appointment; I stopped and took a deep breath. The deep breath was for several reasons: First, the smell of freshly baked bread coming from the bakeries stopped me in my tracks. It was comforting and familiar. Second, I was apprehensive and wanted to ...
As I sit by the pool in sunny Nashville, my mind wanders back to Philadelphia. Today my sister-in-law and brother are packing up their house in downtown Philadelphia and moving to Phoenix. I’ve been texting with her all morning, convincing her it’s the right thing to do, it’s a new adventure, and she should be ...
As I sit alone in the Press and Guest Locker room of the Philadelphia Eagles stadium, I am bored and tired. The excitement of going back to work has long since faded, and I find myself, once again, homesick. I need a haircut, and that is always the very first thing that triggers my ...
As I sat in the Firestone waiting room, I was overwhelmed with the smell of rubber and oil. It’s not an exciting place to be, even though they have tried to cheer it up, they have gotten it a bit wrong. They have taken away the counter and put these random round checkout kiosks in ...
As I sit in the back of the production office listening to words like “Teamsters”, “House Guys”, “Carpenter Unions”, “IA”, Decorator’s Unions; I was very glad that I was in the back of the room writing articles for my little blog. The conversation made my head literally hurt. Any hanging that was one Union and ...
Standing on the stairs waiting to get into my apartment building, two young twenty-something girls walked past me. They smelled like Coppertone and future with their flip-flops and cute bathing suit cover-ups. Their hair was long, and undoubtedly they used a product that made it look like perfectly effortless beach hair. I stood there ...
This morning as I sit on my balcony with my hot coffee and cool breeze in complete and utter comfort, the word “amends” was floating around my head. Not because I was on the 8th or 9th step of the 12-step program, but because Rob was having breakfast with someone who was, and Rob was ...
