Monthly Archives: February 2016

Finding Peace With Exploding Hair

I’ve learned the secret to making dreams come true.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. ~Zig Ziglar

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”   ~Zig Ziglar

Ten years ago I wrote a list of twenty-two goals I wanted to achieve. At the time, none of them seemed possible. I suffered from an anxiety disorder. I didn’t fly on planes, nor did I go near an airport. Actually, I didn’t even like uttering the word “airplane.” I also didn’t like bridges. For this reason, I cancelled any road trips that involved crossing a bridge (you can imagine how many trips were cancelled). I didn’t go anywhere that involved parking my car in a parking garage. I didn’t ride elevators, and preferred to search for stairs and huff up fifteen flights. This way of life was no life at all. In addition, panic attacks gripped me at  read more

Eat, Pray, Gourd

Running of the Gourds Casa Grande, Arizona

Running of the Gourds
13th Annual Gourd Festival, Casa Grande, Arizona

As someone from Washington state, I’m used to chocolate slugs on a stick and naked people in colorful body paint peddling bicycles in a parade.

However, I’m not at all used to Arizona’s scorpions (dead, I think) melted inside sweet lollypops or festivals celebrating gourds. While I’ve never licked a sugary scorpion or seen a naked person riding a bicycle in the desert, I have seen–as of today–my first gourd festival.

Road Trip: The Long Way to Disneyland, part 2

Ocean Beach, California~

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Ocean Beach, California. Jerry took this picture moments before a wave washed over him, drenching his shoes and pants.

“C’mon Jerry, get in the water.”

“Nah, I don’t feel well. I’m having a reaction to the medication I stopped taking. I’m going back to the car.”

Jerry wanders back to the car leaving me grinning while standing in the rolling surf with my jeans rolled up.

I stroll along the surf, do some beachcombing, and realize how soothing it feels to have bare feet in wet sand. The desert and the mountains hold a beauty and a soothing aspect of their own. But neither have wet sand with rushing surf frothing around your legs. read more