The South of France is filled with little villages and hamlets waiting to be discovered by more than locals. I’m thrilled to enjoy these areas of France, and to gain a huge appreciation for the architecture and cultures within each little town. And…the weather is warm, just like I like it. This also includes the trains - they are hot and filled with tourists headed to Nîmes for the Feria de Nimes yearly festival . Fellow writer friend, Katy Dalgleish and I were squished in li

Viva La France 🇫🇷! The South of France is showing off already. It’s beautiful weather and excitement in the air! I’m here for a little R&R until the Cevennes writers retreat next week. So here’s a go at my first day here, and the wild travel journey. My posts may be longer than usual, so I’m thanking you for reading to the end if you do! 🩷 OK, here it goes- I wrote this yesterday due to travel on 5/20-5/21. Perfect weather. Café tables spilling into the streets, which I lo

France is always a great country to visit, no matter the time of year. Paris is consistently ranked among the top 10 most visited cities internationally, with about 18.3 million visitors annually. However, we are not going to Paris this time; the action, at least for me, is in the South of France, and more specifically on a writer’s retreat with other Akimbo alumni in a small hamlet of maybe 240 people in St. Felix de Pelliers. It’s in the Cévennes region and OUTSTANDING in e

While I carry on with my daily routine, with travel thrown in from time to time, my houseplants may feel a bit neglected. I still water and “talk” to them, and have them listen to the soft sounds of my sewing machines and my varied Spotify playlists, sew I’d say they are well cared for for houseplants. Several years ago, a good college friend sent me an amaryllis bulb before the fall holidays. While writing this blog post, I went back to my camera roll and saw she had sent me

Traveling light is definitely a skill. Depending on where we are traveling in the world, if something was not packed, there is a good chance it can be purchased at our final destination. Say, though, you are all cozied up in Botswana’s Chobe National Park with tons of elephants, giraffes, leopards, and many other fine animals, and run out of toothpaste, well, you have to make do without it for a small time being. I never ran out of toothpaste, but I can state with experience

Some journeys take us far from home. Some adventures lead us to our destiny. —C.S. Lewis The tip of the iceberg for travel in 2026 for our household began with a recent trip to Colorado (we flew). Over the years, I’ve come to realize that travel of any kind is my therapy. It’s not lost on me that it’s a privilege to travel. If it helps my psyche to indulge in the culture and rhythm of new cities (hey, even old ones), then it was all worth it. I relax. I push myself to figure

Only a couple hours left of a favorite May holiday - Mother’s Day. Yes, Memorial Day and the weekend can be a favorite, but honoring mothers is a special time. I thought about it all day with greetings coming in from near and far with several sets of threads of various groups I belong too. It’s a great way to keep in touch, wishing each other a Happy Mother’s Day, and feeling the love poured out from our own loved ones. Plus all the dog and cat moms, whose animals love them d

Yesterday was a good friend’s birthday. I reached out to her early in the morning to celebrate her milestone bday - 65 and Medicare eligible! Later in the morning, I headed to a funeral for another good friend’s husband's celebration of life, with the mass and reception following (he passed away last month). These two celebrations reminded me how fragile and fleeting life truly is. How many more birthdays will we have? How many summers do we have left? For me, it’s a wake-up

In the midst of a beautiful location with well appointed buildings and hotel style “dorm” rooms, almost a dozen quilters descended on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to sew, eat, and build our community of fiber artists. The amazing sewists here are terrific friends too. We push each other in whatever projects we are passionately working on, and the ideas flow like a fast river. In fact, the huge property we are on, Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries, is nestled on the Chester

The game of Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the United States. A few weeks ago, the International Olympic Committee added Pickleball as a sport in the next games (2028 in Los Angeles). I couldn’t be more thrilled of this new added sport to the roster. Hey, they used to have Breakdancing (hmmm) and Baseball/Softball (I can see this more as an Olympic sport). Pickleball is a wickedly fast paced game. It was started in 1965 by a Congressman in Washington State with tw