For Thanksgiving, our little family headed up North to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a few days.  We enjoyed a lot of snow, family time, and polar plunging into Lake Superior.  It was nice to be off-grid, and I…

Well, I gave my first public speech last week.  I was asked to give a talk to a large group on "The Power Of A Tribe."  I was conflicted about agreeing to give a speech. 

First, because I don't…

No blog for me for two weeks.  I've got to give a big speech to a large group of women at the end of November, and I'm using all of my writing time to make it the best it can…

I wish it were as easy to perform updates on ourselves as it is on our phones.  

If I were my phone, I'd just plug myself in at night, wake up in the morning to a new operating system…

Morbid as it sounds, I think about death everyday.  

Not for long, and not to be macabre. It just helps me keep everything in perspective.  As contrary as it sounds, nothing snaps me out of a funk faster than…

Short blog tonight; the kids need their mama. But I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be a bartender this week.

This Wednesday, I'm guest-bartending from 5 pm to 7 pm at Abreo restaurant in Rockford…

All my life, I've spent way too much energy and time caring what people thought about me. 

And feeling sorry. 

As a musician, I figured if people didn't like me (and-by extension-my music), they wouldn't buy my records…

This week, a lot of things turned up, seemingly out of nowhere.  

On the restaurant front, we came into loads of hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, watercress, & juniper berries.  I could hardly believe my good luck.  All of these treasures were…

A few weeks ago, one of the writers from Umgås--a Scandi magazine I reference all the time at my restaurant--contacted me out of the blue. I was dumb-founded and honored; he wanted to write a story about my journey through…

We live in a world that loves to find fault.  

At least I do.  

When I was in undergrad, I took a personality test. The number one adjective that chocked me up? Fault-finding. No joke. I felt embarrassed…

I'm writing this blog with a 2-month old baby on my shoulder.  (My friends' newborn has colic, and I offered to take him off their hands for the night.)  So no blog from me tonight. I have so much to…

When I was a kid, I was the crazy one.  The dreamer.  The prankster who couldn't stop laughing.  The stay-up-too-late writing music chic w/ a pot of coffee I didn't even like to drink, but man, it made me feel…