Susan and I had coffee with a fellow American who had recently arrived in Valencia. As our conversation unfurled he quietly admitted that he’d been having second thoughts. After two months he wasn’t “living the …
Deja Vu High School
As I sat down to write this post it dawned on me that it has been 50 years since I graduated from St. Catherine’s High School in Racine, Wisconsin. Fifty years is a long time. …
My Reckoning With Hidden Consumption: Part 2 — Food Waste
In Part I of this series I examined my clothing purchase habits in order to reduce my contribution to the fashion industry’s environmentally unsustainable practices. Part II is a similar examination of my role in …
My Reckoning With Hidden Consumption: Part 1 — Clothing
One of my many interests and aspirations is to lower my impact on earth. I feel a little guilty that I’m just getting around to this with my new retired lifestyle, but timing is everything. …
Our Gentle Values and Their Measures
We are trying to live gently in the world, more gently than we ever have. We’ve been at this point before, when we were young, and again, and yet again — only to fall short. …
Our Unexpected Stay-at-Home in the Navarrés Region of the Valencia Communidad
Our escape from Las Fallas, version 2020, started with a week in the Spanish Pyrenees followed up with a week in the Basque Country. We planned for our third and final week of our Spanish …
Sabando: A Remote Village in the Basque Country of Northern Spain
Late last year our friends Mat and Kathryn suggested we escape the noise and crowds of Valencia’s bacchanal, better known as Las Fallas. We spent the first week of our three-week sojourn in the Spanish …
Fiscal, Aragón: A Quiet Village in the Spanish Pyrenees
Late last year when our friends Mat and Kat asked if we’d like to escape from Valencia with them for three weeks in March, we jumped at the chance. Not only would we miss the …
I’ll Be Using Idioms Until the Cows Come Home
Something I’ve learned during my time in Spain is that my speech is full of idioms. When Jamie called me out on this, I thought, well maybe I use these expressions once in a blue …
Before the Sun: A Photo Project
My project wasn’t to create a portfolio of publication quality photos. I really just wanted to get myself to reclassify my morning excursions with Lizzie from a category labeled CHORE to one labeled JOY
Why Not a Self-Organized Family Yoga Retreat?
One day in January Susan had a most wonderful idea: ” Why not a self-organized family yoga retreat?” It turns out that we discovered something we want to repeat time and time again…
Six Jam Packed Days at VaughanTown, Gredos
It’s early on a cold Sunday morning in Madrid. We join a group assembling on the street, half Spaniards, half Anglos. We’ll soon board a bus to an isolated hotel perched at the edge of the Gredos Mountains. We’re about to embark on an incredible journey.