My wife and I bought our first home in the winter of 2019.  Immediately, we began a harrowing journey to remodel our 1960s home.  We had no plan and a woefully inadequate budget, but we also had a lot of moxie and sweat to give.At first, it was thrilling to be finally working on our house after dreaming about it for 16 years.  Many conversations would start with, “What if over here we did this...”  Then one of us might say, “Oh, I like that!  And what abou... continue reading

My three boys and their cards for our next-door neighbor, Ellen.A month ago, the kids were in school, we were shaking hands and had no awareness of social distance.  Words like pandemic and global recession weren’t on my radar.  Coronavirus was this far away thing on the news.  Last week, my next-door neighbor died from the virus.  His name was Alan.  I didn’t know Alan really.  We’ve only lived as neighbors for not even a year.&nb... continue reading

I often reference the metaphor of trapezing when navigating through a major life transition. I've made it a living metaphor, having personal experience with what it's like to leap from a platform 30 feet up in the air and feel my body hurtling toward another set of hands that I'm told are going to catch me."Legs off!" The instructor yells. What a terrifying and thrilling invitation.Trapeze is quite an apt metaphor for transition, don't you think? We are between "what was" and "w... continue reading