“But you’ll always be home for Christmas, right?” my father would ask whenever discussion turned to not being home for one holiday or another. Among his five children, it was rare for any of us to be any place other than his dining room on major holidays. But eventually school or boyfriends sometimes changed our plans. Click…

Just before Advent, Mom sent me and my siblings out to the field next to our house to pick bunches of the straw that grew there. In the summertime, we would imitate Laura Ingles Wilder in the opening credits of “Little House on the Prairie,” running through the field, falling down and laughing, clutching our…

“I don’t think you’ve ever felt like you belonged anywhere,” a friend told me the other day while we were out on a walk. I paused and looked at him, “Tell me why you think that,” I said. As he outlined his reasons, I was stunned. He was onto something. Click here to read more.

After he spent two weeks volunteering at a hostel for pilgrims along the Camino, a friend returned with a gift for me. I was surprised he bought me anything as he knows I’m a minimalist who is on a seemingly neverending quest to live with less “stuff”. He smiled as I opened the bag. It contained…

The pilgrims of the Middle Ages didn’t carry much of anything. Images depict them in a long cloaks and simple sandals, a walking stick in one hand to which a drinking gourd was attached. No backpacks. No headlamps. No hiking shoes. I realize they probably didn’t have nearly as much to take with them anyway. I’m guessing…

A couple Sundays ago, 500 people walked through my house. I — or more accurately my home — was part of the 2013 Tour of Homes. These sorts of things usually showcase large, meticulously decorated places. I, however, live in a 780-square-foot log cabin. There’s a taxidermied rooster on my mantle. So how is it…

I heard about a study the other day that showed the speed people walk is related to the number of years they will live. Faster walkers live longer. If this is true, my father may live forever. He is the man who doesn’t take cabs when we visit New York City. Nor do we ride the subway….