Two Autumns, Two Ways to Live

"Have you ever dreamt that you'd be living in such a beautiful place?" asked Justin on our last forest walk. And here is my honest answer.

The Woman Who Runs With the Wolves

I have some exciting news to share, but first let's talk about this amazing dress! How happy I was to find it at my local Target! A short back up story. It's a part of the Who What Wear collection and comes in the whole range of sizes, regular and plus, which is great, but typically there isn't a lot of that collection available at my local store. I prefer shopping online anyway, but oddly enough, even though the dress just screams my name with all these bold colors and various stripes...I was indecisive for too long - the dress sold out in all plus sizes online. Oh well, I thought, maybe it wasn't screaming my name after all. But then...

Live and Let Live

"You astonish me in that you can look both stunningly dramatic and also cute and adorable, two looks that don't seem possible in one person." These words my talented blogger friend SHAWNA said about me in a comment to my post, and I cherish them, because they resonate with me deeply, and I've never heard anything quite like this description, either about myself or anyone else, really. Although I remember both comments being said to me independently from one another by other people who knew me in the past years. I thought about it today and realized that blogging is what bonded these two sides of me visually - the warm, genuine and personable part of me with the bold and dramatic part. It helped me to dress that bold part more consistently than ever before. And so thanks to my style and blog journey, my whole personality started shining through.

Lucid Dream

Yesterday, I took my family to listen to a lecture by one of the leading thinkers of our time, bestselling author Deepak Chopra. I have just finished his free 21-day meditation course which he offers in collaboration with Oprah Winfrey, and this was my second time meditating with them. (If you're interested, you can find more information and sign up for a newsletter HERE.) I really enjoyed this experience, so when I learned that Deepak would be in my American hometown Tacoma, I bought three tickets for my whole family to attend. (His next events would be in Zurich, Switzerland; Hamburg, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; Eugene, Oregon; Paris, France; London, UK; Amsterdam, Netherlands and São Paulo, Brazil - an impressive international list.) It was a week night, so of course everyone was tired - really, it's hard to make it after a long day and in the middle of a busy week, and Anya even fell asleep a couple of times during the lecture, but at the end we all were happy that we made it - we felt uplifted, energized, and in the long run we all benefited from this event.

We'll All Become Mushrooms

It was a sunny, yet breezy day in Seattle, when Justin, Anya and I were walking through the streets of downtown which with all the tall buildings became wind tunnels, and I was wishing I had three, or better yet four hands to keep my cape that was trying to escape, and keep my floppy hat and flowy skirt down while also holding a purse and umbrella, in case it rained. We were walking to the most unusual event about which we got a recommendation just a week before, to see a presentation about bees and mushrooms - two subjects that we were curious about, but in a very separate-from-one-another way. I think that by now, many of you are aware of the critical situation with bees for the past several years, and you also might have heard that in January 2017, the first species (the rusty patched bumble bee) was officially declared under the federal protection (more about it HERE). Several more types of bees are potentially endangered in North America. Bees are the essential pollinators of wildflowers, fruit and crops, and it is pretty obvious that scientists are concerned and looking for ways to help the bees, and therefore plants, planet and us, people. But what does it have to do with mushrooms?