Don’t get too excited, no sex secrets here today, just a little honest talk about relationships and marriage and a few suggestions for how to build happiness in the Empty Nest. It is Valentine week after all!
The kids have grown up, moved out and are away at school. Most likely they only come home occasionally and that means much more privacy in the Empty Nest. I can remember the lack of privacy when Nick was in high school and I would have to wear a bra under my pajamas if the teenage boys were coming over. I know TMI, but we just never knew who and how many were arriving at 11:00 pm at night. True privacy was non-existent back then!
Our visit to Alimento in the historic Silver Lake neighborhood ~
If you have visited here before, you know that delicious food and fabulous restaurants are very high on our adventures list. We do try to search out the most talked about and well reviewed restaurants around the U.S. so we can share them with you! Today’s focus is located in our very own La La Land, Los Angeles. We travel a great deal so our Los Angeles restaurant adventure is a little slow going. I did however just go with my friend Keri to Petit Trois for an authentic French bistro experience recently! You can check that out => here.
However, we were able to get a reservation this week to experience another one of LA’s best restaurants. The tiny and hip area of Silver Lake boasts many fantastic restaurants and now that we live in Pasadena, we are less than fifteen minutes away from this outstanding foodie village.
Being loyal is an important personal attribute and being loyal to a particular brand(s) will help a great deal when you travel. We have been traveling for years together as a couple and my husband travels almost every week for business. We discovered years ago that paying special attention to your choices in accommodations as well as the airlines, makes a HUGE difference. If you stay within one chain of hotels, you build loyalty points that can be used for more travel, upgrades and for status.
If you travel a lot, it is especially nice to be upgraded and/or offered lovely amenities, bottles of wine and delightful snacks. Traveling isn’t always as glamorous as it seems. It can be frustrating, exhausting, confusing and there is no one there patting you on the arm telling you all will be ok. If we have issues with our travel plans, we have to solve them. If there are delays, we have to endure them.
February is here and maybe you are thinking about a romantic getaway with your sweetheart? Maybe you are not… but just maybe you should think about it? I recently participated in a fun post with Expedia where fourteen travel bloggers offered their best ideas for a couples trip somewhere in the U.S. I was super flattered to be included and you can click ==> here to read the article! There were so many cities to choose from and I thought I would add to the list here.
Yes, we did it again. Alex and I took a Birthday Layer Cake Baking class at The Pantry in Seattle. When your busy adult child wants to spend time with you… you always say yes! We have found such camaraderie through our common passion for cooking and our son Nick also loves to cook! Lightening struck twice, lucky me!
When I make plans to visit a city, I try to look deeper into activities that most likely are not filled with tourists. I look for things that we (I) have a strong interest in learning more about. We always look for local bookstores, cooking stores, sports related tours, foodie tours, architecture tours, music/record stores, cooking classes, breweries, and distilleries.
My new bullet journal and just a few of the many journals that I have been using!
I am excited to start a new bullet journal for all of my adventures ~
Are you familiar with the Bullet Journal? The Bullet Journal is a totally customizable organization system that adapts to your needs. It is modular by design and comprised of interchangeable methods that help you quickly capture and organize information. The four key concepts lay the foundation and they are: Rapid Logging, Collections, Migration and Indexing.
How do you stay organized, keep your adventures in order and track your goals? Do you keep your thoughts in your computer? Do you have one notebook? Several notebooks?
The bullet journal is also known as #BuJo and is associated with a multitude of other hashtags on Instagram. I learned about it last year, but I was spinning in so many directions I couldn’t sit down and get an idea how this new way of logging my info would work for me.
Here I am enjoying a class in Seattle. I can’t wait to go to Tuscany to experience an authentic Italian class!
An Italian cooking school adventure!
Do you have days when the stars are aligned and you find yourself connecting with a special individual you have never met before? This happened to me when Coleen Kirnan of Tuscan Women Cook, an Italian cooking school, contacted me to introduce herself and tell me about her magical place in Italy.
She came across a post of mine mentioned by LA Times columnist Chris Erskine on his Facebook page and she felt we would make great collaborators. First of all, who does that any more? Who reaches out actively to another person to see if there is a solid possibility of a connection? – Oh Coleen does! She is amazing, inspiring and a real go-getter. I look forward to meeting her equally tenacious entrepreneurial partner Rhonda Vilardo, very soon!
Saturday Morning News – We round up interesting articles we find on the web from a variety of sources. This week’s links are a family affair. Both Alex and Craig sent me news they found interesting!
Goal Setting – Have you ever heard of the Seinfeld Theory? January is goal setting month and there are some fascinating tips in this article ~ http://jamesclear.com/goal-setting
Airplane gripes & travel manners ~ Excuse me, your butt is in my face!
Most of the time traveling is awesome and exciting and people are mostly cordial and polite however, sometimes it’s annoying and frustrating to deal with the inconsiderate and clueless on a flight.
To be crammed into such a small area with strangers is a lesson in patience and personal restraint. As a frequent flyer I have become acutely sensitive to my immediate surroundings. I am small so I don’t really threaten to take over other travelers’ personal space, but I am exceptionally considerate to other people. I am kind, offer my help, and often assist stowing baggage. Oh, but the big people sometimes have no clue how their size infringes upon my ability to get comfortable.
Sheesh, there are travel manners and common courtesy rules…
Why does the extra-large husband always sit in the center seat of me and his wife? If she sat in the middle we women would have so much more room!
Why do many of the first class passengers take their sweet ass time putting their one bag in the overhead? They poke around, peruse, contemplate and then take their seat. I see this with the men mostly. Hello? There are 109 more passengers waiting to get on the plane. Common courtesy is not that difficult. Get going! Be Considerate Man!
I know many of you are dealing with really cold weather right about now! My friend Laura in Kennebunkport, Maine was looking at -2 degrees and deciding whether to go out. There are scary ice storms across the Midwest and many feet of snow around the country. I admire those of you who tough it out in those frigid temps. When it drops to the 20’s and 30’s that is SUPER COLD for this wimpy Southern Californian.
I see on social media that many people plan trips to warm weather climates during these harsh winter months. I sure would! St Barts, Hawaii, Australia, South America all sound pretty nice right about now. Hawaii is a wonderful destination to visit in the winter.
To be perfectly truthful, a Hawaiian vacation ANY time of year would make me very happy. How about you? We are so spoiled here on the West Coast, we are so much closer to the Hawaiian Islands than those of you in the Midwest, East Coast or Europe. This geographic advantage is quite sizeable and quite fulfilling!
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