After blindly forgetting to meditate for the first time in six years last winter, I reached the half-year daily mark on the solstice. I'm using The Way app these days, while running a timed session on Insight Timer in the background because I have 10 years and over 3000 hours of meditation logged there. 

First structured workout since my abdominal surgery in March. It was a warmup to zone 2 workout — I’ve been under strict orders to not raise my HR, so it felt really good to get sweaty!

I'm always thinking about food science, whether in our gluten-free bakery, or in the products I use for my training, or, in the case of David Protein Bars, what is being advertised to me. On the surface, a bar made up of 75% protein and only 150 calories sounds right up my alley, but when I dug into it, I was pretty disturbed by one ingredient and who was endorsing it. I wrote a post that is c...

I didn't have much planned for my birthday due to strict orders to do as little as possible from my surgical team, so I decided to visit Amanda at the market. It was a warm, sunny day in Santa Cruz and the Farmer's Market was jumpin'. A bit too busy for my current state. After six weeks in a hospital and at home alone, the energy of people weaving throughmarket stalls, busking musicians in ever...

It was not a given I'd make it this far. I started my 40s pumped up on steroids to try and keep my inflammation under control after losing 90 pounds in three months from Crohn's disease. Ten years later, I ran my first marathon. You truly never know what you are capable of, but the work you do today pays dividends to your future self.  “Always play the long game.” While I'm currently recoveri...

In April, TheChallenge.org website kicked off a month-long meditation challenge that is being supported by The Way app, created by Henry Shukman. Henry's book, "Original Love" was one of my favorite reads of 2024 and I'm sure will be one of the meditation books I reread frequently. While I've had a daily meditation practice for ten years, this challenge timed perfectly with my surgery and provi...

8 days in the hospital, 2 abdominal surgeries, a partially collapsed lung, 2 vasovagal crashes, the last of which happened on the endless stair climb to our place, but I got to wake up to this sunrise view of the Monterey Bay.

I am out of the second procedure (abdominal surgery) and things went well enough that they canceled the third. I've been on an epidural for pain management for the first time and it is a game changer. When I sent a picture of my IV pole stack to my youngest, she said it looked like R2D2. [My IV Pole with Epidural]