DREAMS
Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: fear of failure. Never forget your personal legend. Never forget your dreams. Your silent heart will guide you. Be silent now. It is the…
Alaska — Land of surprises
Beautiful. Vast. Harsh. One. The sun doesn't rise until after 9:00am and when it does it is intense and blinding white light. Even sun glasses don't stop the glare. No wonder northern explorers wear goggles. Two. Whittier, Alaska, on Prince William Sound, doesn't have much going for it in November.…
T minus 4 and counting
In four days we leave on our long awaited trip to Alaska. Alaska has loomed large in my imagination since childhood. My mom graduated high school in Fairbanks and my dad went up the Alaska highway twice in the years following World War II. I remember dad reciting Robert Service…
Eleven Who Care award
Again, it's been a while since I last posted. It's easy to procrastinate after I haven't posted for a few days. But I have some exciting news to share. I won the KARE-11 Eleven Who Care award this year. Each year this award honors eleven people around the state for…
Happy Memorial Day
I'm back in the swing of things. On Saturday we finished our 3-weeks of sailing classes at the Wayzata Yacht Club that taught us how to be good crew members. The session ended with a Graduation Cup race around Lake Minnetonka. We had a good stiff breeze which made for…
Three weeks of pervasive laziness
I intended to keep this blog updated weekly and just like that three weeks flew by with no new posts. I have many excuses as to why: the weather was cold and cloudy, we haven't been sailing yet, I spent way too much time mindlessly cruising the internet, I got…
Successful Phillips Aquatics Center community meeting
Wednesday, April 24th, I did a presentation to a standing-room only crowd who came to learn more about the plans for the Phillips Aquatics Center. This was a monumental day for me. Starting at 4:00pm I was interviewed by Alec Fischer, a fellow Eleven Who Care awardee, who is making…
April snow: 103 days and counting
Today is April 20th, 2013. We have exactly 103 days to learn to race our sailboat before the start of LOWISA on August 3rd. As each April snow delays spring, our time to learn grows shorter. And with the temperature 20 degrees below normal we may still have ice on…
Ready, set — a whole lot of not much
There have been many complaints about the weather this spring 2013 and now I'm no exception. This never-ending winter is getting on my nerves. We went to Clearwater on Saturday to check on the sailboat. We hoped to pick up the trailer and bring it back to Minneapolis to rebuild…
LOWISA — two steps forward
It's April 11th and it's snowing. According to the weather report it may snow on and off for the next four days. The average temperature for this time of year is 58 degrees. We are 20 degrees below normal. Do I care? Only slightly. Yes, I would love to be…
How did they survive?
I finished the book "A Storm Too Soon." This is the Sean Seamour II's 8-foot life-raft on the side of a mountain of water. These still photos are taken from the raw video footage of the USCG rescue. How did these three guys survive? How did the USCG rescue them…
Where is spring?
Spring is certainly taking its merry time coming this cold 2013. While we wait, wait, wait for the ice to melt from the lakes and rivers (and our backyard fire pit) I read. Today I bought two books Fatal Forecast: An Incredible True Tale of Disaster and Survival at Sea…
Bald eagle bonding and a sailboat name
Yesterday I took Buddy down to the river for his regularly scheduled most-favorite-thing-in the-world walk. Right away we met up with a couple of dogs that liked to run as much as Buddy does. After a few minutes of high speed frolicking with his friends we took off walking alone…
Dreamer
"All people dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."…
This is the day
that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:34 My whole life I have struggled with belief. I was raised Christian but a combination of my crazy emotional turmoil, my natural tendency to worry and fear and take them to bizarre extremes, my stubbornness,…
Spring begins
Although the temperature here in Minneapolis does not feel like it's spring, the glorious sunshine does. And with the sunshine comes thoughts of sunny days on our sailboat this summer. We still have ice on the lakes but sailing season seems near. Kevin has been in California for the past…
Aleppo Lentil Soup
Today marks my first day of being intentional with my time rather than wasting it. In celebration I made Aleppo Lentil Soup from one of my favorite cookbooks: Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa. Coptic Christians spend a good part of the year fasting and that…
LOWISA here we come
Kevin and I attended the Minneapolis Boat Show twice this year. We stopped in at the Northern Lights Sailing Club booth and had the good fortune to meet a couple Canadians who were in Minneapolis to promote the Lake of The Woods International Sailing Association (LOWISA) 48th annual sailing regatta.…
Saving Sailing
Earlier this year Kevin and I joined the Northern Lights Sailing Club. (http://nlsc.org) One nice feature of being a new member is being assigned a 'navigator' to help us meet fellow NLSC sailors and learn about the club. Our navigator, Keith Holloman, suggested I read the book, Saving Sailing. I…
Continuing to work on my worry problem
My year overcoming fear and worry has been moving along slowly, to slowly for my liking. I wanted instant relief and I'm not getting it. I've been nervous, feeling almost constant anxiety, and worrying about things I have no control over. It's time for a mental reset. No actually a…
