Saying yes

Sunrise on the strait of Juan de Fuca, right by our campsite A highlight of the trip has been seeing friends and family along the way. Seeing my cousins in Corvallis warmed my heart.    T took us to a magical fort he found in the woods near our campsite near Newport, OR. It was a steep climb!  Ice cream and cheese at the Tilamook Factory in Oregon- oh my! Our almost teenager Jesse spent hours climbing Redwoods washed up on the beach we were staying at in La Push, WA. This was the most beautiful place we have been as of yet. Bald Eagle near Newport, OR   La Push, WA. This beach was holy Our campsite near Port Angeles, WA- that's Canada across the strait La Push, WA Happy times for Jesse in Seaside, OR La Push, WA- have I mentioned how much we loved this beach?! The water is freezing, the air is cold.  Jesse does not care. friends from Holden met up with us near Newport and all the kids had fun in the sand. Beach near the Elwa River in WA

I’ve been listening to How to Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell. Instead of paying attention to the latest click-bate headlines, likes, shares, and memes, Jenny Odell invites us to pay attention to the land, to birds, to our inner lives, and to cultivate practices that reveal (that allow us to pay attention to) the blind spots we all have. The title of the book is misleading, in that Odell is not inviting us to actually do nothing. Rather, she is inviting us to embrace the discipline of really attending to what is in and around us.  I’ve been listening to this book on my morning walks, and it’s helping me make sense of life right now. It’s less about seeing things - National Parks, historic sites, and beautiful trails. It’s more about being; being with my own discomfort, as we shift focus away from our careers, at least for the time being; it’s about being with our kids in new ways, working to minimize our reactivity to their triggering behavior while hold...