I turned 50 this week. I have neglected this blog and many of my passions for far too long.
I don't make new year's resolutions for public consumption, but I am a compulsive list maker.
In addition to recommitting myself to writing about great places to relax, relocate and retire, I commit to the following over the next 50 months as my own MidCentury Manifesto:
For me and my family, 2007 has been a year of comings and goings.
Personally, my beloved mother-in-law, Ken's Mom and Stirling and Alex's Nanny has gone. My father-in-law has come into a new phase. The transition has been like most things in life, a little messy and unpredictable but necessary.
Stirling has gone to Senegal for three months of academics, cultural exchange and contemplation regarding her future careeer and life goals. Happily, she has come home safely.
Alex has gone from high school and come into his own as a college man. He has also -- as have we all -- come from New Jersey to return to our readopted hometown and my children's birthplace in Alabama.
We all have gone from a life that contained the excitement and complexities of living, working and playing in the Northeast and come to embrace the simpler pace of spending lazier days and nights in the South in proximity to family and, for Ken, life-long friends.
Continue Reading...I have lost my voice. Figuratively anyway.
I find the writing and this topic -- both of which are still very much huge passions -- a bit more labored to come by at the moment. Like so many things in our lives, if we don't practice and refine a talent, we can became stale and awkward in our execution. I ask for your indulgance as I rediscover my blogging chops.
So while I am enjoying exercising my literary muscle again, I must admit it is a little sore from lack of stretching. Looking forward to getting my endurance back up for the marathons ahead.
For a blogger extraordinaire, the last few months 
would have provided ample opportunity for content, content, content.
However, from my perspective, it seemed rather self-absorbed to write about every nuance of our move in numbing detail. Instead, I thought it would be more useful to encapsulate a few lessons learned from our recent familial excursion into a single narrative.
Continue Reading...
Boxes, boxes everywhere. That is much of my life these days. As D Day approaches in our move south, I find that more of our possessions than not are wrapped, bubbled and labelled.
I remember when Stirling and Alex were wee ones and Ken worked for a furniture retailer. In those days, we also often found ourselves surrounded by boxes, but for different reasons.
As everybody knows, for small children the box is as intriguing as the gift at birthday or holiday time. On many occasions, Ken would cart home refrigerator or television boxes and they became places to build magical fantasies and family memories. In fact, for Alex's seventh birthday we even constructed an eight-foot tall ship hull to grace the front yard and introduce the party's pirate theme.
These days, it is Smokey who has made empty boxes into his playground. Yesterday, when I assembled and stacked 50-plus empty boxes to expedite the moving process, Smokey was in kitty heaven, leaping and tumbling from one box to the next. It provided a much needed light-hearted moment at an otherwise hectic time.
Until the next time I can report back from the moving circus . . .
Yesterday was D Day. The day that circumstances nudged me to begin the journey that will mark 2007 as a year of true change.
Of course, today reality hit when I got sidetracked by a misbehaving mobile phone and an erratic elbow.
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Lisa Belkin talks about New Year’s resolutions: the hopes they convey for the days ahead, the disappointment they create as the year draws to a close and we examine personal promises laid fallow. Much of this disappointment comes from setting (and verbalizing) goals that are "too": too grand, too many, too far-reaching. 
For the last several weeks, I have taken a detour in defining what "I will be when I grow up." The mission never really changed, but I started to rethink the way I was going to get there. And while the alternate route in and of itself has proven to be a mere detour, it has helped to clarify how I will make vision into reality.
I guess in this regard, I am not unlike most people. As we all know "sometimes life gets in the way" of even the best-laid plans, dreams and choices. But it is what we do with the knowledge learned during those detours that makes them more valuable than they would seem to be at first glance.
So whether it's in life or in your travels, metaphorically or practically, embrace the back roads and circuitous routes. What they may uncover is worth the alternate path.
AL: My sister Sheri is an angel. Not just a sweet person but genuinely a being sent from the heavens above. How do I know this?
I know because when she heard about a neighbor with five children and another on the way, dealing with a life threatening illness, her first and only thought was how she could help.
And because she lives in Crestline, a charming hamlet outside of Birmingham, others in her community also rushed to help the Robinson family, with donations of goods and services pouring in from throughout the community and the city at large.
The result is that this Saturday, October 21 at the Mountain Brook Baptist Church from 8 a.m. - 3 p.m., Sheri and her band of merry elves will be conducting a charitable tag sale, with items ranging from a used car to new shoes to antique knick knacks.
But what they will mostly be offering is a dose of human kindness and compassion at its best, often most easily found in a small town. And this is something that most of us can never get enough of.
Info: sewsheri@bellsouth.net or 205.529.3027
UPDATE: On October 28, 2006, David Robinson, 36, passed away. Dave was the former proprietor of Dave's Deli and Backstage Catering in Crestline Village, Alabama.
His community is continuing to offer emotional and financial support to Janet Robinson and Dave and Jan's five children (the sixth is due in February 2007). If you are interested in providing assistance, you may still reach out to Sheri Corey, who is continuing to spearhead this effort.
To me, a road trip exploring points unknown is heaven. To my children -- as is true with many kids -- such an outing is often torturous. Even as young adults, they still want to know (even if they don't verbalize it as frequently) "are we there yet?"
I am working hard to rejigger their perspective. As they have gotten older, I believe we have made some progress.
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NJ: An electrical outage along the rails this morning meant that I was detoured on my way into the B.C. It wasn't an unpleasant experience, providing an excuse to take the walk I am usually too rushed to enjoy from the station to the office. The weather today was beautiful and the atmosphere was brisk.
But I am getting ahead of myself. First, before I could get to excuses for taking walks, I had the pleasure of enjoying a train station, reimagined on this particular morning as a charming town center.
Working in the "big city" brings a cacophony of delights and challenges. .jpg)
As I work in my "out with the old, in with the new" transition mode -- both mentally and literally -- I become more acutely aware of what I will (and won't) miss when I finally am out of here.
Here is the list.
Continue Reading..."It is Rosh Hashanah, that's why the trains are so crowded," the weary conductor advised his colleague via cell phone. "Just try to get people on and off the train as quickly as possible."
Indeed, you could feel that holiday spirit energizing the air today. People scurried through the train station, on their way out of the big city to infiltrate surrounding small towns and join family and friends in celebration.
"It's harder than ever to separate work and play," heralds Fortune magazine in their annual Business Life issue. In this case, they go on to say that this may not be a bad thing when people have found a career that allows them to have fun and make money while exploring their passions.
This perspective will become increasingly relevant for many of us as work and life become more intertwined as a result of the advantages and challenges of living more connected lives.
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As offered by BRCTraveller Ginny Herman
GA: "I took this photo around 8.30 am coming down from my cabin towards town, going past all the rhododendrons, hemlock trees and creeks. I turned the corner and WOW. It was a wonderful experience that set the mood for the entire day for me."
Today's New York Times ran an article on "happiness decor" or how making one's environment cheery and bright can affect your mood and perhaps even be a factor in your overall happiness.
It is a philosophy that more of us are applying to all aspects of our lives, including me.
Continue Reading...Stirling and Alex went to Alaska with their grandfather. Stirling sent me this postcard in (partial) jest.
She knows me well enough to know that I have romantic notions about old buildings, renovated barns and relocated structures. Before we moved into our current home in Basking Ridge, I seriously researched saving a historic home from a summer estate and moving it to a new lot (ultimately the home was demolished to make room for three, new $1.5 million homes). And on a recent trip to the Finger Lakes, NY, I was enamored (to the boredom of my family) with an abandoned, red Dutch-style barn on the approach to our friends' lake home.
As we make decisions about our future living arrangements, I know my family waits with anticipation (and perhaps a little fear) to see what crazy ideas I propose for our next "home sweet home."
OK, so two days ago I was lamenting the legions of lines I encountered on my trip from New York to San Jose for the BlogHer '06 conference. While I don't take back any of the aggravation I was feeling, I must admit the one thing that travel by car or train cannot capture is the aerial majesty of the American landscape.
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Right now we are soaring over the Rockies on the way back East. While the views are certainly impressive from the ground, they do not compare with the views to be witnessed from overhead. So maybe I won't give up air travel after all . . . .
Today at the BlogHer conference, I had a moment's pause in my master plan to buy a PT Cruiser convertible next year to take on the endless road trip. The reason for my hesitation? The folks from Saturn were on hand here in San Jose and gave us the chance to test drive their cars (smart corporate types, appealing to use women car buyers!), including the oh-so-sweet Sky convertible.
In addition to its fabulous handling, nice sound system and sharp good looks (this one had red and black leather seats --hot!) it was just a truly fun drive.
Perhaps I'll be rethinking my decision after all . . .
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I am on the way to pick up
Somehow it seems appropriate to begin this blog in conjunction with a holiday associated with family, friends and fun, all things we hope will be enhanced by your visits to Back Roads, Charming Towns.
With my sister and daughter in tow, we took a 12-hour road trip today, the Saturday of Independence Day weekend. We ruled out the beach (we knew that would surely be a shore bottleneck) and the Amish country (the "monsoon of June" had just swept the Delaware River over the banks of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, leaving a soggy, muddy mess by Saturday). We opted for the Catskills and specifically, the village of Woodstock. While there was the anticipated traffic on the New York Thruway, it was only when we got to Exit 16 that matters went from bopping to bleak.
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