A strong voice and passion through writing take time to develop.   Yet, with the barrage of information and opinions available on the Internet today, it's too easy to write what we think others want us to say to drive traffic to us.     What do you think makes the most impact and creates an engaged readership?   Along your journey to five hundred posts, you'll find what works for you and you'll filter the rest. Today I'm sharing how I reached my 502 post in hopes my journey inspires you.  

Weekends are my favorite days. Not because there's no work to do, but because we read together as a family. Gates has it appears inherited our love and my parents' love of books.     Recently Gates discovered my library of graphic design and layout inspiration and claimed them as hers. Why would she be interested in this part of my collection of books? The books are children's books and young reader textbooks.     Her current favorite as of yesterday is I CAN FLY (Little Golden Book) (*affiliate link) by Ruth Krauss with pictures by Mary Blair, originally published in 1951 and reissued on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Little Golden Books in 1979. The story is of a little girl's day and all the ways she plays, swimming like a fish, mooing like a cow, walking like a cat, and more.     I originally fell in love with this book, before I had Gates, for its illustrations. I hadn't read the story. (Before letting Gates claim the books, I did read ...

Whether you know a cop, a fire fighter, or a first responder or whether you have ever sought one out, they have been there for you. They are the quiet unsung heroes who keep us safe and are at the ready to help us should an emergency arise. Sadly, we often only think of them in times of crisis, like the Boston Marathon bombings and suspect capture last week. So, join Maddy Hague of Somewhere Splendid, me, and others in thanking your local cops, fire fighters, or first responders.     Maddy's made participating super simple.   What to Do: Buy a cup of coffee for a local fire fighter, police officer, or other first responder when you come across one. Approach them and explain that you’d like to buy them a cup of coffee out of appreciation for their service, and ask what they’d like or have them escort you to a coffee shop. On the run, or shy? Get a gift card with the approximate value of a cup of coffee (or more!) to a local or chain coffee shop and keep it on hand. Vis...

At every opportunity someone is pulling out their smart phone and Instagraming their life. Admit it, you do it too. Well, this Mother's Day why not turn that habit into a gift that keeps on giving: a monthly series of portraits or snapshots of your family having fun.     Other than time, this DIY can be as budget friendly or sky's the limit as you want. Here's what you need to do. First, you need a picture frame. To keep this super easy, make sure you choose a frame with a standard photo size that you can print from your printer. I chose a frame that holds three 4x6 photos, a size that I can print out with my printer. Over the month, continue taking photos as you normally would and identify some that you might want your family to see . At the end of the month, print out as many photos as there are openings in your frame (for me it's three). Drop the photos along with a Post-It or short note into an envelope with some cardboard to keep them from being bent in the...

Do you have pieces in your wardrobe that you love so much you wear them from season to season? I do.     Last fall at a friend's Girl's Night Out Clothing Swap I picked up my new favorite sundress. I haven't waited until now to wear it though. This winter I frequently wore it over black leggings topped with a black merino wool turtleneck.     Because the pattern has a variety of colors, black, white, cream, and teal, I'm able to match the dress with a variety of separates to change up the look. Right now a teal top and a patent teal belt are on my wardrobe wish list to give it an even fresher look for spring.     Do you wear your flirty florals year round?   Ciao Bella! Eden!   P.S. Are you following The Road to The Good Life on Google Reader? Don't wait until July 1st when Google Reader shuts down to chose a new RSS reader. Consider making the switch to Bloglovin today. Follow my blog with Bloglovin .   Credits: All layouts des...

How do you raise a locovore foodie? By introducing them to growing early. When you rent, an easily accessible plot of land can be challenging to find. At The Station, our options are limited to the indoors; there's no garden on the property. But we're going for it anyway. This spring Gates will be helping me grow an Herb garden and strawberries.     Now we're not going to grow just any strawberries. In high school, I passionately followed early heirloom seed collection efforts. So, when I saw Leah Gauthier 's project to bring back the Marshall strawberry, a strawberry that used to be grown here in California extensively until the 1960s when it was passed over for higher yield varietals, I was in. Rather, we were in. Gates just doesn't know it yet.     Now I haven't grown strawberries indoors before. When I lived in Santa Clara, I grew six square feet of strawberries in raised beds. I carefully spaced six plants in a two foot by three foot area. The first yea...

Some days there just aren't enough hours. How do you balance work, family, and your passions? Are you doing what you love? Or are you on the path towards doing what you love?     This week's saying was inspired by something Haeley of Design Improvised said in her interview Monday on the blog: " Dedicate yourself to the 1-2 things you really truly love doing and continue to push yourself to grow in that direction. "   What 1-2 things do you routinely fill your free time with?  

While only a little more than an hour from San Francisco, the Pacheco Farm, home to the Achadinha Cheese Company , seems more than a world apart. The overcast skies and mist present the day I visited only added to the sense that this place is special. Here I found a way of life that has vanished from most places.     I arrived at the farm in the mid-morning. Everyone was hard at work making cheese or packaging cheese curds for sale. Jim kept me company while I waited for Donna. I had just asked him for tips on raising a locavore foodie when Donna came out. Their tips were introduce them to growing things early and give them responsibility for a project, whether an herb garden or chickens. Their children took pride in knowing how what they and their animals ate was grown, what their animals had been fed, how the animals had been raised, how the animals would be butchered, and more.   Before we began our tour, Donna gave me the history of the farm. When Jim's father work...

One of the crowd favorites at Gates' First Birthday Party was a simple side dish of strawberries tossed with Goat Feta from the Achadinha Cheese Company and drizzled with Balsamic Vinegar.   Credit: Heather Hunsinger (aka Mooflyfoof ) used with permission.   I'd love to claim credit for this combination, but the recipe was the brainchild of Chris, one of the farmer's market representatives for Achadinha Cheese Company. This recipe might not work with another feta. It's the freshness of the feta and it's slight brininess that you need to offset the sweetness of both the strawberries and the Balsamic Vinegar.     When I visited Achadinha Cheese Company earlier this month (check back this afternoon for a guided tour of the farm), I asked Donna Pacheco what the secret to their feta was. She had two. The first is that they use whey to make the brine for the feta. The second? The freshness of the feta offered at the farmer's market, it's less than four day...

There are times when we all would prefer a home cooked meal at the end of a long day, yet are too tired to even begin thinking about making it. Prepping everything ahead of time, similar to what restaurants do, will have you eating in more often. If you're lucky, you'll even find your swing.     Swing: the hard-to-define feeling when near-perfect synchronization of motion occurs in the shell, enhancing the overall speed and performance. ( Source )   In college, I was a coxswain for the men's rowing team. At practice, our coach often spoke of swing, something that we as a team should aspire to. For a Type A personality it was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down. But that was the irony of swing. The more you tried. The more you forced. The less achievable swing was. Swing required you to let go. To simply be in the moment.   I never raced, but I did experience swing. I was a novice coxswain so to have achieved swing with a crew speaks more to the experience of ...

I met so many amazing women at Alt Summit SLC in January. In addition to all having blogs, we had more in common. We all needed more hours in the day. We all were learning to focus on what was most important and to let go of the other things. It was incredible getting to met the women behind the blogs and hear their stories. What struck me most was how real everyone was/is, and I wanted to introduce you to some of the women I met there and share snapshots of their good lives.   Each month I'll be featuring one of my friends, in A Good Life Snapshot. I decided to kick off this series with Haeley of Design Improvised .     Haeley and I first met online in a Facebook group for Alt Summit attendees, and then in person at The Hello Social held before the official kick off to Alt. In a sea of people, it was nice to see a friendly face. I chose Haeley to kick off this new monthly series, because on her blog she focuses on creating memories for and with her girls. She shares s...

Wednesdays are special days for me; Gates and I have an entire day to ourselves. While I try to put the gadgets down and out of sight, I'm torn between not capturing the moment to share with cubes.   What tips and tricks do you use to stay focused on the now?   My compromise at the moment is to have the iPhone near during one of her playtime sessions. I was glad I went this route, because this past week was full of firsts for Gates. Firsts that I was able to share with family (via SMS and email) and now here.   She discovered her shadow.     She started standing when people were watching and showing off how well she can balance (dancing and drinking her bottle).     She went to her first Farmer's Market. This was an outing where I captured photos of the food and the vendors but not of cubes or Gates. It was a last minute decision to go after we got home from picking up Gates and I was just thinking about getting content for an upcoming blog post...

We all need a reminder to be in the now. The past is past; we can't change it. Wondering what might have been just wastes today. But some days, it's a struggle. Some days I need someone or my internal voice screaming at me:     NOW. HERE. THIS.   The past comes with a lot of baggage. Sometimes we're able to let go, walk away and start fresh. Sometimes, try as we might, we can't. We may not even realize that the past is still with us, slowing us down, coloring our present, and affecting our future.   Sometimes we need a reminder. A reality check. Earlier this week, Amy of This Heart Of Mine did just that when she blogged about the struggle to find balance between crossing off to dos and those moments when everything is shut out. She wasn't talking about letting the past go and focusing on the present, but her mantra applies.     Let me backtrack a little and give you the context for why I needed Amy's mantra on Friday. Something's that's been brewi...

Most mornings I have a hard time determining what to wear. When you report to yourself, you can pretty much wear whatever you'd like. There's no co-workers to perplex if I don a 1980s prom dress and spin up and down the hall during my coffee break. (Each layer is a full circle of material and floats so gracefully.)     There's a voice inside my head that injects its "reasoning" when vetoing outfits. This morning the voice said a mom doesn't wear that to drop off her daughter at Grandma's. That referred to a black lace camisole with a pink sheer top. Now, my mom wouldn't have batted an eye. As you can see from the photo below it's not revealing in the least.     A quick aside. After seeing the two outfits here side-by-side, I'm glad I didn't wear the pink sheer top. With a black camisole underneath it's not very flattering and I would have totally shed it in horror the moment I saw my reflection. (I typically wear the top over a whi...

Parents are often the bad guys. Diverting our children from hazards is a full-time job. When children's clothing and toy manufacturers increase the number of things we need to take out of our children's hands, I get mad. I know companies are in business to make money but cutting corners when it comes to kids really rubs me the wrong way.     For her birthday, Gates got a Fisher-Price Learning Kitchen. Gates loves lights and she loves music, so this is her new favorite toy. One of the first things my sister, an early childhood educator, and I noticed about the toy was that Gates was rewarded with music when she touched the play kitchen burner. Luckily I've found a mode where the burner doesn't respond (or that mechanism has already broken). For the moment, I won't have to confuse Gates with an explanation that toy burners can be touched but real ones shouldn't be.   Something I didn't notice immediately, but did pretty quickly, was that some of the shapes ...

Gates has been on the go since about the time she turned four months old. And, this weekend's portrait session was no different. Gates had little interest in playing in front of the camera, wanting to check out the camera itself instead.     With cubes' help, I got two shots I really liked that show how much Gates has changed over the past few months. (Additional photos from the session can be found on Flickr .)     Which portrait do you like better?   In case you missed it, I shared how Gates celebrated her first birthday last week: among friends and family at our flat and enjoying her first Michelin star dining experience at Luce.     Here are highlights of what Gates has been up to from my mom's notes: March 7, 2013: "Worked at feeding self. Good work putting some in mouth!" March 11, 2013: "During water playtime, helps put toys in tub and later put them away!" March 14, 2013: "Took washcloth & "washed" hair and face...