Is it the journey or the destination that drives you?   Chris Sharma, an American rock climber, believes: " If you're only happy at the summit. You're not going to be very happy often. "     Lately, I've started thinking more about enjoying the journey--the process--over rushing to complete a project. Which creates somewhat of a dilemma. Do I want to share starts and stops? Recipes that didn't quite turn out the way I'd anticipated. Sewing projects that can't easily be recreated by others.   What do you share: work in progress, just the final project, or a mix? Why?  

Diversity is a topic near and dear to my heart, especially as my ancestors upon immigrating to the United States from Italy and Poland shed their differences, their cultures, and attempted to disappear into America's melting pot. But as a person of primarily European ethnicity, starting a conversation about our differences can be tricky especially if you don't want to offend. So I'm super excited about an upcoming collaboration with Sonia Kang of Mixed Up Clothing.     Over the next few weeks, Sonia and I will be swapping meals that represent our cultures and explaining the significance of the food we choose to share with one another. I'll kick off our project with a Meet the Maker Profile and continue this coming Friday by sharing our typical Shabbat celebration. Then you'll hop over to Sonia's blog for an Asian/Latino inspired fusion dish.   How do you start a conversation about differences?  

Earlier this morning I introduced you to some new products from one of my favorite natural body goods and products line, Fig and Honey . Because I love their products, I wanted to kick off a new monthly Meet the Makers series: The People Behind The Goods with their founder Courtney Robinson Feider. Similar to The Good Life Snapshot interview series, I ask makers a series of questions about why they got started making and what advice they'd give to aspiring makers.     Why people make and how they get into starting their own business fascinates me. My mother was a mixed-media fiber artist so I grew up in an environment ripe for creativity: paper, yarn, brushes, looms, easels, and more were never more than a foot or two away from us. And, I've tried to replicate the same environment in our flat for Gates, encouraging her exploration with color and texture.   I'm always curious if other makers grew up in an environment similar to the one I thrived in, hence this new ser...

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...