There are a lot of upsides to living in a lusciously spacious home. A downside, however, is when you have to downsize. For many folks, the idea of having to go through a whole houseful of heart-grippingly beloved belongings, and then somehow end up resituated in a smaller place, is an unimaginable scope of activity. […]

So, say you’re in a situation where once every week you cannot cook for an entire 24 hours, but the family still needs to eat, and let’s add in it’s the 16th century (no DoorDash). What do you do? You invent fish and chips. That’s the answer, and that’s what happened for Jews living in […]

What’s an ancient, mindful practice people have engaged in all throughout time to help focus on the present, relax, and unwind when the threads of life get knotted? Correct: Embroidery! In past generations, the traditional sewing-art was a common, peaceful, and pleasant pastime most females knew how to do. The slow, meditative, and artistic stitching […]

Fifteen years ago, gripped by the idea of initiating a dig into my peoples’ past, I flew straight to the very big and famous (in genealogical circles) Family History Library in Salt Lake City. My plan was to spend a few days immersed in productive research and come away with a nicely-plumped-out family tree full […]

In the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the candy mastermind’s base of operations first appears as a nondescript, smoke-stacked factory with no obvious hints outside as to what goes on inside. But something does; and passersby want to know what. Carpinteria’s Airplant Alchemy is like that. Owned and operated by Brian Kollenborn, a […]

There was once a bunch of impossibly cute and endearingly musical primates swinging around a compound just outside the City of Santa Clarita. And then they moved to Santa Barbara County. That’s how, ideally, the story will go for the Gibbon Conservation Center, a unique research, breeding and residential facility dreamed up and established by […]