Oy Vey Yoga

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You might not have heard of Oy Vey Yoga before, but if you’re anything like me, you might already be an Oy Vey Yoga Professional. Oy Vey is part of a Yiddish phrase: oy vey is mir. I use these expressions to mean: You’ve got to be kidding or I can’t believe I’m doing this. If you’re not ...

Stepping Back into Living History

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Joan, who is now a grandmother to her daughter Dana’s two children, is still amazed by the experiences they shared visiting Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts. “I remember carefully watching Dana’s face as her five-year-old mind worked through the information she was seeing and hearing,” says Joan.  “A woman dressed in costume and speaking in ...

My Volunteer Trip to Costa Rica

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I always tell people that volunteer work is the best because, while it means responsibilities one takes on, it is not an obligation, it’s a choice, and that makes all the difference in the world. —Karen M. Gray, C&O Canal National Historical Park Library Volunteer When I wrote my first book about volunteer travel everyone asked, “What in the world ...

Travel Can Be Life-Changing

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I just finished reading, and listening to, Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives, a memoir by Becky Aikman. Widowed at age 47, she’d been married for twenty years when her husband died from cancer after a four and a half year battle through numerous operations and rounds of chemotherapy and ...

To Graze or Not to Graze?

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I tried it but was not very good at it. Grazing means eating a bit here and there as the mood strikes and needs to be done in handfuls of reasonable amount of calories. If the grazed calories amount to more than your usual caloric intake, it’s called over-eating. Growing up, exposed to a wide array ...

Visit New Places, Connect, and Give Back

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I always loved to travel but hated being an ordinary kind of tourist, staying in hotels for a few nights and buzzing through major sights at the speed of Superwoman. I wanted to experience the phenomenal difference between visiting a location for a time-limited vacation and integrating myself into the community as someone who belonged there. I ...

Don’t Tell Me What to Wear

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Ok, I’m admitting it in public. I am over 50, which isn’t much of a surprise since I do have two married daughters. I married at 19 and had my children in my 20’s, so I still have many years of wearing clothes ahead of me. For sure, I’m confident and more comfortable in my ...

Happy Father’s Day: Frisbee Style

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Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Soon after it began, she hated the  commercialism and worked to remove it from the national events calendar. The first Father’s Day celebration was held on June 19, 1910 at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington, organized by Sonora Smart Dodd to honor her ...