Bold and Better is social commentary and how to do everything better. Organizing your life or labeling your feelings – it’s all here.
On December 26, 2004, my husband suffered a crisis of faith. That was the day that a devastating tsunami washed over the island nation of Indonesia, triggered by a massive undersea earthquake. A dozen or so countries were ultimately affected, and more than 230,000 people lost their lives. Millions more lost everything except their lives….
I’m embarrassed to admit how many unfinished projects I have around my house. In fact, the house itself is an unfinished project. I have a problem walking away from something I’ve put time, effort and/or money into. Yes, I have a problem with Sunk Cost. I hate quitting. We live in a culture that glorifies…
Why do you believe what you believe? Try asking someone that at a dinner party. The room gets quiet—not because it’s rude, but because it’s risky. Great questions unsettle us. They force us to confront how much we’ve accepted without examination. And that’s exactly why they matter. So what makes a question really great? Three…
To say that the day had been rough doesn’t really do that day justice. I felt like I had been spinning my wheels all day long. I couldn’t fix anything that was broken. Every task hit a roadblock. My tasks remained unfinished. I drove home (and that was an hour-long drive) feeling completely defeated. I…
A wide-angle lens makes the world feel vast. A telephoto lens flattens it. Neither is wrong—but each tells a different story. The same is true for how we view situations in our lives. In the Focus Forward post I wrote about Lens Compression, I explored how my telephoto lens enabled me to capture an image…
I think we can all agree that politics can have a polarizing effect on much of our life. The presidential races of 2016, 2020, and 2024 exemplified this as much as anything in my lifetime has. I’ve been surprised at the people I know who have been triggered into outrage over the declaration or support…
Einstein played violin and piano. DaVinci was an inventor and a master artist. Ada Lovelace (the first computer programmer – yes, it was a woman!) loved music and poetry. I work in a technical job but I have hobbies that express my creativity: writing, photography, and textile arts. It works in reverse, as well. Actress…
“The evidence demands a verdict.” What a great phrase! I hear it quite often on one of the podcasts I follow. The words “evidence” and “verdict” imply an association with legal texts, but it also applies to many other situations. Let’s Define the Phrase and Discuss its Meaning In its simplest form, “The evidence demands…
My church places a strong value on family history. Not just genealogy, but the stories of our family. Writing them, telling them, reading them, remembering them. A study conducted by psychologists Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke at Emory University showed that children who were familiar with the stories of their families demonstrated greater resilience than…
Where is your life “going?” We tend to think of our lives in terms of roads or paths. I think part of it may be due to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” but there are so many metaphors that apply the concept of traveling a road to living our lives that we can’t ignore…
Want a weekly recap of posts for Oakwood Experience? No need to check every day for new content, and I won’t spam you with junk. I may send out occasional notifications of special pricing at my art shops, but I respect your time and attention.