Hugs!  I'm so glad you're starting to love on our adventure!  When you get home you have got to find a time we can chat and tell me about all the things you saw and did!  Are you going to hit up the Grand Canyon while you're exploring the great south west?  I've never been myself, but I hear it's amazing! 

That sounds great! Introspection can be a scary thing, but it is the only path to authenticity 😀

And you are seeing the world while you do it!  So many people never go beyond a 50 mile radius of their home, even for vacation, it's kinda sad.  Especially since the modern era gives us the physical ability to see it all like never before, an 8 hour plane jaunt to Britain vs. months on a ship.  So many people just...don't.  Explore your insides through exploring your world my Emma!

I realized yesterday how much this kind of exploration really works for me. I love traveling without much of an itinerary, allowing myself to enjoy the experience, confront challenges, and go with the flow. 

For example, I'm finding that Mesa is a little chilly for me and decided to move this coming Friday. I used the weather app on my iPhone to look for warmer areas within a couple of hundred miles and was surprised to see that the Flagstaff area (Grand Canyon, Sedona) is about 60 degrees so I made a reservation there. But yesterday on the radio I heard that it's 30 degrees there, and snowing! Brrr. I did some more work on the iPhone and I don't know why but it shows the wrong info for Flagstaff, so I cancelled the reservation and am now heading to Santa Margarita, California on Friday.  

And yes, the time for introspection is wonderful. I keep coming across things serendipitously. Yesterday while driving around I heard the TED Radio Hour on NPR, a show that discussed the 5 senses we have. One interview (on vision) featured Isaac Lidsky, who started losing his sight starting at age 12 and was completely blind in his early 20s. What a remarkable man. When he first heard his diagnosis he literally thought his life was over, that he was doomed to a lonely and unhappy life. Somehow he realized that he could approach the problem by reframing, especially with two questions:

1) Precisely what problem am I experiencing now?

2) What exactly am I going to do about it, now?

I found this very moving. All too often I get caught up in my worries and fears, and feel lost. I can't help but recall Lidsky's situation and find his questions so convenient and useful.

In case you'd like to listen to the NPR show, here's a link.  Look for the show about the 5 senses: http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510298/ted-radio-hour

Emma, have you thought about going to a gender conference?