A walk down memory lane to our Italian trip

I was recently looking for a video on Youtube and I came across these old videos from my 2009 trip to Italy with Katie and my friend, Carolyn, which were published on the old Hybrid Mom blog. 

What a trip this was! Carolyn invited me to join her for this cooking class in Tuscany, and I brought Katie along. Katie was in college and was taking Italian and art history, so she was able to help us communicate and understand so much of the amazing art we were seeing. 

It was absolutely a case of planes, trains and automobiles, but we saw so much in Rome and Florence and I’m so grateful we did it!

I showed Katie the videos I found and we agreed that this was a trip of a lifetime … one we’ll never forget. So, I thought I’d share these these “vintage” videos.

It was sort of a spontaneous trip … but it was amazing! So it reminds me how important it is to sometimes throw caution to the wind and just say YES! I’m so glad we did this trip!

Q&A with Mary Beth & Stephen

I am so lucky to have a friend and acting partner like Stephen Nichols … and we’re both so lucky to have the most amazing fanbase! We love to sit down together and answer questions, but we’re so bad at coming up with them. So this past weekend, we asked you all to submit questions to us … and you did not disappoint! There were so many great questions, and of course we couldn’t get to them all, but we tackled as many as we could. In fact, so many that we had to divide this up into two videos. 

Here’s this first part … and be sure to tune in next week for part 2. And don’t worry … we’re saving the questions we didn’t get to and we’ll come back to those sometime too!!

Taking a Leap of Faith

Anyone who has read this blog or followed me on social media knows that I have a very best friend, Carrie Davich. Carrie and I met in high school and we were fast friends. We’ve been friends through boyfriends and marriages and kids and businesses. And today, after 43 years of friendship, she is absolutely the family I chose.

Eight years ago, after talking about it for more years than I can count, Carrie opened a beautiful lifestyle/home store. Though she’d had her own business before, she’d been a stay at home mom for 17 years. It was a total leap of faith, and I admire the bravery such a leap took! But, of course, she’s done an amazing job with her store, Maude Woods. 

Brothers: A story of love, honesty and being true to one’s self

We are very fortunate to have a very close group of friends with whom we’ve raised our children. There are 10 adults and our collective children add up to 10 more. 

Our babies! My Katie & Matt, here with the children of our closest friends. 

When they were all very young, we would get together at our different homes for BBQ’s – us parents would all have our margaritas going and the kids would all run free, playing together. And, when it was time to say goodbye, if at least one kid was crying because they didn’t want to leave, I felt it was a huge success. 

No Time for the Blame Game

Years ago, in an acting class, we read a book with a chapter and exercise about blame. I’ve said before that school was never my thing, but this excerpt has always stuck with me. When my son was in high school, I gave it to him to read … and shared it with him again recently.

Dreams Into Action book coverAs we prepare for the holidays, I’ve been thinking about the families who, at this time of year, struggle to overcome disagreements or long-standing family issues. It’s unfortunate that, in too many cases, misunderstandings, pride and blame can stand in the way of friendship, family or love. And, now with the holidays upon us, perhaps it’s a good time for a little introspection.