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!!

Technology Lesson 101

At the risk of repeating myself, when it comes to technology, I’m … well, I’m bad. From hunting and pecking at the keyboard and not knowing how to use many of the programs on my computer, to barely getting by on Instagram. But for the most part, it hasn’t really mattered for me, because luckily my profession doesn’t require me to type regularly, or use Excel and PowerPoint.

Over the years, however, with email, the Internet and then proliferation of social media, it’s become harder and harder to not have any tech skills at all, so I’ve had to learn a bit. I’m much faster with my hunting and pecking these days; and a few years ago, as I finally decided to take the plunge into social media, my daughter and other family members helped give me some basic lessons.

Carrot Cake in an Instant

I understand the irony of this week’s post, given Hilary’s inspiring post about her weight loss last week. But, I think a little treat every now and then is good … and I was excited to try baking a cake in my Instant Pot. 

My husband’s favorite is carrot cake, so I decided to try my hand at a fast carrot cake. This was easy and quick, and while it was shorter than I expected, it was delicious. Now, when I’m crunched for time and need to make a cake in a pinch, this will be my go to.

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.