“Where are you from?” The dreaded question. Whenever someone asks me this, I laugh and try to assess whether the person asking wants the long answer or the short one. Even the long version has been condensed for convenience over the years. This question has had different answers at different points in my life. When I was ten, I was from Northern Kentucky. When I was eleven and my family had moved to South Africa as missionaries, I was from America.
Read MoreNever ever in a million years would I have guessed that I would be a small business owner living in Jackson, Tennessee. I am one of the most shy people you will ever meet. That ambitious entrepreneur spirit is in me, but growing up, it wasn’t readily apparent, even to me. My husband, on the other hand, always knew he would work for himself and probably stay here in Jackson. Both of our grandparents owned their own businesses, and their examples shaped our lives. When I think of Jackson, I think of my family.
Read MoreIn Norway it gets dark early. As we left for the arena around 4:00 P.M., the hazy glow of the daytime winter sky in Oslo had faded. I was on the bus headed to a concert honoring one of our own. Daniel was a member of our little band of misfits living in Geneva, Switzerland, who worked in and around the United Nations on issues ranging from poverty, hunger, and demining to human rights, health, and humanitarian relief. By all measurements, Daniel had “made it.”
Read MoreThere is nothing quite like southern suburbia. It’s filled with people who just want to sit you down and offer you a proper sweet tea, cars nearly big enough to fly to space, and monograms embellishing almost everything you own. Like most of you readers, I was born and raised in Jackson, Tennessee. I grew up with two loving and supportive parents, a beautiful nanny whom I would come to know as family, a hilarious sister two years younger than me, and a huge black lab named Winston. (He was named this after the prime minister Winston Churchill, of course.)
Read MoreGrowing up into my late teens or early twenties, I had so many people telling me what I needed to do and what I needed not to do. Looking back, it was very overwhelming to someone like me, a naturally meek and quiet person. I had so many opinions thrown at me, and it took me a few years to finally sit down and truly think about what I wanted in my life. I was told countless times by various people how I needed to move away, get out of this small town, and live somewhere bigger because there's so much "more."
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