A wholesome kitchen

In each place I stay, I find inspiration for my own fantasy nest. When I arrived at Ben and Loren's house in San Diego, Ben professed, "We're kitchen people," with a laugh. The ingredients and tools for home-cooked meals are organized and accessible, an open invitation to nourish. Wholesome indeed.

Free is better than Microsoft

Anyone buying a new PC or Mac (or anyone doing a system upgrade) is also basically forced to fork over major dough for Microsoft Office. Without it, most home computers simply don't do their most basic function of word processing... Or so they would have you think. As a consumer, let me say: PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO SAY NO TO MICROSOFT. But as a writer, let me add: there are BETTER options out there.

OpenOffice is a totally free open-source package of programs that are more than comparable to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Additionally, their functionality is clean and intuitive, unlike the Microsoft products, which have been "updated" past recognition and use. And believe me, after using OpenOffice for five years as my go-to word processor, it is totally reliable. 

Here is what their new 4.0 (which has been updated aligned with Apple's new "flat" OS design) will look like when you download it:

Just in case you're saying, "What!? That looks just like Windows 95... Wack." Well, that's kind of the point. It's simple and it works. Any of the swipey, flippy, slippity-do-da changes that Microsoft has made to its flagship program are basically useless and require a complete relearning of the software. You might also be wondering if using OpenOffice will prevent you from opening your documents on other computers. Do not worry; you can save your writing in any word processing format so that it will later open if you HAVE to use Word at work or something. So, thanks to the volunteers at OpenOffice, you CAN say no to Microsoft with confidence. Who doesn't like sticking it to The Man?

Download your new word processor for free at http://www.openoffice.org/. There are no catches.

Tip: guesting

Arriving empty-handed as a houseguest is a no-no. To insure a happy welcome (and an invite back) make sure you show up with SOMETHING... For my next stop I'm bringing a baby aloe from me and a some farm-fresh cucumbers from Pickle. Easy.

Tip: Biking

For a wet ride, choose a dark color shirt if you hope to ever wear it again.

DO

DON'T 

A note on spring style