Travel Tuesdays: Growing Family

I've been absent from the blogging world for a while. First, I blogged irregularly during our failed RV trip. Then, I stopped blogging altogether when I flew to San Francisco unexpectedly to help with a family medical emergency.Once I returned from San Francisco, I blogged a few times but then I went silent again. There's just been too much going on in my life. Something had to give and I'm afraid this blog was it.

So what's my excuse this week? Well...my nephew.

Photo taken by my sister

Last Tuesday, I flew back to San Francisco to welcome this handsome boy to the family and help my sister with the transition. I mean, really... who wants to blog when you can snuggle this guy?

Photo taken 30 September 2013

As this post goes live, I'll be on a plane back home. I hope to get back into a regular blogging schedule soon but I also need to evaluate what my schedule should be.

If you have thoughts about what you'd like to see here or how often you'd like me to post, please leave a comment or shoot me an email. michelle(at)michellecusolito(dot)com

Travel Tuesdays: Self- Care During Difficult Times

I've been absent from blogging and Social Media lately. Thanks for sticking with me and coming back to read Polliwog.

I recently traveled to San Francisco unexpectedly due to a family emergency. I prefer not to share personal family medical details on the internet, so I'll just say that things are better-- the emergency has passed and now we're settling into life post-trauma. Thank you to those of you who sent me personal messages of support.

I feel like I need to learn certain life lessons over and over again. Does that happen to you? For example, I know that in times of stress, I need to take care of myself. I need to stop and breathe. I need to get physical activity. And I need to get out in nature, if possible.  Combining all three is especially helpful. If I can add a little writing time in there, all the better.

Yet, while I was away, I ignored my needs, to my detriment. A friend had even texted me and simply said, "Remember to breathe." Yet, I didn't do any of those things until I completely melted down.

Of course, I am so grateful that I was able to travel on short notice to support my sisters. I needed to be with them. I'm grateful my husband recognized and supported my need to go. I'm grateful my husband's work schedule allowed him to suddenly assume complete responsibility for our kids and home. I'm thankful for the many friends and relatives who stepped in to help care for our kids so my husband could work. And I'm thankful my family had the means to purchase an airline ticket.

But I'm no good to my sisters if I'm falling apart, and that's what happened five days into my trip. I had felt a desire to take a walk on the beach the night before, but ignored my needs to make myself available to my sister. By Friday afternoon, when I talked to my husband and kids on the phone, I was falling apart crying... On top of the stress and the Jet lag, I was missing my family.

Luckily, by brother-in-law was nearby. He came home and assumed responsibility for my niece so I could take a walk. From the moment my feet touched the sand at Ocean Beach, I felt better. Ten minutes into my walk things seemed less overwhelming. At the end of an hour, I was a new person.  Of course, I was. I practically smacked myself in the head and said, "Duh!"

I know I need to take care of myself before I can take care of others, so what the heck was I doing? Who knows. I do know that we all do it sometimes.

So today, a reminder to you...
Are you a teacher just back to school and feeling overwhelmed?
Are you feeling stressed in some other way?

Don't do what I did. Remember to take care of yourself. Stop and breathe deeply. Take a walk. Take a bath. Practice yoga. Write in your journal. Go for a run. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself today and always.

What is your favorite stress reliever? How do you take care of yourself in times of stress?

Related Posts:
Parents: Make Time for Yourself

Travel Tuesdays: YOU Be the Helpful Local

That's Adam, just before he drove us to a hotel in his big rig.

These "Travel Tuesdays" posts are usually about being a traveler. Today I'd like you to think about being a friendly local to travelers who might be passing through your town or city.

In the past, I've written about locals who have helped us when we were traveling. Franco and Caroline helped us deal with medical issues when we were in Sicily. Our tow truck driver, Adam, showed exceptional kindness and also helped us get to a hotel after towing the RV we had rented. I have countless stories like these.

In each of our travels, we have met wonderful, caring people who helped us in one way or another. Today, I invite you to be the helpful local to some traveler.

I was reminded of this while at the beach with my kids last week. My daughter was playing with another girl which led me to chat with her mom. I learned that they were on vacation from Boston for a couple of weeks. While we didn't "help" them, per se, I'd like to think they came away from the experience feeling welcomed in our area.

If you're not sure how to start, read this old post called Meetin' the Locals to get some ideas. Then step out and make some new connections!

How have you helped travelers feel welcomed in your area? Do you have other suggestions for how to break the ice and meet new people?

Travel Tuesdays: What to Pack?

My family will be traveling to California for a family wedding soon. When preparing to travel, we leave a suitcase open on the bedroom floor and start tossing things in during the weeks that lead up to our departure. Right now, its piled with presents (we're celebrating several birthdays and a missed holiday while we're all together) and our "to do" stuff. You know... books, toys, and crafty bits for the plane ride.

The other day, my daughter also tossed her Bird Log in the suitcase. As she started tossing in her field guides, I pointed out that they are specific to New England, so they won't be very helpful.

Her response, "Oh yeah. But I can still bring my bird log in case I see some interesting birds there."

Of course I agreed with that comment. But what to do about the field guides? Simple. We emailed her auntie and asked her to find a few in her local library if she doesn't own one.

Sometimes a little planning ahead is all you need to keep your kids happy on vacation (and while packing).

Now if we can just see some cool birds in the redwood grove...

You Might Also Like:
Travel Tuesdays:Suburban Life vs. Adventure
Travel Tuesdays: Top 10 Tips for Traveling with Children
Travel Tuesdays: Top 10 Items to Pack When Traveling With Children

Travel Tuesdays: Wisdom from Maya Angelou

Today, some food for thought:

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”  ~Maya Angelou

Is Ms. Angelou correct? I'd like to think travel (as opposed to tourism) can prevent bigotry. Getting to know the locals wherever you travel must make a difference, right? What do you think? Am I'm too optimistic. 


Related Post:
Travel Tuesdays: Mark Twain Quotation
Travel Tuesdays; Awakening in a Strange Place
Travel Tuesdays: Travel Broadens Perspectives

Travel Tuesdays: Travel Broadens Perspectives

"Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly the palate with which we paint our lives has more colors. We realize there are exciting alternatives to the social and community norms that our less traveled neighbors may never consider…but you can only reap these rewards if you’re open to them….Make a decision that on any trip you take, you’ll make a point to be open to new experiences, seek options that get you out of your comfort zone, and be a cultural chameleon-- trying on new ways of looking at things and striving to become a 'temporary local.'”(emphasis mine)

                                               ~ Rick Steeves, Travel as a Political Act, p. 4

I love this quotation. 

I confess, Rick Steeves' guidebooks aren't usually my guidebooks of choice. When traveling I tend to favor Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. (This probably has much to do with the fact that most of our travel has been in developing countries while most of Steeves' travel has been in Europe). 

But this book beckoned to me from its "faced out" perch in our library. With a title like that, I had to check it out. What did I learn? Despite our very different travel preferences, Rick Steeves and I have come away with similar beliefs.

Here's another quotation from page 161:

"I’m convinced that people-to-people travel experiences can be a powerful force for peace."

Indeed. Once I have a personal connection to a place, I care more deeply about its citizens. And that care extends to people who know me and know of my travels. Many of my students would come to me after seeing news of a capsized ferry in the Philippines or a change in the President of Peru. Once they heard of my travels there, they consumed the news differently. They cared about people they never even met. But they knew me and I knew people there.

And this quotation from page 5:

"Travel challenges truths we were raised thinking were self-evident and God-given. Leaving home, we learn other people find different truths to be self-evident. We realize that it just makes sense to give everyone a little wiggle room."

This, I find, can be one of the hardest points to make understood to non-travelers. We don't have a monopoly on what's right or just or good. We have our way. Other cultures have their own ways. A little respect for those differences goes a long way.

Do these quotations ring true you? Do you have a favorite travel quotation?

Travel Tuesdays: Trip Planning

"Travel, undertaken with mindfulness, can be a powerful vehicle for transformation."

~ Joseph Dispenza, The Way of the Traveler

My family is in the early stages of planning a trip to Sicily and Lipari to trace my husband's family roots. We had planned to go last year, but skyrocketing airfare due, in part, to the Arab Spring, led us to postpone. We scaled back travel plans last year, saved up our travel money, and now we're ready to plan in earnest.

I love this early dreaming phase. We've been pouring over guide books, perusing sites that rent villas, and agonizing over airfare. I love the dreaming, the endless possibilities, that excited feeling in the base of my stomach. It's exhilarating.

And maybe a little bit tiring. Where should we stay? Is this other place better? Will that place meet our needs? Should we fly to the islands or take a ferry?

But here's what I've learned from previous trips: No matter what decisions we make, it will all work out in the end. The trip may not be what we expected, but it will provide a life-changing adventure. Travel is just like that. It's impossible for me to travel, particularly to another country, and not be changed in some way.

And, hey...there's a hotel on Lipari with Cusolito in its name, so that's pretty exciting! Maybe we'll find distant relatives.

What life-changing trips have you taken? What changed? What did you learn?


Related Posts:
Travel Tuesdays: Top 10 Tips for Traveling with Children
Travel Tuesdays: India
Travel Tuesdays: Morocco

2011: A Year in Review

Happy New Year everyone! Thank you for reading Polliwog this year. 

Today I'll recap some of my favorite posts 2011. 

Travel Tuesdays

• Keep A Journal
• Top 10 Tips for Traveling with Children
• Pack Your Sense of Humor
• Share Everyday Life
• India

Wordless Wednesday

• Morning Dew on Clover
• Mushroom Hunting
• Spider Lunch
• Life from Milkweed

On Nature

• Stress Therapy: Get Back to Nature I relearn how much I need to get into nature when stressed.
• Nature Observations with Young Children Tips for helping young children notice details.
• Three (or Four) Season Harvests Our cold frame is still providing us with chard, celery, rosemary, and parsley. We hope to harvest arugula  and mesclun mix in early spring.

This and That

• Drum to the Beat A wonderful drumming experience for children. My family has been drumming away on our new Djembe.
• Hive Detectives A fantastic non-fiction book for older elementary students.
• Happy Earth Day 2011 The post that got me started with Travel Tuesdays. Several readers asked me to share more travel stories after seeing this post.
• RACE-Are we so Different? An important traveling and on-line exhibit.
• Shurit Ads (Egyptian Lentil Soup) I posted this during the Egyptian Revolution. Google Analytics showed that the day Mubarek left Egypt, a reader in Cairo spent 11 minutes on my blog reading this plus 5 other posts. I just thought that was so cool- I was watching history in the making in their country and they were reading my blog.

Thanks again for reading. I'll be back with a Travel Tuesdays post this week.

In the meantime, please drop me an email at michelle(at)michellecusolito(dot)com or leave a comment to let me know which kinds of posts you enjoy or find useful. I'm hoping to build my blog community this year so I want to know what works for you. If you have particular content you'd like to see me include, please let me know.

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Travel Tuesdays

For Earth Day, I posted some favorite photos I've taken of natural places around world. Response to that post was positive and several people asked me to share more of my travel experiences.

I initially liked the idea, but upon thinking about it more, I couldn't see how sharing my experiences would fit with my blog's mission. Sure, I enjoy sharing my travel experiences, (Who doesn't?) but I don't want this blog to be about me. Rather, I want it to be a place for you to get ideas for things to do with your kids or students. I also don't want to send a message that you need to travel to all kinds of far away places to apply some of the lessons I've learned through my travels. I strongly encourage you to travel outside your home country to gain a broader perspective, but that may not be possible. You can be a traveler in your own state or region. That's the kind of traveler I was this summer.

After much contemplation and reading over the summer, I finally found a focus. This quotation clinched it for me:

 "Remember that many would love to travel to gain a broader perspective, but cannot. Find creative ways to bring home the value of travel by giving presentations to groups of curious people not likely to have passports."

~Rick Steeves, Travel as a Political Act p. 202 

This blog offers a nice forum for me to share. Next week will mark the official start of my new series, Travel Tuesdays. In this series, I'll share a photo, story, or anecdote about my travel experience.  I'll also share a lesson I learned from that experience and offer ways it might inform your work (and play) with children.

I hope you'll join in the conversation. Share your thoughts about travel. Ask me questions. Suggest future topic ideas. If you've traveled and have a story to share, let me know. I'd love to welcome you as as guest blogger.