This week, I discovered that the online version of the Redbook article (with me and my photo in it) has appeared online. You can check it out here:

http://www.redbookmag.com/your/letting-intuition-guide-you

The article is called "Trust Your Gut. Change Your Life." The description is: "Tap into the power of your intuition to make your dreams happen. Learn how these five women used theirs to change their lives."

My story is on page 2 of the online version:

"Listening to her gut led to...A life-changing move"

The article goes on to describe how 14 years ago, James and I decided to start our business so we could escape the city (and our crummy cubicle jobs), and realize our dream of moving to a place in the trees. (A more detailed version of the "story" is also on our web site.)

And yes, that's a picture of me standing in a meadow near our house. In the print version, it's a 2-page spread, but even the online version shows how very GREEN everything was that day. (The photo shoot was at the end of May after a whole lot of rain, so the flora was what I term "explosively" green.)

Here's a couple of the "out takes" from the photo shoot (James had his camera too!)

My dog Leto was in a few shots. He was a very good boy during the shoot, even if he didn't make it into the final photo.

Me with the photographer Erika Larsen (who is absolutely brilliant) and her assistant as they deal with camera and lighting issues. Erika uses a large-format camera and film (not digital). She had to have taken hundreds of photos. I wore two different outfits and she took photographs in 5 or 6 locations around our property and neighborhood. The photo shoot took all day, but it was a lot of fun.

I actually got an email about the article today from a woman who said our story made her feel like it was really possible to leave her 6x6 cubicle.

If the article actually inspires someone to really take the plunge, escape cubicle hell, and create a life she loves, I'll be completely thrilled ;-)

I'm back from my journey to Washington, D.C. Along with going to the beach, exhibiting at the Taking Action for Animals conference, and seeing my family, I got to endure the reality of air travel. Here are a few photo highlights from my trip:

My sister and I walked from Fenwick Island to Bethany Beach, Delaware (and back), which according to MapQuest is 12.44 miles. These are beach umbrellas at the Sea Colony. We were able to get off the beach via the Colony, but the snotty old bat at the kiosk wouldn't let us back through, so we had to walk along the road for a while before we could find beach access again.

On the second day, we went to the Ocean City Boardwalk, which looks remarkably the same as it did in 1979, which I think is the last time I was there.

On our way home, we stopped by Assateague State Park. (No, we didn't see any wild ponies.)

Saturday morning, we set up for the conference. (This is my sister putting stuff out on our table.) We had copies of Happy Hound, Happy Tabby, Vegan Success for sale, and information about the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals.

Here's me talking to an attendee.

Me with Frank the Feral, the mascot for Alley Cat Allies.

My journey back from the east was a lot less fun thanks to numerous airline problems. I got up at 3 am to get to Dulles airport (thanks to my sister who was willing to slog out to Virginia in the wee hours). After making it through security, we Denver-bound passengers got on the plane and were raring to go at 5:40 am. But we sat for an hour on the plane at the gate because of a "maintenance issue."

After an hour, the maintenance issue was apparently deemed hopeless, so we were instructed to get off the plane and get on a different plane. That plane made it out of the gate anyway, but there was a weather delay. So we sat on the runway for 2 hours. We finally got into Denver at 11:40 am, which meant I missed my original connection (at 9:11 am) and the rebooked connection at 11:20 am. So I had to sit in Denver for 6 hours to wait for the 5:58 pm plane. That plane also sat on the runway for about 45 minutes before it could go (more weather). The end result was that I got into Spokane at about 8 pm. Add the 2 hour drive home and well, I arrived here at 10 pm Pacific time or 1 am Eastern, meaning that yes, it took me a grand total of 22 hours to get home. Ugh.

Meanwhile, thanks to the magic of technology, the Publishize newsletter went out while I was at the beach. Here are some of our most recent articles:

Determine the Right Size for Your Book

Peer Review and Getting Endorsements

The Back Cover of Your Book is Important Too

Navigating the Maze of Technology

Enjoy!

This week's big news is that when I went to the mailbox the other day, I found the August issue of Redbook magazine in there. This issue is mighty exciting to me because it has an article about how and why we started Logical Expressions. (Our version of the story is here.)

If you're a Redbook subscriber, check out page 138. The title of the article is called "Trust Your Gut. Change Your Life." You'll see a huge 2-page spread with my picture. Let me just say right now that the photographer Erika Larsen is extremely talented. I don't normally look that good ;-)

Anyway, it would be nice if the publicity led to fame and fortune. Or at least fortune. If nothing else, there is now at long last one good picture of me in the world.

If you tried to communicate with me in the last day or so, you might have had a problem. Our hosting company is located in Eastern Washington, which had a huge series of thunderstorms yesterday. Something related to the storm caused our dedicated server to take a dive.

When you have as many Web sites as we do, putting them all back online takes some time. Sadly, this is not the first time James has had to rebuild our server after a crash. It's just as unpleasant the second time around. However, once again, we did have backups and didn't lose data. (YAY!)

Anyway, suffice it to say, it's been a long couple days, particularly for him.

Of course, the thunderstorms didn't stop in Eastern Washington either. The thunderstorms moved into our area and resulted in power flickers and four nervous dogs panting in my office. I had to cancel the radio show I had scheduled in the afternoon. Of course, later in the afternoon, I discovered that all the outgoing email I thought was going out was NOT. So the person I was supposed to interview didn't know about the storms. (I left her an apologetic phone message.)

I also learned that it's really distressing to get email coming in and not be able to respond. (I've made a lot of phone calls yesterday and today!)

Plus, I haven’t gotten much sleep because of all the thunderstorms/nervous dogs. But hey, weather happens. There's not much I can do. Except offer to make dinner, even though it's James' night to cook.

After all, having to be the server administrator is a thankless job. When you're done, all you get is everything (hopefully) working again the way it was. So the least I can do is make James some food.

James has been doing a lot of chipping lately because a lot of trees didn't make it through the winter and I want chips for my garden pathways. The other day, while he was chipping one of the piles of tree branches, he found a litter of four baby snowshoe hares.

James has large feet, so it's a miracle he didn't stop (or worse, chip!)the little guys. I was out in the garden and James came over and said, "you have GOT to see this!" Although I have been dealing with a seemingly never-ending fencing project to keep snowshoe hares from eating their way through my garden, the little guys are totally adorable.

Check them out:

James picked up the baby bunnies (which are call leverets, by the way) and moved them to a safer location in the shade under a nearby grand fir.

They didn't like being in the sun, so this guy looks a little squinty.

Here's one in his new home in the shade. The leaves are wild strawberry plants, which are much smaller than cultivated berries.

James looked up snowshoe hares online and thinks these are the Lepus Americanus Pineus subspecies of snowshoe hare. A litter of 2 to 4 is common, so we are hoping that he found all the babies. The next day they were gone, so with any luck Mom came back and found them.