The Tilsons

This Saturday was the first beautiful day of the year in Portland.  The sky was blue like only a northwest sky can be.  Rays of sun beckoned to the rain-trodden, the winter weary to get outside.  So all the city folk piled in cars with picnic gear in tow.  Little ones with their easter baskets, [...]

In an effort to get outside despite the gloomy, rainy days that are standard during this time of year in Portland, a group of my girl friends have organized Saturday morning runs at various venues throughout the city.  Today we ran around the waterfront, last week we ran at Grant Park track, and soon we’ll [...]

Many of you have met my sweet grandmother Sid Kirkland (better known as “Omie”) whether you spent time at the “lakehouse” in Florida or Texas or met her when she came to help me move into my first apartment in New York.  If you’ve met her, you know she is a very special person and [...]

If you are what you eat, you are certainly what you read (and watch). Here’s what you’ll regularly find us reading, watching and browsing on a weekly basis. New York Times BBC World News TV and Radio Monocle magazine Economist.com Apartment Therapy blog Vanity Fair Conde Nast Traveller Food+Wine CBS Sunday Morning Various documentaries Facebook

What better way to enjoy the weekend than an impromptu night with friends learning how to make Chinese dumplings.  Thanks to our friend Jen Li’s instructions, and her mother who called numerous times for dumpling status updates, we feasted on delicious dumplings.  It took an army of friends to mix, chop, roll the dough, fill [...]

Maybe it took going so far away from Texas, where I spent years 13-22 of my life, to really understand the beauty of it.  I always joke that Waco, Texas is the armpit of Texas.  And the small, 1 stoplight town of Lorena, where I grew up, is something you could miss in the blink [...]