Someone once asked me: “If you knew you could not fail, what would you attempt to do?” Easy. A bookstore. As an avid reader who is constantly pondering books, the books I’ve already read and the books (thousands of them) around my house I have yet to read, the answer was easy. A bookstore. But then I also loved traveling. The traveling bug bit me long before I took my first journey. It happened in the library of my dreary middle school. All the schools in Florida built in the 1970’s were made as dual purpose hurricane shelters. Which meant they had no windows, were round, and had flat roofs which led to lots of 33 gallon trash cans to catch water leaking from the flat roofs that you had to dodge while walking through the halls. Since there were no windows in our classrooms, I couldn’t look out the window and day dream when the teacher was boring. And we had lots of boring teachers in our school. I loved school prior to moving to Florida from The Promised Land, Texas. We had beautiful schools, made of bricks, with lots of windows and we learned exciting things like Texas History. Really everyone, not just Texans, should learn Texas history. It is pretty exciting stuff with the Alamo, Davey Crockett, Jim Bowie. Most of our schools and counties are named for these heroes. But I digress. Anyway. I hated school once I moved to Florida. I was a good student, completed my work and never caused any discipline problems, so when I wanted to be excused to go to the library I was usually allowed. I would sit in the library until the bell rang looking at books about foreign places. I was obsessed with Paris, the city of lights, London and the UK which was home to all my favorite literary heroes, and the rest of Europe with their cathedrals and thousands of years of history. I knew that someday I wanted to travel the world. When we were required to take a “career placement” test towards the end of high school to assess our talents, mine was returned with “Stewardess” as a good career option. I was fuming mad because I had always wanted to be a lawyer. But ironically enough once I graduated college with degrees in English and History, I decided to teach high school English. But I couldn’t get away from my desire to see the world. So I applied for a job at Pan American Airlines. It was a dream job that I thought I would never get. But Providence smiled on me and I was hired. I moved to NYC once our training was over and began flying literally all over the world. I was in heaven. From that time on I was really hooked on traveling. Wandering. Layovers gave me the opportunity to see cities for months at a time. I learned my way around London, Paris, Frankfurt and half a dozen other European capitals better than my own home town. So how does this all relate to Other Eden? Well, in early 2020 I was contemplating starting a travel company. I wanted to create a way for families to travel at a relaxed pace, getting to know the people, places and cultures of beautiful cities. I wanted to combine my love of books with travel by exploring the places I had read about, to see the homes and towns that gave birth to my literary heroes and heroines. Then the pandemic changed all that. So, I started Other Eden with the hope of one day traveling again with groups of curios learners but until then I would concentrate and finding all that is true, good and beautiful right where I am. I wanted a place to keep my travel photos, book reviews, my recipes that I develop when I am wanting just that certain something special dish. I also wanted to help others cultivate a sense of beauty in their own lives and for us to be able to share our ideas about finding what’s true, good and beautiful in our lives right now. Ever since I was a little girl I was always fascinated with beauty. I knew instinctively that being surrounded by beauty was important. It lifts our spirits, causes us to turn our eyes to the One who created beauty in the first place and Who is the maker of all beautiful things. I hope you’ll join me on this journey of beauty, truth and goodness where we can seek to cultivate beauty in our own lives and the world around us.