As I prepared for my interview with Diane Gottsman, the founder and director of The Protocol School of Texas, my mind started whirring. Earlier that morning she had changed our meeting from a coffee locale to breakfast at a restaurant. I didn’t think anything of it at...
Saint Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Thousand Oaks Drive is one of those contemporary temples designed to appeal to a minimalist's taste in décor and atmosphere. There are no paintings or statues in nooks and crannies along the walls, no fancy columns to pull...
Adoption is certainly not a new thing, but like everything else in our society, it has undergone changes in the last couple of decades. Babies are no longer adopted under an ironclad cloak of secrecy, international placements are common, and singles have joined the...
Automobiles have been a male-inspired industry dating back to 1769, when the first selfpropelled mechanical vehicle was designed by French inventor Nicolas- Joseph Cugnot. (Some dispute who was first to create a motorcar.) But any way you look at it, men have...
It takes a special talent to look at an old house and see possibilities. The Monte Vista neighborhood, one of the largest and oldest historical districts in the United States, has its share of beautiful renovations. Here and there, though, there are structures whose...
Carmine's, a New York transplant to Texas, celebrated its first anniversary in September, and chef/owner Phil Sprio was feeling philosophical about business when he came out to our table after dinner. Still feeling like a pioneer, too, in the fine-dining desert that...
I am about to embark on the decluttering project(s) to end all decluttering projects. According to Julie Morgenstern in Organizing from the Inside Out, this means creating a system based on my specific personality, needs and goals. It focuses on defining who I am and...
Just about any place you work these days, you'll hear about a common challenge: conflict between the "older" versus the "younger" employees. But the problem isn't really that simple. Actually, there currently are four generations in the workplace — each with its own...
We've always known it — in a certain way, the eyes are just about as important to look into as they are in helping us see. They're the "windows of our souls." They're the center of our face — the first thing someone notices about us. A simple wink of the eye can alert...
