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    Alisa Bowman

    Alisa Bowman

  • The Grumpy Person’s Guide to Gratefulness

    There we were--me, my kid, and the two dogs--standing at the cross walk about a half block from the kid's school. This crosswalk? Let me tell you, it's been the bane of my parenting existence. It stretches across one of the more traveled roads in our town, a road where cars routinely exceed the 25 mile per hour speed limit. Forget that these drivers are passing through a school zone during school hours. They're in a hurry to get to jobs that they tell everyone they hate.

  • How to Earn the Kindness of Strangers

    While in Sacramento for a conference, my friend Deb and I hailed a cab to a restaurant. During the ride, we learned from Shaa, our cabbie, that life in Sacramento was anything but easy. The recession has hit this California city hard, he t

  • The Beauty of Giving Up a Part of Your Self

    If you are anything like I am, then your picture of nirvana looks something like this: Only doing what you love, not having to do anything you don’t.

  • Make Beautiful Ripples Wherever You Are

    Anxiety courses through me when more than one person needs me at the same time. For instance, not long ago, two very close friends were having a personal crisis at exactly the same moment. One of them was texting me. The other was calling.