My late husband Jim and I had a simple plan for raising our son Alex. For the first 10 years, our goal was to help him develop a love of learning. Before schooling began, we taught reading and numbers. We learned through play and fun.
The second decade focused on helping Alex develop a love of work. That was easy. We both worked at home and as community volunteers. He watched us run our business. He did simple jobs, sent faxes, opened mail and unloaded newspapers.
It’s common to see untreated mentally ill people wandering in neighborhoods where homeless congregate and camp. With a crisis on display, it’s hard to imagine the lifetime that preceded it. Or a way out of their misery.
I’m grateful to share Steven Seeley’s story of hope and recovery after years of mental illness. Steven, 56, was one of eight children raised by his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles.
“Since a young teen, I’ve always had incidents with my mental health. I didn’t exactly know what it was at the time,” he says. “I’d drift off and I go to different places and not know what I was doing there. I also heard voices, and the delusions made me feel unstable, crazy and scared.
My favorite cooking tool is my gas stove cooktop. I’ve cooked on gas exclusively for four decades. The rhythm and timing of a sauté over an open flame is steeped in my muscle memory. I’m lucky to have a sensitively calibrated stovetop that makes cooking joyful. Plus, there is something primal about the fire under a metal pan. No wonder kids love nothing more than roasting marshmallows over an open flame.
I use natural gas to fuel my barbecue, fireplace and underfloor hydronic heating system.
But this practice will soon be history. Last year, the City Council voted to become the state’s 46th municipality to ban natural gas infrastructure in new construction. There was zero public outreach.
About five years ago, Sebastian Bariani moved from his Land Park home to be closer to the Bariani family’s olive groves in Zamora, north of Woodland. He became intrigued with the idea of constructing his new farm home with steel shipping containers.
Blake and Christine Dugger were married in 2000 and now have three children, Ashby, 11, Penelope, 8, and Crosby, 4½. The kids attend Sacred Heart Parish School. When the school’s fundraiser Holiday Home Tour returned this past December (after a two-year hiatus), the family was ready to showcase its newly remodeled house.
“Four years ago, we moved into this vintage home,” Christine says. “We lived previously at 45th and D streets in a small, two-bedroom home. We made plans to remodel and expand to accommodate our growing family. We were not even looking for another place.
“My youngest was just a baby, and on a stroller walk I spotted the open house for this home. After a quick tour I called Blake and said we needed to buy this house. It had charm, space and everything we had ever hoped for.”
