Good God, not another blog!

Hello, we are Mr. and Mrs. Salad Bowl. Welcome to our blog!

We know – another blog?! Why?!??!? We’ll get to that shortly.

Why do we call ourselves Mr. and Mrs. Salad Bowl? Well, we live on the central coast of California at the edge of the Salinas Valley, which is known as the salad bowl of the world. Also, we eat a whole food, plant-based diet. So…Mr. and Mrs. Salad Bowl seems fitting.

Mr. Salad Bowl’s mother and both of Mrs. Salad Bowl’s parents were born in California, so we have roots here, but we are not native Californians. We are from the Pacific Northwest and we moved here in 2001 as newlyweds. Mrs. Salad Bowl was recruited for a job by a former boss from Washington and we thought Why not? Let’s have an adventure!

We’ll spare you the minutiae and just say – it’s been less of the adventure we expected way back in 2001 and more of a bumpy, dusty, exhausting, long-ass journey that resulted in difficulty feeling grounded here. For most of our time here so far, we have been very goal-oriented. The past ten years in particular have been heavily academic with both of us returning to school during mid-life. Busyness dominated. There wasn’t much time to engage in creativity for the sake of creativity.

Mr. Salad Bowl said to Mrs. Salad Bowl recently: For the first time in a long time, we HAVE time and we have more money now, so we can do more. 

Until recently, our long-term plan had been to return to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to our Washington Tribe. But after considering various factors, we have decided that we are here for the long haul. We are going to be present, deepen our connections and forge new ones.

More than anything, this blog is for us as a couple – we figure if other people want to witness us, well that’s a welcome extra. It’s an opportunity for us to turn our focus back to the sense of adventure we felt when we first arrived here, to discover the gems in and around the salad bowl of the world and beyond. California is huge, so we’re going to start small. This blog is also an opportunity for us to be more engaged with our creative energy and provides us with a place for us to have some accountability with our art – we are both creative people with many interests, and we need a container of sorts. In the absence of structure, it is too easy to allow the drudgery of day to day Musts, Shoulds and Other Obligations to take over.

Finally, this blog is an opportunity for us to contemplate our identities less as transplants from Washington and more as Californians living on the beautiful central coast. We are Mr. and Mrs. Salad Bowl. And we are right here, right now.