Category: lifestyle

Squirms and laughs: In ‘Mortified’ project, adults share their private middle school angst

Mortified is grass-roots storytelling where adults read their childhood writings to strangers. It brings the era of private diaries and journals to today’s life-sharing era of social media. Words that were meant to be private are now recited before live audiences — and made available by Netflix.
Major food truck festival comes to Milwaukee area

Leave the tight jeans at home, Anne Marie Aigner advises. She’s the founder and executive producer of Food Truck Festivals of America, which has organized more than 60 festivals in the United States and will bring a caravan of food trucks to Waukesha May 20. “We’ll have everything from crepes to tacos to barbecue and…
Milwaukee surfers making waves with sport, advocacy

Eric Gietzen grew up in Shorewood, close to Lake Michigan, seeing the crashing waves and listening to the lore about famous shipwrecks. “When I woke up in the morning, if there would be big waves, I could hear them,” he recalls. Ryan Bigelow also grew up in the Milwaukee area. Neither of them imagined that…
Superhosts roll out welcome mats as Airbnb builds presence in Wisconsin

Feel summer waning without even a weekend getaway? Airbnb superhosts await guest arrivals at artists’ studios in the Driftless Area, lake cabins in Door County, city apartments across Milwaukee, farmhouses in Dane County — even two yurts on Bayfield County forest land and a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Two Rivers. Renting vacation rental homes…
Wisconsin walkabout: Take a hike for health, friendship, charity

“Gotta beat Jim. Gotta beat Jim.” Anne Danner mutters this as she logs at least 12,000 steps a day trying to get healthy and happy — and beat her boyfriend in their ongoing fitness challenge. Some days she wins and some days he takes the title. But — after more than a year of challenges…
Decoding your life, growing family trees with DNA tests

You’re not who you think you are, and now science can prove it. Individuals might have genes from ancestors who practiced discrimination as well as genes from the people against whom they discriminated. As gay poet Walt Whitman wrote in 1855, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” Today, with a little spit and about $200,…
Wise words: Commencement season to begin

Students may be shaking spring-break sand from their flip-flops, but commencement celebrations are just weeks away for colleges and universities. Many Wisconsin colleges and universities — public and private — plan commencement ceremonies in May and are lining up speakers. NFL quarterback Russell Wilson will deliver the spring commencement address on May 14 at the University…
To veg out is in: Activists organize Milwaukee Veg Expo

The moment for Pete Woodward of Milwaukee came when he read the bumper sticker, “Eat plants for the planet.” Something clicked, said the 29-year-old mechanic, and he began the cycle to following a vegetarian diet. For Molly Risser of Madison, the commitment came after an afternoon in a dog park. The 34-year-old office assistant recalled, “A…
Growing hemp, seeding a market for farmers and consumers

“Hemp for victory” once was a rallying cry in the United States, back when Wisconsin dominated the hemp industry. The market for the 12-foot-tall plants was strong a century ago and reached its height during World War II, when Wisconsin led the nation in producing hemp for rope and twine. Growers in Fond du Lac,…
Selfie satisfaction: Today’s selfie is yesterday’s portrait

The morning after Spain lost to Chile in World Cup play, soccer fan Tony Andres snapped a sour selfie and grumbled on Twitter. “The World Cup will produce more selfies than goals,” he tweeted to #WorldCupSelfies. He most certainly is correct. The 2014 FIFA World Cup is taking place in Brazil, where soccer fanatics, players…