Today Jim’s employer announced a layoff (to happen at some point over the next few weeks) of a whopping 350 workers from his site alone. Everyone keeps telling him it’s fine, not to worry, but as an expat there’s a whole extra layer of ‘worry’ that isn’t easily appeased.
I mean, if he’s laid off […]

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Robbie, in a fit of boredom, spent most of today reading through my blog. Admittedly I was a little nervous. She’s always known when I write about about her, but still… I’ve covered a lot of ground, and maybe what seemed ok to discuss at the time isn’t so great in hindsight. […]

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Everything works out the way it’s meant to… everything works out the way it’s meant to… everything works out the way it’s meant to.
My new mantra.

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Sydney and I have a tradition. For each new book I start (which is often), Sydney makes a brand new bookmark for me. Some are fancy glittery, bedazzled affairs… others are inspired by whatever she happened to be watching that day, and then there are some that sort of defy categorization. Take […]

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I’m not really sure why it’s taken me so long to read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Perhaps the subject matter? I’m sure it didn’t help. Also I had a particularly obnoxious professor who felt it her duty to remind us weekly that Nabokov was the best thing since sliced bread. I […]

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That’s the question I was asked last week and it’s taken me almost 6 days to come up with an answer. Seriously, can most people just shoot this information off automatically? Can you?
Personally I dread these kinds of questions… they’re so finite. I couldn’t instantly tell you my favorite book (although I could […]

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Now that we’re back from Hamburg it’s officially the worst part of the year for me. From April to mid-June there’s a loooong stretch of nothingness. No breaks for the kiddos means no traveling for us. Nothing exciting happening. No big plans being made; just long days of more of the […]

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I’ve got so many writing projects happening simultaneously that sometimes I just get… jammed. When this happens I try to subscribe to Hemingway’s stellar advice on writer’s block: ‘all you have to do is write one true sentence’
Since nothing is truer than your own story, I’ve decided to stitch together mine one writer’s […]

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Why do I always feel people are mocking me when they’re complimentary, yet impartial & fair when they’re critical?
Example:
Random email #1: Dear B., I love your blog! You are funny and make me want to move to Germany. I look forward to each new post, so please don’t ever stop blogging!
Me: What a grade-a […]

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Sadly we’re already back from our all-too-short stay in Vienna (more on that to come). We’d planned to hang around for a week, but after procrastinating for months on some diagnostic testing for my thyroid, it was time to pay the piper. So this morning I arrived bright & early at the nuklearmedizin […]

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