Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Emotional Resilience, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Re-entry Reality, Repatriation, tagged bit by bit, blogging, constructing a life, exercise, expat life, expats, family, first three months, fitness, friends, friendship, gratitude, health, making friends, meditation, physical fitness, re-entry stage, Repatriation, repats, self-care, simplification, simplify, small steps, transitions, well being, writing on October 23, 2013 | 10 Comments »
As mentioned in Under Construction, I hope you’ll join me as I navigate the re-entry stage in our repatriation journey. Every three months I’ll share a series of ‘snapshot’ blog posts about the particulars of building a new life from scratch, filed under the post category Re-entry Reality. I’ll look at everything from making a home, engaging socially, staying healthy, […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Re-entry Reality, Repatriation, Sandwich Generation, Writing, tagged Be one with the transition, blogging, building a life, career, career changes, community, construction, creativity, culture, emotional resilience, expat, expatriate life, family, friends, health, making a home, re-entry, Repatriation, social life, spirituality, transition, transition stages, wellbeing, writing on October 4, 2013 | 8 Comments »
I hope you’ll join me as I navigate the re-entry stage in our repatriation journey. Every three months I’ll share a series of ‘snapshot’ blog posts about the particulars of building a new life from scratch, filed under the post category Re-entry Reality. I’ll look at everything from making a home, engaging socially, staying healthy, and stretching […]
Posted in Blogging, Change, Emotional Resilience, Expat Transitions & Change, September 11th, Writing, tagged bonds, change, colleagues, destruction, friends, healing, loss, moving, pain, people, reflection, remembrance, September 11th, terror, transitions, writing on September 11, 2013 | 2 Comments »
Behind the scenes I’ve been working on a number of posts about what’s been going on and what I’ve been up to these past weeks and months. It’s been a whirlwind of motion, a cacophony of change, some tough moments scattered among positive and uplifting ones, along with the more mundane. (Is there ever a […]
Posted in Albert Heijn, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Netherlands, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged attention, chatting, conversation, despair, dinner, expat, expat life, family, family crises, focus, friends, friendship, grief, loneliness, marriage, medical problems, missed signals, neighborhood, neighbors, newly arrived, pain, promise of friendship, separation, Southeast Asia, The Hague, The Netherlands, time, travelling, trips, welcome on February 7, 2013 | 14 Comments »
I first met Tamara 14 months ago on the sidewalk in front of our neighbor’s house. It was a cold, late Sunday afternoon in December, the air heavy with moisture off the frigid North Sea. The weak sun had managed to emerge briefly from behind large swaths of gun metal gray clouds. Husband and I had just left the house to […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Food and Drink, Global Issues, Light Bulb Moments, Netherlands, Travel, United States, Work, tagged art, artistic, blogging, connectivity, creative spark, creativity, cultural, culture, design, dreaming, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, Facebook, family, friends, Google it, Google+, imagination, innovation, innovative, inspiration, internet, internet connectivity, jewelrymaking, LinkedIn, music, Netherlands Radio Choir, painting, search engines, social media, social media venures, Twitter, Vizify, writing on September 6, 2012 | 10 Comments »
I must confess that it still astounds me how, in this day and age and in the comfort of my own home here in the Netherlands, internet connectivity and the various social media venues it has spawned allow me to maintain contact with friends and family and build associations with others. Like the old Bell […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged Australia, Blog Expat, blogging, cancer, Chris Marshall, email, expat life, extended visit, Facebook, family, friends, Google+, I Was an Expat Wife, In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, internet, interview, LinkedIn, online, parents, Pause and Smile, Russell VJ Ward, sandwich generation, Skype, Spain, Telegraph, Telegraph Expat, terminal cancer, travel, Twitter, visiting back in the US, wordgeyser, writing on August 4, 2012 | 19 Comments »
By now many of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting regularly. Or much at all, if the truth be told. I’ve effectively been under an enforced ‘internet interlude’, partially of my own making, but mainly due to connectivity issues. As I’ve shared in Bite of the Generational Sandwich, the main focus of […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, tagged adolescents, babies, cancer, career, children, college, doing the best you can, economy, employment, expat life, expats, family, friends, generational sandwich, illness, jobs, parents, sandwich generation, saying goodbye, teens, travel, university, vacations, visits on July 9, 2012 | 22 Comments »
Almost three months ago I wrote about the challenges inherent in being a member of the Sandwich Generation, Expat Style. You know what I mean: being squeezed between children (of whatever age) and parents and elderly family members. Both groups may need you, albeit in very different ways. It happens to many most of us, and we […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Work, Writing, tagged blogging, culture, expat, Expat Focus, expatriate, family, foreign countries, foreign service, friends, In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, international organization, job opportunities, job transfer, jobs, military, non-profit organization, private sector, reassignment, Repatriation, Staying Put for Now, weak economy, writing on June 15, 2012 | 12 Comments »
Here in the northern hemisphere, when it gets to be February, March and April, the season begins. You would be forgiven for thinking that I’m referring to the blossoming springtime. Emerging from winter is certainly important, but there is another season beginning to bud: it’s what I referred to last year as a matter of The Clash […]
Posted in Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Holidays, Identity, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Sandwich Generation, tagged collective memory, culture, existence, expat life, Expatriate Archive Centre, expats, family, friends, hospital, illness, leave your footprint, legacy, love, making the world a better place, memories, mortality, Mother's Day, parents, remembrance, rootlessness on May 13, 2012 | 14 Comments »
Everyone wants to know, deep within, that their time on earth meant something to others. That their being here mattered. They mattered. It is human nature to want to leave your footprint on the world for others that come after you to see. For some, it is through their betterment of the immediate world around them. Think Mother […]
Posted in Change, Family & Friends, Holidays, Light Bulb Moments, tagged 2012, call to action, Christmas, family, friends, holiday season, love, New Year's Eve, peace, resolutions on December 30, 2011 | 12 Comments »
If you’ve come looking for a succinct list of New Year’s resolutions, you’re in the wrong place. I wish I could be of more help, but unfortunately I’m not quite there yet. Believe it or not, this is actually one of my favorite times of the year because to my mind, it truly is a […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Holidays, Life Balance, Netherlands, tagged appreciation, celebration, Christmas, Christmas tree, decorations, family, friends, holidays, New Year's, ornaments, rituals on December 22, 2011 | 6 Comments »
It’s been a fairly typical ten days for Yours Truly’s family here in Nederland in the run-up to Christmas and New Year’s. By that I mean lots going on: some of it getting done, some on its way to completion and woefully behind on a fair bit as well. Given that Christmas comes on the […]
Posted in Expat Life, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Netherlands, Writing, tagged beach, Carrie Sanderson, celebrate, friends, Jo Parfitt, moondance, Niamh Ni Bhroin, North Sea, party, Resevoir Dogs, sunset, trust, wordgeyser, Writers' Group on June 5, 2011 | 19 Comments »
Last night Husband and I attended a wonderfully fun bash at one of the beach clubs along northern Scheveningen beach. The multi-talented Jo Parfitt and her equally multi-talented partner in crime (and life) Ian were celebrating a joint milestone birthday. I’m told it was something along the lines of their 30th birthdays. (Work with […]
Posted in Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, tagged appreciation, family, friends, gratitude, thankful on December 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s prompt (from Victoria Klein) on the daily Reverb10 challenge: Appreciate. What’s the one thing you’ve come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? This falls into the category of both too simple and too hard. I really try to cultivate appreciation and gratitude on a continual basis, […]
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