• Summer

    year of dog

    this post is in honor of our dearest ferdinand, our long-haired miniature (rabbit) dachshund whom we adopted one year ago this week! i’ve only written one other post completely dedicated to him so far, one month of dog, all about that first difficult but wonderful month. i suppose i hadn’t written much else between then and now because i knew there was and was to be a lot of learning that would take place in the time between then and now – not only for him, but with us. in fact, the most surprising thing about this first year with ferdie has been the amount of learning that needed to…

  • Summer

    the expat’s guide to christmas away from home

    i can barely believe that this is already my sixth holiday season away from home. at first, spending christmas in europe was an absolutely fantastic and magical thing and i couldn’t have been happier! the christmas traditions here are beautiful and even more elaborate than i can remember from childhood. however at about year four, i noticed it started getting a little harder; perhaps the sheen had dulled ever so slightly. despite not being home (again) for christmas and being away from my dear family and friends, i am a die-hard forever merry christmas celebrater and i wanted to share with you how you can make this upcoming holiday season…

  • Summer

    november, lately + pumpkin miso soup (recipe)

    i have been having the worst time putting words on paper (er, screen) lately. i suppose this is the teacher’s busy time of the year and i continue to take on so much, that i forget to take time. i consider this a big “life lately” dump so i can start fresh and start recording more of the day to day stuff. going back almost two weeks ago to halloween – we had a great one. alex and i reprised our costume from six years ago (our first halloween together) as wayne and garth from wayne’s world and it almost went even better than the first time.  we like to utilize halloween as…

  • Summer

    autumn dreamland

    one thing i really like about living in české budějovice is its proximity to some pretty interesting places. we are only two hours from both prague to the north and linz, austria to the south. of course, because of international public transport tariffs, prague is by far the more affordable place to head of the two when you’ve got a free day and wanna soak up some big(ger) city lovin’. especially if you are a loyal české dráhy (czech trains) customer like i am and rack up enough points on the regular to earn free train tickets (public service announcement: if you live in the czech republic and frequently travel…

  • Summer

    yoga journey thus far

    you know what is super daunting? moving to another country in a city where most people don’t speak english and trying to join normal activities that involve group classes. when you want to do all of those normal people things you used to do that get just a tad bit more complicated in your new environment. the past few years before this big adventure abroad, i had only merely dabbled in yoga but i knew i wanted more. i used to go every so often to a beautiful studio in ballard (seattle), and i wanted to continue this venture while vagabonding across europe in 2012 and finally settling in the…

  • Summer

    lately, september

    when you have too much to write about and get behind with recording life’s happenings that you just don’t even know where to start anymore so you don’t post. sound familiar? well, it’s finally  time to talk about september & all recent life things here in south bohemia! it’s clear to me now from my post earlier this month that i was hur-ting. still getting over a serious bout of homesickness involved with leaving washington, i was not over it. it took about two weeks or so but everything found itself back to normal here in budejovice. fortunately early september brings fun markets and happenings like the annual vltava žije…

  • Summer

    back from USA + 10 things i love about home

    hi friends, happy september. i feel like i’m just guiltily creeping back to writing after being m.i.a. for about a month because holy heck, it’s been a month. i’ve been back in the czech republic for just a couple days now and errrmahgerd, i am still jet-lagged as a mofo – this has got to be one of the worst instances of it i can recall. (case in point: it’s 9:15am on a saturday morning and i’ve already read, taken the dog out, had breakfast, read some blogs, then lounged around while loudly complaining about how tired i am) we just completed a five week trip across four states, and…

  • Summer

    july things

    hello all! i’ve been a bit of a summer camp haze for a little while, but i got up today and realized that it is july twentieth and it weirded me out a lot. my favorite month full of all thing summer and fun is flying by!  you know what i got up to at the very beginning of the month, in karlovy vary! i spent an uneventful independence day (because, let’s be honest, it’s usually not so much fun abroad unless you’re traveling or at some kind of expat party). although, one of my favorite fourth of julys so far was spent nine years ago in switzerland at a…

  • Summer

    june things

    middle of june already! it’s basically summer in south bohemia, and you know it because the public art is currently being installed in the square (photos forthcoming).  i wanted to thank you for your honest, enthusiastic, and heartfelt comments about my last post. it was pretty hard to put that one out there because i fully realize that not everyone living in another country (and especially in another language) has an easy go of it, but i’ve always been pretty honest in this space and hope to continue to do so, so that’s just me. that’s what’s going on. i think sort of a random life lately style post is…

  • Summer

    slow pace or rat race?

    happy june! we are entering one of the best times of the year and i couldn’t be more pleased with these light evenings and warm sunny days. not only that, we have now had our little dog for six whole months now (!!!) and next month we’ll be headed back to the united states for five weeks! life is so good. lately we’ve just been living the “south bohemia” life – nothing much to put on paper. in fact, i suppose that’s why i haven’t had much to say lately (that i haven’t already micro-blogged on instagram, that is – hah). i certainly have been around and not too busy (although…