New Story in Spider Magazine
“Shi’s Special Seed” is out in the May/June 2024 issue of Spider magazine!
Read MoreStarting Over Again
This has been a year of saying goodbye and beginning life in another new place.
After leaving Armenia, we spent the past three years in Germany, the longest our family has lived anywhere together. We added another baby boy to our crew (who’s now old enough to insist he isn’t a baby anymore, and he’s right), bonded in our apartment during COVID lockdown, and suddenly, it seemed, it was time to leave again. We moved from Germany to Lithuania.
We’re starting over again.
Read MoreHouse Tour!
Do you wonder what houses look like overseas? What challenges expats face in furnishing, decorating, and cooking in their homes? Taking Route has a 31-day series going on now touring expat homes around the globe. Check out our This Global Home series!
Here’s the link to my Armenian house tour: http://takingroute.net/2018/10/10/this-global-home-day-10-armenia/
Home, but not Home
The plane touches down, and you’re no longer a traveler.
So this is home, you think.
Home, but not home: the foremost paradox of expat life.
Read MoreSummer: The Expat Season of Goodbye
Yesterday I fell into step with a friend as we walked to pick up our kids from school. I smiled and asked her, “Doesn’t it feel like summer out today?”
She smiled back, but it immediately faded. “I need to tell you goodbye,” she said. “We are leaving tomorrow.”
Stop. What? It’s still several weeks before the end of the school year.
Read MoreSimplifying Expat Life with Meal Planning
After college, I worked at a pregnancy resource center where a fantastic team of volunteers taught classes for our moms-to-be. I got to sit in on one about meal planning, shopping, and preparation.
“Make a list of dinners,” the instructor told us, “and repeat it every week.”
She assured us that it would save time, energy, and money if we had a weekly meal rotation.
Read MoreMentoring New Expats
Our family has been “the new family” many, many times, both domestically and abroad. And I remember clearly times I’ve been wondering how I’m ever going to learn to live life here when there’s a knock on the door.
In my memories, as I answer, the slow-motion reel begins and angelic music plays. Standing outside, bathed in a ring of light, is a friend-to-be. She has spaghetti sauce and cookies and invites me to come with her to the grocery store tomorrow. She gives me her cell phone number and while she’s there, she shows me how to use my oven. When my kids crowd around her, begging to get out of the house, she says she can walk us to the park (and home again!). Since I don’t have to figure out dinner anymore, I gratefully accept.
People like this truly exist. They are the invaluable Expat Mentors, and you can be one...
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