Category Archives: Home
Why taking down the screens isn’t a 10-minute job
November. The leaves are falling. We had a beautiful summer and a gorgeous fall. But now it is getting cold. Northern Maine experienced the first snow fall this season already. The heat is back on. We are working on getting the house ‘winter ready’. The lawn chairs will be stacked and brought inside. The lawn […]
Being Dutch, becoming American: a good time for a tough decision?
And today? Today I just sat.
It was a regular Wednesday in the third week of school. Slowly, but surely, we all got into our normal routine and in the rhythm of the ‘normal’ week. Husband went to work like usual, kids went to school, and their afterschool activities as piano, Robotics, soccer, cross country and fencing. And I? I make […]
Line drying laundry as an easy way to reflect
I pride myself in being ‘earth conscious’: having solar panels, and energy efficient appliances, doing composting and recycling, and during the summer I line-dry most of my laundry. There is something deeply satisfying about doing laundry that way: I plan it in the morning, so the laundry has all day to dry. That first morning […]
Happiness in the shape of sleek rectangle box
The strange sensation of losing my Dutch touch
When home is truly where the heart is
One more sleep and we are off: on vacation as what often is referred to as ‘going back home’. This makes sense: we are from the Netherlands and that will be our vacation destination this year. Both sets of parents live in the Netherlands, as do siblings, relatives and friends. Does that make it home? […]
Can these rules help me stay cool this summer?
Why I needed a Buzz feed quiz to find out the shocking Dutch truth.
One of the questions I get asked frequently is what I miss most of the Netherlands. And the longer I live in Maine, the harder it is to answer that question. I miss my family, of course. But truth to be told, I don’t always miss the fact that I used to have to divide […]