How to avoid getting Yankee swamped this Holiday season

I love the Holidays! And everything that goes with it. From the lights, the Christmas tree, the festive store windows, the excitement in my kids, everything,  but the stress. Stress that was completely unknown to me until I settled in Maine. The Christmas related stress I knew entailed making sure you have your Christmas dinner […]

Dare to be proud

Recently I read a blog from a friend in the Netherlands, in which he admitted to be proud of himself. It got me thinking. I think here in the US people easier admit to be proud than in the Netherlands. There is an expression in Dutch that literally translates as: “Act normal, that’s crazy enough.” […]

See the moon shines through the trees…

Nine years, plus three before our family move. That’s twelve years in the US.We’ve been married 19, so most of my married life I spent in the US. Kind of cool, now I think of it. I dream in English, feel like I belong here and miss only my family and friends.I keep forgetting about […]

The Thanksgiving Orphans

It was November, we had been here for about 10 months now and I was still learning about the differences between my familiar culture and my new one. I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing the enormous turkeys filling the cooling places in the supermarket. I pointed it out to my husband: “How does that even […]

Are the Elections, stomach bugs and organizing frenzy related?

An unexpected stomach bug came to visit me two days after the announcement of the unexpected new President of the United States. I don’t know if and how the two are related, I just know that on Veteran’s Day I spent my entire day and night alternating between sleeping and puking. On Saturday I felt […]

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 […]

The powerful role of play – let’s look at education from a different perspective.  

Have you seen photos of the Google offices on the Internet? Did you feel a pang of envy? Beanbags, scooters, pool tables, putting greens, bright bold colors, sometimes even a slide. If you didn’t know any better, you probably thought you were looking at pictures of an upscale preschool. I tell you what I thought. […]