Yea! I'm the mother of two college graduates!

Me and my girls

This month I had the occasion to go home to the United States to see my youngest daughter graduate magna cum laude from the University of Missouri with a Bachelors Degree in Journalism. Her emphasis was Strategic Communications. I'm proud she graduated with honors and equally proud that she graduated debt-free. She worked really hard at that, at one time holding down two assistantships and a part-time job while going to school full-time. She plotted her classes out carefully so that she graduated in exactly four years.

My daughter "relishes" her new role

as a hotdogger



On June 3rd, she starts her new job as a hotdogger for the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.  It's been fun to learn about that opportunity as over 1,500 people apply every year and exactly 12 young people are hired to drive six different Weinermobiles around America promoting the Oscar Mayer brand of hot dogs. I'd like to think my daughter inherited a bit of my sense of adventure and desire to see parts unknown.

Suzy, the Dancing Pancake

People who have worked as a mascot are frequently hired as a hotdogger for the Oscar Mayer company. Who knew that  my child's time as IHOP's "Suzy the Dancing Pancake" or Papa Murphy's " Pizza Slice" in high school would pay off so well? Maybe, she did. Kelly makes opportunities everywhere she goes.

The Papa Murphy Pizza Slice

Two years was too long a time for me to be gone! I think it's important to probably go home once a year if that's doable. Or if I can't go home, it would be nice if my family could come visit me here. Vacation time is so short and precious in America though, I can't imagine that will be soon.

While I enjoyed my time home in America, and was pleased that every city I went to looked like it was doing great, it did feel like I was coming "home" to Istanbul when I came back after 10 days. I couldn't wait to enjoy the Turkish spring bounty of new cherries. I wondered when the Turkish peaches would hit the shelves. I hoped the climbing roses and the honeysuckle were still fragrantly blooming in my neighborhood and that I would get to enjoy them.

Yea! She finished!

I have confidence in my child's ability to thrive post-college. If she needs me, I'm just a phone call away. Maybe my highly conscious decision to designate this period of my life as my time to be an "Empty Nest Expat" has rubbed off on her highly conscious planning of how to use her most agile years.

Kelly's already set her next life goal as running a race in all 50 states of the nation by the age of 25. I think she's up to seven states now. She did her first marathon the Saturday before graduation. That's another hard part about me being an expat: I wasn't there to cheer her on. Luckily, the people of Cinncinati, where she ran the Flying Pig Marathon, made her feel like an Olympian! "Best day of my life, Mom! The people were fantastic, the neighborhoods were adorable, and they made me feel so proud."

You can read about her adventures at the University of Missouri at her freshman year blog "First Steps of a Freshman" or at her new blog "The Race for All 50 States," or at the official "Hotdogger Blog" where she will be contributing.


You might also enjoy:

Wonderful food eases newly empty nest

Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

Enjoying the Fruits of My Parenting Labors

Hello Great Big Beautiful World! (first ever blog post)

I've Got a Ticket to Ride

I decided to take a bus to Istanbul because I knew it would be a volcano-proof plan, I wouldn't have to stay awake watching my luggage like on a train, and I simply wanted a sense of the geography and distance I'm traveling.

My daughter asked, "Does it get to count as a country you've visited, if you just ride through it?" I thought yes.  I told her, "well I count Poland and all I did was go through the Warsaw airport."

"That soooo does not count!" she insisted. What's your standard, gentle reader, for saying, "yes, I visited that country?"  I figure if you breathed their air, you visited it.

This morning, I"m boarding a bus at 9 a.m. for a 27-hour bus ride to Sofia, Bulgaria.  It's a little wierd to be looking forward to a 27-hour bus ride, but hey, that's me. The route covered is fascinating.

Yea! I'm Back in Prague

I'm glad to see this guy

is still going strong

in Prague's Old Town Square.

He produces endless smiles,

joy, and singing in those passing by.

I started this blog to move me forward to some very specific goals:

1) graduate youngest from high school.
2) sell my house.
3) move to Prague and take a TEFL class.
4) live in Prague teaching business English.

My youngest graduated from high school and is now in her junior year of college.  I moved to Prague, took my TEFL course and started to have the time of my life.  Six months into it, I had to go back to the States because my school waited 2.5 months before applying for my visa and it wasn't ever issued.  I tried to reapply for a visa from the States. I was told I was denied a second time (although I never actually received a letter saying so).

My daughters and I

I spent a very lovely 10 months in Madison, Wisconsin.  Madison is a city frequently chosen by magazines as the #1 most fabulous place to live in all of the United States.  I can heartily agree! Madison was a physically beautiful, intellectually-stimulating, healthy, wonderful place to live.  I may end up there some day, who knows. While I was back in the States, I finally got my house sold and watched my oldest daughter graduate from the University of Wisconsin (she did it in 3.5 years while working 20 hours a week and serving as president of one of her student organizations. Yea, Daughter #1! Somebody hire her please, she's amazing.).

But living in Madison was not what I wanted to do with this portion of my life here on Earth, so having accomplished all of the goals I set out to do, I'm ready to start Part II of Empty Nest Expat.  This part will be more spontaneous.  My goal is to write a very specific book about the Czech Republic.  I can visualize the entire thing in my mind.

I have come back to Prague to see if I can get a residence visa from the Czech Republic to live here while I write. I've applied for what is called the živnostenský list which is essentially a business trade license so that I can earn a living while I'm here writing. I am absolutely horrible at bureaucratic paperwork like visas and the like and am actually pretty proud just to have figured out (with the help of friends) how to do the živnostenský list without an agency's help. Having applied for this business trade license, and been approved, I will then have to move back out of the Czech Republic to apply for a residence visa (don't bother asking, I don't understand it either). Still with me, or have your eyes glazed over?  If they've glazed over, welcome to my world.

House of Týn Church

When I got back to Prague and first saw the spires of the House of Týn Church, I cried.  They were so damn beautiful!  And then I cried when I was on Revoluční, and realized I was going to have my first chlebičky in 10 months at my favorite kavárna (coffee shop). Oh, the joy of familiar Czech pleasures!

I hope I'm successful living here.  That's why I say Phase II of Empty Nest Expat may have to be more spontaneous.  I'm not yet ready to give up my Czech dream, but if I have to do so, I'll read up on how to develop Buddhist non-attachment to what I want and then find a country that welcomes me.

A Carefree New Year's Eve

Welcome to World Blog Surf Day, a third carnival of shared expat experiences from around the world. When expat blog participants decided that our theme this time would be our favorite holiday or celebration traditions in our new culture, I had a seriously hard time deciding which traditions I wanted to share. Easter traditions in the Czech Republic are so foreign to American ways they will drop your mouth to the floor; Christmas is wonderfully the same and yet different than at home, but in the end, I chose New Year's Eve cause it felt like a coming out party for me as an empty nester.

Me, Naan, and Gulnara

For the first time in 20 years, I did not have the responsibility for anyone's safety on New Year's Eve other than my own. I could experience it with a light and carefree heart. If I wandered too close to fireworks, it wasn't my children's eyes, ears, and limbs at risk. If I saw people drinking too much alcohol, I didn't worry about who's eyes I was exposing to that. I was not responsible for the experience of others.

Our Czech Champagne
for the evening
was Bohemia Sect

My dear friends Gulnara and Nhan joined me at my place for the start of the evening. Gulnara, is originally from Russia and a fellow English teacher. Nhan, a mechanical engineer, is Vietnamese - American and hails from Orlando, Florida. Nhan's medical studies at Charles University had brought them to Prague and we have great fun together every time we got together.

Nhan and Gulnara
in Old Town

My Prague apartment is only 10 blocks from Old Town and about the same from Wenceslas Square. It was the perfect staging spot for a night of revelry. We headed first to Old Town Square which was packed with partygoers and music stages. Nice but too tame.

I had always heard that the fireworks on Wenceslas Square were awesome on New Year's Eve. We left Old Town Square and went over there. The energy and exuberance were fantastic. It was such a different setup than an American celebration, where "the authorities" would be in charge of the fireworks, the music, the entertainment, and the people's role would be to consume it. Here, "the people" set off the fireworks and made the fun. I was fascinated by it. You can just tell the product liability lawyers and lawsuit-happy folks have not yet arrived in the Czech Republic.

Amidst the most gloriously beautiful and expensively-located real estate, anyone who wanted to was setting off professional-quality, firework-show fireworks. Couldn't a spark land somewhere it shouldn't and start all the buildings on fire? Didn't anyone worry about harming everyone else standing around? They most assuredly did not.

It was so much fun, so loud, so exuberant, so absolutely fantastic I watched to see if Prague had made it in the worldwide coverage of great New Year's Parties around the globe. It must! Such was the shared joy of everyone there. One of the things I saw in Wenceslas Square there that night that I had never seen anywhere else, was young Asian men in the twenties, so happy and excited, they were literally skipping down the street arm in arm with each other.

With nary a product liability lawyer
in sight, a bunch of young people
joyfully light them up

Safety? We don't need no stinkin' safety.
This is w-a-y t-o-o much fun.

This will bring out the 12-year-old boy's
wonderment and joy in explosives in anyone.

(Except you, daughters #1 and #2 -
don't try this at home in America)

Wenceslas Square would often look like a
war zone as people scattered
to let the smoke clear

Sadaam sashays
down Wenceslas Square

Do the Czechs know
about Dr. Seuss's
Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Partiers came from as far
away as the Ural Mountains

A couple of
wild and crazy guys

The end of a beautiful evening
with no worries about drunk drivers
on the way home

To enjoy another celebration in the Czech Republic, visit the next expat involved in World Blog Surf Day. Sher, the organizer of our blog carnival, describes her favorite new holiday at her blog Czech Off The Beaten Path. If you would like to see who else is involved in WBSD, and where they all hail from, here is the link list.

Let's fade out here with imagined Lionel Ritchie music....."Celebrate! Good Times, Come On!"

UNESCO names Iowa City, Iowa a "City of Literature"

My blog usually celebrates Prague. Today I want to celebrate a place I used to live because it just achieved a HUGE honor. I resided in Iowa City, Iowa for two years while I did my M.A. in library and information science. I loved every single minute of living there and regard my time there as two of the most enriching years of my life. Iowa City, Iowa shares a distinction with my hometown Ames, Iowa and another favorite town of Boulder, Colorado as having the most Ph.D.s per capita of any community in the U.S.

UNESCO has named Iowa City, Iowa, with a mere 63,000 people, as the world's third "City of Literature." What other cities have already achieved this distinction? Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia! Pretty good company, I'd say. UNESCO is creating a Creative Cities Network honoring and connecting centers for cinema, music, crafts and folk arts, design, media arts and gastronomy, as well as literature.

Iowa City is renowned for a culture that REVERES writing. It is no surprise to me that daughter #2 is on her way to becoming a journalist because in her kindergarten and first grade classes the Iowa City School System passionately passed on the joy of writing to students.

The whole town is obsessed with writing and book culture because the University of Iowa is home to the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Sooner or later, every famous writer in the world makes their way there to see what the mystique is all about. Lucky citizens are able to hear readings from great thinkers from all over the world, often in small intimate settings.

Like many of Iowa City residents who enjoyed the endless parade of writers through town, I attended more than my fair share of readings at Prairie Lights Bookstore. Prairie Lights' name was known throughout Iowa because each reading was broadcast to all farmers and small town folks across our rural state.

Iowa City took the job of creating new readers as a sacred task. Every child from all over the world in my married student housing courtyard had a wardrobe of three or four t-shirts celebrating the fact they had proudly finished the annual summer reading club. Kids who didn't participate had to ask themselves why they didn't get their free shirt because it sure seemed like everyone else had one for each year they had been in town. When thousands of kids go through the program, finding the funding for something like that takes support from the entire community. Do the math. It's expensive!

The Iowa City Public Library also mounted the first Banned Books Display I had ever seen. The one I remember that shocked me was "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. An Indian reservation library had found the portrayal of American Indians in the book offensive and attempted to remove it. Very simple displays like that can help show people that a book they consider important offends somebody else. When we protect everyone's right to read, we protect our own.

To continue that commitment to Intellectual Freedom, the local library started an annual Intellectual Freedom lecture and named it after a staff member who constantly prodded her institution on this issue. It's that kind of reaching beyond the day-to-day mission and teaching the community why censorship hurts their marketplace of ideas that brings this kind of recognition.

Congratulations Iowa City, Iowa and all of the important institutions and their staff members for this huge honor. Y'all deserve it! Link to the title to read the press release.

It's a Beautiful Day!

I am so proud of the citizens of the United States of America with our open hearts.

Daughter #1 was #51 in line when the polls opened yesterday.

Daughter #2 arrived at her polls at 5:45 a.m. to cast her vote and was voter #9. Their first election! They were so excited to participate.

Election day yesterday, all day long, was one long spiritual moment.

I am so proud of my country!

Mizzou Parent's Weekend

Daughter #2 chose University of Missouri at Columbia as her university of choice because it's rated #1 in the nation for her major: journalism. She was not alone. The freshman class has experienced a double-digit growth rate with a record class of 5,812 students.

So on my way to Colorado, and eventually to Prague, I stopped in Columbia, Missouri for parent's weekend to celebrate her choice. And how do American families celebrate their university? Football!

On the way to the game, we walked by the new $50 million student recreation center, voted #1 in the nation by Sports Illustrated. That must have been an incredibly tough label to earn because student recreation centers have been a collegiate focus of investment nationwide. Mizzou students voted to increase their fees to pay for it.

One of the swimming pools -
students can swim inside to one of the other ones.

Beach volleyball, 1,500 miles from a beach!

Some of the tennis courts
There is much more to see inside the facility
But on to the game!

People put their tiger tails on their backside,
hanging out their car trunks,
from their car antennas, everywhere!

One year, Nebraska students changed the "M" to an "N."
Mizzou staff found it and changed it back before the game.
Those sneaky Cornhuskers!

Mizzou Golden Girls

The football team takes the field!

Every time the defense sacks a quarterback
or sets back the other team
they play a REALLY LOUD man-eating Tiger roar
throughout the stadium.

Truman, the Mizzou mascot (named after Harry Truman,
the American President born in Missouri) and the ROTC boys
(students studying to be military officers) do a pushup
for every single point the football team scores.
So by the end of the 42-21 game against Buffalo,
they've done a huge cumulative total of push-ups. Yea team!

Yes, that spells TIGERS!

Stateside Book Buzz

For all of you American expats who wonder what is going on back home, here's a nod to a popular book stateside. It's a title that took off out of nowhere and has been on the bestseller list for weeks based on word of mouth alone. "Three Cups of Tea" was written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin in 2006.

Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer, got lost climbing K2. He wandered into a Pakistani mountain village so disoriented he kept thinking it was a completely different town. The people of Korphe, Pakistan took care of him and showed him kindness. He promised the people of the village he would come back and build them a school. And he actually followed through on that promise. The book is the incredibly uplifting story of his odyssey as he built first one school and then more.

I first heard of the book when a lady told me she had to read it because her daughter, whom she characterized as "the most frugal person on the face of the earth," had just finished the book and wanted to drain her bank accounts and send every single penny she had to the author so he could build more schools. "What is in this book that would make her say that?" she wondered.

A woman in my community read the book and urged the library to choose it as this year's title for the one book, one community program. Greg Mortenson, himself, is coming to speak in September. Her idea is not only should everyone enjoy the book, but wouldn't it be cool for our community to raise $50,000 to help him build a school. She's right. It would!

Daughter #2's university is asking every student to read the book this summer with book discussions to follow in the fall. I'm told many other universities are doing the same.

What Greg Mortenson has accomplished is to see the good in an area of the world few Americans even get too and far fewer of us understand. Long before 9/11, he began a mission to build schools in unserved Muslim rural areas. He not only was able to start educating young Muslim schoolgirls, he received blessings from Shia leadership in Iran to continue doing so. He built the schools using local labor and contacts and did it cheaply and effectively. And he's kept on doing it.

This is a wonderful story about a man who accepted people as they are, reached out without a demand that they change their faith, allegiances, or beliefs, and does what he can to help them help themselves. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Greg Mortenson is the director of the Central Asian Institute.

No photos to show: both the photographers moved out!

Daughter #2 had a beautiful high school graduation. Our family was all here and we had fun cooking together and seeing the local sites. The morning my daughter left to live with Dad in Kansas City for the summer her manager asked her to come in for a last-minute send-off party. I was truly touched to see how much my child was appreciated! There were balloons, donuts, and yummie treats all put together for a high school kid by a bunch of people in their twenties and thirties. It was so moving!

The first day was hard, really hard. I won't lie. Mostly, I'm just grateful to God for the joy I had raising them. I look forward to hearing all of their adventures and I appreciate their good wishes as I pursue mine. Life is good.

The Last Day of High School

Yesterday was my youngest daughter's last day of high school. I'm so proud of her. All tasks are done and the Constitution test is passed. She is graduating.

She created and hand wrote thank you notes to 27 different staff members. I'm proud that my child knows the name of her high school custodians and security people and went out of her way to thank them. She understands how each and everyone of them contribute to her experience. Most importantly, she tells them!

Last night our high school had Senior Awards night. This event actually means more to me than graduation because it's more dignified. It is such a pleasure to hear everything that the kids have done and to learn more about young adults in her school individually. I was so pleased that her boyfriend's mother and grandmother were able to join us.

My daughter definitely felt the love; I'm grateful for that. She was honored six times. I kinda sorta wished though that someone had mentioned everything she did for the school over the last year to sorta help explain why she was honored so much. So in case she reads this, here is my thank-you:

Thank you for spending every day at school during your junior-senior summer organizing 100 of your peers to put on a freshman orientation so that incoming freshman feel empowered and comfortable on their first day of school. You selected an inspiring speaker to help freshman set their goals. Each new student was shown where their classes are. You and your peers taught them the school song. You passed on pride.

Thank you for raising $2,000 to create and publish an eight-page full-color magazine all by yourself during that same summer. Your magazine showed incoming freshman how to be successful as freshmen. You can be proud that you helped them think of opportunities and challenges they may face before they come up. It was a fun, beautiful piece of magazine publishing. Your first of what I believe will be many.

Last night, you felt the appreciation of your school. All this week, I hope you feel the appreciation of your family. You have made us all so very happy.

Love,

Mom xxxoooxxx

Baby Steps toward Selling

My baby step toward selling this house that I'm celebrating today is that the lawn man did two solid days of work on the yard and the wild "forest" of uncontrolled trees the original owner/developer left growing in the backyard. The trees and understory bushes don't look quite as untouched now. I'm not sure that's a good thing. At least the organic debris on the "forest" floor is cleaned up and not fuel for a fire (I'm trying to think like a very critical buyer - all I ever saw was the beauty of the trees).

My next two vendors to deal with are the painters and the carpet layers. The painters are supposed to paint this week. Carpet to come the following.

Daughter #2 has become addicted to applying for college scholarships. Every week another "yes" comes in. Her goal is to have her first year entirely financed from scholarships. So far she is at 60%. She is making her father sooooooo happy. That's a good thing.

She has additional assignments to turn in plus a United States Constitution test to pass before she officially walks across that stage.

May we all keep on task this week and focus on what's in front not in the future!

First Things First

I've done enough reading about Prague to know that today in "Lover's Day" where couples go to kiss under the statue of a famous Czech poet and celebrate Spring. It is very hard to not completely immerse myself in all things Czech because I am so excited to get there.

My child has the same problem. She's trying to focus on taking care of the last 20 days of high school when she is so "over it" and excited about college. Yesterday, when returning to class after being gone most of the last week, one of her favorite teachers jokingly said "well, look what the cat dragged in."

Her whole day was like that. Later, the principal boomed out her last name as she was walking down the hall and said "Get in here." After she slinked into his office worried about what she was in trouble for (don't get me wrong - my kid is very well known and respected by the administration of her high school). He gave her grief about missing so much school and said to her "size 10 1/2! You need to know that's my shoe size in case you have any trouble graduating." I just laughed when I heard that. I can hear him now. I'm glad she's getting it from all sides.

Transitions are hard. What I need to be doing is reading stuff about selling my house rather than reading stuff about Prague. I meant to have it on the market a month ago. A month ago! First things first. Get this house sold.

Enjoying the Fruits of my Parenting Labors

The greatest joy of an empty nest is watching what your children do with all that teaching. Do they make smart choices? How are their decision-making skills? Truly, there can not be much greater joy than watching your child make a great decision. Daughter #1 has provided me quite a bit of that in the two years since she's left home. Now begins the pleasure of watching daughter #2 grow into adulthood.

Over the last two weeks, my youngest has done a lot of traveling for a senior not yet out of secondary school. She and one of her high school colleagues raised all but $49 of the money they needed to travel to Orange County, California (yes, Disneyland!) to attend a convention aimed at young people interested in journalism.

"Mom!" daughter #2 proudly exclaimed on her return from California. "I was the navigator of the group." When my kids were little, I always made them do the navigating at any airport. They always had to be the one who would tell me in any situation how to get from point A to point B.

A week later, she flew down to Florida on prom weekend because Navy man could not come up for her senior prom so she went to see him for the weekend instead. On her flight back from Pensacola to Atlanta, she mistakenly read her seat number to Atlanta as her gate number. It just so happened that another flight to Atlanta was boarding at that gate further obscuring her mistake. She discovered it too late and missed her flight starting a downward spiral to her day.

When she called to vent, I urged Zen-like acceptance to restore her calm (apparently not a useful idea to a seventeen-year-old). I reminded her that her mistake was costing her merely time since she didn't have to buy another ticket and only had to pay a $50 rebooking fee.

I was about to say "at least you were prepared with an emergency cash fund so you could rebook your flight." BUT AT THAT EXACT MOMENT SHE SAID IT TO ME. Parenting nirvana. We took a moment to feel what it would be like to solve the problem without an emergency cash fund. Then she went on with her day, downward spiral and all.

For me, my day had just taken an decidedly-upward tilt. My child begrudgingly understood that mistakes happen. What we can control is whether or not we are prepared to recover from them with an emergency cash fund. She was prepared and knew to be prepared. Yea!