Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

One year ago I started this blog to help me go through the emotional journey of graduating my youngest child from high school, downsizing and potentially selling my home, and moving across the world from the American Midwest to Prague, Czech Republic.

My home in America

One year ago, I was living a very American mom lifestyle in a 3 bedroom/3 bath suburban home with one child at university and another in her senior year at high school. I only went places by car. I didn't yet know how to blog. I didn't yet know how to Twitter. I didn't yet know how to couchsurf.

I was mowing the lawn once a week. I read somewhere that not having a lawn to mow anymore frees up 30 hours a year. Hallelujah! I still own the house and the magnificent blackberry tree that goes with it. Currently, I have it rented out to some terrific people.

At the beginning of my blogging journey, I was working on what to do with all of my "stuff." I don't think of myself as particularly attached to possessions but once a lifetime of them have built up, the task of thoughtfully going through each and every one and making a decision about what to do with each one is overwhelming.

Fortunately, I found this fantastic book that helped me go through the process in an incredibly empowering way. It's called "When Organizing Isn't Enough: Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life" by Julie Morgenstern. Wow, did that book help me. I didn't waste any years in procrastination before starting. All of those posts are under the label SHED. They used to be the most-read part of my blog.

My children have thrived on their own. Each of them are attending their university of choice and living their own dream. They're loving life and they haven't needed their mother stateside to do it.

Pinch me!

And where am I now? I'm living in Prague!!! In the six months since I moved here, I've found great students, great friends, a great neighborhood, a great flat, a great flatmate, and a great church community. I feel like I'm living my values 100%. Life is awesome!

My property maintenance consists of cleaning my apartment every other week when it's my turn. That takes about two hours max.

I no longer have to worry about oil changes, or tires, or brakes. That frees up even more time. Using public transportation has been a Godsend. In six months, I've lost twenty pounds because I'm walking to and from metro and tram stops rather than merely to the driveway. I have zero worries about traffic - imagine how stress-free that makes life.

Even the stress of having a rotten president has gone away! Hallelujah!

Over a year of blogging, I've written 226 posts. I've had 4,200 visitors and 10,000 page hits. My blog was chosen as Expat Blog of the Month (thank you Julian!) in December of 2008. Now that I'm actually living here in Prague my readership keeps growing about 5% a month. If this were a business that would be an outstanding rate of growth. But it's not, it's just for fun.

And fun it has been. Blogging has helped me focus, focus, focus on achieving my dream of moving to Prague to learn about this beautiful city and the wonderful people of the Czech Republic. Thank you for reading and being part of the conversation!

President Obama in Prague!

Dreams of My Father (in Czech!)

President Obama came to Prague to speak and 30,000 of us showed up! I was excited especially after my blogged open letter asking President Obama to come to Prague to talk to the Czechs about the radar base was read by a corespondent at the BBC. A producer emailed me and asked if I would be willing to do an interview. "Could you also find us a skeptical Czech to interview," they asked. Someone who represents Prime Minister Topolanek's viewpoint [that the American way is the "highway to hell?"]. Ha. That would be easy. ALL Czechs are skeptical!

I tried to get a press pass at the American Cultural Center. And why not? Bloggers get press passes to almost everything back home from the Democratic and Republican conventions to the Inauguration. Now that newspapers are closing at the rate of one a week in America, bloggers have never been a more important part of the democracy conversation. I have to admit I felt sheepish though when I took my place in press pass pickup line and asked the embassy lady if I was on the list. The guy in front of me was from Danish TV. The guy behind me was from the Washington Post Berlin bureau.

"Name?" she said. I told her my first name and surname. "No, the name of your media outlet." I gamely replied "Empty Nest Expat." Gentle readers, you would have been proud of me. I managed to carry that off with a straight face. "Uh, I don't think you're on the list," she said. "But here, she said, is an invitation to have a closer spot at the speech."

It was harder than I thought to find a skeptical Czech who was willing to go with me and be interviewed. I called a friend on April 1st and asked him but he couldn't talk right then. He called me back the next day and asked "Is this for real? I was laying in bed thinking about it and then I remembered that you Americans have this holiday...." No, no. This was for real. Not an April Fool's joke.

I asked another Czech who I knew to be really skeptical of Obama's stimulus package. He had asked me after the stimulus package passed, "Why is America spending all of that money going into debt? We [the Czech Republic] couldn't afford that debt. And why is all of that money being funneled to companies rather than regular people? It just creates graft."

He wouldn't be my skeptical Czech either though. "Journalists? I'm skeptical of them too. They just pull a bit out of what everyone says to manipulate the news." Man, these Czechs are tough cookies. They don't have much faith in ANYBODY!

Luckily, I met this articulate young man at the tram stop on the way to the speech. We instantly hit it off. He looked at my invitation and said "this is very Czech. It's meaningless. It's just to make you feel important while you stand with everyone else at the speech."

"But it's from the American Embassy!" I said. "Doesn't matter. It's not going to get you any closer. This is Czech," he kept saying.

He was right. We were in the back half, far, far from the press risers. The producer emailed me and said they were unable to get down from the risers to talk to the people. It didn't look like the interview would come off. I was disappointed but knew that the interview wasn't the point of the morning.

Protestors at the entrance to Prague Castle.

Gee, I guess I needn't have worried
about how I looked when I went
to try and get a press pass.

Yes, that number is 70!

A Czech patriot wearing his medals
and proudly displaying a beloved photograph
of his father with Founder of the Czech Republic Masaryk.
This man was imprisoned by Communists after WWII.

My pal Petr whom I met that day
kept me entertained for three hours.
He was my skeptical Czech!

Michael
aka Blogging Gelle!

Everybody watching for the big entrance.

30,000 cameras reach up as the couple takes the stage.

The experience itself was underwhelming.
Three hours of waiting
with the realization you can't see a thing!

Thank goodness someone invented YouTube.
I hope to write more
about Obama's speech after the Easter Holiday.

The American flag, the Czech flag,
and the European Union Flag.

There is always room for wit on my blog.
These protestors made their point
by making everyone smile.

30,000 people leaving the square -
all wanting to go
a different direction than us.

After we had left the square, I got another text from the producer saying "can you come down here in five minutes, we are able to get off the risers." By then we were long gone out of the square and going back through the alley of 30,000 people and into the square would easily have taken a half hour.

I have increased appreciation for journalists after this. We were tired. We just wanted to go home. Journalists have to write something, after all that standing, and then produce it on deadline. Their job is a lot less glamorous than TV makes it look. And they do it day, after day, after day.

An Evening with the Hari Krishnas

Marcello

This is my flatmate, Marcello, age 35. He's a theoretical physicist from Italy specializing in gravity. More importantly, as a flatmate, he's a good guy.

We had heard about the half-price nightly specials at Govinda, the restaurant near our flat run by the Hari Krishnas. We decided to check it out.

The Hari Krishna bakery
next door to the restaurant

Govinda does a nice lunch business.

Every night from 5:30-6:00 p.m.
they offer what's left on the menu
for half price.

You can click on my title
to go to their web page.

The smell of incense
wafts out from the gift shop.

It's a good thing we arrived at 5:25
because every single table filled up quickly.

Diners go up to the counter to pick up their food.
We didn't have to select what to eat.
This was a good thing, because we had no idea
what it was. After we started eating it became clear.

Our plate of food cost $2. That's probably with the Czech Value Added Tax of 20% added in. I ordered strawberry lassi (yogurt drink) and Marcello ordered freshly-squeezed carrot juice which added another $2 each to our meals. We had lentil soup, raita with beets (that's the refreshing pink yogurt salad), sweet tomato chutney (I could taste cinnamon), rice and a tasty amalgamation of broccoli, carrots, potatoes and possibly zucchini to go with the rice. It was good and filling.

You don't have to sit at a table.
These three Hari Krishna ladies enjoyed
the lower tables with floor cushions.

The clay on their noses
is from the Ganges River.
They wear it to signify that
they recognize their bodies as
spiritual temples
not just physical
flesh and blood.

A Hari Krishna lady had confided in me
weeks before in the bakery that the best thing
about these outfits is they hide
every possible figure flaw.

Inside the gift shop and cultural center

When I was a kid, the Hari Krishna movement seemed very threatening. During the 70s, a common fear of American parents was that their young adult children would run off and join the Hari Krishnas or the Moonies, two religious movements considered cults at that time. Anytime you went to an American airport in those days, flyers had to avoid aggressive supporters of a Libertarian guy named Lyndon LaRouche and orange-bedecked Hari Krishnas that would encircle you with what seemed like wild drumming and chanting.

This encounter, so far, hadn't been anything like that. After dinner, Marcello had to head out to English class. I had time to pop into the gift shop and cultural center. Lo and behold, a program was about to begin. Being an empty nester, I didn't have to be somewhere at a certain time. I could be spontaneous and stay! And having no fear at this age in life that I would "run off and join the Hari Krishnas" staying to learn more about their life seemed more interesting than threatening.

Every Wednesday night, after the restaurant closes at 6 p.m., the Hari Krishnas hold a congregational chant. Tonight was going to be even more informative, because a young man who graduated from a Hari Krishna all-male secondary school in India was going to give a slide presentation on the school. I was lucky to sit down next to a very nice young woman named Christine who offered to translate and explain everything to me.

I love singing. It's 100% non-cynical. I have done solitary meditation but this was going to be my first group meditation or chanting. The room was standing room only with approximately 70 people in it wearing a mixture of saris, regular Western casual clothes, and even one suit and tie. Many people came straight from work.

The chant was led by three men. The chant leader played the harmonium, another man and Christine rhythmically clanged finger cymbals, and the young man who would the evening's speaker played a drum that reminded me of a conga drum.

It was beautiful. The entire room focused on the chant and it truly was like a transcendental spiritual vibration could be felt. The number of people, the rhythm, the sounds of the drums, keyboards, and clanging cymbals all added up to a sum greater than it's parts. The leader later told me that doing it together is what helps prevent boredom and mind flicker (what the Buddhists call "monkey mind.")

Before the program began

I wish I had taken a picture of the young man who shared his slides that night. He emanated a deep spiritual nature. It's not easily described. I just know it when I feel it. He was 20 years old. Hari Krishnas from all over the world send their children to this school with a Krishna curriculum. It didn't occur to my skeptical Western mind until the next day to ask if the school was accredited by an outside agency, but I did ask where the girl's school was (1 km away), how many teachers and students were native to India and how many weren't.

The speaker's English was "native" because so many Americans and Aussies attend the school. He said the boys were raised with austerity and taught to be celibate until age 25. If they reach 25 without breaking their celibacy, they have a good chance of making it as a good "householder." He said "you only have to look out in society to see what happens when the boy doesn't keep this celibacy. He will never keep it and he will likely be part of regular society's 50% divorce rate."

I had asked Christine why there were so many men there that night and she told me the Hari Krishna movement is about 2/3 male. She has no idea why. We giggled about the odds.

The young man didn't have pictures of the girl's school. He said it was not as austere as the boy's school since girls are more tenderhearted and needed to be raised with more opulence (who can disagree with that???).

When he asked who in the audience would like to send their children to his school, about 5-10 people raised their hand. I didn't feel an ounce of proselytizing that night. The people in the audience seemed like regular people.

Christine, a gifted translator,
and poised young Czech woman.

Thank you, Christine, for sharing
your faith with me!

The Aspens are Quaking!

I've arrived in Colorado where my mom and sister live. My timing couldn't be better. The aspens are at their peak - it's as if someone poured liquid gold on the mountains and let it follow the path of least resistance this way and that creating stunning beauty amongst already stunning landscape.

Before leaving the American Midwest I took a trip through Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska to see some of the people and places I had a hankering to see. It was fantastic! One of the things that happens with an empty nest is that I'm able to devote more time to my friendships and letting people know they matter to me. Plus, I saw a lot of neat stuff. Over the next few days, I'll highlight some of the sights that I enjoyed. Meanwhile, I'm off for a picnic lunch in the Rocky Mountains!

SHED Your Furniture

Craigslist rocks.

Here’s why: the old way of eliminating possessions when one is moving is to select a date for a garage sale, be organized enough to have the ad describing what you will have for sale into the paper on time to meet their deadline, have all the stuff organized and laid out on the appointed day, round up a friend to help out, watch an absolute buying frenzy for the first hour, then sit patiently watching browsers for the next three very slow hours.

With Craiglist, I’ve been putting stuff up on the list from each room as I pack it. It’s amazing how fast some stuff sells (the DVD player took under one hour) and other stuff that I thought would be popular just sits there. When it isn't selling, I can look at the ad and see what would improve it and try again. I’ve had someone call from as far away as California for a set of cutlery (keep dreaming). I have sold every single piece of furniture within one week. At no cost -- gotta love it.

My favorite part is when you realize it’s the same person who keeps coming for your stuff. After awhile, I’d just skip Craigslist and say “here’s what I’m selling today.” Only if she didn’t want it, would the item go on the official list. I’ve advertised stuff for $10.00 an item at a time, an amount that would never merit it’s own paid ad.

For all the dollar items that one would sell at a garage sale, I’ve shown each buyer the small items I’m “shedding.” Usually it would result in $20 to $30 in add-on sales. I get to skip the garage sale! When I see the children's poetry books go to fun families it doesn't hurt to sell them, it feels good. Release the energy!

In the future, I won’t wait to sell stuff in one fell swoop. Daughter #1 sells stuff on Amazon or Craigslist the minute she finishes needing it. No waiting around for garage sale day. Not using it – it’s gone.

For safety, I never let a male come by himself. He always has to have a female in tow. Craigslist is ever vigilant about warning about scams too. That’s good because they’re out there. Here’s one email I received on my washer and dryer:

This deal is on as the secretary has prepared the check as promise But there seems to be a little problem which i think we can handle with care.......When i contact the secretary to confirm if the payment has been prepared,I was made to understand that she made out a check of $2400 instead of $400 claiming that's what i told her . The payment was already posted before i was informed about this but i would not want to delay the sale because of this as we have rectify this with the Bank.All you have to do once you receive this check is to take it to the Bank and have it cleared and cashed and you will deducted your money (for the item ) and plus an additional $50 for all the assistance.The excess fund on the payment will then be wired to my mover via Western Union that same day so that he can come for the pick up as i have already planed on using the excess on the payment to offset the cost of the various shipments he as undertaken on my behalf. Do let me know if i can trust you to have the excess sent to my mover as soon as you have check cleared...Please reply me as soon as possible....
Regards.

They even went so far as to Express mail me a check for $2400!

SCAM.

SHED Your Books

“Once again, I have taken on something impossible:
water with grasses undulating on the bottom….
It is wonderful to look at, but maddening to want to render it.
But then, I am always tackling something like this.”

So wrote Claude Monet on 22 June 1890 to his friend and biographer Gustave Geffroy.

A friend gave me a coffee table book of Monet’s Water Lillies when I had expressed doubt to her that I could leave my hometown, plus my pretty home, and pack up everything to live in a two-bedroom concrete block apartment in student housing and go to graduate school as a single mom with two kids under five.

“Every time you think you can’t do it,” she said, “think of Monet working for ten years to do the impossible -- paint the beauty of water lillies as he saw it at a time when he was actually going blind.”

I did exactly as she asked. It works.

Now do you think I could part with that book? Nope, no way, no how. This is the real hard part of separating my treasures and heaving the rest. My books!

I struggle with parting with the titles that hold great memories but are no longer "necessary" or relevant to my life. Julie Morgenstern asks in her book "When Organizing Isn't Enough": "Do they move you forward toward your new theme?" No.

Out goes all the books I read in preparation for the Chicago Marathon.

Out goes all the books given to me and inscribed by a Pulitzer-prize winning author. I read them already. I am just keeping their energy from going to the next person if they sit on my shelf or in a storage box.

Out go all of my Colorado hiking titles.

Out go most of my children's picture and poetry books. Oooooh the pain of it! I saved three beloved dog-earred titles back. To look at them they should be the first to go.

Treasures I can't part with:

My Library of America titles. They are the collected works of America's greatest writers printed on acid-free paper. My children just roll their eyes when I suggest this is their heritage to be lovingly passed down. They would love nothing better than for me to sell them and free them of this expectation! The likelihood that they are going to read about Francis Parkman's history of life among the early Iroquois, or Grant and Sherman's memoirs of the Civil War complete with maps, or Thomas Jefferson's life writings is close to nil. But if I save them I can hope.

Anything written by or about Winston Churchill. He's the greatest statesman of Western Civilization - nobility pours out of every page.

But I did well. Thank you Julie. Four boxes saved - about six going out. That's pretty good for me when it comes to books. Do you have a favorite book you could never part with no matter what? Here...have a seat... and tell me about it.

SHED Your Commitments

I once took a week-long jazz appreciation class with an older gentleman who celebrated out loud at the start of our class how exciting it was for our class of jazz lovers to have gathered from all different places to enjoy a week of great music together. His enthusiasm and making the most of each moment is an example I have identified with my whole life.

So when Julie Morgenstern asked her readers in "When Organizing Isn't Enough" to look for schedule commitments that are dragging you down and keeping you from moving forward to the next exciting theme in one's life, I didn't have these. Every single commitment I have is one I thoroughly enjoy. It wasn't always so.

This week I resigned from the board of my local children's museum (#4 in the nation, thank you very much). I have served just shy of six years and loved every minute of it. We are about to start a multi-million addition to the museum and the people on my board are of such terrific good will and wisdom, it was a pleasure to serve. I was on the facility committee and I do wistfully admit I hate missing the upcoming good part because I would have learned sooo much. There are very experienced construction minds on that board. I am very proud of my board work there.

Yesterday, I went and told my pastor that I was moving. My church is AWESOME. My church family is so loving and welcoming and they all get along. The music program is incredible. I love my church because my church never shies away from combining the intellectual and the spiritual. That doesn't seem to be a popular combination in America, because mainline churches are struggling with membership.

One insight I learned from my minister gave me enormous pause at the time he said it. In the context of a discussion about if good manners include how you left the world and the state of your government for the next generation, he said that 100 years from now, future generations will look back at how we used up all the oil and left so much public debt for our children and grandchildren to pay off that they will ask of us with the same spiritually questioning we ask looking at slaveowners from 100 years ago: "What were they thinking?"

Tomorrow I go to my last church service and it's going to be a giant celebration of all the downtown churches getting together to form a redevelopment corporation to uplift our neighborhood. The music program will be incredible as usual, only supersized, as all the choirs from all the churches will sing together outside in celebration. This church commitment has been a gift.

SHED Your Clothes

Wow, that got your attention. It’s not what you might think. SHED is Julie Morgenstern’s acronym from her book “When Organizing Isn’t Enough.” Her book encourages those in a life transition such as an empty nest to separate out our treasures and toss or sell what’s not a treasure.

I’ve just gone through my closets and taken stuff to the consignment shop. I thought I was pretty good about regularly tossing stuff when I replaced things, but some of the stuff I’ve held on to is just silly. Most of it is clothes that I hung on to because I remember what I felt like when I wore them -- each item holds such good memories. I should have just taken a picture!

Among them are business suits that made me feel invincible, pretty summer dresses I wore on a fun vacation, and an outfit I wore when I had a new baby (the baby is twenty now).

The silliest thing I hung on to was a winter coat I wanted to save just in case I ever went luging again. How many times have I ever gone luging? A grand total of once. But if I ever was able to do it again, I wanted to be prepared. I didn’t want to ruin a new winter coat. I haven’t lived near a luge in ten years! I moved this old coat three times!

There’s nothing like a move overseas to make me examine what I have. The consignment shop said “please, only items that are less than two years old.” If all things have a physical energy to them, I could have passed this energy on out to the universe to somebody else who needed it when the clothes were still in style and could have done them some good.

What's hanging in your closet that you no longer wear but you can't bear to part with out of sentiment? What will you help you let it go?

SHED Your Music

When it came to purchasing music, the good ole days weren't better. In my tweens, we purchased "45s", records that contained an "A" side and a "B" side. If the artist merited it, we'd purchase a whole album, once we had a job and were earning money. It was amazing how many albums one person could amass without any overt effort due to 100% disposable teenage paychecks.

But then we needed portability -- we were in our cars, right? Cassette tapes could be popped in and listened to in vehicles and in portable players. So we purchased the same music that we already owned once, only this time on cassette.

The music industry then said, "no, you don't want cassettes, you need to get all of your own music on eight-track tapes." I can't remember what the selling point of eight-track tapes was, especially since they would change to another track right in the middle of a song. That format was really short-lived. But I had a few of those too.

Next came CDs. The music industry said, "oh the quality is better, you can find the exact song you want, and it won't skip or get stuck [not true and I"m not falling for that one again!]

By then, if you really liked a band, like the Beatles or the Stones, you were likely to have purchased it in four different formats! Oh how the musicians of today must envy the luck of those musicians who came before them. Carole King must still be dining out on album sales alone, before boomers purchased her Tapestry album (one of the largest selling albums ever) again on cassette...and again on 8-tracks....and again on CD.

So here I sit with this CD collection, not having digitized it previously because it wasn't a compelling use of my time. Since I'm moving, and I want the music, but don't want the physical 'stuff,' I'm finally digitizing it to take with me. Thank goodness, I started this project a month ago, it takes forever! I'm transferring each CD to a small storage device. I think it will actually increase my listening.

But that's it! My time is too precious to me to spend this much time messing around with metadata. I don't have any idea how to digitize sentimental homemade cassettes. Do you? This was the easy part of shedding the old and moving on to the new ala Julie Moregenstern's 'SHEDing' process. The harder stuff is coming up.

SHEDing a house and a full-time role

The number one search term that brings people to my blog are labels on Julie Morgenstern and her book “When Organizing Isn’t Enough.” A lot of people must be going through the same thing that I’m going through, the need to transition from one phase of life to another. Her book is fantastic and these are a few of her thoughts I find useful.

Julie says:

“There are three common characteristics that define people who are ready to SHED.

1) There is a specter of some better future in your mind [for me, sampling a life of rich culture in Prague].

2) You don’t know if you’ll be able to do “it" [pull up stakes and move overseas].

3) You’re feeling weighed down by something that’s preventing you from moving forward [a whole house of stuff useful to my full-time parenting life which I am now sorting through and hoping to SHED].

She says SHED can be used by anyone going through any sort of transition at any time in their lives, including those prompted by anticipated natural life transitions such as moving, retirement, graduating, marriage, promotion, new baby, empty nest, or a new business.”

What’s the difference between SHEDing and organizing?

Julie says:

“Think of it this way: if organizing is dropping anchor once you know what you want, SHEDing is lifting anchor so you can go someplace new.

1) Organizing is about identifying what’s important to you and giving yourself access to it. SHEDing is about getting rid of the old and obsolete so that you can have space to discover what’s important to you.

2) A perfectly organized closet filled with items you never use can be SHED.

3) It’s possible to get organized without every throwing anything away…it’s impossible, however, to SHED without letting things go.

4) SHED is an ongoing process that generates movement and fuels transformation, which means the finish line is harder to define. You measure success by the feeling of having completed a transition, as well as the subsequent energy, authenticity and excitement about your life which ensues.

I find her words so helpful because I do want to make this transition a happy celebration of what I have accomplished as a single parent and an exciting pivot to a new life. This book helps me make the most of this moment. 

What has helped your mindfulness during a life transition?

Wonderful food eases newly empty nest

This week I took Daughter #1 back to college in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is a fantastic town for it's natural beauty and intellectual ferment. There are more restaurants here per capita than anywhere else in America. Delightfully, many of the restaurants are ethnic and very affordable.

Within a few blocks of daughter #1's new apartment there is a Japanese, Peruvian, Laotian, Swiss, and Vietnamese restaurant. I especially admire the exuberance of the Vietnamese owners, they called theirs the "I'm Here" restaurant.

The last time I had any exposure to Peruvian culture was my fourth grade shoebox diorama on the Incas, so I voted for the Peruvian restaurant called "Inka Heritage." It was a choice we did not regret.

We were among the first in for the evening

and took a window table.

Andean flute music added to the experience.

As did our terrific waiter Pablo.

Pablo brought us Peruvian corn (very crunchy)
with a tangy cilantro sauce for dipping.

I ordered Lomo Saltado, a dish of very tender beef tenderloin flambed with onion, tomatoes, cilantro, rice and potatoes.

It was fabulous!

Daughter #1 ordered Seco de Cordero, lamb cooked in cilantro sauce, with rice, canary beans, fried yucca, and creole sauce. She enjoyed every bite and said the canary beans tasted sweet.

Almost all of the deserts had a milk-flavored theme.
I chose Tres Leches.
The spongy cake and liquid under whipped creme
was interesting texturally.

Daughter #1 went wild over hers, Mousse de Lucama.

Lucama is a Peruvian fruit that was new to us both.

I enjoyed this Peruvian adventure. Until I get to Machu Picchu, this will be my favorite 'Peruvian' memory. It beats the diorama hands down!

Rock the Nest

The second realized pleasure of being an empty nester is turning my music up full blast. All week I've had the radio (yes, I know, how old fashioned) up while I clean and sort, getting my house ready for sale.

It makes me feel like I'm 20 again to hear it this loud. Then I realized 20-year-olds today probably don't even blast their music. They all have IPods.

When I move to Prague, I will probably be living in a glorious 4th floor walk-up from another century which will cause me to remember why people move out of apartments and buy houses to begin with. So they can turn their music up!

So it's another reminder to enjoy each moment before it passes. The DJ just put on Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby," with it's fabulous baseline. Full blast. Love it.

A Clean House

The first realized pleasure of being an empty nester is that the house stays picked up. Someday I'll take that for granted and ache to have my children back in the house but that's not today.

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!

Hello Great Big Beautiful World!

In 37 days I finish my most important life's work: raising two beautiful, accomplished daughters.

My youngest daughter graduates from high school and soon joins her older sister in adventures of the collegiate kind (yes, you're allowed to ask me what daughter #1 got in calculus). Of course, one is never really finished being a parent but my role becomes more supportive and will be contributed from a lot longer distance.

Soooooo, what to do with myself?

It's time to follow through on an idea I've been attracted to ever since reading Ernest Hemingway in high school. Back then, I thought Ernest Hemingway was IT because of his machismo. I loved reading his simple declarative sentences exulting in manly activities like running with the bulls, shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch for his next safari, fishing by a good clean stream, and defending the free world from facism.

I could literally feel the sunshine on Ernest in the sidewalk cafes of Paris as he mused in his moleskin notebooks about Hadley and the baby and his next story. If I could have I would have zapped myself right there, ordered up an absinthe, and joined him in watching the parade of interesting humanity walk by.

I'm a bit wiser now and can see through the machismo for what it is: misogynistic alcoholism.

Yet the romantic idea of being an expat in Europe has not lost even one iota of it's romance. That idea has remained for thirty years. The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast - could two books be more wonderfully tragic and appealing to a young girl? It's time to find out for myself.

I hope to be an expat in Prague by August 1, 2008.

Wish me luck.