Bird silhouettes, dark against the bright sky often kindle my imagination with a romantic notion of utter freedom. Freedom from the tiresome anxieties of the thoughts that plague our collective minds down here in these strange times. Each type has its own flight pattern and after years of gazing skyward, I recognize some birds by this alone. American goldfinches (quite…
And this is not the blog post I planned to write. April 2, 2020 marks the anniversary of quitting my job, selling my home, and traveling for two years. I’d planned to announce that, after much dithering, I had decided to end (or at least pause) my nomadic ways and move to Munich. I would speak of celebrations with my…
A few months ago I got a message saying, “Tiddles and Shindig need you in May!” So here I am revisiting my first housesit. Greetings from Great Malvern, England. After a wonderful but uncharacteristically chilly and rainy stay in Germany, I told the homeowners that I was looking forward to going to England for some warmth and sunshine. I said…
It’s been one year since I boarded a plane with a one-way ticket for Scotland. Not long before my last day at work, a coworker told me that others were placing bets about me. “Oh really?,” I asked, “Betting on when I’ll be back?” “No, betting on whether or not you’ll be back at all.” Shivering in the Edinburgh cold…
Way back when Stacy and I started scheming our adventure, we discussed saving money by housesitting. We applied for a couple sits on TrustedHouseSitters.com but never heard a peep in return. It didn’t take much to discourage us since we hadn’t tapped into our reserves yet, so we just moved on and Airbnb’d it. When Stacy went back home, I…
90% of the time when we meet new people, they will ask one of these questions and not get much deeper than that: “Where are you from?” “Are you married?” “Do you have kids?” “What do you do?” (Of course, this always means what’s your job, not what do you for fun.) Generic questions sketch a convenient caricature. For some,…
Hi, I'm Christina. I love travel, cats, gardens, house sitting, birds, painting, dogs, museums, good food & drink, you know - all the good stuff! I've been working on my first memoir, Magicians, Cross Dressers and My Uterus while living my second!