Saturday, May 3
New Experience #1
A few days into this new year of mine, I had not yet had a new experience but I was quite busy both celebrating my birthday, finishing up some work, and getting ready to surprise Jeff with a getaway for HIS birthday. His favorite getaway spot is Hocking Hills here in Ohio. He has hiked every trail more than once but that seems to be part of its appeal.
We always return to The Inn at Cedar Falls and have stayed in all but one of their available lodging optiions. We stayed in the inn itself back when it existed (it now houses the spa, I believe). We have stayed in more than one of their cabins, although we have returned multiple times to Pine Grove Cabin, their dog-friendly one, with our friends the Boisens as well as my son and his wife, Julie and their two dogs!
Saturday, April 26
#60before60 or "And so it begins..."
I kept this blog for a few years back in the mid 2000's (which alone is crazy to realize that's over 20 years ago!). I called it "What I Am Thinking About Today" and it was a great creative outlet for me and way to process our experience of first moving to Guatemala and then moving to Bosnia (2004-2009).
I love beginnings. Easter is my favorite holiday, I love January 1st, the 1st of any month, Monday is my favorite day of the week and the first day of school is always #priceless. I love beginning new adventures and trying new things and turning 59 today has me thinking about the beginning of a new decade. In this, my 60th year of life, I am going to chronicle my adventures. Mostly for myself. But if find something in my journey to relate to, or to inspire you to step outside of your comfort zone, I will be happy to have shared.
My birthday has always been significant. For all of us it's the only day of the year where it truly is "all about us." Birthdays are not usually perfect but hopefully you have had some amazing ones over the years. The last few years my birthday has been disappointing. No matter what I DID do or get, I always felt like something was missing. This was not about the people in my life. It was about me. Last year, I decided I was going to go away alone on my birthday and have zero expectations of anyone else.
That is not what I did. Having recently gotten a new bed (I love my sleep number bed), I was reluctant to go spend the night elsewhere. I began to plan and focus on coming up with ONE perfect idea for my birthday to make it feel special. Weeks went by and I could not think of any one thing that sounded right. I realized as it got closer (well, I realized two days ago), that there was not any one perfect thing - that a collection of peace-filled and love-filled moments is what I was really craving. A day (or weekend) that was filled with moments that were right for me right where I am WAS my perfect.
So yesterday kicked off my pre-birthday with the most fun hour spent at Salt + Light Wellness with Tabitha Harper and Kate Albert. We just talked and relaxed (and listened to one 10 minute affirmation recording) and it was perfect.
Then I went to lunch at 20Brix with Tabitha and her husband, Tom, and it was - again - perfect. Conversation. Connection. These are things I pursue often - and they ARE the perfect way to spend any day.
I received incredible flowers from my friend, Shelly, along with a priceless quote.
I sent flowers to myself for the first time in my life - Ranunculas, and they also were perfect.
Dinner time came and I had planned to order Daughter's Kitchen Pizza for the first time - I have not been eating gluten - but I listened to my body (a relatively new experience) which said "I am not actually hungry" and instead waited and had a few nuts and cheese when I actually became hungry. And it was perfect.
The grandkids spent the night and we woke up early to get Chance off to his first Special Olympics. And birthday morning hugs were...perfect.
My idea of perfection has undergone a profound change this birthday week and I am the better for it. I am so excited about this year. I hope that you are also in a place in your life where you can feel excitement for the possibilities ahead of you.
Tuesday, July 7
I wish I had a recording of her voice.

Things I've learned since my mom died one year ago today: 7/7/08.
1. Pain does dull. Eventually. Not disappear.
2. Asking for help is strength, not weakness.
3. It is inconceivable that a person is there and then not there. That you'll never hear their voice again.
4. That you leave a bit of yourself everywhere - music, food, ideas, laughter, even sarcasm.
5. That having someone to share and compare memories with is priceless.
6. That living a long life (74) does not necessarily make it any easier to say goodbye.
7. That remembering, although painful, is way better than forgetting.
Sunday, June 21
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
"We slept in what had once been the gymnasium." The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
"The year of the marriage proposal, Sivakiami is ten." The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan
"There was only one person in the food-stall who knew exactly what that sound was that was rolling in across the plain, along the silver curve of the Irrawaddy, to the western wall of Mandalay's fort." The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
"My mother began me one evening in 1968 on a table in the cafe of the town's only cinema." The Accidental by Ali Smith.
"Mr. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law." The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
"She woke at midnight." Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
"My earliest memories involve fire." A Drink Before the War by Dennis LeHane.
"Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill." The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
"He cannot remember the name of the day nor is he able to place it in the month and year wherein God placed it." The Days by Taha Hussein
"There was once a thief who made his living by stealing from pilgrims along the road between Mecca and Madina." The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
Have any of these sparked your interest?
Tuesday, June 9
A Chasidic tale vividly illustrates the danger of improper speech: A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, "Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."
At the same time, I have been reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard - 11th and 12th century monk/nun and philosophers - and an entire section of a Letter of Direction from Abelard speaks to this:
Proverbs 10:19 - in the words of Solomon: Where men talk too much sin is not far away; the man who holds his tongue is wise.
In the book of James: The tongue is a small member of the body, but how great a fire! How vast a forest it can set alight! It is a world of wickedness, an intractable evil, charged with deadly venom.
Proverbs 25:28: Like a city that is breached and left unwalled is a man who cannot control his temper in speech.
St. Gregory, in the 7th book of his Morals: When we are careless about guarding against idle words, we come on to harmful ones. By these provocation is sown, quarrels arise, the torches of hatred are set alight and the whole peace of the heart is destroyed.
* * *
All very dramatic, I know. But it did bring home to me that this is an age old problem and that much damage has always been possible through gossip, slander. One thing I have definitely taken away from this is that I'm determined, in the future, to go to the source. If someone brings gossip to me, I will endeavor to address the person directly, if it is even my business to do so, and not simply be another link in the gossip chain.
Monday, June 8
Resentment is a Dish Best Served Bubbling and Hot.
Parts of my character that do not highlight me at my finest, came bubbling to the surface, not the least of which are pride and petulance. As I absorbed the slight, all other slights and resentments cried out for attention - my husband, whose only crime was being a witness; my daughter, who I felt did not feel appropriate anger on my behalf; my sons, who had forgotten this or neglected that; friends long forgotten who had wounded my pride at some point. It's amazing how much my equilibrium was thrown off by what was, if I were to tell you, a somewhat minor event. The remainder of my evening was spoiled and I went to bed at 7pm, sad and bitter.
I came across a quote once that I really identified with:
But, oh, how sweet is anger. When I'm angry, I'm not in the wrong. Somebody else is in the wrong, and for once I have peace. A delicious peace that gnaws over the wrong like a lion with a ragged bone. It is delicious and compelling enough that it urges me to accumulate other wrongs and hold them greedily close. I love to be wronged; only then, for that brief moment, can I be sure I'm right. It is intoxicating in its sweetness, this brief joy in being right. It is good to be a victim, because victims are sinless.
The quote is from Frederica Mathewes-Green's book Facing East.
Pride goes before a fall. I've often thought that pride is my biggest sin. But perhaps that is pride speaking, believing that I am the one capable of declaring which, of all my many sins, is the biggest?
Wednesday, May 27
How will I feel?
Empty. Not ready. Full of grief. Regret for things not done, not taught, not shared. Regret that your biggest chance to make an impact on her life has passed. Not knowing what the future holds for your relationship. Grief at not sharing your daily life together anymore - not ever really knowing her future friends, her experiences, how she spends her days.
Also, you will start to grieve for Kris. It will feel like the beginning of the end of being together as a family. When she first comes home, it will feel wonderful when all four of you are together. Like a precious gift that the last few months has taught you should not be taken lightly.
Give yourself permission to grieve. That was the biggest gift that my friend Donna gave to me. After months of unacknowledged grieving (not knowing it was grief, just really missing Ryan and feeling sad and unsettled), Donna identified the feeling and gave me permission to really feel it. Almost immediately the grief started to lessen. That in and of itself was a lesson to me.
Now, with Shelby getting ready to leave home, I am not overwhelmed with grief or that pre-empty nest syndrome. I feel excited, hopeful, full of plans for this next stage in my life. Watching your kids become full-fledged adults may, by necessity, be done at a distance, but there is still joy to be found there.
Saturday, May 23
Leaving Sarajevo
10 Things I Found Strange About Life in Sarajevo:
1. The police are obsessed with fog lights. Jeff likes to drive with his fog lights on and he's been pulled over 3 times for that offense. Anything else they ignore, but fog lights seem to be a big threat. Even the random stops they wave us through because of our diplomatic plates.
2. Parking on the sidewalks and any other flat surface. Anywhere seems to be fair game for parking - it's crazy. Last time I was in the U.S. I started to pull my tires up on the sidewalk somewhere and then I snapped out of it.
3. Parking BEHIND MY CAR. We're in a locked, secure garage, yet still I go downstairs and someone has parked immediately in front of my spot. WTH?!?!??!?!? In what universe is this okay? Drives me insane.
4. Fear of fresh air. I think it's known as "propu" but they have a belief that open windows are unhealthy and will make you sick. I opened my window once in the taxi and the guy practically had a coronary - yelling No and reaching across me to wind it back up.
5. PDA. We live next door to a large city park with lots of bunches. Young couples do absolutely everything but... Well, maybe they do that too. I'm walking the dogs right next to them - everyone is walking everywhere - and they just go nuts on these benches. Blech.
6. Fear of dogs. Many Bosnians are really scared of dogs. Not all. If they are observant muslims, and a dog touches them, they have to shower before they can pray. My poor friend Shereen tries to be a good sport, but I see her face when my dogs come and rub up against them. I know she's instantly trying to figure out when she's going to fit a second shower in!
7. No big motive for profit. There are a gazillion coffee places all over town. You can sit there for hours and sip one cup and they couldn't care less. They have nothing else to sell (no food at all) and even in the restaurants table turnover is of no concern. My sister would starve working as a waitress in this country!
8. Where's all the money coming from?!? Unemployment is supposed to be like 46% here. (Can you imagine if that was true in the U.S.? We freak out at 5%.) Yet I see so many new buildings going up - modern shopping centers and so forth. I'm told it's Mafia money but the fact remains that money is coming from somewhere.
9. People obey the traffic lights! Like really! The lights go like this: green, flashing green, yellow, red. People here will stop on the flashing green. No one goes through a yellow unless they were trapped in the intersection for some reason. They'd get run down in the U.S.!
10. Fear of large bills. This is not quite as true as it was the first 2 years. Change and small bills are a precious commodity. No one has change - not the markets, not the grocery stores. I've tried to buy a couple of things with a 20 and been turned away. At the markets, you can forget it. We used to hoard and fight over our change. That seems to have improved...or we've gotten better at being prepared!
10 Things I Will Miss In Sarajevo:
1. My gorgeous, light, airy, penthouse apartment. I really love this place.
2. The view from my apartment. We have a gorgeous view of the hillside on the other side of the river and it's just so beautiful - in every season.
3. Cevapi. Yum.
4. The bread at our favorite restaurant - Dveri. Jeff can reproduce anything and even he has not been able to conquer this bread. SO good.
5. Real Coke. Not that I drink a lot of Coke. But the Coke here is still made with real sugar, not corn syrup. Big difference.
6. NOT driving my car. We take our car out like once every 10 days - on average. Just no need to drive. We are surrounded by shops and only a 15 minute walk from the embassy.
7. The incredible scenery just 15 minutes out of town. Mountains, rock faces, rivers. Gorgeous.
8. Jeff. Since he won't be in Ohio.
9. My bookclub. I love my bookclub with its international flavor. I'm usually the only American and there's usually not two people from the same country there. Such interesting perspectives and such interesting book choices.
10. The beautiful mosques. We have everything from mosques that have existed since Ottoman times to very post-modern (looking like spaceship) type mosques. Gorgeous miniarets, copper roofs, etc.
Tuesday, March 10
Saturday, February 21
Thursday, February 12
Jews in Sarajevo
I find history interesting, and since my blog is entitled "What I'm thinking about today..." I decided to post this information that was just sent to me by the International Women's Club of Sarajevo which has scheduled a tour of the Synagogue and Jewish Museum in the old part of the city.
The first Jews were tracked in Bosnia in 1541, 400 hundred years ago. They were mostly artisans, merchants, pharmacists, and doctors. They built their own quarter, dubbed El Cortijo (the courtyard), in 1577 with permission from the pasha Siavush. The community built a synagogue in El Cortijo in 1580 with the help of a Turkish benefactor, in a building called Velika Avlija. By the end of the 16th century, the building where Velika Avlija stood became known as old Jewish Cathedral, Sarajevo’s first synagogue. In the 17th century, Jews of Ashkenazi descent began arriving in Sarajevo, fleeing persecution from Europe. The Jews already established in the city were of Sephardic descent, and the two communities remained separate until the advent of World War II.
A bad fate fell upon the Jewish community when the Austrians occupied Sarajevo in 1697. They burned and destroyed the city’s Jewish quarter, including the synagogue. When the Austrians were forced to return the city to the Ottomans in 1739, the Jews fared much better, and were granted officially recognition. By 1856, Jews had equal status before the law.
Throughout the next few centuries, Jews in Sarajevo prospered. The city became a major crossroads in the Balkans for Jewish life, and came to be known as Little Jerusalem. By the mid-19th century, every doctor in Sarajevo was Jewish, and when educated Jews began arriving from Europe in 1878, Jewish children began attending public school.
However, Jewish life in Sarajevo changed forever with the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. Before 1941, Sarajevo was home to some 8,000 to 12,000 Jews. Deportations to concentration camps run by Croatian fascists began that year, and by the end of the Holocaust, 85% of the Jewish population of Sarajevo had perished. Many who survived immigrated to Israel in 1948 and 1949.
In 1965, during ceremonies marking 400 years of Jewish presence in Bosnia, the Old Synagogue, though still owned by the remnant Jewish community, was converted into a city-run Jewish museum. Originally built in 1581, the Old Synagogue was one of 15 that functioned in the city before the Holocaust, when Sarajevo was a major Balkan center of Sephardi culture, and the city’s 12,000 Jews made up nearly 20 percent of the local population. Jewish communal services were shifted to an Ashkenazi synagogue, a grand, Moorish style temple built at the beginning of the 20th century, which was converted to include offices and function rooms as well as a sanctuary.
Wednesday, February 11
Taken...
This movie left my heart racing and made me vow to never let Shelby be out alone again. It's only more scary because this actually happens. But this movie moves so if you like thrillers you should like it.
Sunday, February 8
I can't believe these girls!
Watch especially at 1:59 and 2:21 - but the whole thing is amazing.! Thanks, Eric Henning, for sharing this.

I recently was lucky enough to be able to contact my cousin through Facebook. As I'm trying to explain to my kids what a first cousin once removed is versus a second cousin, I came across this very useful chart. It's written from the point of view of how all the people relate to the person marked as ME.
Thursday, February 5
Things I Wish Were Listed In My Profile
- Learn an instrument other than the piano (which I already play). Contestants are the clarinet, the mandolin, the harp, and the drums. I'm thinking clarinet is the most likely.
- Become comfortable in a foreign language. (I don't dream as high as fluency.) I speak some Spanish, some German (more once I refresh), some Bosnian (didn't focus very much) and a few phrases in Arabic. I think I will focus on Spanish since I know the most of that, but I could be persuaded to make it Arabic.
- Own a Vespa. I think. Although every time I think about this I can't justify a Vespa over a bicycle. Need to give that more thought.
- Read every book. 'Nough said.
- Get involved with dog rescue, possibly even becoming a foster for dogs rescued from puppy mills.
- Travel to places I haven't made it to yet: Antarctica, African Safari, Vietnam, Scandinavia, Nova Scotia, the British Isles and Alaska. The last I include because I actually will be there via Cruise West in September for my 25th wedding anniversary with him.
- Learn to play bridge.
- Learn to scuba dive.
- Snorkel through every "Top Places to Snorkel" list I come across.
- Have grandkids. Lots of grandkids. I hear that it's a blast.
- Go out to dinner with my sister, her treat, the night she gets her Environmental Engineering degree.
- Learn to draw.
- Learn to paint with watercolors.
- Learn sign-language. Almost forgot this one, but I really would like to. I plan to take classes through the adult education classes in Cincinnati while I'm living there later this year.
- Take dog-grooming so I can groom Sophie and save my family some money.
- Volunteer at Drake Hospice Unit when I move to Cincinnati. That idea was formed during the hours that I spent there with my mom.
- Train Maya as a hospital volunteer - she's the perfect dog for that as she is so quiet, so loving, and a sucker for being petted.
- Walk. Through beautiful cities. Hike. Through our gorgeous National Park system.
- Visit the Everglades and the Keys. I think I might quite like Florida based on the time I've spent in Destin.
- Volunteer at the Cincinnati Zoo. Maybe I could be a giraffussus trainer.
- Investigate becoming a vegetarian or moving in that general direction. The fact that I so love the occasional steak may be a problem. I could give up meat on a regular basis quite easily. Saying I'll never have a ribeye again? I'm just not there yet. Maybe I should just start where I am. Oh, and fish. And bacon. Yes, I have a way to go, I think.
- Learn to make stained glass.
- Become an expert crochet artist. Emphasis on the artistry.
- Get my degree. Finally. Without taking money out of the "mouths" of my children (literally, their college educations come first) nor time out of the life of my poor, sacrificing husband. Still working on figuring out how to do this so I get want I want (a degree in International Studies focusing on human rights) without the negatives to everyone else.
- Up my productivity quotient. This applies to everything, actually.

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