It may feel like it's breaking, but really your heart's reawakening.

[Germany June 2011. Leon en route to the beach. ]

Every now & then, I am struck by an immense longing for last summer and fall. It's as though I've swallowed a stone and all of a it finally drops—quickly and suddenly—to the pit of my stomach. Today it happened while I was driving home from a friend's house and this song came on the radio.


It's the song my host mom would often play in the living room while we worked around the house. I closed my eyes and could remember those moments vividly. 


I am always missing my German family terribly. Not a day goes by I don't wish I could read Leo Lausemaus to Leon and chat curiously with him in our German-English hybrid only we could understand. I miss talking to Niklas and Gina while we ate lunch and hearing all about their day at school. And of course, I miss my host parents beyond belief. What I wouldn't give to spend another evening after dinner confiding in my host mom and joking with my host dad.

Now I tell people now that I've created an eternal dilemma: No matter where I am in the world visiting family, I'll miss my family on the other side.

But I'm beginning to learn how to cope with the distance, and remind myself that I will see them soon.

Very soon, I hope.
Le sigh.

hold the phone...

Mr. Darcy: hey, I just met you 

Mr. Darcy: and this this crazy 

Mr. Darcy: but I’m going to act coldly distant to you for a long time, then awkwardly admit my undying love to you and save you from liking a horrible liar and gambler, then propose to you, telling you I love you not for your beauty but for your mind. 

Mr. Darcy: so call me maybe.

via: modern hepburn 

p.s. I have received so many fascinating responses to my dating around the world project! I am organizing a process of sorts at the moment-- it's going to be all kinds of fun & interesting! Thanks so much to everyone who has contacted me so far... I'll be getting back to you all very soon. Excited beyond belief. : ) 

{Quote of the Week.}

"‎There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars. " - Jack Kerouac

Wanted: your insight. (Yes, you.)

I'm creating a series for this little blog called, you got it, "dating around the world."
Do you want to help a sister out? (Needed: Men & Women!)
(Please include where you live and whether you are male or female in the message!)

foxyform.com

Then I can get in touch with you for a (short) interview by email!  The questions won't be too nosy, I promise-- just a bit about the culture of dating where you live.

And for those of you I have already heard from, THANK YOU. I am getting a schedule together now & will be getting in touch with you again, soon!

xoxo

{Quote of the Week.}

note to self:

{via: tumblr.}

especially now.

postcard love.

Crown Princess Mary & Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark with their twin babes.

I came home to find this gem of a postcard in my mailbox the other day & I squealed. No joke. My friends know me all too well. ; ) 

Thanks Lauren & Joe!

(I love Prince Frederik & Princess Mary!)

{Quote of the Week.}

{via: flickr.}

“…choose to believe in your own myth 
your own glamour 
your own spell 
a young woman who does this 
(even if she is just pretending) 
has everything….”

-francesca lia block.

via: Mackenzie's wonderful blog.

"You are missing from me."

{via: flickr.}

In French, you don’t really say “I miss you.” You say “tu me manques,” which is closer to “you are missing from me.    

I love that. “You are missing from me.”

-by Violeta 

{Quote of the Week.}

 

{via: dejona flickr.}

“For indeed my life is a perpetual question mark – my thirst for books, my observations of people, all tend to satisfy a great, overwhelming desire to know, to understand, to find an answer to a million questions. And gradually the answers are revealed, many things are explained, and above all, many things are given names and described, and my restlessness is subdued. Then I become and exclamatory person, clapping my hands to the immense surprises the world holds for me, and falling from one ecstasy into another. I have the habit of peeping and prying and listening and seeking – passionate curiosity and expectation. But I have also the habit of being surprised, the habit of being filled with wonder and satisfaction each time I stumble on some wondrous thing.” --Anaïs Nin

busy being "the coolest, best aunt ever!"

[back, nephew noah. front, far left, dot the dog (well, her ear at least.) , nephew nathan, niece natalie.]

see that crazy kid in the back? he's my four-year-old nephew noah & he cracks himself up more than anyone i have ever known. he also wakes from mid-nap when he hears the slightest hint of "party rockin'" on the radio in the background. he can't help himself, he just "lovesssssss that song."

so much so, that on my birthday, he sang that to me instead of the traditional "happy birthday," because you know, "that so not rockin'."

anywho, that's why i've been a bit scattered lately. life is settling down after the whole graduating thing. but i've been keeping watch of my niece & nephews and let me tell ya, those kidlets keep one busy, busy... but i did introduce them to sno-cones & they said i was "the coolest, best aunt ever!"

but they haven't met a lot of really cool aunts yet, so i mean really, they have no clue.

enough chatter from me,
happy friday!