– Little Letters to the Spirits of Christmases – Dear Spirit of Past Christmases,Thank you for being with me, but it’s better now without you. I grew weary of waiting and hoping for something better. Maybe it was necessary, maybe you made me wiser, but I didn’t become happier because of it. However, you were an excellent starting line for me to meet your big sibling here and now: Dear Spirit of the Present Christmas,Thank you for being with me and filling my home, filling the corners, and flowing over the set table. You outdid yourself with your light, the feelings you planted in me, and everything you brought with…

Our first Christmas here! I love that this place still holds ‘firsts’ for us, and I can’t wait for the big family Christmas where I’ll be the host this year 🙂And as such, welcoming guests comes with lots of preparations, which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I didn’t have to handle it all alone! Wishing you a joyful Christmas season! Dated: Dec 24, 2023

And it happened! Last Advent it was just a bold thought, and now here I am: sitting in my living room in a magical city, close enough to the bustling heart of Budapest, yet after work I’m greeted by fresh air, the Danube’s shore, and a peaceful garden (where raking leaves on weekends or shoveling snow early in the morning before work isn’t exactly a party, but maybe I still love it enough). This Advent is special in my life—a new first time that adds a little extra spice to the feeling that fills you at this season. It’s a bit more than last year, and I adore these small…

Want to sweep a water-loving girl off her feet? Take her for a day into the underwater world, and you’ll bring a happiness into her life that she can feed on for weeks! Thanks 🙂

So, how did my pre-teen son and I end up in the breathtaking heart of Vienna? Well, that’s a long story, which began about ten years ago at a Krav Maga training session and has been unfolding ever since, woven through years of winding paths. And although the roads we humans walk sometimes become bumpy, sometimes fork, sometimes slope steeply only to turn abruptly vertical, and sometimes loop back on themselves in strange ways, this peculiar labyrinth eventually led us to this city built from gummy candies, cobblestones, pulsating life, history, a river flowing with dignity, and familiar-yet-strange flavors—where we saw a bit of the new and a bit of…

I know the feeling of living out of boxes for months after a move, but since I was fortunate enough to be in a job-seeking phase while building this new life, I had time to unpack. Special thanks to my three cellar rooms, which gladly took in every box containing things not immediately needed. I tried to avoid the usual mistake I always make: “I know this isn’t in the right place, but I’ll deal with it when I have time,” only to dodge it for years as if I had concreted its guard post forever. Well, I tried, but it didn’t always work out. Nevertheless, with just one week…

Someone put on your dress. Walked into my life wearing it and pretended to be you. They smiled at me, encouraged me, protected me, sometimes hurt me—but I believed it was you. So I thought, “Well, this is just how it goes sometimes,” and I spent a lot of time wondering why I’m not always good enough. And then summers came, candlelit holidays, new summers, birthdays, tears, Christmases, emptiness—and I kept thinking and thinking. But eventually, it stopped feeling good because I started to not love myself, and then it occurred to me that you surely wouldn’t want me to feel this way. Something wasn’t right. But it wasn’t the…

So here I am, sitting in my little nook overlooking the backyard (exceptionally without a book in my lap), giving myself a few minutes to reflect on how I ended up here. And the story is mind-blowing. Maybe this isn’t the place to detail it all, but I know it took everything I’ve always wanted to believe I am: willpower—the stubborn, constant, persistent, and unwavering will that focuses on those opportunities in the world essential to my goals. It took the family who, despite this decision placing me geographically farther away (but closer to others), have been my steadfast support in building every (perhaps strange to them) desire of mine.…