Welcome to the sometimes weekly edition of In The Pipeline, where I list stuff I like on the internet and tell you what’s coming down the pipe at the Chino House.
So, most exciting bit of news this week? I DROVE TO THE STORE AND BACK AND NO ONE DIED!
Seriously, y’all. Driving on the left side of the road on the right side of the car makes me feel like I am doing all of life backwards! We won’t even get into how my mother shrieking in the passenger seat takes me back to adolescence. Yikes!
We’re planning a little holiday soon because the kids have a couple of days off school and we want to have a last hurrah before Mother heads back to America. (Oh, the weeping we will do!) We’re open to suggestions about where we should go! Thoughts?
Here are a few ideas that look A M A Z I N G + F U N to me!
The Lake Distict. Um, WOW!
Edinburgh. Kind of funny that we haven’t been to Scotland’s capitol city!
Orkney Islands. Ferry ride? YES PLEASE!
Norway might be a little (or a lot) outside of our price range, but one can dream!
It might seem from our blog life like all we do is travel from one happy glen to the next, but of course that is not the reality. The castles and hills are just SO much more fun to take pictures of than health forms and office lines. However, if you are wanting a look at the other side of beginning an expat life, my precious husband has happily obliged you this week. Curmudgeon.
Here are some other bright spots I found on the internet this week: LINKS!
Being grateful is something I often talk about and being generous is a topic I have often wanted to tackle in this space. Both ideas are super important to me and I believe contribute like crazy to our general state of happiness! So I was delighted to discover this list from Alexandra Franzen: 50 Ways To Be Ridiculously, Shockingly Generous. She is doing a contest for World Gratitude Day where you can share a story of gratitude and win $500 for your favorite charity! Get on that!
One of the genius ideas in the list was to send a postcard from your phone with your own photos! What! Now I am newly obsessed with POSTAGRAM! Sign up here and we both get five for free! Yay snail mail!
Our family photographer (and BFF) Whitney Loibner is giving away a fall photo session on her blog? If you don’t live in Arkansas, you should enter anyway and consider it a chance to visit The Natural State in it’s most beautiful season. Take your camping gear and give the Ozarks our love, m’k? And can we talk about how adorbs this photo session is? OMG! Plus it includes a tutorial for tissue pom poms! What’s not to love about that?
I absolutely defy you to look at this without smiling: a collection of photos of people jumping around the world on their travels. You might see a familiar photo of three of my favorite girls. Via travel blogger, Mrs. O Around The World
TOTALLY LOVED this article a friend sent me by one our kids’ favorite children’s authors, N.D. Wilson. (Thanks, Bobby!) Here’s an excerpt: The world that we live in is fundamentally at odds with human self-importance, the drive behind so much intellectual chatter. Mountains have no guardrails. County officials can ban spitting fireworks, but meteorites go unregulated. Clouds drench us whenever they like without fear of reprisal.
I’m sure to be drenched by the clouds this weekend, but I won’t be kept inside for anything! Too. Much. To. See.
Hope your weekend is lovely and full of all kinds of generous LOVE! Happy Friday!
Alison, I am loving your posts about your new hometown and am more than a little jealous of your adventures. So happy for your family that you have this opportunity.
Thanks so much Julie!! It’s a wonderful opportunity for sure. We’re super grateful! Hope you and yours are all well! Maybe we’ll see you over here during this season!
Thanks for the mention!! We loved St. Andrews, I have a few blog posts about it in August, might be an easy drive for you. I had to laugh about your driving!! We were there recently! I still have a hard time figuring out where the left side of the car is positioned in my lane. And we just switched company cars, so I’m having to learn it all over again. It does become natural though. I’ve heard the hard part is then going back to driving on the right! Oh my! Have a good weekend!
So true! It feels nutty, for sure! I will check out your St Andrews posts! It’s on our list since it’s so close, and our oldest is saying maybe he wants to go there for university!
I can’t even imagine driving ‘backwards’! I don’t know if my brain would ever adjust. I’m most impressed with the fact that everyone survived!! I’m looking forward to checking out Taido’s reality check on life there 🙂
It’s going to take me a while to adjust for sure! I keep coaching myself out loud. Stay to the left, stay to the left!
Yay! So glad you found our blog! Excited to meet you at TBEX and follow your adventures! This is our second time living abroad and each time brings more & more discoveries that really leave us speechless!
I will definitely look for you at TBEX, Rachel! I’m excited about meeting others who are on similar journeys, though I know they are all different!