Mid-Year Review: New Year’s Resolutions

New Year's resolutions. How many of us keep them? Not me--I don't think I've even tried all that hard to be diligent. Until this year! I am making something out of 2013--it's the last year in my 20s, the last (almost entire) year I'm single, and the beginning of a new way of living life. …

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Local Adventures: Cleveland’s West Side

You may recall I made a commitment to exploring my own backyard through a series of planned 'local adventures.' I would like to say I just had a great deal of initiative to learn more about Northeast Ohio (which has turned out to be much more interesting that you might think!), but in reality we've …

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Travel for His Work: France

It feels like we were in Europe eons ago (read: eight days ago). This post got a bit delayed, but better late than never! The second half of the fiance's work trip took us to France where he had additional work meetings as he and fellow company colleagues met with customers at the 2013 International …

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Travel for His Work: Switzerland

I can't believe we were just in Switzerland last week--it's incredible how fast time flies, especially when your 10-day vacation spits you out right where you left off in real life. Wedding planning, work, summer activities, oh my! The fiance had a free day in Geneva the day before I arrived, and he had to …

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International Travel on a Budget

I had the unexpected pleasure of a pre-honeymoon jaunt to Europe, thanks to the fiance having to travel for work. He had customer visits in Russia and then I met him in Switzerland, where he was completing trainings for a Europe-based branch of his company. We both headed to Paris where I ran around on a …

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Literary Travels: Lulu in Marrakech

I set a pretty aggressive goal on Goodreads.com for 2013 since I blew away my goals the last couple years. Unfortunately I might have been a little too aggressive--last time I checked in I'm 11 books behind reaching my goal by the end of the year. Darn wedding planning is getting in the way of …

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Study Abroad: How Setting Expectations and A Little Kindness Can Go a Long Way

A month or so ago a colleague and I were speaking with a graduate student from Iran about how she ended up studying and conducting research at a couple of universities in the mid-west. She was the most wonderful, bubbly, likable person I've met in some time, but our conversation took a bit of a …

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