Happy New Year! I don’t know about you guys, but I’m one of those people who love a new year. I love the clean slate of it, I love making resolutions, I love thinking about new possibilities. I’m also a little ridiculous; I spent entire days dreaming about new businesses I’d like to build but probably never will. The real fact of the matter is that I’m ambitious and want to start a new business every single day, but mostly…
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Guys. First of all, hello. Did you have a beautiful summer? Did you travel far and wide making wonderful memories the whole way? I really hope so. I hope the summer of 2017 was one for the record books. My summer was fantastic. It started out with a trip to Europe and ended with me making peach jam in my kitchen while I listened to audiobooks. I know the end sounds like lame, but making jam is actually pretty enjoyable…
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Life Is Big Beautiful Busy Ordinary Friends, I’ve missed you. It’s been a minute since I’ve written anything on Petit Elefant, and I wish I could say there’s some freak busyness in my life keeping me away. Some massively cool reason I haven’t been here hanging out with your gorgeous mugs. But the truth is, I’m as busy as all of us, living our everyday lives. I’m parenting and disease-ing (that should be a real, non-hyphenated word so I’m claiming…
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Refugee stories help all of us understand the current refugee crisis better. They make the statistics personal and help us understand the real stories behind the headlines, so today I’m sharing one of my own. Many of you know my husband is a refugee from Poland. I’ve written about his experience as a refugee many times over the years on Petit Elefant, but my husband seldom shares his story personally, both because he’s private and because most refugee stories, including…
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Truly Happy: how to feel happy even when you’re struggling I don’t know about the rest of you, but once in awhile I wrestle with massive sadness. I’ve dealt with depression for as long as I can remember, (diagnosed, clinical depression) but over the last few months I’ve been fighting the darkness like never before. And even though I’m using all the tricks in my well-packed arsenal of coping tools, I’m still struggling to find a new center of gravity….
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Hello 2017 + welcome back, friends! How are you? How were your holidays? I’m jumping right back in after two weeks of a self-mandated break, and I’ll be real honest: things are bleak over here. I don’t want to be back at work. Does anyone ever want to be back at work? I feel especially so today. Like a kid on the first day of school after a long summer vacation who’d rather be at the pool, or wasting time…
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Donations for Syria If you’ve been reading Petit Elefant for any length of time you’ve heard me talk about how my husband was a refugee who fled Poland as a child. He and his family received aid from global organizations both before and after they came to America. You can imagine how personal the current refugee crisis and civil war in Syria are for me and my family. There are children in Aleppo, Syria right now who are like my…
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Holiday Gifts: let’s talk about another way to do this. This holiday season is a little different for us. My kids are 12 and 17, definitely old enough to understand the conversation we had at dinner last night, wherein I outlined how our gift plans will be different this year. How as a family we’re going to focus on giving gifts instead of receiving them. Because our basic needs are met, we can help other families enjoy the same peace…
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Post-election thoughts. I know there’s been SO much out there about the recent U.S. elections. I don’t mean to add to the blah blah blah, but it’s like my brain won’t rest until it’s written. This is not a post expressing my like or dislike for either candidate. This is merely thoughts from a foreign national as I’ve observed this election from afar. I live in South Africa. Throughout this year, I’ve traveled to other countries. These musings come from…
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