Anouchka Talks

"Forgiveness is an act of consciousness." - Yogi Tea Bag The Holy Family as part of the elaborate Creche Notre Dame de Paris (cathedral) in Paris, France mindfulness, bitches: quotes and images that remind me of the important things...with just the right amount of profanity to keep it from getting sappy

"Happiness is actually an art of living, which is in us." - Yogi Tea Bag A street artist, the day after Saint Patrick's Day in Dublin, Ireland mindfulness, bitches: quotes and images that remind me of the important things...with just the right amount of profanity to keep it from getting sappy

"You are equally as beautiful as the universe." -Yogi Tea Bag Wild flowers growing horizontally out the side of the historic citadel in  Besançon, France mindfulness, bitches: quotes and images that remind me of the important things...with just the right amount of profanity to keep it from getting sappy

"Everlasting impact with compassion and kindness is called love." - Yogi Tea Bag Chamonix, France mindfulness, bitches: quotes and images that remind me of the important things...with just the right amount of profanity to keep it from getting sappy

I've been craving a getaway lately.  It's really been on my mind.  Like a lot .  Alas, as I cannot afford any such trip, I have decided to go through some of my old photos in a pathetic attempt to drum up old feelings of excitement and adventure to remind myself that I used to be interesting.  Here is one of my favorite images of my former life. Welcome to the Mediterranean Sea on the French Riviera.   Though I have never been sailing in my life, it would be hard to pass up this sparkling, azur view: blue, as far as the eye can see.  (Ribbers would be supremely geeked as he often shouts, to total strangers, " MY FAVORITE COLOR IS BEE-LOOOOOOO!!!! ")  Plus, the bouillabaisse  is bitchin' in the south of France.

Behold, nerds!  Here is the follow-up -Part Two- of my sister's informative guest post, B Knows Disney .  Enjoy! PART TWO (For Part One, click here .) 7. If you’re considering having a Character Dining experience with small children, plan it at least two days into the trip. This is one I hadn’t even really considered, and learned by experience, kind of the hard way. While I’ll fully admit to being awkward and creeped out around characters, doing a Character Breakfast is totally part of the Disney experience, and with Jammy and Ribbers, I was so so so excited about seeing them interact with the REAL princesses at our breakfast on Day 2 of the trip at Akershus, the banquet hall at the Norway pavilion at Epcot. We’d be greeted by Belle, then be visited during our meal by a few different princesses (in our case it wound up being Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White). What I hadn’t anticipated: Jammy did NOT warm up to the “face” characters very well. (Nothing wrong w...

Several months ago, I promised y'all a guest post from my sister B. Basically, she is a wizard when it comes to Disney trip planning...so much so, that she actually has a job doing just that. On purpose. For real. It's like a hobby for her. In her spare time (read: in addition to her full-time job and other extracurricular activities), she is a Disney Travel Agent. It is thanks to her diligent planning and my parents' generous funding that my rag-tag family got to experience the magic of Disney. I had been to both World and Land, but not for decades. It was the first time for Habibi and the kids and let me say this: watching them was my favorite part. Even someone as stoic as Habibi couldn't remain impassive when Winnie the Pooh came to our lunch table for a hug. Magic. But a trip like this takes planning. A ton of it. And maybe that's not your thing. Lord knows that planning the details of a Disney trip while handling life with two tiny people is n...

OMGoodness, y'all!  I have been slacking these past weeks and am overdue for a post.  Couple of reasons for that:  May is one of the busiest months of the year for my family.  We have birthdays galore (mine included), Mother's Day (for lots of moms/grandmas/godmothers), Jammy's last day of school, a big, weekend-long Memorial Day celebration with extended family, etc.  PLUS, this year, we kicked off the month of May with a week-long, three generation family trip to DISNEY WORLD!!!  I know, right?  It was cray cray and exhausting and magical.  These be my excuses.  (You can read that like a thug or a pirate.  Your choice.) All of this being said, I did not get to a New in 2018 post for April  or  May, and shall be combining them into a single post here.  Honestly, the huge trip with the kiddos and my family to Orlando sort of blew everything out of the water, and I still haven't gotten back into the mindset of monthly w...

Have you ever woken up one morning to find that you are someone else?  I don't mean in the literal sense, of course.  Obviously I have never woken up in Oprah's pant suit or Nicholas Cage's toupee .  I guess I mean this:  Have you ever reflected on how much you have changed in a given amount of time, but you have no recollection of the transformation process? Allow me to expand.  I recently had a strange weekend.  It started with a colleague of mine asking me if I'd be able to do an interview for a French-Canadian radio station about my views on the economic recession of 2008.  With zero background in economics, I hesitantly agreed to help...mainly because she had already given the producer my contact information.  The following day, a reporter showed up at my house, interviewed my family, and recorded our conversations as I prepared a roast and homemade apple pie for a dinner with friends that night. This, my friends, is how I turned into a...

I felt like God was welcoming me to Sevilla by sending TWO rainbows! Sevilla (Seville), Spain

Something to warm you up as we dive head first into January:   just another summer day in Grey, Iowa

The center of La Cr èche (the Nativity) at Notre Dame de Paris  is surrounded by other santons  (little saints) and people of the community (i.e. the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker...).  The display fills the sanctuary. Un sapin de Noël  in front of Notre Dame de Paris Un chat  framed by Christmas decorations on a snowy afternoon in Rochejean (French-Swiss border) Le Père  Noël (Father Christmas/Santa Claus) climbs a wall in Rochejean (French-Swiss border). La Grande Rue (Main Street) is rainy, but decked out in decorations for Christmas in Besançon.

Roaming the streets of Spain's exquisite capital city, Madrid

Whew!  It has been a busy month!  Correction:  It has been a lazy  month.  Prepping for Hulk/Annyong's arrival in December has taken quite a lot out of me and, as a result, I have been neglecting a lot of things.  In fact, here are a few things that have fallen by the wayside since my last post: Writing and posting on Anouchka Talks Anything not involving  New Girl, Breaking Bad,  Parks and Recreation  or Christmas music Regular showering Vegetables Keeping up with long distance friends and family via email and/or Facebook Wearing my retainer (Shut up.  Bet my teeth are straighter than yours, you old hag.) Baking/making ridiculous amounts of dessert Imaginary band practice for my imaginary band, The Backyard River Shrimp (Buy our album on iTunes in Novembruary) Herb processing/dehydrating for the winter To give you an idea of how this pregnancy has taken over our lives, let me tell you what Habibi and I did to celebrate our...

A frozen lake in Switzerland, near the French border

Street Lamps and Firsts... This photo was taken when I was collecting images of street lamps from around the world. On our first major trip together, Habibi and I went to Chicago, IL , where this lamp is located.