Personal Blog

Here are some final thoughts on our month-long home exchange from my husband and Cora, one of our home swapping partners.

I’m sure there’s some writing advice out there that says not to give away the punchline in the title but alas. Rules were made to be broken, dammit! My brother and I …

The last few weeks have been a little nuts. The presidential election took an unexpected turn; my parents were out of town leaving us in charge of their animals and house; I …

Since August 1, 2016, our beautiful sweet furbabies Cosmo and Dexter have spent 50 nights at our home. The rest of the time they’ve been staying at Grandma and Grumpa’s house, sometimes …

Today is bittersweet: we closed the sale of our first family home, the little yellow house on Surrey Road. The first house I ever bought. The house we brought Dexter into when …

It’s been a while, huh? When I started this blog last year, my intent was to write weekly, but after our European home exchange, I dropped the ball and only wrote a …

Never in my life have I coveted vegetables. Never have I stared longingly at a plate of scrambled eggs. Never before have I thought to myself, “Man, I could really go for …

You may be familiar with this rocks and sand story. There are many variations of this story. You might be more familiar with the version of “Big Rocks” relating to time management, …

As a second grade feminist, I was convinced I’d be the first female baseball player in the MLB. I’m not entirely sure why I thought this: I had been the worst t-ball player …

SAD sucks, which is why I might be mildly obsessed with hygge.

Thanks to the generosity of my best friend’s family, Justin and I were able to plan a long weekend getaway to the mountains of North Carolina. Since our January vacation plans fell …

Last year, when I was working with my amazing and life-changing nutritionist, I was feeling particularly gung-ho about eating clean and getting my health on track, so when I heard about the …

Picture this: It’s our last night of our four day weekend in Budapest. We’ve walked our legs off, hitting every corner of this beautiful, historic city. We’ve eaten so much food, seen …

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted here, and I do keep meaning to post about the awesome trip to London I took with my dad several months ago, or the week …

My husband has been talking about going to the Catbird Seat for years. A tiny, 22-seat U-shaped counter where patrons watch the chefs at work, and enjoy a chef’s choice tasting menu …

I’ve done a terrible job of updating this blog in 2019, but with good reason: In March, I became a Mama to the sweetest little guy, and he’s been taking up pretty …

As cities and states around the county lock down, and other countries go into full-out quarantine mode, the Schwannema household has decided to get an early start on what might become a …

The global impact of the Covid-19 is surreal and unprecedented. The news is incessant, and I find myself constantly scrolling, waiting for an update, waiting to find out the next terrible thing …

For many years, I was a workaholic. I had a terrible time disconnecting at the end of a work day. In fact, there was no real “end” or “beginning” to my work …

My paternal grandmother, who insisted we always call her Grandmother, died when I was 17, so I never got a chance to really know her and vice versa. While I think that, …