The Social Porcupine

Only a few years ago I had made a name for myself as "the girl who didn't keep Christmas" or "the girl who liked arguing about Christmas".  For that reason, I have been putting this post off for a long time, despite having promised several people that I planned to write it and having those same people ask me, "When are you going to write it?" I hate this subject so much. It's not that I hate Christmas, or even wish that the entire world would stop celebrating. I could care less. But there are many bitter memories wrapped into my confession of non-celebration. Back when I was first a Ruby Girl, when I'd previously never even had a sleepover let alone stayed away from home over without family, I found my beliefs being challenged by everyone around me, but especially by a couple boys a few years younger than me. "You don't keep Christmas?" He asked. "That's stupid. Why?" I'll admit I wa

I am the girl who used to debate heatedly about anything, but especially about Christmas. I had never kept it growing up and I couldn't fathom how anyone could be so naive to celebrate a pagan holiday in the name of Christianity. Not to mention the fact that it's a Catholic holiday (sorry to all my Catholic friends, but I was brought up in the sort of protestant movement where Catholicism was viewed as almost equal to paganism). Never would I have imagined I'd be writing a post about a Christmas I partook of. To be fair, I still don't like Christmas, and still plan to write a post and make a video explaining just why. For now, let's forget theology and appreciate differing traditions. I arrived at my new Au Pair family's home on November 25th, just in time for all the celebrations of a traditional German Bavarian Catholic family. One of the first things they did was take me to a Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt). And then to another. And another.

Happy 2020. It's a new year. And while this excites some, many of you are depressed. You may believe your life is going nowhere. Whether that's true or not. You believe you have no dreams, or none worth working toward. Your thoughts are full of envy. You despise that person who you think pretends to have a perfect life because all of her photos sparkle with a smile. Envy grows bigger daily at every friend that announces an engagement or job success—so much that you hate them and inwardly accuse them of having it all and not understanding YOU. You are jealous of every person you see who has a child, a house, or something you don't have. You envy others so much that you hate yourself. The person you dreamed of being ... the you that you IDOLIZED is far from what you wish. And so you may decide to punish yourself. "I'm deleting my facebook." In the name of needing a break from drama. "I will never eat sugar again." "I will never r

Originally I wasn't going to be an Au Pair in Stuttgart, but for a family with six children just across from the border of Austria in Bavaria. The mother had contacted me around two years, along with two other families. But I immediately loved her best ... she just seemed so nice over messages, and I loved that she had more than the normal two or three kids most German families have.  But neither of us was very organized. First, I could never come as soon as she wanted. Then it never worked out for us to Facetime. And the contract got lost in the mail. And so many other little things, that when the Stuttgart family contacted me and things actually fell into place, I decided to go with them instead. It wasn't that I was impatient to get to Germany. I also had a cleaning business to think about. I was in the middle of hiring someone to take over all my houses while I was gone, and she was quitting all of her other work to come work for me. So dates mattered. And yes,