Author: Laura Matis

It has been a week. One long, stressful, joyous, tense and completely upside down kind of a week, both in my personal life and the lives of many in my home country.

Let me start with what’s closest to me, like about five feet away.

Continue reading “70”

Some of my Cleveland people might recognize the black version of this from my years of Muay Thai posts.

I know, I should have used that money for furniture, at least for a couch. And I know, this wasn’t the most financially savvy move I could have made, especially in the midst of moving. Also, I already have the black one, so why did I buy another one, right?

Hear me out.

Continue reading “So I bought a thing…”

Two weeks ago, the apartment search ended. Not in the way that I expected it to end, or where for that matter, but after twenty apartments I can finally quit wondering if I will wind up homeless.

The bad news is that I will be moving out of Düsseldorf.

The good news is, I found a place inside of this stunning old Krefeld house, built in 1899.

Continue reading “Movin’ On Up”

Tomorrow morning, I will be looking at the umpteeth apartment I’ve seen in my three-week search.

Continue reading “The Hunt Continues…”

I sent my absentee ballot on October 7th, and it made it to Cleveland today.

Go, little ballot, go!
🇺🇲❤🇺🇸

I didn’t used to. In fact, I always liked the part where I got to see what the inside of different buildings looked like and all of their little quirks.

Continue reading “Have I ever told you that I hate apartment hunting?”

Step 1. Holy shit, I have an idea!

Step 2. OMG GET IT ALL WRITTEN DOWN AHH!!

Step 3. Share. “OMG YOU GUYS, LOOK AT MY IDEA!”

Step 4. Come back later and find all the spelling/grammatical/editing errors, holes in stories, and think of all the things I forgot to add, and wish I had waited to share.

Step 5. Revise, primp, and peck at it until I like it again.

Step 6. Share again.

Step 7. Wonder why I’m like this.

Tonight, while in an insomnia-driven rabbit hole on Google, I found out that an old friend of mine passed away. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of my own photos of him on hand, as those were taken long before social media.

Fall and Halloween will always make me think of Matt Tate.

Continue reading “Memories of Matt Tate”

This sucks. I think everyone can agree with that statement right now. If it’s not the sense of impending doom getting everyone down, it’s the uncertainty or just plain boredom.

I have no answers for this. I wish I did. I just know how I’m coping, because that’s all we really can do at this moment in time – cope. Carlos has been helping his parents move all this week, so I’ve been pretty much left to my own devices.

So, here are the top 10 5 ways I’ve been keeping my mind and hands busy while staying home.

Continue reading “Coping With Corona (or the act of avoiding it)”

I know this site is pretty new and lacking of content, but I wanted to put a message on here about Team Trees. This is an initiative to plant 20 million trees around the globe in 2020. Because I could only contribute what seemed like a drop in the bucket, I looked for other ways to help.

CookPad is donating $1 for every recipe shared on their site. Finding this out just as I was going to make my morning smoothie, I decided to write a recipe for that to share. As cooking is my love and was once my profession, I figured sharing an abundance of recipes is something I can do to help.

If you’re curious, here’s the recipe. I will be posting them here as I share them.