Category Archives: Taiwan

Dear Sirs and/or Madams: Your Mitsubishi TC-CE5J Clean & Compact vacuum cleaner does not suck.  Now before you commence a round of high fives, be aware that a vacuum cleaner that does not suck is actually a bad thing.  Your vacuum came to us as standard issue to U.S. State Department homes in Taipei, Taiwan.Continue reading “An Open Letter to the Makers of the Mitsubishi TC-CE5J Clean & Compact Vacuum Cleaner”

I am white.  When I say that I am white, I don’t mean Caucasian (although yes, I am Caucasian.)  Rather, I am referring to the actual color of my skin.  Most Caucasians would be considered more “peachy-pink,” as my six-year-old refers to her skin color.  But unlike my six-year-old, I am not “peachy-pink”  I amContinue reading “White”

My kids have been through a lot in the past ten months.  Last June, Jason was officially accepted into the Foreign Service and our lives have been a whirlwind ever since. In August, my kids lost their dad for four months while he was in training in Washington, DC.  Plus they had to live withContinue reading “Resiliency”

Okay, here’s my dirty secret.  I color my hair.  It turns out that I have a few gray hairs, I’m sure more a result of stress than age (I have four children after all.)  I’ve been coloring my hair for a few years now.  Okay, twelve to be exact.  My husband found my first grayContinue reading “An Admission”

If by the title of this post you are expecting me to have written about something “cultured”  as in high-brow or sophisticated, you probably want to stop reading now.  There will be nothing high-brow or sophisticated in this post.  Instead, my family and I (more specifically my daughters and I) had a cultural experience todayContinue reading “A Cultural Experience”