I have a silly side, too.

Welcome to The News Base and greetings from France!  Depending on where you found my site, you may be interested in WWOOFing, organic gardening, books, homeschooling, traveling/being an expat, or cooking – including raw, vegan and vegetarian recipes.
You might also be someone I’ve met around the world, checking up to see how I’m doing.  You could be looking to save money, or make a little extra.

I’m involved in all these things, and I write about a lot of stuff.  I’m interested in getting recipes and meeting people worldwide.  If you would like to make a guest post on my blog, or a video of you cooking your favorite traditional meal, or if you have any questions or suggestions, please give me a holler!

For more about me, click here.

If you’d like to exchange links for free, click here.

Travel UpdateI have been traveling for a while, and I have finally settled down in Friday Harbor, Washington State for the time being. I didn’t get as much Internet time in transit as I had hoped, so I will be posting my hand-written journal entries here, post-dated to when they happened.

A Night at Charles De Gaulle AirportJust as with Paris itself, the horrible reviews and stories I’ve read about Charles de Gaulle airport seemed completely unfounded. Of course, I had an EU flight on an early Sunday morning. I’m sure other times are more hectic, with more crazies about… It was really easy to get [...]

A Walk Through ParisI had a nice surprise today… after a 3 hour ride with my now ex-landlord/WWOOF host, he dropped me off in Paris (at the Porte de Dauphine) with a 10 euro bill and a borrowed backpack full of my “valuables”, and a map of Paris, marked with cheap and free points of [...]

Jumping in With Both FeetIt appears that we might be at the end (almost) of our 10 year saga.  After this year we might actually get to go “home” to the US.  For the whole story, see my husband’s blog However, the silly thing right now is that the US wants me to prove income [...]

Book Review: Five Finger Fiction by Brooks SiglerSigler’s  “about the author” bio says “Sigler made a New Year’s resolution in 2008 to complete a book.  Here it is.”  If this is true, I sincerely hope she made a similar resolution in 2009.  Thank yous are in order for  Mr. Jeffrey MacAdam Sigler, who she mentions [...]

Movie Review – All About SteveI’m quite surprised to read all the awful reviews about this movie. I thought it was great. Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, a romance, or rather romantic comedy. I expected the standard formula: girl meets boy, girl falls madly in love, boy rejects girl, girl follows boy across the country (ok, [...]

I am vegetarian and have been since I was 9. I chose to be vegetarian because in 5th grade we did a big research project in school. I chose chickens. During this time I did lots of research and discovered that most hens raised for meat or used to provide eggs were really treated poorly, by my standards. I didn’t think it was ok so I stopped supporting it by not eating it. My family followed.

Why Flipper Committed Suicide – and What You Can Do for the OthersThis is not a joke. It is the review of a very moving film by Ric O’Barry, the man who trained “Flipper”. Before “The Cove” most people did not know how “Flipper” died. My husband warned me, and I will warn you. This [...]

All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan (And You) In December of 2003, I was at a crossroads, literally and figuratively. I had been married almost four years. We had been through some good times and some hard things, but we were going through about the hardest thing we’d been through so [...]

Making Money While WWOOFing This is more of an issue for long-term WWOOFers. In most WWOOFing situations, you will have free rent and utitilities, and at least some free food.  Some hosts will even have Internet access, a swimming pool, a vehicle to use, or other extras.  But at most places you’ll just get the [...]