There it was. A big red exclamation point. An email from my sister on a Sunday morning. I had gotten up, checked email, made coffee and then went back to the comfort of my bed to watch BBC News. I had hoped it would lull me back to sleep. When I finally gave up trying [...]

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I live in a cottage in a garden in North London that, late summer is covered with passion flowers and then passion fruit. When I was chatting about it with my landlady, the amazing Victoria, I said “Most people move to England to live in rose covered cottages.” “What does that say about you, Michelle?” [...]

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Today, I blocked the feed from a few of my Facebook “friends.” When I first got my Facebook account, I would send a message to anyone from my hometown that wished to “friend” me that I did not wish to be insulting, but my friends are artists, designers, professors, politicians and theologians—all of whom are [...]

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When one of your teachers looks at you and says “I would not want to be doing this course at our age,” you do wonder about yourself.  The course was brutal for someone who hadn’t been in college since before most of my classmates were born. But I made it. I was dissuaded from tackling [...]

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  Not only is Sparkie a world traveller now, she navigates the London Underground and National Rail like any other jaded Londoner. Walking onto the train, it is obvious which people like dogs and which do not—an instant divide.

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I grew up in a small town in Alabama in big house with white columns with three sisters. It had the usual, spacious, formal rooms, and a big den with a wall of books, the best TV available with all the cable channels available then, and a big fireplace that added to the warmth of [...]

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(And Duke’s Mayo, Maker’s Mark and Smucker’s Organic Peanut Butter) As someone involved in visual communications who has done her fair share of corporate identity projects, the word “branding” most often makes me cringe. People misuse it and most often you hear it from clients who have no idea what they are talking about. I [...]

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When I first began my quest for grad school, a friend told me “Going back to school as an adult is like being rich.” I’m not sure I totally understood what she meant. But last week I got a taste. The State-owned museums here in London have no admissions fees. So I could wander through [...]

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                          Larken herds Sparkie as she explores the garden path, sniffing for foxes.

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Written on New Year’s Day Sparkie and I have arrived in London. Our last few days in Atlanta were a rush of activity. When I found it was going to be cost prohibitive to ship many of my things, I scrambled to re-pack. Kristin Ruby threw a fantastic going away party for me. I have [...]

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