From Russia with love

I'm sitting in the middle of the busy lobby, with different languages flying all around me: boisterous Italian from the big, noisy family next to me; French from the elegant gay couple on my other side; and lots and lots of German.

We are currently on a Baltic cruise, and after having visited Helsinki, St. Petersburg and Tallinn, we are  now headed full steam towards Germany. 

The vacation is part of the reason for my unintentional blog break. We left a week ago, and leading up to it we were busy getting the farm ready, packing, and doing all the last-minute stuff like frantically looking for our travel insurance (success!) and the hotel reservation in Copenhagen (which was unsuccessful, and ended up with me double-booking one night. Yikes). 

The other reason is that a dear co-worker and friend suddenly passed away on April 30, leaving me and everyone who knew him reeling. He was a fit, healthy, energetic and fun guy, and he literally dropped dead from a ruptured brain aneurysm at 60 years old. The unexpectedness of his death was a shock, and all of us spent that first weekend crying and reminiscing together. 

And the third reason is that I wrote another book. I know, how weird is that? What can I say, I've caught the bug. Writing books is just about the most exciting thing I can imagine doing!

I finished it just before we left for our vacation, and it took all the words out of me. For the first few days after finishing it I slept an inordinate amount of time, because it turns out that the combination of jet lag and writing like a crazy person for hours every day is a powerful sleep aid. I have no details about how I will publish it yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do.

The book is the main reason why I've been quieter on the blog than usual. My attitude towards hustling has changed quite a bit over the last year (which is what the book is about), meaning I don't want to hustle anymore. Instead of taking pride in being exhausted and trying to pack as much as possible into every day, I've slowed waaaaay down.

Rest and relaxation are more important to me these days, and as a result I've cut down drastically on how much I do in a day. If I worked on the book for a few hours, I usually didn't have the energy to blog, which is why there have been fewer posts. But the first draft is done, and I'm looking forward to spending more time blogging again! I always miss it when I'm away for too long.

Speaking of taking it easy, it's time for a little nap. I will be back here soon!

xoxo Miriam

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