Hello.

When we first moved to London, nearly 18 years ago, I started a blog called ‘Jim and Claire’s International Adventures.’ We were young, hadn’t been married very long, and hadn’t travelled very much. We had no idea what we were doing and knew nothing, really, about the culture we were making our home. I tried to be honest about our general incompetence and about everything we were learning through expanding our horizons, living in a different country, travelling in places where we couldn’t speak the language. I offended a few people by my lack of cultural sensitivity (Morris dancers, for instance) and learned how to disable comments pretty quickly.

When our girls were born, we included them in the adventures and they were part of the story. But parenthood changed the dynamic of the blog. Suddenly it was about my babies and then my toddlers and all the mundane things they were doing that new parents think are so amazing (like eating). Eventually, I kind of lost the plot. Jim and Claire’s international adventures were far from over, but they were no longer very interesting.

Fast forward a lot of years: we have two teenagers, two beagles, several cats and I’m trying to get my baby jewellery business off the ground. It’s growing, slowly. It’s eating money at the moment, but I’ hoping it will start making some money at some point too. It makes me happy. It’s an adventure…a hobby gone wild. I’m trying to guide it and support it.

All this to say, I’m blogging again. I’m not exactly sure what this blog will be about, but sometimes it will be about what is making me happy at the moment and sometimes it will be about my jewellery and sometimes it might be about my dogs or my cats or my yoga or my kids (although they are not very into my talking about them and I’m no David Sedaris, so….stay tuned). Basically, I want this to be a place where I will be authentically myself and a place where you can really get to know me, why I am the way I am—for better or for worse— and what drives the things I do.