Evil Cats Destroy Lives In Europe

Category: Hobby

  • We Made It 1 Year

    We Made It 1 Year

    June 20th marked 1 full year in Portugal and the time blasted by like a bullet train. Maybe that means we have been having plenty of fun (“day drinking” European style is next level – even our background in emergency services did not prepare us for this), or perhaps we are just oldish now and…

  • We Skipped Ugly Christmas Sweaters This Year

    We Skipped Ugly Christmas Sweaters This Year

    Andrew: Brother Visit: Rob made his first trip to Olhão in early December. His arrival matched up almost perfectly with the beginning of the rainiest week of the year. The rain poured down and both Michelle and I got horrible head colds two days after he got into town but we still had plenty of…

  • Giving Thanks Abroad

    Giving Thanks Abroad

    November sits right between two movie filled months, Michelle’s horror extravaganza in October and Andrew’s Christmas romantic comedies in December. It’s that time where many Americans make a full transition to having lives dictated by various holidays and parties for six weeks or so. Fittingly, it was a transitional month for our lives in Portugal…

  • Our Dance Card Is Filling Up

    Our Dance Card Is Filling Up

    In Medford we had a few “non-work” friends, but every year or so we’d talk about making a concerted effort to expand out to new social circles. We made amazing and hopefully lifelong friendships with coworker and work associates but those gatherings almost always circled back to endless conversations about our job. After almost 20…

  • Fall Reading

    Fall Reading

    Andrew: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. A digital library loan. My Rating: ***** Even if, like me, you are kind of sick of stories about multiverses, don’t skip this amazing novel if you are a sci-fi fan. A scientist discovers a method to jump to other dimensions that are similar to our own BUT…

  • Is ABC Really As Easy As 123?

    Is ABC Really As Easy As 123?

    Back in November of 2021 when we shifted our retirement in Portugal from neutral to “full speed ahead” we signed up for Duolingo in order to start our Portuguese language studies. We learned a lot of words, a bit about sentence structure, and some verb conjugation. Duolingo is fun and I still enjoy it daily,…

  • Summertime Reading

    Summertime Reading

    Settling into the new rhythm of our lives has left plenty of time for reading! Pass on your book recommendations in the comments and read on to hear some of ours. Michelle: I have finally carved out some time to read post move and have enjoyed a variety of novels, science fiction, a memoir, and…

  • 2 Months In Portugal

    2 Months In Portugal

    Highlights (Andrew) Challenges (Michelle) Things we didn’t know… (Both)

  • Some Mediocre Books

    Some Mediocre Books

    We’ll be checking in once in awhile to talk about the books we’ve read. Please share where your bookmarks have been hiding in the comments! Andrew: I’ve kicked my reading hours way up since retiring! Today I’m NOT going to talk about the best book I’ve read this year since M just started it and…

  • Andrew’s Daily Puzzles

    Andrew’s Daily Puzzles

    Michelle and I both have really gotten into puzzling during the last year. In July we even ordered a 40 pack of variety puzzle books from Penny Dell Puzzles and have been chipping away at the first few books. But now I’ve found myself working through some online puzzles on a semi daily basis. Daily…