Christmas Homecoming
It is rare when we can coordinate the time and distance between a dozen careers, three states and two countries to share a few moments as family. Christmas happens whenever we can get together. When I first moved to Europe, I missed being home for the holidays and before my baby’s first birthday, I bundled […]
Save a Child, Give Up a Gun
When I first moved abroad and told Europeans I was from outside of Chicago, the first thing they did was point a finger, pull an imaginary trigger and say, « Bang, bang Al Capone…America so dangerous. » Thirty years ago the first time my Frenchman and I took a road trip in the USA into the wilderness […]
Shaker Heights Band Gets Down
Shaker Heights – only place in the USA where as many fans come to see the high school marching band as well as the football team Football was my first love, but I’ll be the first to admit America can be a bit over the top when it comes to ball games. It’s nice to […]
Written Acts of Kindness
On Thanksgiving Day, I dragged through the work feeling sad, wondering why bother to connect kids and cultures in my job as an international schoolteacher and ex pat blogger. I suffered from writer’s angst about my upcoming memoir publication. I missed my homeland, friends, and family, including both Big Kids now living in the States. […]
I am
X-Pat, a feisty globetrotter. Teacher, writer, coach, speaker, and trailblazer with the down-to-earth, open-armed persona of The Heartland and a European twist. I have lived in four different countries, speak three languages and raised two bi-cultural kids with one très bon Frenchman. My passion is inspiring courage, breaking barriers, and creating connections.
Down and out? Hopeless and helpless? No matter where you are in your journey, my stories can help pick up your spirits, make transitions, gain new perspectives or just escape the daily grind.
If you deny a woman’s history, you erase her identity. I reveal the athlete’s untold story, from the passage of Title IX through forty years of social change. What makes it different from other sport biographies is the voice of a woman who walks the talk, who dribbled the ball and tells the story. Learn more by clicking here




