I started blogging in 2012 under the name Wine and Cheese (Doodles) as a way to get back in the habit of writing again, something I’d put on hold as she raised my children and moved across oceans.

Those writing muscles, which had been dormant for a decade, came roaring back to life.

In its earliest incarnation, the blog was a catch-all for musings, rants, and everything in between. It didn’t take long to find that I was mostly writing about motherhood, life as an expatriate, relationships, and womanhood. Eventually, I found herself at an intersection of all of the above and the blog started to take its current shape.

Though it started as a personal hobby, since its inception Wine and Cheese (Doodles) has been viewed almost half a million times. At its height, viral posts like Nine Expats You’ll Meet Abroad and Four Expats and a Funeral were viewed and shared tens of thousands of times.

In 2018, I compiled an array of blog pieces about expatriate life and bound them together in the book There’s Some Place Like Home: Lessons From a Decade Abroad.

Though I updated the blog during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020-21 – and even dabbled in a micro-podcast/blog hybrid – the blog was slowly and peacefully coming to a close.

In the truest sense of the phrase, Wine and Cheese (Doodles) served its purpose – it got me writing again.

Wine and Cheese (Doodles) remains in place in its home, a testament to where it all began again, and as an archive for more than 500 essays spanning ten years.

My work at has been showcased for excellence in the blogging community on five separate occasions.