by Deborah Quinn | Nov 21, 2018 | Abu Dhabi, NaBloPoMo, shopping
As someone who has now lived outside the United States for almost eight years, I’ve (almost) gotten used to living with a different holiday calendar. The UAE just celebrated the Prophet’s Birthday, for instance, but Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day, and...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 28, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, aging, exercise, growing up, me my own personal self, NaBloPoMo
It started innocently enough. A friend of mine who just had her second child bought herself a fitbit, a little piece of digitized plastic that tracks how many steps you take in a day, the miles you walk, and the calories you burn. Or the lack thereof, depending. R....
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 25, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, family, growing up, Kids, NaBloPoMo, Parenting, pop culture
For a long time, when my kids were little, I refused to outsource the birthday party: I made a cake, invited the kids over, maybe used the “community space” in our building for games of some kind or another. The year that Liam turned four, when Caleb was...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 22, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, environment, expat, NaBloPoMo, NYC, religion, The National, Travel, UAE
I live in the suburbs now. From the maelstrom of Union Square in Manhattan to the slightly more sedate “urban” experience of highrise in downtown Abu Dhabi was one shift. But in a weird way the shift from one cityscape to another wasn’t as big a...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 17, 2013 | aging, birth, family, HGH, Kids, NaBloPoMo, Parenting, preemies
On the 18th of November, I officially become the mother of a teenager. Which seems weird because I’m only 25. And it’s doubly weird because in some bizarre harmonic convergence, the 17th of November is officially “World Prematurity Day,” a day...
by Deborah Quinn | Nov 16, 2013 | Abu Dhabi, Books, environment, NaBloPoMo, UAE, Uncategorized, urban nature
I have a garden, which I’ve wanted for years. In New York I had to be satisfied with window boxes and urban tomatoes (they look pretty but oh, those airborne carcinogens, especially if the tomatoes in question grew fourteen stories above a 14th street bus...