I slipped away for an extra long weekend with my parents.  My mom and I found ourselves drawn to the American autumn – making carmel apples and strolling through leafy streets near football practice fields.  We visited craft bazars and quilt shows.  And we couldn’t help it; we browsed baby sections of little shops and slowly built a care package for the newest member of our family.

Yes!  I am an aunt now!  It’s very surreal and beautiful and beyond breathtaking.

One of the greatest things about being in the US this autumn is connecting with family and the people around us.  (It far outdoes the fun of Halloween cheese at our little grocery store in Berlin.)

You should try pumpkin waffles from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  I’m going to see if I can invent pumpkin pancakes next.

Oh and here’s a pumpkin tip for all of you in Germany.

You can find American canned pumpkin in the import section of some grocery stores (specifically those in touristy areas).  It costs a FORTUNE; don’t buy it.  You can purchase pumpkins and bake them.

But I’ve learned something so much faster… Use sweet potato.

When an American friend and I hosted Thanksgiving in Berlin a few years ago, she said she’d be in charge of the pie.  She’s from the south.  I wasn’t going to turn down a southern girl’s offer to make pie!  So she taught me a trick.  Sweet potato pie tastes almost identical to pumpkin pie.  Now I steam and mash sweet potatoes for all my pumpkin recipes… even in the US.

Any favorite pumpkin or sweet potato recipes at your house?  I have a few more “A Celebration” posts to share along with a few gifts for all of you.  But I’ll confess – a little pumpkin something (or sweet potato something!) to go with it sounds dreamy.  So I hope you share!

I’ve been thinking a lot about gift giving this year.  Let’s see…  a gratitude journal for my mom, travel journal for my dad, home minibook for the neighbors, baby book for our first niece…

Okay!  Maybe I’ll branch out.  Maybe I shouldn’t give everyone something from Gadanke.  But they are all certainly getting one of these snazzy gift tags.  The handmade, hand-cut tags are all in the shop, ready to be matched with a lovely little something for someone on your list.  Come take a peek…

The Christmas tree originated in Germany. Why not add a little “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” under your tree this year just for fun?

{Fröhliche Weihnachten} ~ Christmas Gift Tags

Know someone who just can’t seem to resist snooping under the Christmas tree year after year?

Yeah – me too!

I can’t wait to put this tag on her gift…. if only she’d quit snooping in the shop!

{No Snooping!} ~ Gift Tags

And finally these chevron and zig zags, which are a fashion rage this winter.  I think these tags would look really great with a solid colored wrapping paper and bit of curly ribbon.

Which one is your favorite?

The last time I truly talked about The Future of Katie and Martin was in May.

For some reason, capitalizing each little bit like that makes this post seem extra official, when really all it is would be a girl in her old college sweatshirt sitting in front of her computer with a cup of tea (also made in her college town).  She’s thinking, “Boy life’s a funny thing, and I have a semblance of a plan of what’s going to happen next… I think.”

In May, I had just finished over 600 hours of German lessons.  That number still feels unimaginable.  What it means is that the German government considered my language skills “integration level”.  They were ready to let me stay in Germany as much as I pleased (providing a number of rules and exceptions, of course).

There was this constant nagging in my heart to truly pursue Gadanke.  I’d lay in bed, wide awake, thinking about how I could possibly make it work.  We were returning to the United States for the summer.  What if I just went for it?

Martin and I agreed.  I was going to start creating my dream career.  It wasn’t something an office or other person could give to me.  If I didn’t start now, I think I would have forever felt guilt.  The door was wide open for me to walk through.  I just had to pick up my bags and do it.

And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

My goal was to become capable of financially holding up Martin and me by September.  He would be in school, studying this:

Our plans have changed a little.  We’re still in the United States.  But Martin is still on track as a full-time student, too.  Hooray!

If we lived simply before, now we really are.  There’s no flying, no eating at the locally-sourced restaurant, … no so many things.  And that is totally fine because I am giving Gadanke a chance.

I realized that all I need to do is work hard at something I love and feel unafraid of failure.  Things will fall into place.  They already are.

I don’t usually think to bring my camera with me around here.  Everything is beautiful, but it’s not beautiful and new the way things are in Germany.  I try not to take advantage of beauty just because I know it has always been there.

Today a walk down a country road that is just busy enough to keep hunters at bay.

What’s it like where you are?  Is the beauty new?  Or is it a piece of the season you’ve come to expect because it comes this way every year?

What’s something beautiful you’ve been seeing lately?

Images from autumn in Berlin here.

Here’s what you need to do.  Grab a postcard.  It could be any postcard.  Still have a few floating around from a family vacation to Disney Land a few years ago?  Perfect.  Now send it to someone.  Connect your thoughts to the postcard’s image, or just write a big howdy and an I love you!

If your name is Jul, perhaps these are the very postcards you’ll want to send.  Congrats to our winner!  She says, “I think I’d write to my grandmother, too. Just tell her about what I’m doing with my day. She writes such great letters, full of tiny every day observations – I’d try to repay her a tiny little bit for the wonderful letters she writes to me.”

Thanks again to Hayley for this beautiful giveaway from France.

Like many of you, I’m discovering how much a simpler perspective on life is making everything in my life happier.  It’s all about your attitude.  I believe that slowing down makes you more aware and grateful.

Ready for a flashback?

This was us.  Married a year, both working and working all the time, every day and every minute… save an obvious camping trip to snap this photo!  And boy were we learning.

The crankiest and unhappiest people I know have always been incredible workaholics.  Maybe not all workaholics are like this.  I just know that some people I’d been around never seemed happy.  They never had enough.  A plane, a huge house, huge cars, month-long international vacations, season passes to everything, regular dinners at the best restaurants in town… and no constant happiness.

Now don’t get me wrong.  These people were very good people, and I think they all had only the best in mind.  Sometimes you can get in a rut of needing more.  You can’t be happy until you get the next thing, and by the time you reach that thing, you’re already saying, “Well we’ll be happy when we get…”

One man told me that after five years of marriage, it would be exactly how Martin and I would become.  I think he was referring to the constant bickering between he and his wife; I interpreted his comment as a reference to constant unhappiness and busyness that they both experienced.

Several months later, Martin and I slammed the breaks.  We wanted joy.

We both quit our jobs.

We canceled our lease.

We moved on.

The idea of Germany entered our minds.

Martin had a dream of working in renewable energy (which he’s now working on!), and I had a dream of becoming something more – something that wasn’t measured by the number of hours I could log in an office.

And that’s how we got to where we are today, and we couldn’t be happier for this decision what feels like so long ago.

Was there a moment when you decided to change your direction?  How did you turn toward more simplicity in your life?