The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist

A Special Guest Post by Belle: Top Five/Bottom Five Movies

While I might have hoped my kids would inherit my love of reading, they have instead inherited their father’s love of movies.

Especially Belle.

Before I had posted her Top Five/Bottom Five about me (see…

Happy Things Friday: 24 April

This time last week we were still on our road trip, and now we’re settling into life in Helsinki.

Modern travel is wild.

The world is temporarily our proverbial oyster.

Out on our first real…

Life
Apr, 24, 2026
27 Comments

Epic Europe Road Trip Day Two (Zurich): Lindt Chocolate Factory + Walking Tour

After a very busy first day, everyone was relieved to not set any early-morning alarms. We ended up waking up earlier than expected which felt like a bonus… but emotions ended up running high.

I…

Potpourri from Helsinki

I can’t tell you how many times over the last few weeks I’ve thought: I want to blog about this random thing… and then didn’t have access to my laptop.

I’m taking that as…

Travel, Euro Adventure, Helsinki, Random
Apr, 22, 2026
38 Comments

Epic Europe Road Trip Day One: Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, & Switzerland

Well… that was epic.

In less than seven days, we drove over 2,200 kilometers through eight different countries. Fun fact that I only learned on our road trip: the Alps span eight countries, and…

Visiting the Schönbrunn Palace Easter Market in Vienna

We came across a few Easter markets randomly in various cities here in Europe and I was impressed.

Then we went to Schönbrunn Palace and they blew the rest of them out of the water….

Walks Around Vienna (AKA: A Giant Photo Dump)

My camera was overflowing with random pictures from Vienna that didn’t necessarily fit a specific theme but I wanted to memorialize them on the blog in some way. Hence a giant photo dump with…