It must have been around this time last year that the idea of this blog started sprouting somewhere in my tired, sleep-deprived, new mom brain. Back at that time, I was looking for something to keep my mind occupied when it was not crumbling under the weight of dirty diapers; something that I can put the tiniest shreds of energy left in, so that at the end of a long day I would feel as if I’d actually done something that day; that no, breastfeeding and baby-carrying are not the only functions I perform in my life.  I don’t exactly remember the specifics of how I reasoned that starting a blog with a cranky two month old permanently attached to me was a good idea; frankly though, I don’t really care. Amnesia is often a welcome friend when you’re past the newborn stage.

But what I do remember is that before I “officially” (what, you didn’t get the party invite?) started this blog, I did spend a considerable amount of time tossing and turning at night trying to decide on one thing: should I blog in English or Macedonian? English is by far the language I am most comfortable writing in; all of my higher level education and about 90% of my professional experience has been in English. Macedonian is my mother tongue but I’ll reluctantly admit to this: I am still having trouble finding my proper writing voice in Macedonian (everything I write in Macedonian sounds to me as if someone else wrote it) or perhaps I never developed one. I guess I could have taken the challenge to blog in Macedonian but I also thought about all those unfortunate future readers who happen to not know Macedonian and would (for whatever reason) want to read my ramblings…On the off chance that there would be at least a couple of them, I wasn’t going to risk it.