Some people only dream of leaving behind everything that is familiar to them in order to travel the world. Teresa actually did it! For the past five years, she has been leading a very unconventional life.This book is about her world travels and the international house-sitting business that helps to make these travels possible. It is also about making the choice to retire early and finding the courage to reinvent herself. She not only includes a lot of autobiographical material about her experiences in foreign locations, but also explains in detail how an ordinary person can lead such an adventurous life. Teresa has lived in Spain, Ireland, Prague, Malta, an island in the Dutch Antilles, multiple cities in Mexico, England and Italy. She even lived on a 57-foot boat in a marina in Baja California. Usually, she takes care of homes for up to ninety days. This book is a testament to an alternative lifestyle that supports a different way of looking at money, time, and travel. It incorporates sound advice that is based on first-hand experience. Teresa may very well be the poster girl for how to be adventurous at any age, on any income.

Pieces of My Heart: A Free-Spirited Gypsy's Journey Thru her heart and soul...and hell. - A True Story Jump on the back with motorcycle mama Katy Ishee, as she wildly steers us on a blistering ride of unwed motherhood, familial alienation, bikers, drugs, and insane asylums--you won't know whether to fall on your knees and pray to the Almighty or get stone drunk and listen to Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. When 17-year-old Katy is forced to surrender her son to strangers, her life becomes a web of secrets, lies and rebellion. Learn the hidden, yet true secrets of how unwed mothers are treated by the System, and what actually goes on in government-approved mental wards. A vivid picture of horror is painted as she describes her ten electro-convulsive shock treatments. Her rebellion grows as she travels from Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, through the brotherhood of motorcycling and four abusive marriages, even spending some time in sick-slick Hollywood ... across the country, back-and-forth, stubbornly refusing to give up on her dream. “Katy’s is that spirit that refuses to compromise either with her herself or the world around her. It is that spirit that refuses to be quiet for the sake of expediency but rather screams to be heard. It is that indomitable spirit that never gives up and in the end is proven to be the best of what it is that makes us human. This is Katy Ishee. This is Pieces of My Heart. This is a new, fresh voice that needs to be heard.” “This story is so shocking and strong, you have to be strong to read it. Blues guitarist/songwriter, Lonnie Mack Katy’s autobiography has been featured on many websites across the internet including Book of the Month Club at http://www.bikernet.com/News/newsarch.asp?Article=021810-2 and http://www.cyrilhuzeblog.com/2010/02/11/pieces-of-my-heart-not-a-love-story-to-make-you-mad-laugh-and-cry with comments from readers.

GYPSY PRINCESS recounts heartaches and joys, fears and tears of a young girl and her close knit family who were torn apart and ravaged by war, reunited in Austria and made their way to the safe shores of America. GYPSY PRINCESS is a unique view of the other side of the story. It's different and nothing you have read before because most stories about World War II are written by German solders or Jewish refugees - this is a young woman's perspective of the war as she wandered like a gypsy through nine countries ending up in North Dakota.

A selection of short stories from a twentieth-century “American master” (Dan Cryer, Newsday). A contemporary of Ann Beattie and Tobias Wolff, Frederick Busch was a master craftsman of the form; his subjects were single-event moments in so-called ordinary life. The stories in this volume, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, are tales of families trying to heal their wounds, save their marriages, and rescue their children. In "Ralph the Duck," a security guard struggles to hang on to his marriage. In "Name the Name," a traveling teacher attends to students outside the school, including his own son, locked in a country jail. In Busch's work, we are reminded that we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or in the mind of another. In the words of Raymond Carver, "With astonishing felicity of detail, Busch presents us with a world where real things are at stake—and sometimes, as in the real world, everything is risked." From his first volume, Hardwater Country (1974), to his most recent, Rescue Missions (2006), this volume selects thirty stories from an "American master" (Dan Cryer, Newsday), showcasing a body of work that is sure to shape American fiction for generations to come.

This book discusses narrative as an adaptive cultural mechanism among Gypsies in Serbia. As a key traditional trait of Serbian Gypsies, storytelling, conveyed along kin generations, influences the behavior of all who listen. Since their appearance in the Balkans centuries ago, an insecure social environment has shaped their cultural traditions, including that of storytelling. Their traditional stories reaffirm the strong identity with their kinship group, yet, at the same time, plead loudly for recognition from outsiders. The success achieved by Gypsies in maintaining themselves and their culture can be attributed, in large measure, to the power of their traditional stories.

"Mary is a General Practitioner, a family doctor, and became anorexic and depressed at age 12. She writes of the chaos and pain of her life, through her abnormal adolescence and adult years, to the equilibrium of the current day. It is an enlightening and inspiring story of anorexia nervosa and bipolar affective disorder - or manic depression."--Back cover.