About
My daughter, Mackenzie (10mo) & I at Oktoberfest 2009
No Ordinary Homestead is published by me, Tiffany Muehlbauer. (Please contact me here) It’s a a lifestyle blog with quite a few other elements thrown in; food, gardening, home renovation, travel, parenting, owning a crazy Newfoundland dog, being an expat in Germany and whatever other random thoughts pop in my head. Visit my Book Nook for book recommendations on all these subjects and more.
I’m a Texas girl by birth and grew up around Houston. I met my husband while studying at the University of Miami (Go Canes!!) and after graduation in 2001, we hopped the “pond” to try out life in Germany. It’s been a wild trip and I wish I’d started therapeutic blogging way back then…but instead I had to find other ways to maintain my sanity.
My husband, Stefan, and I are both basically expats. He was actually born near the village we live in now, but he spent a good portion of his life in the US. He’s not a blogging junkie like myself but he is getting into it a bit – go give him some motivation and leave him a comment at his blog, Workaholic Dad.
No Ordinary Homestead is the culmination of 4 blogs. I decided it made more sense to start publishing all these blogs in one for my own sanity and because there were always things I wanted to talk about but that never really fit into any of the blogs specifically – or perhaps in more than one of them. The individual blogs tell you a lot more about us and our interests, all of which now form this single blog.
- Our New Farmhouse in Germany was a home renovation blog about my husband and myself as we embarked on a journey to turn our farmhouse from the 1830′s into our home. All the ups and downs that house bloggers are familiar with ensued, from locking ourselves in the attic to nightmare contractors. We also threw in a few expat antics as we continued to adjust to living in a foreign country and regularly dealing with local politics and bureaucratic offices.
- Self-Reliant Yuppies began with a simple mission: eat local for as many items as possible. We are still on a quest to become self-sufficient and this blog was full of recipes, woodworking projects, gardening antics and more. As we continue to broaden our personal horizons, break out of the traditional “yuppie” stereotype and try to establish the best alternatives for ourselves, we constantly have something new to add to the mix even if our friends and family find us crazy!
- Life with a Newf was started when we decided to bring an energetic black ball of fur into our home, otherwise known as Ayla the Newfie. Not only did she turn our lives upside down, but she makes us fall in love with her again every day when she looks at us with those brown understanding eyes and slobbers all over us.
- For the Love of a Defender was not only a place for me to talk about how much I love driving my Land Rover Defender 110 Station Wagon, but it also helped us share information about our travels around Europe. We don’t get to travel as much as we’d like to anymore but “Sir Charles” sits proudly in front of our farmhouse, begging for love and affection every day!
Your blog sounds delightful and I’m looking forward to reading more. Especially about the Newf…we had a St. Bernard for 5 years and loved her (although she was super hyper!). However, if we ever get crazy enough to get a dog again, I’m leaning towards a Newfie and would love to hear someone’s thoughts about it who already has one!
You can catch Ayla, our Newfie, here every Wednesday when she guest posts…and there’s lots of post from our first months and year with Ayla since it was quite a tribulation! I had a separate blog about her then, written by me instead of her, and Newfie puppies are really challenging. But she’s 4 now and just the most gentle, loving, silly dog ever. Feel free to ask away about Newfies
I am an old retired meat cutter living an acceptable life in the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. My Japanese wife and I lost our adorable poodle to old age about twenty years ago and, because of limited space in out mobile home, only have cats as pets. We have three which I have collectively named, “The Three Kitties of the Apocalypse.”
I lived in rural Sumner County, Tn. for a number of years after having served in the military for 14 years. I did a lot of gardening then and was practically self sufficient in both veggies and meat. I look forward to participating in this blog.