December 7 That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year.

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I would be lost without my Google Reader. Besides storing all the blogs I read every day, it also suggests new sites. Which is how I found A Life in Translation by Jamie Varon. She’s like Dooce for the younger generation, with some international flair. Jamie started her own business, moved to Italy and is basically living my dream life. At the age of 24. Boy do I feel old.

I found her site one day at work, right before I was laid off. I read every post. Then I e-mailed an annoying number of them to friends (let’s face it, they’re used to me flooding their e-mail with this kind of stuff). Her writing is hilarious and honest, and it makes me want us to be BFF.

She moved to Italy a day before I started my five-week travels, and I felt a sense of companionship as we both flung ourselves into new lands and experiences. I read her posts throughout my travels and became more jealous of her life as the end of my trip grew closer.

My jealousy eventually turned into inspiration — she had figured out how to do what I wanted: live and work abroad as a designer by starting her own business. Hello. Genius. (don’t worry, mom. My life plan currently allots a year abroad, not the rest of my life). And there’s an actual name to what she’s doing (and what I aspire to) — location independence. I was on a plane to Houston when I had the urge to figure out my two-year plan and how to get abroad. And this was when I realized that starting my own stationery business (which was a dream I was scared to admit earlier this year) was the key to my own location independence.

I could almost kiss my Google Reader for this introduction and the resulting revelation (but I don’t even touch my computer screen, so that kind of contact is out. Respect the electronics, peeps).