Hi there.

I’m Kirsten, author of the travel blog, The Flask Half Full.

This space is my photography portfolio.

Here’s my story:

As you may or may not know, for many years, I wrote a blog about wine under the nom de guerre, The Armchair Sommelier. I went to “wine school”, and eventually earned a Diploma in Wine & Spirits from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust in London, England. As the years went by, though, I sort of ran out of things to say about wine. There are hundreds of wine blogs out there, and over time, I just wasn’t sure my voice added anything to the herd.

Then, Covid-19 hit. And I got original Covid, which irrevocably changed my relationship with wine. I lost my sense of smell and taste for weeks. That sucked. And when my senses did return, wine just didn’t taste as good to me anymore. That really sucked. I was super bummed for a while, but then I discovered (or re-discovered) bourbon. That’s my current wheelhouse. 

Sidebar: I forgot to renew my domain for the Armchair Sommelier, and it got scooped up by someone else. So if you go to armchairsommelier dot com now, that is NOT me.  I was cranky about it for a while, but it’s my own damn fault. You can still find all of my Armchair Sommelier content here. 

On to the next chapter.

Right as the world was emerging from Covid, my husband and I retired early and decided that instead of taking up golf, we’d travel. Not full time, but as much as we could afford, and as much our mutual good health would allow us to do. Because there will come a day (hopefully a long time from now) that we won’t have the desire (physically or mentally) to travel.

Travel has always been a big part of how our family enjoys life. And as we traveled, I started taking more photographs, and writing little travelogues on Facebook for my mom. She loved reading about our adventures (and misadventures). My mom passed away earlier this year. I still feel aimless without her (and I suspect I always will), but it feels like I should keep writing – and pressing the shutter button on my camera.

Again, this blog is my photography portfolio, and will be a work in progress for a while. I have quite a lot of material to upload, and lots of technical hiccups to work out. But I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers,
Kirsten 🍷