life lately...

Things that have been happening lately, in photos.

Halloween à la française

I look like a tiny child.

before.

(first time pumpkin carvers)

after. spooky!

also, no children came to our door to trick-or-treat. And i didn't get to dress up.

i finally let the lasagna cook long enough to be delicious(and fully cooked...)

someone got a year older.

a chilly day at le jardin des plantes

and thankfully slightly heated greenhouses

and after cooking for over a day straight....thanksgiving dinner à la française for 15 people

miam!

hello pies!

dinner = a couple kilos of mustard/tarragon roasted turkey breast, garlic mashed taters, roasted chestnut/sausage/sage stuffing, maple roasted sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce(!), gravy(half from a jar and half home-made), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, maple whipped cream, WINE! (also, no cheese to the French's disappointment...)

oook. I have been back in Francia for about a month now and besides not working because of the strike and dealing with lots of hip pain (im I TOO young to have arthritis?) here is what I have been doing.

weekend trip to the country house with surprisingly good weather and comfy chairs to read in.

a birthday celebration and marathon sessions of belote. (its the most confusing card game ever)

lots of train-rides back and forth. but not enough. 

old world deli potato salad à la française! Not quite the same, but delicious none-the-less. 

got to see this on the walk home from a friend's fire-juggling performance. 

felt very lucky to live just next to here.

and here.

attended my very first 'manifestation'

played yams aka yatzee next to the fire place

home-made profiteroles! later to be stuffed with ice-cream and drizzled with chocolate and devoured. 

wishing that I, too, could just cuddle my belly up to the radiator like Kiko to nap. 

(she is really passed out and even snortling a little in this picture)

and appreciating more views on my rides home. 

Announcement!

I have made a lot of decisions and thought a lot in the past week or so. It feels really great, and is a huge relief to finally know what my life will kind of be like until next April. It doesn't seem like much, but I am really happy that I now know where I can call home, at least for a little while.

I received my renewal (or renewment, which isn't even a real, live word but other assistants kept saying it) and decided to take it and after a whirl-wind of ticket searching and not buying the ticket when I should of and having it be much more expensive the next day and then re-searching again and getting frazzled, I finally have a plan. I will be home on August 27th and fly out again on September 26th.

Things I hope to do or am excited about:

seeing my family. giving my momma a big hug for real and not just over the phone.
friends! oh! please! seeeeee me! I have missed them allllll soooooo much!
drying my clothes.
horsies. all day, every day to get my fill for the next year.
the PNW and all of it's beauty. mountains! rivers! ocean! islands! hikes! so many hikes!
TT-my little car
Avellino gluten-free treats
a good mixed drink. or even a bad one. but one that is less than 8 euros please.
going to SF to get my visa and maybe my sister coming to adventure with me
just be able to be home at my home and look up and see mountains and have it rain and maybe hear a popsicle truck coming down the street.

I will get my fill in a month and then I will come back again to see what primary kids have up their sleeves.

some things that I have learned this year:

the difference between its and it's (to think that I was in AP English...)
that I like plain yogurt. and tomatoes. and onions. and so many things that I never thought I would eat.
Pho is so good.
That I can do just about anything. And survive it.
I can cook! for reals!
I can speak another language and be confident!
how to relax and go with the flow, how to stay in bed later on the weekends and stay up later at night. and to be flexible and let go.
how to share.
pourquoi pas? that was my motto. why not? i learned not to say no, and to experience new things!

missing

these were missing from my last post. and I have new ones too!

here is that Mille feuille that I talked about last time. Yum. Oven roasted tomatoes with eggplant and basillic with mozzarella. 

and the amandines aux cerieses that I was waiting for. 

the baby artichokes!

late night velib bike ride home after eating mountains of mexican food and perfect margaritas. 

this little guy snuck on to the blanket

and into my heart!

kiko.

fancy picnic in the parc floral

day off

I am in the process of writing my resume and a cover letter in French. My fingers are stained purple from picking and pitting the cherries from the cerisier in the back yard. I am waiting for my amandines aux cerieses to be done so that I can impatiently wait for them to cool enough for me to eat. Then I will watch le match de foot and I will yell Allez USA! I will clean my room and make my bed so that when I get into it tonight it will feel brand-new again. Then I will sit outside on the terrace in the sun and kiko will come up to me and lay below me and we will chat and maybe Ill be wearing my new swimsuit and I will get a little pink. After that I will come up with something to eat tonight that will go with the little mini artichokes that have been sitting in the fridge for weeks. I will top my night off with a film at my favorite theatre.

Then tomorrow I will be back at 'work' again. Hanging out with a 12 year old that must think that Im a total loser because 1. I always lose when we play games. Like cards, or clue, or i-spy. 2. I asked her if she was going to see Toy Story 3 and she looked at me like I was an idiot and she responded 'why would I see that?' and then i told her that I was going to see it. We won't watch Gilmore Girls because we've made it to the end of it. She will probably make me do exercises from her mom's Elle magazine. I think tomorrow will be abs and butt. My arms still hurt from the push-ups we did in her apartment hallway yesterday. I can do about 3.5 normal pushups. But it was after 15 knee push-ups. Maybe I will be able to convince her to go outside, go to the Jardin des Plantes to see the animals, or go play tennis with me. Or maybe we will stay inside again and eat oreos and play the game of life and she wills scoff at my choice of name for my imaginary child. Then we will play 'imagine.' like imagine that i am a store owner and you are my customer and i sell (fill in the blank of anything you can think of. really. anything) and you come in to buy something and you are a difficult customer. I mean really difficult. and you are rude. except that i apparently dont know how to be a difficult customer. but that is something that this girl has got down pat. really.

but then the weekend will be here and i will go for a run. hopefully more than once. and find something yummy to make. for example this mille feuille d'aubergines, tomates et mozarella that i made a few weekends ago. or maybe i will stay in bed and add another book to my 'read' list. or watch a chuck. and in the afternoon kiko will come up and take a nap with me.

also. i recently had an accident at the hair-dressers. I went and explained in a very detailed way that I wanted my bangs cut in this sort of way and that i have a cow-lick and all those sorts of things. and then she cut them too short to do the sort of thing that I wanted them to do. So when I got home i did a little bit of clean-up and this is what happened. oops!

hello bangs!

May/Mai

Here are some things to share from my last month. 

I now live outside of Paris in Vincennes. I live with a cat, who likes to lick ears and she comes in the morning to chat. Meow. My reading has slowed down, but I'm still keeping up an average of 2 books a week. My french is really improving. But on the downside, I spend a lot of time trying to remember words in English. It feels like it is all leaking out! Although my French is improving, I'm having a hard time with the language barrier and the fact that I don't really know a lot of people here. When we go out, I can usually keep up with the conversation and contribute to it, but there comes a point where I can't say anymore and I don't fully understand what people are talking about and I get frustrated because I don't feel like myself and I can't express my thoughts the way I know I can. I don't want people to get the wrong idea of me because I don't talk. But, I've been here for 8 months and it has just come up, hopefully I will get through it. 

So, the month of May,  I did some things. 

I said good-bye to my home and my work in Dunkerque.

I ate this. Yummmm.

Magret de Canard aux Pêches

It's like Canadian Bacon and Pineapple à la française. Super thin slices of smoked duck breast with peaches. 

I read in the garden a lot. And someone who lives in the building next door plays their piano in the afternoon. Things like Amèlie and Feist. 

We took a weekend adventure to the country. We passed all these fields that used to be filled with yellow flowers. They are colza. AKA rapeseed plants. AKA the stuff that canola oil is made of. Because who would want to eat rapeseed oil. That does not have a good ring to it. And we call it Canola oil because the Canadians invented it or something. Anyways...these fields were dotted with little blue flowers and a spattering of red poppies. 

I even got to drive all the way there. In the Kangoo. 

The speed limit here is something crazy like 130 km/hr. Which is like 80mph. Which is fast. I tried to stick to 110, but finally pushed her up there. Also, I learned that it is illegal to drive faster than someone in the lane to your left. And I successfully made a 3-point U-turn on a narrow country road without going into a ditch.

 

Then we spent a Saturday night constructing this! I saw a big basket of little pieces of wood. Which I suggested we use for kindling since it had rained and all the wood outside was wet. I then learned that these little sticks are a pretty pricy toy. And I tried to burn them. So we made a castle instead.

Check out that craftsmanship! And imagine the satisfaction of pulling the tablecloth out from under it!

This is a stinky tunnel in Clamcey. 

This is Vèzeley. We walked all up this hill to the basilica on the top. And coming down the hill past us were hundreds of pélerins or pilgrims. All ages and shapes and sizes and on this day they had been hiking to church to church in the area, praying, and moving on to the next. 

And driving through the forests, we came across these WALLS of logs. Not logs, some of them were almost trees. Walls of them. This picture does not do justice to how immense these things were. 

Then the following is my 'picking poppies and running through a wheat-field sequence.' It was impossible to resist the acres and acres of blowing wheat that we passed everywhere. 

This is the Château de Chambord. Chambord liqueur is made here or named after it or something like that. It has: 426 rooms, 77 sets of stairs, 282 chimneys and 800 chapitaux sculptés which I can't find a good translation for. There is a double revolving stair case. Two sets of stairs spiraling up in different directions. It's also crazy that it was built in 1519 WITH NO MACHINES LIKE TODAY. And it is here during WWII where they kept a lot of France's masterpieces. 

we rowed a boat. 

And I giggled at this one a lot. The inscription at the bottom reads: 

La Reine est Moi.

The Queen is Me/ I am the Queen.

Unemployment

In my past week of unemployment I have done the following things:

1. read 4 books! and have a stack of 4 more
2. got caught up on the office
3. went on a few runs
4. drank coffee without milk for the first time and enjoyed it
5. cooked for 10 people
6. been up before 9 every day

7 months of my face

7 months ago I arrived here in Dunkerque/St Pol Sur Mer. And with my brand spankin new Mac and a bit of vanity, I often took pictures of myself in PhotoBooth. Today was my last day as an assistant. And now I am about to start a new chapter.

my first days here at Virginie's. Disappointed about my bag...

Me and my new hat using the internet at MacDo. Hiding around the corner.

Back when the sun was still shining...

I do this face a lot.

I have not been able to get my hair to do this again. Shoot. 

Then MegMeg and Broy came and we got wigs. And went nutz.

like really.

silly.

glamour divas.

we even went on a roller-coaster ride

MegMeg and I peeked around

My office. 

Hand turkey Thanksgiving

I started crocheting again

I wrapped myself up in this a lot.

It snowed.

I like to head tilt.

I got a little further on my crocheting.

And I finished one scarf before retiring from crocheting.

I learned to go 2 months without cutting my bangs.

I bought my first yellow shirt.

Carnaval happened right outside my window.

I called this 'sassy cowgirl'

It got sunny again and I lounged in the living-room

I made this soup.

my wall paper will make you nauseous. 

Today I got my first real hair cut since september. I packed up most of my apartment. I made zucchini bleu cheese soup. My class of 3e3 gave me so much bath and lotion stuff then they picked me up and carried me around the court yard. And Im going to miss it here. My freckles are coming back and the sun is shining and the leaves are on the trees.