This is where we spent Sunday afternoon. Pretty incredible view, don’t you think? It may have been Labor Day weekend but we abstained from any work thanks to a kind invitation from our friends Karen and Trish. They were back in town and invited us over to their lakeside home to catch up on all the news. With this blog out there our move to … Continue reading Non-labor day weekend
Which would you rather do: A. Get up at 3:30 AM on a Saturday so that you could drive someone to the airport, or; B. Drive into downtown Atlanta during evening rush hour on the Friday of a long holiday weekend? Give me choice A. anytime. Our neighbor needed to get up to New York City and we were happy to take her to the … Continue reading Would you rather….
There are several expat discussion forums on the Internet that can be a great source of first-hand information from people living in the country to which you are moving. The one I like the best is Expatforum.com because it tends to be full of positive, helpful advice and the moderator keeps everyone on topic and is very knowledgeable about French culture, daily life, government issues, and other challenges we are likely to encounter. Continue reading “But you gotta have friends”
Isn’t it funny how quickly we can adapt to things around the house that might bother us if we were buying it but they don’t seem so important when we’re already living there? There are those scuff marks on the baseboard, the dent in the garage door, the bedroom wall that really needs to be painted. Now that we’re getting the house ready to sell we’ve pretty much finished up on the inside and have turned our attention to the outdoors. Since curb appeal is vital to that first impression when a buyer drives up to the house, we want to make sure the front yard looks its best.
Today we’re achieving two objectives in one: filling in a sinking area of the yard and having less grass to mow. When it’s 90 degrees F here in Atlanta next summer I’m certain that the new owners will appreciate that second part very much. Here in this first photo you can see how much lower the ground is on one side of the tree. Continue reading “That sinking feeling”
When Bill and I first got together nearly 30 years ago, we moved almost every 18 months. No, not because the rent was due but because job changes within the same company for me required it. With all of that packing and unpacking we came to an agreement that if we had not used something within the last year then it was not going with us to the new location. I think that we’ll be invoking that rule and a companion one as well, especially once we’re in place.
That new rule, called “Double or nothing” means that anything we buy in France to replace something that we’ve left behind here must do more than one thing. For example, we have two popcorn poppers, an air one and the oil kind. They each do just one thing: pop corn. The ice cream maker you could argue also does frozen yoghurt, sorbet, and sherbet but they’re all just variations on a theme. The juicer juices. The tortilla press makes tortillas. The apple peeler peels apples. You get the picture. Continue reading “Double or nothing”
No, it’s not Christmas yet; in fact, it’s still summer but this title refers to being in-season as in what fruits and vegetables are available from farms nearby now. One of the advantages of living in France, or in Europe in general, is the availability of markets that feature locally-grown produce. When we were in Normandy, northern France, this past May, it was cauliflower harvest time … Continue reading ‘Tis the season
What a question, huh? In our quest to use up the foods that are still here in the house in what we call “shopping the pantry” I came across a box of tapioca, part of which Bill had used quite some time ago when making a fresh cherry pie. I don’t really remember the pie but I know that he didn’t make the tapioca into … Continue reading Tapioca or Jello®?
