Before leaving the US

Here, you need this

Bill bought me a Fitbit®. Do you think that he was trying to tell me something? Actually we’d been talking about wanting some way to track our activity, or lack of, since we anticipate walking a whole lot more than we do now once we move to Carcassonne. Considering that we won’t have a car it should be a relatively easy goal to achieve of the recommended 10,000 steps a day.

But just how far is that? It’s about 5 miles. I read that a sedentary person takes between 1,000 and 3,000 steps a day so you really do have to make a conscious effort to get up to make it up to the much higher level. If we make daily trips to the bakery, cafe, market, etc., and long walks along the Aude river and the Canal-du-Midi with Heather then we shouldn’t have any problem. Continue reading “Here, you need this”

Unknown's avatarBob
Life in France

But you gotta have friends

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”

Unknown's avatarBob
Before leaving the US

That sinking feeling

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.

Looking a little depressed
Looking a little depressed

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”

Unknown's avatarBob
Life in France

Double or nothing

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”

Unknown's avatarBob3 Comments
Before leaving the US

‘Tis the season

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

Unknown's avatarBob