Dreaming of France -- Like Dominoes

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Aargh! My life is too crazy. Every week I forget about my Dreaming of France meme until I see that Sim has already posted hers and is waiting for me.
I wonder what could be distracting me?
This weekend, I started to feel some anxiety as I realized everything that has to be accomplished for us to move to France in about 86 days.
So the house is in contract. The final hurdle is Tuesday when the appraiser comes. If that all goes well, we close on the sale of our house in early November, and I have already scheduled our appointment with the French consulate to apply for a long-stay visa.
So my mind whirrs with the thoughts of:
Whipping the house back into staged shape before the appraiser arrives
Cleaning out the house once the sale is final
Helping Spencer find an apartment
Moving ourselves out and in with friends for a temporary stay
Collecting all the necessary paperwork for our French Visa
Finding affordable plane tickets and places to stay during our first days in France
Leaving the kids behind

That's all. Nothing much else going on in my brain, except beautiful dreams of how lovely our life will be in France if we can get everything else under control.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs and leave comments. Also post your blog info in the Linky below.

Missed Wedding and More Croissants

On Saturday, my plan was to drive the four hours to southern Kentucky for my aunt's wedding.
My Aunt June, my father's sister, was marrying an old high school crush at the age of 75.
She's been married before and has had some tough times. Her first husband died when their little girl was only 4 or 5 years old. She remarried a man who had an alcohol issue and they eventually divorced. We thought she found happiness with an older man she knew in high school. They were married for a long time, but he was sick most of the time.
When Aunt June saw Paul at a high school reunion, they hit it off. They have only dated a few months but they were eager to get married, reminding family that they have a limited number of years to spend together.
So on Saturday they were married.

Grace and I had planned to go, but on Friday when I went to pick up Grace from college, she was sick with a fever, headache and upset stomach. She felt a little better on Saturday, but not well enough to spend eight hours in the car and I didn't want to risk getting all of our relatives sick. We stayed home and got updated on the wedding from my cousin Melinda and her daughter Morgan, who we love.
Morgan stood up with Aunt June. She's just so vibrant and beautiful.
I hope Aunt June and her new husband are very happy. They're starting with a two-week honeymoon.
This morning, Grace is feeling a little better so I made chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's. Like the croissants I blogged about yesterday, these croissants had to be set out the night before and they rose, ready to be baked the next morning. As I baked the croissants and make cafe au lait, Earl cut up some strawberries. Then we watched a House Hunter's International set in Paris. The single woman got a nice apartment in the Marais for $525,000. Terrific morning.

Dreaming of France -- Apartments in France

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Does anyone else ever watch House Hunters International on HGTV? We love when they feature a house in France, even though my husband grows highly agitated when they complain about not having an elevator or inadequate bathrooms.  
Sunday night, I saw an edition of House Hunters International set in Nantes, France, which is where our friends live. I even saw a shot of their apartment building which is just across the street from the Chateau de Nantes (Chateau des ducs de Bretagne).

Our friends have lived in a few different apartments in Nantes, but the current one is on the top floor, which is the fourth floor. They walk up those many flights of stairs every day and have beautiful views.

Don't you just love the rooftops in France. I don't know what the deal is with all those upside down flowerpots, but they say France to me. 

Last time we were there, we stayed in the master bedroom and this is the view of the chateau out the window.

On the other side of the apartment, the view is of the Nantes cathedral. 

I think I'd be willing to walk up all those stairs everyday for views like this, but I'd probably be better at planning my outings to minimize the number of trips up and down the stairs. 

Dreaming of France -- Molière

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
What did you do to celebrate Le Quatorze Juillet?
Yes, we're in the U.S., but don't want to pass up the opportunity to celebrate a French holiday. Our local library had a section of French movies available for the holiday weekend. We watched Molière.

Confession, I did doze off during part of this movie, but I think it had more to do with my early morning rather than the movie. Earl enjoyed it and laughed out loud during parts of it.

The story tells how Molière got the material for his famous play Tartuffe. It begins with him trying and failing to perform a tragedy. Everyone sees that Molière is meant for comedy, but he wants more than a farce. He remembers his own journey and tells it beginning with his arrest for debts. He is bailed out by a rich merchant who wants to catch the eye of a young, beautiful Marquise. He needs Molière's help with writing a play and acting to win the woman's approval. Molière, masquerading as a priest, moves into the merchant's home and is enchanted by the merchant's wife. Hilarity ensues.

I enjoyed the main character with his flowing brown hair and his thin mustache, portraying Molière who lived in the 1600s. His lack of confidence about his writing seemed reassuring as he then grew into a better, more confident writer, whispering words of love. The merchant is, of course, a fool for the Marquise but in the end redeems himself. 

The rest of our Bastille Day celebration included watching the Tour de France as the cyclists headed toward Mont Ventoux, having brie fondue at Bon Vie, a local restaurant, and watching House Hunter's International in Nice. I'd say we immersed ourselves in French culture. 

I'm linking to Paris in July again. I have plenty of French posts this month. Paris in July is hosted by  Thyme for Tea and Bookbath.

  

April in Paris

No, we didn't take another trip to Paris, but I reminded Earl that last year at this time we were anxiously anticipating our trip to Paris. We decided to create our own France staycation by walking downtown for coffee and dessert.
We went to one of our favorite restaurants Roma Trattoria. We got to the restaurant just moments before they closed between lunch and dinner. They seated us along the front windows and we ordered espressos while we perused the dessert menu. Earl is a tea man usually, but he drank some espresso in Paris and decided that he would drink coffee for our Paris staycation. I'm not sure if espresso tastes better in Paris, or if everything tastes better in Paris, or if it was the lack of sugar cubes. A sugar cube is more sensory satisfying than a packet of sugar. Dropping it into the cup then using that tiny little spoon to stir it around, watching it melt slowly until it melded with the espresso.
Earl went for the chocolate cannoli for his dessert.

And I chose the lemon torte with vanilla bean ice cream. I don't usually like ice cream with my desserts. I don't like switching from the warm to the frozen. In this instance, the warm and the cold melted in my mouth. Delightful.

After our coffee and dessert, we walked to the grocery store and bought some French brie. When I was paying, I looked curiously at the cost of the brie. I thought the tag said $5.99 but it rang up $6.99. While Earl waited at the door, I went back to look at the price. Sure enough, it should have been $5.99. We went to the customer service desk and I showed them the receipt and the cheese.
The woman gave us back $7. When it rings up incorrectly, the buyer gets the item free, she explained. Plus, she was the only one behind the desk and she didn't want to go check the price. So, with our free brie, we walked down the street to Panera where we bought two baguettes. One baquette was to go with the cheese, the other baguette was to assuage the boys when they got home from school.
We walked home with the baguettes jutting from the bag and saw the spring flowers blooming in yards.
With our cheese, baguette and a new bottle of red wine, we were set for our Friday night date with House Hunters International France night.
Tucker claimed we were pitiful when he discovered our plans to watch six episodes of House Hunters International set in France. But he went to a Cake Walk, so who was he to talk?
Earl and I sipped wine, ate bread and brie and watched a couple of professors buy a tiny apartment in Paris, watched a British family choose a country house in Normandy, watched a single woman and her mother squeeze into a studio apartment in Paris, watched a family from New Orleans get a country house near Toulouse, and I went to bed while Earl watched a couple searching for a bed and breakfast.
We may be pitiful, but it was a lovely France staycation for us and cost much less than last year's 10-day trip to Paris.