A Pause

During this busy holiday weekend, just a pause to tell you that things are better. 

If Spencer and his girlfriend start their morning with Echinacea tea, I feel like everything will eventually fall into place. 

Had a lovely, if loud,  Thanksgiving with my family. My parents from Florida, my brother from Texas, and my nephew from Virginia with his 4 children, including these two little guys. 

Now you see why it was loud. Plus their sisters, 3-year-old Lydia and 2-year-old Lorelei. 

Today, back to my brother’s to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday.

Dreaming of France -- Holidays

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.

Today is Mother's Day in the United States, and our plan is to move to France next year the week after Mother's Day.

Here is my mother and her four children. I'm the girl on the right, without the teased hair!

Mother's Day is a deadline of sorts for us since we chose the week after Mother's Day to leave  next year. That means that from now until we move, I will be filled with melancholy about the last time we... whatever it is. Celebrate Father's Day. Celebrate Fourth of July. Labor Day. Birthdays. Thanksgiving. Christmas.

I'm so thrilled at the plan to move to France, but I, of course, am nervous about moving so far away from my children and my parents.

Here I am in La Rochelle, France with my three children, along with a friend's teenager. She came along to show us around.
My good times in France with the kids should encourage me that we'll have more good times to come.  This was 1998. 

So next year, on Mother's Day, I plan to convince my mother to come to Ohio so we can celebrate together. Then, I have already told my husband that we must return to the United States for my mother's 80th birthday in November 2017. So I know we'll be back here for that and Thanksgiving together. Maybe we can slowly wean ourselves from American holidays.

Here we are in Paris having a meal with our family friend, Marguerite.
I really hope that our children will come visit us in France and we can celebrate holidays with them.

Truthfully, the French have so many holidays that I really shouldn't miss the American ones.

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

Dreaming of France -- Chateau for the Holiday

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.
Monday is a holiday in the United States, and what I would really like to do is visit a nice chateau in France. That probably seems incongruous since the holiday we celebrate is Labor Day, and a castle definitely does not celebrate the rights of labor.
Since I can't go to visit a castle anyway, here's a photo of the back side of Chateau de Chambord.
This was obviously one of those perfect days with a piercing blue sky and a straight path to assymetrical perfection.

Hope you have a lovely Monday dreaming of France, whether you have a holiday or not.

Oh Christmas Tree

We decided, kind of by default, not to get a Christmas tree until Grace came home from college. She arrived home last Thursday.
Friday was a basketball game after school. Saturday was a day-long swim meet. We decided to get our tree after mass on Sunday morning. Then Spencer announced a special Sunday basketball practice at noon.
"Can we get the tree without you?" I asked.
He shrugged. It's hard to know if those shrugs mean, I don't care or I'm so sad that I won't be there to choose a Christmas tree.
We went without him. The YMCA lot only had 13 trees left. We chose one within minutes and tied it to the top of the car.

Earl set the tree in its stand while Grace, Tucker and I moved furniture around to make a place for the tree.
And it stood there, forlorn, free of decorations.
Christmas carolers came to the door that night -- four high school boys, friends of Grace. They came in and made no comment about the bare tree.
I scheduled a decorating time for Monday.
Tucker had swim from 8 to 10 a.m. and Spencer had basketball from 11 to 1. Earl had to leave for work at 3. I declared 2 p.m. tree decorating time.
Earl put the lights on the tree ahead of time and I made a batch of manicotti along with a salad to feed us afterward.
Charlie Brown Christmas music played as we hung ornaments.
Spencer was feeling sick so could only be roused to hang a few ornaments, but at least we were all together for a little while.