Dreaming of France, Paris in July -- Two Book Reviews

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

This week, I finished reading two books set in France, so I thought I'd review them for you, to save you from having to read them.
 I devour books set in France. Starting with Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, I fell for the memoir or novel that takes place in France, letting me travel there through an author's words.
The stories for the two books I read were fine, but the books didn't paint word pictures to take me to France.

First I read a memoir called One Day Ahead: A Tour de France Misadventure by Richard Grady. I've been following the Tour de France bike race that past two weeks, and this book promised to take me inside the trials of covering all those miles by bike. The author didn't ride the tour roads, though. He was support for a friend and three other guys who decided to ride each leg of the Tour de France on the day before the actual racers rode them. Throughout the trip, the author was miserable. I couldn't figure out why he was doing it. The story itself seemed entertaining, but the writing focused more on getting from the beginning to the end than it did on transporting the reader to France. I missed the beautiful setting, the scrumptious food, the charming people, and instead, I got stuck in a motorhome with someone who hated the entire trip. He drank a lot of tea and got drunk on wine a couple of times. If you love bicycling and are curious about how much it takes to support someone on the Tour de France, then you should read this one.
The second book I read was, I think, a novel called Home by Jacqueline Mason. In this one, a British woman, Jen, meets a

Frenchman when she and her boring boyfriend Bradley go to stay with him on vacation. Before the reader can blink an eye, she moves to France to live with the perfect physical specimen of a Frenchman, Scott. She sees signs that he is controlling and stubborn, along with stingy and cheap. She doesn't get along with his parents, and he has a lot of problems with her parents. Nevertheless, the two marry. Right up to the actual wedding, I keep thinking she'll back out of it, but she doesn't. And things only get worse before she is able to rescue herself.
Again, Jen doesn't really enjoy all of the things I love about France, which is kind of the point of reading a book set in France. This book also has a number of copyediting errors, like run-on sentences or incorrect paragraphing on dialogue.
The plot kept me reading, but the author could have painted word pictures to put me in the scenes rather than simply telling me about what happened.
I'm starting The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain next. Hopefully, I'll enjoy that one.
 Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.
I'm also connecting with Paris in July.

Small Steps Toward France

Earl and I both know that the end of his job could be inching toward us. Last week, one of his co-workers announced 60 days left until the possibility of them losing their jobs.
We have a backup plan, as I announced in my post France Dreams Coming True, but we're still kind of in denial. That plan requires selling our house. And whose house is ready to go on the market?
Definitely not mine.
On Friday, I  made one small step toward preparing it.
I cleaned up the area around my desk. Our house is small with two bedrooms upstairs and another bedroom downstairs. My desk is situated in a nook in the hallway.
I don't often write there because I need a window, so I haul my laptop to the dining room table or the front porch.
But papers I've graded and notes I've taken and bills I've paid, plus all of the paraphernalia gathered from the kids' events and school reports gathered on my desk in the past five years.
Here's how it looked before I started to clean it.

Hours later, with three boxes full of recycling and three neatly labeled crates, one for each child, my desk area looked neat.

Now if I could just convince myself to work on one area each day. Or if I would pull one box out of the basement storage room every day and figure out what is worth keeping or what needs to go, I could be ready in 60 days to throw the house on the market.

But, a bigger challenge awaits if we do sell the house, because how can we get rid of everything. Everything! Wooden trains and American Girl dolls and rocking horses. Carefully made quilts and snow globes of Paris. Framed photos of all those family members. 

Maybe I'll put them all in small boxes and whenever someone comes to visit us in France, they have to bring along one of our momento boxes. 

Today, hopefully, we're riding our bikes down to the Rib and Jazz Fest to listen to some music. We planned to go last night, but the extreme heat and the itch of my poison ivy convinced us to stay home. 

Itching to Get Out in the Yard

My husband treats me like a fragile flower.
It's not that he thinks I can't do things, but he thinks that I shouldn't have to.
I'll  hoist a trash bag out of the can and head toward the back alley. "Paulita, I'll get that!" he calls.
If I'm scooting past him in the kitchen with a basket of laundry toward the basement, he'll say, "I'll take care of that."
Outdoor work, dishes, laundry, my husband quickly jumps in to take care of it.
But a lot of times, his hard-working ethic and attitude make me feel like I'm lazy.
So last week, I decided to tackle an outdoor job.
Our front yard is a waterfall of ivy down to a stone enclosed flowerbed.

Here's a shot of the vines flowing down the hill behind this blooming gladiola.

The surrounding trees often decide to plant their seeds in the ivy, so small trees begin to grow up. I wanted to cut down the trees and assorted weeds to clean up the ivy.
Wearing shorts and a tshirt, plus a pair of garden gloves, I  picked my way over the ivy pulling up weeds and sawing down tiny trees. I filled up a trash can that we use for yard waste before I threw in my trowel.
No one in my family noticed my gardening efforts, but I felt proud that I helped in my own way.
Then a couple days later, a bug bite began to itch, and when I examined the bites on my left arm, I realized that poison ivy had sprouted from my gardening efforts.
Now I'm busy applying alcohol to my rash, but it seems to keep popping up in new places. The first of the blisters have appeared on my right arm now and a couple on my leg.
What really bugs me, in addition to the itching, is that it doesn't all show up at once. It takes its time making an appearance.
This morning at the Y, an old man asked, "What happened to your arm?'
"Oh, it's just poison ivy," I said dismissively.
"Stay away from me!" he said.
"Poison ivy is only spread through the plant oils," I told him.
"It looks kind of juicy," he said. He actually said that. "Juicy."
For the record, it's not; it just looks gross.
Having learned my lesson, I won't be doing any more yard work. These poison ivy blisters might leave some permanent scars on my arms. Usually, when I get poison ivy, I end up at the doctor to get steroids. My body treats poison ivy like a wildfire, allowing it to spread fast and in all directions. I'm must be especially sensitive to it.
I'll still carry out the trash and the recycling, but I did ask my husband if he wouldn't mind doing the laundry, just to make sure that I didn't get any more of the poison ivy oil on my skin.
Maybe I am a fragile flower after all.

Dreaming of France -- Paris, He Said

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.

One reason that I started writing novels set in France was because I could find so few. After I'd fallen in love with A Year in Provence, I wanted to read more about the thrill of living in France.
Since then, many books set in France have arrived on the scene. Some of them are terrific, other are mediocre, and others, I didn't even finish.
Recently, I found Paris, He Said by Christine Sneed, which just came out this year.

The novel features Jayne Marks who lives in Manhattan and wants to be a painter. Her older lover owns galleries in New York and Paris, so Jayne jumps at the chance to move to Paris and focus on her painting.

"Six weeks will give you enough time to prepare, I hope," he said.
A moment later he added, "Please understand that I am not proposing marriage. But I do not want you to bring home other men. You are with me, yes?"
"I am," she said, surprised. "I wouldn't think of bringing home another man. I'm not like that."
He held her gaze, trying to suppress a smile. "You say that now, but it isn't impossible that you will changes your mind. Beautiful women often change their minds. I have seen it happen more than once."
Did it happen to you with someone else? she wondered, but didn't ask. Did he really think that her desires and allegiances could mutate so quickly? Maybe he thought this of all women. "What about you? she asked. "Are you going to bring home other women if we're living together?"
Or men? But she didn't think he slept with men.
"No," he said. "No question. But what you do and what I do outside of the apartment, that is not for the other person to worry over. All right?"

Well, that's intriguing. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Now that Jayne lived in Paris, she could see these monuments every day if she walked southeast from the apartment toward the Seine. Whenever she did, she would pause to watch the river traffic, the sound of boats and rushing water filling her with an unaccountable surge of hopefulness. From the north end of the Pont Alexandre III, she could look across the swift, murky river to the immense golden cupola of the Hotel des Invalides, Napoleon's remains interred beneath it.   

I'll let you know if I enjoy this one.
Hope you all have something beautiful to help you dream of France.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.
I'm also connecting with Paris in July. Since this book is set in Paris, parfait!

France Dreams Coming True

I don't know how many times I've started this blog post, but it keeps drifting off. I think that happens with things that I'm emotional about.
Here goes another effort:
A few weeks ago, after a morning of teaching, I looked at the screen of my phone and saw that I'd missed a call from my husband. He knew I was teaching, I thought. Why is he calling me?
But he'd sent a text too.
"Dispatch is being sold. Call me when you can."
And that's how, one morning in June, that we both learned the company that has supported our household for 17 years might be coming to an end.
That's a scary scenario when you're in your 50s like we are and learn that the primary family income is in jeopardy.
My husband's newspaper company has been fairly stable in spite of the bad economy seven years ago. There'd been some lay offs and some shake ups, but Earl flowed from assistant editor to copy editor to reporter.
Suddenly, it seemed very likely that Earl might lose his job. Because while he left editing behind, the company left his pay the same each timer.
Meetings the next few days, meant to soothe worries, left us in a bit of a panic.
No one would lose their jobs for 90 days, the new management assured the editorial staff.
90 days! Holy crap!
I created a budget that showed we could survive on my salaries if we needed to, and if we didn't pay for college. Our boys are both still going to school.
We talked about possibilities in the car, sitting at the dining room table, lying in bed in the morning if we both happened to be awake.
"Well, there's the house," one of us said, I'm not sure which, but the house we bought seven years ago has gone up in price enough to leave us with a tidy profit if we sell it.
We looked at different neighborhoods close by and discussed where we could move. I talked with Earl about job possibilities and he started sending out feelers.
Our long-term plan has always been to retire to France. We love to vacation there, the lifestyle, the food, the scenery, the language.

So Earl began to question whether that could happen.
I've always insisted that we need to have a home in the U.S. If we bought a new home in Ohio, we couldn't afford a place in France.
A note from my Aunt Esther helped change my mind. (I wrote about it a few weeks ago here.) She wrote to thank me for my book Trail Mix and for the opportunity to go on the adventure. She had always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail and is unable to now.  "My other dream was to walk the Grand Canyon. But the Old Mother Nature's Clock just went too fast," she wrote.
And it struck me, we aren't that far away from where she is. How fast will those years ago and how many regrets will we have?
If we buy a house in France, we could always sell it to buy a place in Ohio if we wanted to come back.
And so, I said to Earl, "We can move to France."
He looked at me.
"If you lose your job, we can sell the house and move to France," I repeated. "I know it's what we've wanted."

I've applied for jobs teaching English at French universities. I imagine my odds will increase if I'm actually living in France. I could even teach online courses for my current universities in the U.S. Teaching online would allow me to live anywhere that has an internet connection.
We could get a three-bedroom house and rent out rooms through Air B&B to make extra money.
And we've always dreamed of creating a writer's retreat B&B. We could redo outbuildings like garages or barns to be rooms and cozy writing nooks.
We're about 30 days into the guaranteed 90 days of job that Earl was promised.
We've done very few chores to prepare the house for sale, but we've made plans in our head and we've shared the news with some friends.
"Oh, I hope Earl loses his job," my friend Tracie said. "Can I hope that?"
I know what she means.
The status quo is so comfortable, but maybe it's time to take a few chances on adventure.
Within the year, within six months, I could be writing this blog from somewhere in France.
Squeee!
Maybe this farmhouse for sale with a view of the Pyrenees.

Maybe this farmhouse with an old barn in Limousin.

We're about to set off on an exciting new episode. 

I hope you'll all come along. 

Early Morning Bike Ride

Not being able to run in the morning leaves me a little antsy.
I go for walks. I've been to the gym to do weights, to swim, or to pedal on the stationary bike. My knee feels much better, but not quite ready to try running again.
On Tuesday morning, my husband was awake at 6:30 a.m. (an unusual occurrence) and we went for a bike ride.
I convinced him we could drive down the main road to the bike path. Even at that hour of the morning, we took our life in our hands to ride down that main road. Once on the bike path though, we had it to ourselves.
Along one side of the trail, I could hear the cars whirring past on the highway, but surrounding me were trees and bushes and rivers.
I paused briefly to watch a white egret fishing in a low-head dam.

We rode to downtown Columbus. We might have continued on to the Audubon Center south of town if not for road construction which redirected us onto morning rush hour roads.
So we turned around and rode home in a different direction to avoid the busiest roads.
Two great blue herons walked peacefully in the confluence here, and a third one buzzed past and they all three took flight.

We rode for about 45 minutes, returning home in time for Earl to get ready for work.
A lovely way to start the morning.

Dreaming of France -- Elaborately Painted Building

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.

One good thing about hanging out with photographers is that they have an eye for the unusual.
My husband and I met blogging friend Linda Mathieu and her husband for a drink while we were in Paris. Linda writes and posts her photos at Frenchless in France. She's also a great tour guide, I've heard, and she's written a book  Secrets of a Paris Tour Guide.
We laughed a lot and enjoyed our conversation -- in English. As we left the brasserie, Linda pointed to the top of a building along rue Mouffetarde.
After she pointed it out, I noticed the elaborate painting. But first I only saw the four portraits above the awnings.

On closer look, I saw what drew Linda's eye, the elaborate gold vines, leaves, birds, boar, pig, deer and goat stretching to the roofline of the building. I'm not sure if this would be considered a trompe l'oeil painting or not, and I couldn't find anything about it online.

Imagine the time and attention that painting must have taken. And how many times has someone climbed on scaffolding to restore that painting throughout the centuries?

Hope you all have something beautiful to help you dream of France.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

I almost forgot about Paris in July, which started, obviously, in July. So I'm going to play along with them too. 

Dreams..

It's a funny thing about dreams, how they grab hold of your heart and squeeze.
And who knows why one dream ignites in a person, and a different dream ignites in another person.
This morning, after a walk in the early morning quiet, I turned on the Tour de France. It's only day two and they're in the Netherlands, but as they biked through the narrow medieval streets of Utrecht, the camera focused on the buildings, with their curious step down roof lines, I felt that longing once again to be there, in Europe, in France.
I want it so much that it hurts.
Synapses fire in my brain, nudging me to figure it out so that I can live in France.
I thought of dreams earlier this week too when my running friend Noreen sent a text message that she and her husband had reached Las Vegas and were driving to the Sierra Madres mountain range.
She sent this picture

And said, "Our first glimpse of the Sierras! I am home"
That made my heart soar -- to feel that sense of accomplishment, that dream fulfillment with Noreen.
I take a bit of credit for helping Noreen focus on her dream, because I'm the one who convinced her to join me on a hike on the Appalachian Trail nine years ago as I researched my novel Trail Mix. She accompanied me again on a second hike, and she hasn't looked back. She hikes in the wilderness every chance she gets. This time, a two-week hike in California. She's in heaven.
That's the thing about a dream, a longing. It penetrates your soul and prods you to make it happen.
I'm glad we don't all share the same dream so those trails and the countryside of France don't get too crowded.
What's your dream? What are you doing to make it happen?

Busted Knees and Juice Fasts

Since January, as I entered menopause, one of the first symptoms that I noticed was weight gain. I've always been pear shaped, so I'd learned to live with my chubby thighs and hips (sometimes chubbier than others), but menopause surprised me with belly fat.

You can see how chunky I am in these pictures with my blogging
friend Linda. These were taken in Paris at the end of March. 

I hate that feeling. I vowed to get rid of the belly fat as spring arrived. I began training for the marathon.
I didn't necessarily plan to run the marathon in the fall, but the training would keep me running and increase the miles each week.
For six weeks, I was diligent, not skipping any of the runs, usually five runs each week. And I'd workout at the YMCA on days I didn't run. I'd worked up to between 20-30 miles each week, and I felt certain that my fat should be melting away soon.
Then Saturday morning, I started down the road on my run. I had five miles to go that morning, and something in my knee caught and then popped.
What was that?
I didn't stop but continued and a few steps later the same thing happened. And again a few steps later.
I hadn't even made it a block before I bent over to look at my knee, as if it might give me answers.
"What's going on with you?" I asked aloud.
A man walking across the street called out asking if I was okay.
"Yeah, just hurt my knee," I said.
"Don't overdo it!" he yelled.
"I'm just starting," I complained.
I decided to keep running, but I kicked my heels higher or stretched out my stride. I just needed to switch it up, I figured.
I was headed to the track because the cushioning was better for my knees and joints. But as I ran, twice more my knee caught then popped. On the final time, I yelled out. I wasn't sure if it was pain or frustration.
Instead of running, I would have to walk. I texted my running friends to complain about my bum knee. As I got back to the street, I decided to try again. Just a few strides in, catch, pop, "Aaargh!"
That time, I knew it was pain and not frustration.
I took it easy, resting my knee. The next morning, I went out again, thinking the pain had been a fluke.
I walked along the street, warming up, and I told myself I needed to try to run, just run. But I couldn't make my body do it. My knee was too afraid of the pain.
Since then, I've hurt it a few more times as I've gone down or up stairs.
I plan to rest my knee for a week or so and if it isn't better, I'll go to the doctor.
In the meantime, I decided that one thing that would definitely benefit my knee would be to lose weight. My poor knees! What kind of pressure am I putting on them?
My friend Sheila is the diet queen. As a matter of fact, she inspired the character in my novel Trail Mix who diets all the time.
For more than 30 days, Sheila has been on a juice fast. She looks great.
The idea of fasting for more than 30 days seems crazy, but she told me to watch Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead, a documentary made by Joe Cross about his 60-day juice fast as he traveled across America.

In addition to being overweight,  more than 300 pounds, Joe had an auto-immune disease that caused skin eruptions.
I can't remember how he came up with the idea to drink only juice for 60 days, but he ended up getting off his medication and losing a lot of weight, while converting others to an all fruit and veggie diet to cleanse their systems.
Now, I'm not great with dieting, but I thought I'd give it a try. I bought a juicer and stocked up on fruits and vegetables.
I'm on day three, and frankly, I'm not feeling great. I have a hard time knowing if that's because I'm not running or because I'm not eating.
I've had a nagging headache, which is probably caused by not drinking enough water, and, frankly, I'm pretty hungry.
This morning, I had a cup of hot water with lemon and ginger, and I drank more water during a brief workout at the Y. When I got home, I made a juice with kale (very little juice comes from kale, I'm not sure what the point is), a small cucumber, two nectarines and two bananas. Pretty tasty, but I'm hungry again.
I think I'll move on to a juice that Grace called a bloody mary, without the alcohol, tomato, celery, and cucumber.
The main staple for the juice fast is supposed to be the Mean Green Juice, which includes cucumber, celery, kale, apples and ginger.
The hunger is supposed to start fading tomorrow. I'll let you know.
Meanwhile, I know that people would prefer that I not try a juice fast. People have already tried to talk me out of it. One acquaintance said, "But you're going to eat on Fourth of July, right?"
I mean, it's July 4th, not Thanksgiving. I think I'll be okay skipping the burgers and hot dogs.
Believe me, I'm in no danger of wasting away, so let me give it a shot. I'm aiming for a 10-day juice fast, unless I get on a roll.
Mmm, rolls.

Dreaming of France -- Twilight in Paris

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

I know that Woody Allen convinced everyone that Midnight in Paris is a magical time, but I think the most beautiful time is at twilight.
We went for a walk on the last evening before we flew home this spring.
The lights and the buildings are so golden and warm.

Here we are walking along the Tuileries

This sliver of moon and venus above the straight cut trees.

And here I am posing in front of the Seine with Musee d'Orsay behind me and the Eiffel Tower in the far background. But look at the warm golden color, the beautiful sky and the reflections in the river. 

Definitely magical.  

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

Inspiration in a Letter

I got a note from my aunt.
I had sent Aunt Esther a copy of my latest book. She has read both of my previous books, and when we talked at the beginning of June, I realized that she hadn't read Trail Mix.

When I told her the book was about two women hiking the Appalachian Trail, her eyes got round behind her glasses.
"Oh, that's my thing!" she said.
So I sent her the book that week, and the following week, I got a note from her, along with a check to repay me for the book.
Aunt Esther will turn 90 this year. She is married to my mother's oldest brother, Uncle Junior, as we call him. Luther is what Aunt Esther calls him. Uncle Junior fought in World War II in Italy.
But it isn't their story of romance during wartime that inspired me in the note this weekend.
Here's what Aunt Esther wrote:
"I let time run out on my DREAM to hike the Trail."
She told me about the times she had walked on snippets of the trail, at the trail head in north Georgia, across the Blue Ridge Highway, at the top of Old Man Mountain in Vermont.
"Last we made it to the beginning of the end (or beginning of the Trail). We hiked to within an hour of the summit the Ranger told us. We came to a boulder too much for us to get over."
I felt Aunt Esther's pain of a dream that slipped away.
"But I have had several hikes on the Trail and wanted so much to do the ENTIRE HIKE."
Daggers, as she let go of her goal.
She told me she enjoyed going on the hike with the women in my book.
Then she shared another aspiration:
"My other dream was to walk the Grand Canyon. But the Old Mother Nature's Clock just went too fast."
Another reminder for me, and for everyone, that time is passing.
We can talk about someday forever, until someday is gone.
"Thank you for sharing a story that took me on my Dream Trip. I pray you will have many more travels to share"
And, there's no time like the present to get started on my dream.
The stars may be aligning to send us on that journey sooner than we'd planned.
Stay tuned!

Anniversary Follow-Up

My week seems to steamroll after Tuesday and I rarely get back to my blog.
Even now, my 8 a.m. class is breathing down my neck, reminding me to get ready, to be "on my game" for that early morning class, and other essays waiting to be graded prod me from the computer file.
But...
I wanted to tell you about a fabulous anniversary.
Earl and I decided not to do chores on Tuesday. We both had the day off. We took our laptops to a coffee shop and wrote, sharing passages with each other.
That evening, we walked to a restaurant and for a drink.

Earl had his usual gin and tonic. This restaurant fills the glass with gin and gives a side bottle of tonic. I tried a new drink, strawberry basil mojito.

Of course, it was yummy because it was sweet and fresh on the warm day.
After our drinks, we moved on to the restaurant where we had reservations. We sat at a table in the back, away from the hubbub of the crowd.
I could tell  you about the goat cheese appetizer or the crab cakes entree, but I'll skip straight to the dessert.
Creme brulee -- 3 kinds.

You might notice that this picture only has two kinds of creme brulee. That's because we'd already dug into the first one. Called a "chocolate flight," it included white chocolate, light chocolate and dark chocolate and each one had a delicious hard crust that we dug through to the thick cream below.
That night, we walked home and collapsed into a good food coma, anticipating 25 more years of marriage.

25 Years Ago Today

Earl and I were married in front of a creek lined with tiger lilies in a holler in Kentucky, technically Daniel Boone National Forest, on paper in my parents' front yard, a blueberry farm. The weather bloomed sunny and warm as I dressed in the loft bedroom with my best friend from high school helping me as my maid of honor.

Here's a photo of our newly ringed fingers on our wedding day.

And here are our much older hands today. The rings are still intact. 

People who say marriage is easy, well good for them. I think marriage is full of ups and downs, some spectacularly joyous moments and some sad moments when you aren't sure this is going to work.
If you keep plugging along each rolls into the next and maybe you'll find yourself married to the same man 25 years later, planning ways to make life even more exciting, liked moving to France.

My hair looks pretty big here, but I clearly adore my groom. 

Still in love 25 years later, with flowers in my hair and a bouquet picked from my yard. 

Dreaming of France -- Hotel Breakfasts

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.

Recently on a France tourism website, I saw advice that visitors should skip the hotel breakfast.
In the small French hotels where we have stayed, I would definitely advise otherwise. Breakfast usually costs 7-8 euros, and it's definitely the right way to start a morning of sightseeing.

Sit down at one of the small rectangular tables and the server is sure to ask what you would like to drink. I always answer cafe au lait or if I'm in Paris, cafe creme. They'll bring a pitcher of coffee along with a small pitcher of steamed milk. 

Ah, see. Already better than getting a cup of coffee in a crowded cafe.

You can mix the coffee and the milk, and it equals a few cups of coffee. 

Earl asks for tea and they bring him a pitcher of tea. 

Next comes the basket of croissants and rolls, along with jam, butter and sometimes cheese.

A croissant each, a roll each and we're prepped for a day enjoying France. 

When we don't eat in the hotel, we often have trouble finding breakfast. We can easily find coffee in a cafe, but if we want a croissant or a pastry, we have to get in line at a bakery. 

Either way, that breakfast ends up costing us more for less food. 

Have you ever had a good breakfast in France? Do you eat in the hotel or find a restaurant?

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

Tuesday Intros -- Bluebonnets for Elly

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Today, I'm featuring a book by a fellow blogger, Bluebonnets for Elly by Sandra Nachlinger. I'm not usually a romance reader, but who can't use a little romance in their lives?
Here's the intro:

If I can just make it to the gate, no one will suspect.Elly pulled the yellow plastic hood over her head and tucked in a stray red curl. Her feet planted on the golf cart's floorboard, she turned the key, shifted the cart into forward, and floored the accelerator. With a look over her shoulder, she sped out of the carport and onto Bluebonnet Lane. 

Sounds like there's more excitement than romance going on here. I'm looking forward to reading it.
The author, Sandra Nachlinger, blogs at Writing With a Texas Twang. This is the first book I've read by her.

I can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France -- Versailles & Fire in Nantes Cathedral

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.
I have edited my original post because of some breaking new from France. Our friends in Nantes watched as the nearby cathedral caught fire and the roof burned off.
You can see the footage here on the BBC.
Or here's a photo capturing the flames:

Our friends' apartment is close by and we have many times posted shots of the cathedral from their windows.

 So sad to see this beautiful and history-filled cathedral in flames.

Back to my regular Dreaming of France post.
Have you visited Versailles?
It's one of those must-see sites in France, but usually it is so crowded that it isn't that enjoyable as seeing outdoor sites.
Here are a couple of interesting shots that Grace took on her recent visit to Versailles.

I love this one. The checkerboard floor leading up to the rounded stairs with the rich green walls. 

Can you imagine the coordination it takes to include the wallpaper, the bedspread, the chairs' upholstery, all in the same fabric?

More coordinated fabrics and some amazingly large paintings.

Can you picture living in one of these rooms? 

I guess most of us will never know.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

Busy Family Gatherings

This week, I had a lovely visit with my parents.
So I haven't blogged all week and I'm way behind on my grading.
Still, it's nice to take a break. To just be in the moment. To laugh and remember. To take some walks. To talk about making jam, but then decide not to.

This is a good picture of us, even though my eyes are closed!

We thought they might not be able to make the trip up from Florida, which is about 1000 miles away, when Dad went into the hospital the week before. He'd been sick and Mom and the doctors thought it was from being on antibiotics which upset his digestive system. They went to the ER, he had some fluids pumped into him and he went back home.
Then that night, as he continued to be sick, he got up to go to the bathroom and nearly passed out. Mom call the ambulance and they took Dad to the hospital. He stayed for four days and in the end they realized that he had salmonella poisoning.
I know how I feel after a stomach virus, so I urged Mom to take Dad home and rest for a few days before they made the drive to Ohio. I looked up airfares and tried to convince them to fly instead.
I wasn't really surprised when I received a text from Mom that said Dad was out of the hospital, and they were driving north.
They didn't even wait a day.
Like independent teenagers, they took no advice from me.
But I was so happy to see them and spend time with them.

My brothers and me

My brother from Texas flew to Ohio so that he could be here for my mother's family reunion. She's the youngest of nine children. Five of them are still alive, with the oldest being 95.

Mom wanted all three of her children at the reunion, so we were.
Mom and Dad were here at my house on Monday when Grace flew home from Europe, so that added to the joy of the week.

Tucker made several visits to eat dinner with us while Mom and Dad were here.

Grace snuggling with her Nena.

Now, I'd better get busy grading papers. It should fill my weekend, with just one brief foray to the Columbus Art's Festival where Grace will be doing a scene with the cast of Hamlet. She plays Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. It's a stretch, but that's why she's expert at makeup.
Happy weekend to everyone.
I'm joining West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs.