Bringing Provence Home

My blog friend Delana (pronounced De-lane-uh) just started a new store that sells rugs, trays, soap dishes and fluted bowls all in gorgeous Provencal fabric.
Yippeeee!
Christmas shopping issues solved. Everyone will be getting something from Provence Rugs for Christmas and anyone shopping for me can just take their pick from this website.
Look at these colors and designs. Look at this one called Eclat d'Orange. Yes, it is a burst of orange. And since I'm American, I can tell you the price is $45 because we don't consider it gauche to talk about prices! The rugs come in lovely colors like sky blue and poppy red and spring green. You'll have to visit the website to see.
The website says the rugs are handmade by French weavers.
And the trays are laminated fabric that you'll recognize because it is a traditional Provencal fabric. Can't you see serving sliced baguette in this fluted bowl? Oh, how about M&Ms then? Or tiny French chocolates - bonbons? The bowls are 6 1/2 inches and cost $13.50.
But now I have too much yellow and orange on the blog, so I'll need to break it up with some blue and green photos from Provence Rugs.
Here's a 9 1/2 by 9 1/2 divided tray. It costs $30.

And here's an assortment of the fabrics from the website:

Make sure you take a look.
Christmas is sneaking up sooner than you realize, and wouldn't it be lovely to walk up to your front door and see a lovely colored rug on one of those dreary February days.
Photos are from the website Provence Rugs. Obviously.

And So It Begins...

Sports practices started officially last week and on Saturday I had my first full day of sporting events.
Spencer had a basketball scrimmage at 10:30

It felt good to be sitting in the gym again, even if only four of us parents showed up to watch our boys. In this photo, Spencer is in the navy shirt with the guy in red pushing him.
Then at 1:30, Tucker had a swim meet.

I sacrificed my afternoon of college football to watch Tucker swim.
But, I need to remember that this is my last year of basketball since Spencer is a senior. And I'll only have two more years of traipsing to swim meets since Tucker is a sophomore.
I vow to not complain, but to enjoy every minute of watching my boys play sports this year.

Saturday Snapshots -- Spices

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

Today I'm taking another picture from Grace's travels. These are from the market in Aix en Provence. Something about these spices just says exotic:

And up close, they just make me want to dig my hands in and watch them pour through my fingers.

Falling Behind

I started the month with the intention of writing 50,000 words toward a new novel as part of NaNoWriMo. I did so well the first five days, writing 1700 words every day and documenting my progress along the side of my blog.
Then came the weekend when I needed to grade essays from four classes. So those took priority. Then when I had finished those by Tuesday, I had a book from the library that was only a two-week loan. I had two days to finish it, and I really liked the quarter of the novel I had read, so that took precedence.
I still have a bit of the novel to finish (it's a day late now but worth the dime)and I have another class of essays to read, but I'm going to hop back on this writing idea and see how much I can catch up in the next few days.
Technically, at 1700 words per day, I should be at 18,700 words by today. Instead, I'm at 8527 words. Just a little over 10,000 to write.
I'm sitting at Caribou Coffee with a skim berry white mocha and they're playing Christmas music.
I can do this.
Hope bout you?
Are you behind on any projects?

Deep Discussions

My class this morning started out with a disturbing topic and ended with an equally disturbing topic. I felt like a real downer.
Although I teach college English, I try to bring up topics in the news to see if any college students are paying attention. This one, they were aware of because it connects to football. Coach Joe Paterno from the neighboring Big Ten college, Penn State, was fired last night.
My 8 a.m. class was divided. Some thought he should have been fired, others thought he had done what he needed to legally. Students at Penn State are definitely thinking he should have gotten a pass.
Here's the thing, an assistant coach from the past has been indicted for sexual abuse on boys. Even though he retired in 1999, he continued to use Penn State facilities for a program to help underage boys. A student assistant report to Paterno that he had seen this assistant coach sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the showers. Paterno reported this incident to his boss then apparently never thought about it again.
I don't know many people who could shrug that off.
I asked my class, "How many of you would do more if you saw a child being sexually assaulted?" They all raised their hands, yet they're giving Coach Paterno a pass for not taking more action.
"Which is more important," I asked, "football or child sexual abuse?"
When framed that way, who would say football?
Coach Paterno left who knows how many boys at risk? How many boys were sexually assaulted because Paterno did not follow up, did not read the riot act to the (alleged) sick pedophile, did not check up on the boy who was lured to the Penn State showers?
That discussion made us all feel a little queasy, but determined to do the right thing. Then we moved on.
Toward the end of class, we began to discuss an essay related to the Columbine shootings. This essay, a speech given in 1999 shortly after the shootings, blames the shooters' actions on living in a soulless suburbs. We watched some videos, sinking deeper into the hopelessness of that day when students hid under desks while two boys slaughtered them with sawed off shotguns and an automatic weapon. Fifteen people died in that school in a suburb of Colorado. No one in my class agreed with the speech that these two boys massacred people because they were raised in a suburb where everything looked alike. The speech blamed the suburb because it is a soulless place without a past or a future.
And I agree that, even though school shootings seem more likely in an affluent suburb or an isolated town, the place is not to blame. Maybe the thing to blame again is the lifestyle that leads us to suburbia.
People who are trying to survive day to day, making sure their family has food and shelter, don't have time to worry about being angry and planning assaults on their fellow classmates or teachers or bosses.
Living a more comfortable lifestyle is a blessing, but new affluent disorders crop up.
The class kind of sat in stunned silence when we got to the end.
"Go out and do something good today," I said.
They laughed and departed.

Up In the Air

At 9:44 p.m. I was driving home from campus when our local NPR station interrupted the BBC with Governor John Kasich. He was conceding that his side had lost on Issue 2.
Yay, I wanted to cheer. He said the other side had run a good fight and he planned to take a breath and think about his options.
He said Issue 2 was about giving local governments tools to cut costs, but apparently, Ohioans did not like the tools he had given him.
I thought about other tools I knew.
Anyway, he sounded a little desperate and reminded me of a recent picture of the cat.
Gov. Kasich is hanging on by his toenails. I can't wait to see if he can do flips in the air too.

Tales from a First Time Voter

Spencer turned 18 at the end of October, so we made sure he registered to vote before the deadline.
I didn't even see Spencer today. I left for work before he got up then I got home from work while he was at basketball practice and left for work again at 5:30 before he came home.
I called him.
"Remember to go vote," I told him.
"Okay," he said. I told him what I considered were the important issues for him to vote on. I wasn't worried about raising the age limit for judges or about the local mayoral race.
We've talked enough in our family about Issue 2, so I thought he knew the issues about collective bargaining and agreed about the need for it. Either way, I was telling him to vote our family party line.
"So no on Issue 2?" he asked.
"Yeah." I told him one of the girls from high school was there helping and he could ask her if he needed help voting for the first time.
I felt bad that I couldn't go with him, but I always took the kids along when they were little, shuffling them inside the booth. One time Tucker even leaned against the green button and finished casting my ballot before I had selected someone in every race.
At 7:13, with the polls getting ready to close, I texted him: "Did u go vote yet?"
He replied, "Yep, 2 and 3 no."
Issue 3 was about healthcare reform and for some reason didn't get much attention here.
"Good job," I texted. "Feel like a grown up?"
He replied, "I feel like an American."

I Voted

Today was voting day. Since it's an odd year, no state or national politicians are on the ballot.
Just some local city council, mayoral and school board member.
Still, the polling places were expected to be busy because Ohio is voting on Issue 2. Issue 2 determines whether the law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor should be overturned. That law takes away unions' rights to collectively bargain. That means workers would not be able to band together and agree together to accept certain wages or vacation time or benefits. That means the firefighters wouldn't be able to negotiate and say they need more firefighters on duty. They'd just have to accept what management gave them.
The people who support Issue 2 say that local governments can save money, but who are they kidding. The local firefighters, teachers, police officers and snow plow drivers are not getting rich.
If Issue 2 remains the law then the average worker has no power against management. The worker can take the deal or quit his job.
Sometimes unions go too far, and everyone can tell a story about a person who didn't have to do any work because the union protected that person's job. Overall, though, unions have protected the working people. They've allowed many of us to move up to a middle class lifestyle that we might not have had.
So I hope tomorrow you'll hear that Issue 2 was defeated and the state workers of Ohio are still allowed to collectively bargain.
There's no excuse if people don't get to the polls. It's gorgeous out there today.

Saturday Snapshot -- Foggy Lake

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
On Saturday mornings, I meet my friends by a lake to run. A few weeks ago, the day was foggy and the lake looked eerie.


When we could see the lake, that is:

Hair Issues

Some of you know that I've given up straightening my hair. It just became too time consuming and it felt as useless as trying to rebuild beaches along the Florida coast that keep getting washed away by the storms and the waves.
So I went back to keeping it curly, but I continued to straighten my bangs. I just couldn't let the bangs go curly again. Maybe it looks weird with straight bangs and the rest of my hair curling crazily. But I didn't realize how weird until I was flipping channels one night and saw the mother from 19 Kids & Counting.
I stopped, shocked. Her hair looked like mine, and I did not like the way it looked one bit.

Her hair looks kind of pentecostal freaky. And I can say that since I was raised in a pentecostal church.
So now what?
Do I return to straightening my hair, which is my preference, or do I just make sure I never flip past the mom in 19 Kids & Counting again.
Nevermind, I can't possibly get that image out of my mind.
I'm going to have to start getting up at 4:30 a.m. to straighten my hair again.

The Color Purple

Purple is the color I look best in. I know this because every time I wear purple, and I mean every time, someone says, "That color looks great on you."
They don't say it when I wear red or pink or coral, other colors that I also think complement my coloring.
On Sunday, I was trying on shirts in the dressing room. I don't know about you, but I don't look in the mirror of the dressing room while I'm trying on the clothes. I wait until I get dressed then take a look. I put on a heather purple shirt with a vneck and some details around the v. I turned toward the mirror and my face seemed lit up. Wow. That color looks great on me, I thought.
I tried the exact same shirt on in a heather red and it didn't do anything for me. So I bought the purple.
Maybe I notice that people say I look good in purple because they don't see me wear it that often.
Now you're thinking, "Wait, if purple looks good on you, why don't you wear it very often?" It's because my mom co-opted the color purple when I was a sophomore in high school.
It seemed a small thing to give up.
When I was a sophomore, I was just coming out of my really bratty middle school phase. I began to enjoy being with my mother again. I'm not sure why I remember this so specifically, but we were walking in the Towne Mall in Middletown, Ohio, and we were probably shopping at Paul Harris. (Does anyone else remember that store?) We also frequented The Limited. And, at one of those places, we bought a wool skirt in three colors of purple, plus a solid purple cotton sweater for me.
My mom loved that outfit, and slowly, purple began to creep into her wardrobe too.
Now, many, many years after my sophomore year of high school, my mom wears purple everyday. Most everything in her closet is purple or goes with purple. She was known as the lady who wears purple long before it became the popular color for retired women to wear.
I never take any purple clothes with me when I go to visit my mom in Florida. If I were to wear purple, her friends would definitely comment on the fact that I'm just like my mother. So I avoid purple most of the time, but sometimes it creeps into my wardrobe, and I don't mind at all when people say I look just like my mother, whether I wear purple or not.

Nanowrimo -- Again

November is National Novel Writing Month aka Nanowrimo
The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month.
I'll be trying to write at least 1700 words per day in a sequel to my previous, as yet unsold novel, The Summer of France.
The working title for this one is Autumn in Aix only because of the alliteration. I'm sure I'll think of a better title later.
If you're doing Nanowrimo this month, make me a buddy. My writing name is PaulitaKincer (original, I know)

Day 1 -- 1782 words

First Paragraph, Teaser Tuesday -- falling together

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.
The new book by Marisa de los Santos came in for me and I'm so happy, even though I have very little time to read. She's one of my favorite authors and has written Love Walked In and Belong to Me. This new one is called falling together. Three college friends parted way six years before but are called back together for a college reunion, and, as the book explains "But instead of a happy reconciliation, what awaits is a collision of past and present"
Here's the first paragraph:

Pen would not use the word summoned when she told Jamie about the e-mail later that night. Additionally, she would not say that the e-mail dropped like a bowling ball into the pit of her stomach, and at the same time fell over her like a shining wave, sending arcs of sea spray up to flash in the sun, even though that is precisely how it felt.

I know what you're thinking: that's a lot of analogies in one paragraph, but I'm going to defend her because I think she is just trying to show the wash of emotion that the main character Pen is feeling.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Augusta was born. I got busy, and also" -- Pen gave a nervous laugh -- "I was on the verge of becoming a stalker. I wanted my daughter to have a mother with a little more dignity than that."

I'm on page 42, and so far, I really enjoy her writing.
What do you think from these little snippets?

Pumpkin Bread

Is there anything better on a crisp day than the first slice of pumpkin bread?
The knife tip pierces the bread and a puff of steam rises up, smelling of moist pumpkins, cinnamon and cloves.
I should wait, but the smell convinces me to grab a piece and put just a dab of butter on it. It melts on contact. I can see the golden raisins all plumped up.
And now I know that the only thing better than the smell of that pumpkin break is the way it melts on my tongue.
Yum.

I hope that your Halloween has some yummy treats in store for you.
The recipe I use is from the Southern Living cookbook.

Moi?

I'm a little self-centered and sometimes I need to be reminded of that. My friend Ruth is only too happy to oblige.
We were talking on the phone recently and I was listing my husband's charity work.
For years now he has been driving about an hour and a half to clear a trail for the Nature Conservancy.
Recently, he has added weekly volunteer work at a child welfare agency that helps underprivileged and developmentally delayed kids. He had to have fingerprinting and background checks twice, recommendations from three people who aren't family and a physical before he was cleared to volunteer there.
Then last week, he announced that on his only day off, he was going to work at Habitat for Humanity.
He took Tucker with him, who seems to be following in his father's volunteering footsteps.
Of course, I think it's great for both of them to help others. I'm proud of them. But their activities make me start taking an account of my own actions.
I organized the refreshments for the school's musical evening. That took at least an hour of emailing. I'm on the board of the swim team and we meet at least once a year along with answering emails and texts from the coach. No, my volunteer hours don't seem to compare.
So I was feeling a little guilty as Earl and Tucker traipsed off on a cold, rainy night to build a house for the poor.
"Do you think he's only doing it to make me feel guilty?" I asked Ruth as we talked on the phone.
"I think," she said, "that it's not about you."
"Oh."
That gave me something to think about.

Saturday Snapshot -- American-sized Donuts

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
For Spencer's birthday this week, I went to the local donut shop before he got out of bed. I bought a dozen donuts, two little cartons of choclate milk and a plain coffee. The total price was more than $23.
"Those are some expensive donuts," I said.
It wasn't until I got them home and put the apple fritter out on the plate that I saw how big they were.

I guess I needed to buy fewer donuts. Still $23 is a lot for a dozen big donuts.

Slacker Parenting

I know what you're going to say, I worry about parenting too much to consider myself a slacker parent. But, the thing is that I spend time thinking of ways that I'm not putting in the effort that I used to.
That's why I was so relieved to see a commercial the other night that said the first five years are the most important. I was a good, engaged parent during my kids' early years.
My kids didn't watch TV. We were outside exploring the natural world. We had in-depth conversations and played make believe. I homeschooled them for nine years, continuing to set the rules and make sure they followed them. When they went to school, that's when I started to slack.
So I was thrilled when I found an article last night that talks about ways to make your child a genius.
I did most of these things. Okay, my kids haven't shown outward signs of being geniuses, but I know they've had the preparation, so they may find a way to be geniuses in their own fields.
One way to make a genius, don't let them have a television in their rooms and don't let them watch too much television. "59 percent of under-twos watch two hours of TV every day." See, I can feel slightly smug. They may watch a ton of television now, but they didn't when they were young.
Next thing I did right to make a genius, breastfed babies score 5 percent higher than non-breastfed. I think it has been established that I might still be breastfeeding my children had my friend Michelle not forced me to go to Paris for 10 days when Tucker was 3.

The next sign is playing the piano or a stringed instrument. Both of my boys played violin and Grace played piano. I'm just whizzing along on this. I'd better check my kids' test scores. They should be much higher.
I'm not sure about whether my kids are able to delay gratification, which is the next sign. They tested kids by giving them a cookie and telling them if they waited 15 minutes to eat it, they could have two. I know Grace would have passed this one, because she used to eat a bit of a candy bar and save the rest for later. I wondered if she might have been switched at the hospital.
Children raised in a home with more than 500 books are 36 percent more likely to graduate high school and 19 percent more likely to graduate from college. (But less likely to have the money for college tuition because their parents spent all the money on books!) Okay, check on that one.
Women who used cocaine don't get geniuses, and I did not, once again saving my children from a life of mediocrity. Overweight children score lower on reading and I pretty much had stick children.
"Aerobic exercise increase executive functioning by 100 percent!" Give my swimmers and basketball player and soccer players a corner office then. We were constantly running and jumping and playing.
Children who attend preschool are more likely to graduate high school. Two of my kids went to preschool. Spencer hated it and by the time I got to Tucker, we were homeschooling so he never went. Hope he stays in high school in spite of my choice not to send him to preschool.
I also messed up in picking an older father for my kids. Children born to 20-year-old fathers have higher IQs that children of 40 year olds. Sorry guys, but your dad has made up for it in other ways.
Juggling apparently increases brain capacity too and I never enforced that particular trait.
Children in poorer families have fewer conversations and hear fewer words than children of professional families. I don't think my children ever suffered from a lack of conversation. They might think I went overboard on that.

Kids who studied foreign languages do better on the SAT. I started teaching my kids French when they were little and they have all studied languages in school, so we're good in that category.
Students who spend more than two hours a day on computers or video games score lower on tests. I think I've already established that I limited their screen time, although their tests scores may be lower now because of it. We didn't even have a game system until Spencer was in 8th grade.
Children whose mother were exposed to pesticides had lower IQs. That's something I managed to avoid too.
So many of the signs of genius are planted in my children. Now I just have to sit back and wait for the seeds to grow. That, and try to keep them out of teenage trouble.
How about you? Did you raise a genius?

The Joys of Adulthood

Yesterday, as we sat waiting for the doctor so Spencer could have his yearly physical, we realized the walls in the office were rather thin. We could hear our doctor discussing a girl's ADD through the walls and her need to become physically active.
Embarrassed to overhear, Spencer and I decided to have a conversation. Spence lounged on the plastic doctor's table, the white paper covering it crinkled when he moved. "So what can I do when I'm 18 that I can't do at 17?"
He turns 18 soon.
"Well, you can vote," I said, excited that we've already registered him and he gets to vote in the November election.
"You could get a tattoo," I said, knowing he hasn't expressed an interest in tattoos thus far.
"You get to come to the doctor by yourself," I said. "Oh, and you have to register so you can be drafted if the United States ever starts drafting men again."
Hmmm. None of these options seemed to be thrilling him as the bottom half of his legs hung off the table, his clunky black shoes resting on the step he'd pulled out.
Still waiting for the doctor, I texted our friend Bethany who turned 18 about six months ago and was determined to make the most of her new adulthood. Bethany is now in Los Angeles modeling.

Here's a test shot of her by Lotus Josephine.
I remember that Bethany went to buy a lottery ticket on her 18th birthday. I wondered what else she'd gotten up to. So I asked.
"What can Spencer do when he's 18 that he can't do now?"
Then I waited for her response.
"Cigarettes and porn," she replied.
Actually, she texted "Cigarettes and pron" but then followed it up with a correction, "porn."
Great. My 18-year-old can buy cigarettes, porn, get a tattoo and seek medical advice without me.
I'm hoping he decides to ignore his 18th birthday and look ahead to his 21st.

The Problem with Headlamps

Now this may not be a problem that everyone has to deal with, but I'm probably starting a petition and I expect all of you to sign in support of me.
Headlamps are a problem for runners -- not the runners who have them but the runners who don't.
We run at 6 a.m. on Saturdays and most of the year it is fairly dark.
The trail meanders along the Scioto River, but roads are nearby and street lamps or porch lights provide peripheral light. Then don't forget the ghostly moon and the sparkling stars. We can usually see the dark strip of asphalt in front of us well enough.
Until a runner comes along with a headlamp.
I'm sure you've all seen them, those obnoxious lights that glare out of people's heads like a cyclops eye. The problems are two-fold: Number one if I'm running toward someone with a headlamp, I'm blinded.. I can't see a thing. The runner could be a Mack truck coming toward me. I think the headlamp would be a great idea for someone lurking waiting to abduct someone because it would blind the person being abducted.
The second problem is that the bright light lingers after the headlamp wearer has passed on. My eyes need to adjust again to the dark as I search out the trial, which was perfectly visible before I was blinded by the headlamp wearer.
My friend Pam was the first one to complain about the headlamp wearers.
We tried shunning them, refusing to say hello to headlamp wearers when we ran. We'd even look away to try to save our vision.
Then Saturday, in the dark and the swirling fog, Pam showed up wearing a headlamp.
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," she said.
So we ran a bit with the headlamp like a spotlight in front of us.
I decided that whoever had a story to tell should run in front in the spotlight, but that took too much effort.
Then I tried jumping into the spotlight and singing:

"Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade"

But it's surprising how much breath it takes to sing and run at the same time.
Then Naj suggested Pam turn off the light. So she did. And we could see fine.
We ran the rest of the way complaining about those people with their headlamps.

Why Saturday Was a Good Day

Not to discount the 10 miles we ran in the fog on Saturday morning, but the day took a turn for the fabulous around 11:45 when I sat down at a quasi-French restaurant with my husband.

He got the bread; I got the mimosa.
Then we ordered just an appetizer, but, oh, what an appetizer.


Brie fondue with apples, broccoli, carrots and chunks of hard bread to dip. My favorites are the apples. Or maybe the broccoli.
I scraped the bottom of the crock and blew out the little candle so it didn't char the remnants of cheese.
We've tried to make brie fondue at home but it is never as good as the fondue at Bon Vie. (Yes, the French teacher rails at the name. Couldn't they have spelled it Bonne Vie?)
I finished with a tiny cup of espresso then walked outside to this sparkling day where the fog had blown away.

It looks fake, as these "hometown" mall developments are supposed to. Rather Disneyesque, but sometimes it's okay to suspend belief, to enjoy a brie fondue and mimosa, and make believe I'm not in central Ohio.