Saturday Snapshot -- Pets

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.
Most weeks, my husband and I are home with our 16-year-old son while the other kids are at college. Sixteen can be a hard age for talking, but the one bridge I've found between adolescent and parent is the cats. Even on his most sullen days, he's willing to admire the cuteness of a cat or laugh at clumsy antics.

Last night, my daughter came into my bedroom to say good night once she came home from her evening activities. She promptly scooped up both cats that lay at the foot of my bed. A few minutes later, my 16-year-old came in to kiss me good night.
"Got any cats?" he asked in the darkness before he left the room.
I told him his sister had snatched the cats before he returned. He can rest assured that next week the cats will be all his again with the other kids back at school. And that left me wondering if the kids come in at night to reassure me they're home or whether they're only in search of their favorite things in the house -- our pets.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend (if you're in the U.S) or a great middle of November if you're in another part of the world.

Do You Remember Your FIrst Time?

Do you remember your first time?
Not that time.
I'm talking about the moment that you realized you don't have to sit and be berated by someone. I have this theory that as an adult, I shouldn't be yelled at. Unless, I'm about to step in front of a bus, DON'T YELL AT ME.
I'm good with the cheering for football teams and screaming "Go" at swim meets, but I can think of very few times when I should have to sit and take it while someone yells at me. I think as children we grow up knowing everyone else has authority. We sit compliantly while parents or teachers or coaches or principals list our shortcomings in very loud voices.
I was in my 20s and had finished grad school when I realized that I could get up and leave as an ex-boyfriend pounded on his steering wheel explaining why I was wrong.
I can picture the scene. It was the week after Thanksgiving and I had flown from my new job in Florida to Baltimore to be with a sometime boyfriend. The problem was, I had started seeing a new guy while I was in Florida, so I was pretty ambivalent about seeing this guy. I'd already purchased the plane tickets and I wondered whether I should give this older guy in Baltimore a chance.
I explained to him ahead of time that I was conflicted and he uged me to come. "We'll just have fun!" he promised. But things became uncomfortable quickly. On the second day, I asked him to drive me to my friend's house in nearby Maryland.
We pulled up outside her apartment and I could see the vertical blinds in front of the sliding glass doors as we sat in the car. The ex-boyfriend began to get upset, his voice rising as he explained why I couldn't do this, how wrong I was.
Looking back, I, of course, had made some mistakes. I should have cancelled my trip, but that didn't give him the right to yell at me.
And as I fought off tears, he pounded on the steering wheel for emphasis, and I felt my hand close around the door handle. I pulled it open and grabbed my suitcase.
I walked away.
"You can't just walk away," he yelled.
But I could and I did.
I can still remember that feeling, that realization that I didn't have to sit and take the yelling. Such freedom!
Even now I can breathe deeply and imagine a weight rising from my chest.
The ex-boyfriend later wrote a letter apologizing and we did meet up again, parting on better terms.
I wonder if this is something all women figure out or if there are women who still feel like they deserve the yelling, the list of shortcomings, the abuse.
Whether male or female, I don't have to take it, and on the few times I have to exert my rights to walk away, I recall that first time.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- What the Dog Ate

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.

On my Kindle app, I'm reading What the Dog Ate by Jackie Bouchard. The main character, Maggie, after working her marriage into an early grave, quits her high-paying job and decides to pull her life together using her dog Kona as inspiration -- a kind of what would Kona do thing. Here's the intro:

The vet handed Maggie Baxter a plastic specimen bag containing a pair of size-tiny, lavender thong panties extracted from her dog; but they were not hers. Or rather, they were hers now since she'd just paid $734 to have Dr. Carter surgically remove them from Kona's gut.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 36:

She grabbed the bottle of silver tequila they'd bought on their anniversary trip to Cancun two years ago. It was almost empty. She yanked the cork out with her teeth, and looked down at Kona. His ears stuck out in what Dave had always called his "bat-wing look;" his I-just-got-up-and-can't do-a-thing-with-my-ears look.
 

I'm enjoying this book. The character feels very real and the dog is adorable.

Dreaming of France -- Musee d'Orsay

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to my 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.
You aren't supposed to take pictures inside the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. It was a gorgeous train station that now houses many Impressionist paintings.
Here's a shot from the top balcony across the length of the museum.

 And then by turning around and taking a picture from inside the clock, here's a shot of the Seine and all of Paris with a faraway look at Sacre Coeur up on the hill. I liked the clock in part of the foreground.

Playground

I love taking care of our niece's little girls, but as I stand here at the park watching Caroline go down the slide for the 100th time, I can't help but think how mind-numbingly boring it is to take care of little kids.

I guess I had too few brain cells to notice how bored I was when my kids were little.

Saturday Snapshot -- Lions of Munich

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.
I'm so excited about my two kids in college coming home this week for Thanksgiving, that I decided to run a picturre from the past.
Here are my kids ages 14, 12 and 10 on our European vacation (yes, it was very Chevy Chase) with one of the lions of Munich. I don't know if they still have them, but they had lions dressed in very designs in front of businesses.

The kids don't look like that, but you gotta love the swagger and confidence they were feeling her.

Temptation

Oh, Trader Joe's, why do you tempt me?
I bought this bottle of wine just because of the bottle shape and the lovely golden color.

 

When Tucker walked in from school, he was immediately drawn to the bottle too. "What is this?" he asked.

"Wine,"I said.

"Can I open it?" he asked. Of course, he's too young to drink, but he said he didn't want to taste it, he was just drawn to open it.

There's something definitely alluring about this bottle and the color.

I let him open it and as the cork slipped out it popped. The moscato d'asti apparently has bubbles!

I poured a little bit in a glass to taste it and sealed it. I hope it's still good when Earl gets home tonight. I'd hate to have to drink it all alone. 

As if the tempting wine was not enough, around the next corner at  Trader Joe's, I found these holiday favorites: shortbread cookies covered with chocolate.

Hurry home college kids before I eat them all.

I Love France -- Ice Cream Sundaes

This week, I'm participating in the I Love France meme that is sponsored by Words and Peace.
Because I'm hungry, since my friend Sheila convinced me to start keeping track of my calories on an App, I'm sharing with you a picture of me eating an ice cream sundae in France.
Nobody does ice cream sundaes like the French. It's not just a sundae; it's a production.

The glass is a tall parfait glass with carefully placed layers of ice cream and chocolate. No one asks if you'd like whipped cream, they just give it to you. And they include a wedge of wafer sticking out from the top.
I guess that's the thing about the French; they know how to do food. One of the many (main) reasons we love them.
This photo was taken in Aix end Provence about 10 years ago.

Bringing Provence Home

Some of you may recall last fall when blogger friend Delana at du Jour  and her partner Libby Wilkie at An Eye for Detail began their business Provence Rugs -- imported sunshine from the South of France is her tag line.
And I was lucky enough to win one of their fabulous rugs, which the cat then promptly claimed.


This is a photo from Provence Rugs, not mine, which the cat has staked out as his
 own, lying in front of the full glass screen door to have his own Provence dreams.

This year, Provence Rugs has added placemats and napkins in the most...well, how can I describe it, but the most south of France mode. The colors, the patterns, they all say Provence, sunshine, lavender, olive trees, sunflowers, the buzz of cicadas.

Here's one of Provence Rugs' photos to illustrate:

I think I might have to become one of those mix and match kind of people so that I can use all of these.

Delana is also making the sacrifice to visit the French flea markets, known as the brocante, to find vintage hand towels and linens which Provence Rugs is selling. 

I suppose that filling our homes with linens and rugs from Provence is the next best thing to living there. 

Although Delana lives in Aix en Provence, Libby handles things on this of the ocean so the linens are shipped from within the U.S. and  they'll be to your home in a jiffy. Probably in time for Thanksgiving if you order fast. Here's the website again:
Provence Rugs.

First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser -- Peaches for Frather Francis

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.
This week, I'm reading Peaches for Father Francis by Joanne Harris. Many of you remember her from the book and movie Chocolat. This book is about the same characters and is getting good reviews from lots of my blogging friends. So far I'm loving it.
Here's the intro:

Someone once told me that, in France alone, a quarter of a million letters are delivered every year to the dead. What she didn't tell is that sometimes the dead write back.

And that is the entire first chapter.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 84:

The cards are bad. I should put them away, I know. What am I doing here, anyhow? I almost wish I had never opened Armande's letter; that Roux had never delivered it; that he had thrown it into the Seine.

What do you think?

Dreaming of France -- Mont St. Michel

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to my 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.
Here's another photo from my daughter's trip to France last year.
She was visiting Mont St. Michel when a plane flew over and she captured it in sepia tones.

I like to imagine that's me in the plane flying over to visit France.
She took another great shot of Mont St. Michel too. What an amazing fortress. I'd love to go back.

Saturday Snapshot -- Hanging On

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.
The time change last week messed up everyone's schedule, even the morning glories.
These morning glories took over the strawberry patch after the strawberries ripened early. Some of them are still blooming, but I found these blooming in the evening.

Writing

On November 1st, I started NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. I planned to continue with a memoir that I'd began called An American Nanny in France, and the first day, I did. Then I seemed to lose enthusiasm for the topic, or truthfully, another story was banging inside my head trying to get out.
That's how I created Maeve, a slightly agoraphobic 34-year-old who decides to change her life with feng shui. So far, I'm having fun.
My favorite part of the story so far is the title: A Charm of Finches.
The title is related to a flock of birds that flies overhead when she is playing with her friends as a child. She learns that a bunch of finches is called "a charm."
I'm running a little behind with my writing if I want 50,000 words by the end of the month. I've written just over 9000 words on today, Nov. 9, which, according to NaNoWriMo's calculator, means I'd need to write 1862 words per days for the rest of the month to succeed.
Some days I'll write more; other days I'll write less, but between it all, I have lots of papers to grade. Either way, I'll have more written than I would have if I hadn't tried it.
Wish me luck.

Little Princesses

This afternoon, Earl's niece called and asked whether I felt like entertaining her three-year-old daughter Caroline. I don't teach on Wednesdays so I went to the new house they've purchased about five minutes away.
The house is empty with freshly refinished floors and patched walls waiting for new paint colors.
Caroline and I stopped at Half-Price books. Caroline has a new thing about the color pink and wearing dresses. She loves both of them. It's a surprise because she seemed like such a practical little girl. In the book store, Caroline headed straight for the princess books and was momentarily distracted by a Hello Kitty purse.
When we got back to our house, I went to the basement and dug out some old VCR tapes. Caroline wanted The Little Mermaid, but I couldn't find it any where. I did find Cinderella. I turned it on and Caroline was engrossed.
Toward the end of the movie, Caroline declared that she needed a dress to wear. The Snow White costume I made when was Grace was 2 was hanging in the basement, so I got it and she slipped it on.
"Now I need a crown," she declared. I searched Grace's room, but apparently she took her tiara with her to college. So I cut out a cardboard crown (think Burger King crown) and covered it in aluminum foil.
I tried to get a good photo of her, but whichever direction I turned in, the sun was shining through the windows flooding it in backlighting. So I went for a cute expression.

It seems like just a minute ago that Grace was wearing this dress and now she's in college.

I forgot that I had this picture of Grace wearing the dress. So here she is.

 

First Chapter, Tuesday Teaser -- The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D

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.

Here's the introduction from a novel by Nichole Bernier called The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. about Kate who inherits the journals of her friend Elizabeth who died and learns that her life was different than it seemed.

The George Washington Bridge has never been anything but strong and beautiful, its arches monumental, cables thin and high. Kate watched them spindling like ribs past the car window as her husband drove eastbound across the span. It was a testimony to optimism, a suspension bridge, each far-fetched plate, truss, and girder an act of faith against gravity and good sense.

The intro gives a sense of the writing, but I still have no idea what this book is about. I'm guessing it's not about bridges.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 61:

That's what it always came down to in the end. The single greatest point of interest about a woman's thirty-eight years was not what she had done, but what she hadn't told anyone she'd done.

Would you keep reading?

Dreaming of France -- The Atlantique

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to my 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.
When we visited friends in Nantes, they took us to the Atlantic for a walk along the cliffs. The sky and sea were incredible. It definitely didn't seem like the same sea I swim in in Florida.

My husband, always pushing the boundaries and peering over the edge. Remember in France there aren't railings or warnings. They figure people are smart enough to not fall over a cliff.

Saturday Snapshot -- New View

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.
My parents live in Florida, and last week they moved to a new house on a golf course. My husband drove down to help them move and to bring back some of their extra furniture for us. (I know, we're much too old for hand-me-down furniture, but with the kids in college, that was the only way we were going to get new furniture.)
In addition to being on the golf course, the house overlooks a lake. Here are a couple of pictures showing their new view from their house.

 

This is a sunset over the lake. It looks so swampy and Florida, doesn't it?

 

And here's another shot that Earl took.

 

It's the moon reflecting in the lake. But I could say it's a flying saucer moving in to land. Since it's so dark, we can  use our imaginations.

A Month of Intense Writing

This November I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo again.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it rolls around every November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month.
I'm cheating a little bit because I'm writing a memoir rather than a novel. But I don't know of a website called NaMeWriMo, which would be National Memoir Writing Month.
 I'm returning to the story I started this summer about my experience as a nanny in France. The very original title is An American Nanny in France. I had about 24,000 words written this fall before I got caught up in trying to market my novel The Summer of France. So I haven't worked on my memoir for over a month.
If I complete 50,000 words in November and add that to my 24,000  words, I'll be nearly at the length of a book. I usually aim for around 80,000 to 90,000 words.
So in just one short month, I can have the basics done.
That's when the hard work begins as I gather all those words I've written and shape them into something that carries readers along with me as I take care of two little girls in Corsica, Bourges and Paris, France.  There's also a crush on a French doctor, sailing lessons in the Mediterranean, and an Argentine sailor.
If you're doing NaNoWriMo, let me know and I'd love to be your Writing Buddy.

Tuesday Teaser -- The Pretend Wife

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.
This week I picked up The Pretend Wife by Bridget Asher. I can't remember why I was drawn to this book, but the book jacket says it's about imagining life with the one who got away. What if you had married someone else? How different would your life be? Here's the intro:

That summer when I first became Elliot Hull's pretend wife, I understood only vaguely that complicated things often prefer to masquerade as simple things at first. This is why they're so hard to avoid, or at least brace for. I should have know this -- it was built into my childhood. But I didn't see the complications of Elliot Hull coming, perhaps because I didn't want to. So I didn't avoid them or even brace for them, and as a result, I eventually found myself in winter watching two grown men -- my pretend husband and my real husband -- wrestle on a front lawn amid a spray of golf clubs in the snow -- such a blur of motion in the dim porch light that I couldn't distinguish one man from the other. This would become one of the most vaudevillian and poignant moments of my life, when things took the sharpest turn in a long and twisted line of smaller, seemingly simple turns.

 

This intro doesn't thrill me. I think I'm not drawn to introductions that summarize the story. I like to be pulled into the story instead.

 

 Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 59:

But then Helen spoke up kind of slyly. "You need a pretend wife," she said, "for your mother's sake. It would be very gallant." She turned to me. "Gwen, you should be Elliot's pretend wife."

 

Hope you all have some books that I'm interested in.



Dreaming of France -- Spectacular Landscape

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to my 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.
I haven't been to France for two years, since celebrating my 20th anniversary there in 2010.
But my 19-year-old daughter went last fall and stayed with a family who had a vacation house in the Alps. This is a photo she took while staying there near Briancon. I love the light and the clouds.

I can't wait to see what the rest of you are featuring to make me even more "homesick" for France.