Dreaming of France -- New Website

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
It's hard for me to separate my writing life and my love for France, especially since three out of my four books are set in France.
So with that tenuous connection, I'll share with you my new website.

I worked with Freelancer.com and got a helpful young man from Pakistan to build my website.
As you can see from the top right,  it has buttons to connect to me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
The bottom of the page features my books and even has some of my book trailers on the main page.

You can learn more about my books by clicking on the "Books" page , and there are even a few pictures of France sprinkled on the FAQ page. 

I hope you'll visit my knew website and let me know what you think. 

Thanks for playing along and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Birthday Celebrations

This has been a  super busy week for me because I'm teaching online-only classes for one university starting next week, so I had to complete three weeks of online training, along with grading 60 papers from the other college where I teach, plus the actual teaching.
The end of the training is in sight though, and I'll be able to teach online no matter where I live (think France).
Now that I have a few minutes of down time, I wanted to tell you about my birthday extravaganza.
It started Thursday morning with a marvelous 5-mile run in the 54-degree weather. That is the warmest it has ever been on my birthday when I lived in Ohio.

I'm a blur because I took this picture as I was running. 

 When I got home from my run, my dutiful husband was in the kitchen putting an egg wash on the chocolate croissants before he slid them in the oven.

So after my shower, I got to enjoy a chocolate croissant. Then we drove through Starbucks on the way to work for a free birthday drink. I got my favorite, a white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso -- all decaf, since I've been off caffeine for years now, ever since 2012 when I broke my nose and had caffeine withdrawal before my surgery. But that's another story you can read here if you want. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach from 8-2 with 10 minute breaks between each of my four classes. So things were pretty normal without any birthday fun. Only one class knew that it was my birthday and they urged me to cut class short so I could celebrate.
After I got home from work, I changed into my spring-time sandals. So pleased to be able to share the pedicure that my husband had given me for Valentine's Day.

I went to the coffee shop for our Writers' Group and found a beautiful of pink gerbera daisies and a birthday card signed by the baristas plus my fellow writers.
Another writing friend came in with a balloon that says "Proud of You." He loved that it was so random.
Then two other friends came bearing gifts -- Angie brought me power greens because she doesn't like them. Emily stopped by with her two-year-old and gave me a quart of blueberries. I used them both to make juice the next morning.
Then, as the rain began to pour, my husband showed up to escort me to dinner. We were going to a restaurant just down the street from the coffee shop. All three kids showed up, although Tucker had to leave early for a game in his soccer league, and Spencer got there late because he was working.
There is just something satisfying about gathering all my children together.

We had a starter of goat cheese with tomato aioli and toast triangles. Then I had crab cakes for my main course.
We came home afterward to a luscious-looking cake that my husband made. This was my favorite cake as a child, and each year Earl tries to recreate it. The icing is boiled and can be so tricky to make. It has to be boiled to the exact temperature and then beaten until it loses its sheen.
This year, it turned out perfectly so that it hardened on the cake like a fudge shell.

We also opened a bottle of dessert wine to drink with the cake. 
Yes, the wine came from France and is one of the few remaining bottles we have from our trips. I guess we'll stock up again in May when we travel to southwest France again.
Grace's boyfriend Jack was able to join us after his play rehearsal, so even though we lost Tucker to soccer, we gained another dark-haired boy for the celebration.
I went to bed full and happy, but the festivities continued the next morning with a facial, which was my birthday present.
The esthetician, who has been giving me a facial once a year, went on an on about how good my skin felt. She suspected it might have been the juice cleanse which made it so healthy. "It even looks good under the magnifying lamp and that's saying something!"
But I focused on the relaxation of the facial and felt totally relaxed when I walked out.
Ahhh. I love birthdays, even if this is the last one I'll celebrate in the U.S. It definitely lived up to my expectations.

Dreaming of France -- Healthy Food

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
This week, because of some borderline medical test results (nothing serious), we have started getting serious about eating healthier.
If we already lived in France, we'd be eating healthier, so we might as well get a jump on it. But I expect it to be a bit more challenging here in the U.S.
In France, we'll visit the market a few times a week and buy whatever is fresh.

Do you think these oranges came from Spain?

These potatoes and peppers look firm and fresh.
We're trying to eat more whole foods, cutting down on carbs and sugars.
Salad seems to always be a part of a French meal, traditionally after the main course, although some restaurants have begun to serve them before the main course, more American style.

That's not to say that we will only eat fruits and vegetables. We'll definitely indulge in French specialties, such as these galettes served with hard cider.

Galettes are similar to crepes but they are made with buckwheat rather than white flour, and they are savory instead of sweet. These galettes might have been filled with cheese, ham, potatoes, eggs or a variety of other fillings. 

I hope I've convinced you to start thinking about more whole foods, as my family embarks on healthier meals. Tonight, we had garlic butter haddock filets, baked sweet potatoes and green beans. 

Thanks for playing along and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Tuesday Intro -- Letters from Paris

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.
I wrote about this book Letters from Paris by Juliet Blackwell for Dreaming of France on Monday, so I thought I'd share the intro today. The book goes back and forth in time from Claire Broussard who grew up in Louisiana and travels to Paris after the death of her grandmother who raised her. She's

trying to track down the artists who make masks like the one she found in her attic as a child, and the mask might be connected to her own history. The book jumps back in time to 1897 to tell the story of Sabine, a young French woman who travels to Paris in hopes of finding work.

Here's the intro from the prologue:

February 27, 1898
He sleeps.
Sabine creeps across the dark studio before dawn, beseeching the silent faces not to betray her. They watch her every move, mute witnesses to her crime.
Slipping through the door, she winces at the scraping sound of metal on metal as she pauses to latch it behind her. Fog envelops her,, the mist cutting through her threadbare blouse and underthings, wet needles of cold air piercing her skin. 

  I'm also joining in with Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly bookish meme, hosted Ambrosia @The Purple Booker.
Here's my teaser from page 65:

Claire's stomach growled again. And knock her over with a feather: there was a McDonald's. Right there on the Champs-Elysees.
If that wasn't a sign, she didn't know what was. Claire ducked into the fast-food restaurant. 

I don't know about you, but I'm a little put off by an American who eats at McDonalds when in France. We did it when we traveled with the kids, but I would have to be super homesick pass up French restaurants and cafes to eat at McDonalds.

Here are the kids outside a McDonalds as we drove through France. 

Hope everyone is reading something good.

Female Friends and Dieting

What is it about telling a female friend that you are dieting that makes her urge you to stop?
My friend Sheila says maybe we're only trying to help each other increase our self-esteem -- "You look great!" "You don't need to lose weight!" or even "Diets don't work."
We all do it.
I don't enjoy dieting, but a look at the scale reminds me that I weigh about 30 pounds more than I did when we moved to Columbus.

I was even heavier here when we traveled to France in 2015.
I don't want to avoid cameras or dislike my photos in France
because of my weight. 

I weigh almost as much now as I did when I gave birth to my youngest, and he's the one I gained the most weight with.
Yes, I know that muscle weighs more than fat and that I work out constantly so I am probably healthy, but what is wrong with wanting to be at a lower weight?
I'm not trying to lose 30 pounds. People say that would be too skinny, but if you look at me when I was that weight, you wouldn't think I was anorexic.

See? Healthy. Not too skinny. But also young. I'm not trying
to get to that weight. Just less than I am now. 

I look good, healthy -- although at the time, I never realized it.

I just want to lose about 10 pounds.
If I lose 4 pounds from where I am now -- mid diet -- I'll officially not be overweight anymore. That means I'll reach the top end of the BMI which means between 21-25 BMI. Again, I know that muscle might throw off the official BMI reading, but if you looked at the places I carry fat, you really can't argue that I could lose those pounds and it wouldn't hurt. It might make me feel better, run faster, feel sexy about my body.
I promise I'm not in danger of becoming anorexic, and I'm not judging anyone else who is happy with their body. Good for you. I hope to join you on that platform once I reach my goal.

Dreaming of France -- Letters From Paris

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

I started reading Letters from Paris by Juliet Blackwell. I'm not sure where it's going yet, but it features Claire Broussard who grew up in Louisiana and travels to Paris after the death of her grandmother who raised her. She's trying to track down the artists who make masks like the one she
found in her attic as a child, and the mask might be connected to her own history, as the book jumps back in time to 1897 to tell the story of a young French woman who travels to Paris in hopes of finding work.

Hope I enjoy it and feel fully immersed in Paris.
Have you read a good book set in France that you would recommend?
Thanks for playing along and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Signs of Spring

I know I should be worried about global warming rather than rejoicing in the unseasonably warm weather, but I can't help feeling a little thrill when I see those green shoots breaking through the dirt.

It's only February, but soft pussy willow buds hang at the end of tree limbs and birds chirp from bare branches.

These are hollyhocks already sprouting. 

The temperature today rose into the 60s. And, although it looks to dip down into the 30s in the coming week, predictions are for 60s again next weekend.

This is an iris that has already faced some winter weather

And I'm not the only one enjoying the warm weather.

He wouldn't lie still but kept rolling around, so he looks slightly evil. 

Two Embarrassing Moments with Juicing

I started a juice cleanse yesterday -- time to throw off the lethargic feeling that catches up with me in winter.
In the afternoon, I made a juice with beets and apples and carrots plus strawberries.
Beet juice is the worst for staining everything!
Afterwards, I decided to walk to the grocery store because the temperature was near 60 degrees and the sun was shining. I started off, it's about a mile away, and I noticed red stains on the cuffs of my tan sweater. I just folded them over and kept going.
When I got home, I went to the laundry room and took off my sweater to put stain remover on it. That's when I saw the huge red stain on the back of my sweater. Somehow, I managed to get beet juice on my back and walk around town, along with through the grocery store, parading it.
I felt like Terry Bradshaw in that Super Bowl ad, only he meant to have a stain and got paid big bucks for it.

Today, I teach from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I brought along some of the infamous beet juice. I have to be careful drinking it because it also stains my lips and outside my lip line, looking like I drunkenly applied lipstick. So I'm very careful to wipe the corners of my mouth when I'm drinking it.
I only have 10 minutes between four classes, so I rarely have time to stop in the bathroom. Today, one class finished early and I rushed into the bathroom.
As I was washing my hands, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and saw that I had a bright red dot of beet juice on my nose.
Seriously? I just met with each student individually and I had beet juice on my nose.
I'm still drinking it, but I'd better up my personal cleanliness bar.
Hope you are avoiding embarrassing moments, unlike me.

Dreaming of France -- Football

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Here in the U.S., we are all gathering around our televisions to celebrate American football with the Super Bowl, so I thought I'd show you our experience with European football.
When we traveled to Europe in 2006, the boys loved our hotel room view in Bandol -- not because we could see the Mediterranean but because we overlooked a large soccer field. Soccer to us, football to Europeans.
At the time, Spencer was more into soccer than Tucker, but he convinced his brother to join him.

Tucker is wearing the Beckham shirt

Spencer is wearing the Inter Milan soccer shirt. 

And the boys eventually made friends with some French boys who played soccer with them.
This was the kind of international experience we wanted them to have.

They couldn't actually speak to each other, but they managed to play some Football until some grown up yelled at them to get off the field. 

I hope everyone else has a sportif weekend, whether you're watching the Super Bowl or not.
Thanks for playing along and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Tuesday Intro -- The Flower Arrangement

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.
I've already finished The Flower Arrangement by Ella Griffin, but really enjoyed it so wanted to share with the rest of you. Here's the intro:

Dublin was deserted at 7 a.m. on Saturday except for a pair of die-hard Friday-night clubbers kissing in the doorway of the antique shop at the corner of Pleasant Street. Three purposeful seagulls flew along the curving line of Camden Street, then took a sharp right along Montague Lane. Gray clouds were banked above the rooftops but the heavy rain had thinned out to a fine drizzle, and a slant of weak sunshine cut through the gloom and lit a shining path along the drenched pavement ahead of Laura. She stepped into it, luxuriating in the faint prickle of heat on the back of her neck. 

 I'm also joining in with Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly bookish meme, hosted Ambrosia @The Purple Booker.
Here's my teaser from page 97:
Tall and slight and graceful, with a yoga body and black hair with glints of silver shot through it. She looks like a woman from a W. B. Yeats' poem, beautiful and sad.

This sweet novel set in Ireland focuses on Laura who turned to running a flower shop, Blossom & Grow, after her baby died.She throws herself into making people happy through flowers. She finally decides she is ready to try for a baby again, when she learns her husband is no longer committed to the relationship. Laura is supported by her brother and a cast of characters whose stories interweave with her own as they find love and disappointment. It reminds me a bit of Love Actually, except it isn't Christmas and it isn't London. The descriptions of the glorious flowers and the insight into the depth of each character really transported me. I liked it a lot. 4.5 stars.

Dreaming of France -- Hope

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

I'll keep it brief tonight as turmoil still reigns in my heart, but that doesn't prevent me from dreaming of France.
On the first trip that Earl and I took together to France, we stayed overnight in Chamonix in the French Alps. When we woke up the next morning, it had snowed and these tulips had snowflakes clinging to them.

So, I have hope that spring will come and that things will improve. 

How bout you? Are you dreaming of France?

Thanks for playing along and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Do Anything

Am I alone in feeling this turmoil?
The unease bubbles up in my stomach,  leaving me slightly nauseated as I hear the stories about the "Muslim ban" on people from specific countries.
During each class I teach, I look students in the eye who come from those countries, especially Somalia because Columbus has become a haven for Somali refugees. They are no different from my own children -- fighting with their parents, working to buy cars, waiting to write their essays until the last minute.
The new president signed an executive order yesterday that bans all refugees for 120 days and Syrian refugees indefinitely. "Additionally, it bans the citizens of seven countries—Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen—from entering the U.S. on any visa category. This appears to include those individuals who are permanent residents of the U.S. (green-card holders) who may have been traveling overseas to visit family or for work..." according to an article in the Atlantic.
How many people are in danger because they have been denied entry to a flight, after years of vetting and finally approval to move to the United States.
The irony of this order coming the day after the "life" march in Washington, D.C. We see once again that only the right kinds of life matter to some people.

The People for Bernie Sanders' photo

This urge to do something to make a difference nibbles at my consciousness.
Should I go to the airport to protest?
Should I twist my scarf into a hijab over my head in solidarity.
I understand the idea now that older women can lead the way. We have raised our children. We have kept them safe within a bubble. Maybe it is time to step out of that bubble now, to take risks.
I wonder how I can contemplate moving to France to teach English while my husband and I drink wine and break bread, while in other countries, less fortunate people, fear bullets and bombs. They shrink from a sound at their door that might mean Boku Haram is coming to steal their daughters.
How can we sit by?
But what can we do?
I contemplate going to Mass this morning, wondering if the priests will address this new un-Christian move by our president, being comforted at the proximity of people who mourn the direction our country is going. I picture throwing myself into prayer, but the relief would only be for me, not for the people left behind.
Another part of me wants to gather my computer and tromp to the nearest coffee shop where I can pour my overwrought emotions into the characters in my novel. Maybe they can make a difference that I cannot.
I walked this morning, which makes it harder to outrun my thoughts. But when I woke up today, a blood vessel had burst in my eye. I chose not to go for a run worried that excessive exercise might exacerbate the redness streaking through the whites of my eyeball.
And the stories from NPR pouring into my ear only urged me to take some action.
It's a helpless feeling.
This song from the Women's March, #icantkeepquiet helps remind me that I'm not alone though.

Childhood Remembrances

For nearly 13 years now, I've been holding onto a letter that Grace wrote to herself.

I can't remember if the letter was my idea or if she'd heard it from one of her friends. The goal was that she not become one of those strong girls who goes through middle school and becomes a people pleaser, boy crazy girl who puts aside her own interests and activities. 

I imagined that she would passionately describe the joy of swinging her lanky legs over the back of a horse, the bliss of leading it by the leather reins tight in her gloved-hands and the sheer elation she felt as she became weightless when the horse leaped over a fence or water-filled ditch before the jolt of landing on the hard ground again. 

Her true bliss, curling up on the floor with our droopy-eared dog or sleeping with the weight of our black cat on the bed, surely would find its way into her letter. She would run her hand over their backs, telling them secrets. 

And I thought for sure that she'd write about how powerful she felt in the swimming pool as she moved her arms like an endless paddlewheel, stroking and kicking her way through the water to pop her head up at the wall. 

And maybe she'd remind herself how much she loved languages, memorizing each symbol of Egyptian hieroglyphs and wearing out a book on Cherokee symbols. Each language felt like a challenge that she needed to conquer, which perhaps led her to dive into opera and efforts to understand German, French and Italian.

It might have been around 12 that she discovered the mysteries of genetics. She'd spend time diagramming how the different genetic material might result in a left-handed child or a blue-eyed child. 

If nothing else, I figured she'd write about her obsession with Harry Potter books, the endless roleplay she and her friends acted out in our backyard.  

So Grace took some stationery and diligently wrote in her 12-year-old handwriting. Then she handed it over to me. 

I didn't have a specific place that I stashed it, but occasionally, when I cleaned off my bedside table, I'd find it there amongst my journals.

Yesterday, Grace turned 25, and I figured it was time for her to confront her 12-year-old self, to see if she'd lived up to her expectations.  

. 

It was a busy day for her. After working from 9-5, she rushed to the theater where a new play, The Lion in Winter, was opening. She plays Princess Alais, the mistress of King Henry II. 

I hoped that we could all gather after the play for cake, presents and the opening of the letter. 

A sophisticated bar downtown with great windows overlooking the city might be a good place to gather, I decided. 

But as the play ended at 10:30, suddenly everyone was too tired to contemplate going out. We instead stumbled back to our house where we set out the chocolate bombe from Pistacia Vera, a lovely chocolate mousse cake, and we liberated a bottle of red wine from the basement stash. Grace's boyfriend Jack was there, along with her friends Dave and Taryn. Plus Spencer was home, busy studying for his insurance exam. 

I handed her the letter first thing and she slit the envelope open. 

"It's just a list of who my friends are," she said as her eyes slid over the paper. "It has our address and says that Rosie (the dog) and Buddy (the cat) are alive."

Grace gave a laugh, "And it says Elizabeth was my friend until November but she isn't my friend anymore." 

We speculated on what might have happened between Grace and her friend Elizabeth.

I admitted to being disappointed. "I thought it would focus on all of your passions."

"Instead, I was just a 12-year-old gossip girl," she said. 

Another mystery solved, but without a satisfactory ending.
If it was a novel, I'm not sure which I'd have preferred, to learn that she had remembered all of her passions, tackling them with strength and vigor, or for her to be disappointed that she hadn't met her expectations. Then, as a character in a novel, she'd have to set out to become someone that 12-year-old could be proud of.
No matter what she wrote in that letter, I think she'd be pretty proud of the 25-year-old she has become.  

Dreaming of France -- Picking a Place to Live

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

If you were going to move to a new country, how would you choose where to live?
My husband and I have narrowed it down to a specific region of France. We chose it for the climate and the home prices, but how do we choose a town or a village?
We'd like to live in a charming village that has a market each week, and we'd prefer a town with a bakery and a few restaurants.
As we look at the map, there seem to be endless villages to choose from.
We searched for charming villages in the area and then we cross referenced with some of the best markets. Here are a few of the contenders:
Pezenas

Photo from TripAdvisor

Its Saturday market includes artisanale food, flowers, and clothes, according to golanguedoc.com. But the market gets crowded in the summer, according to the website. It might be too touristy for us, since an article on creme-de-languedoc.com says it has arts and crafts shops, restaurants and antique shops. That might be a terrific place to visit, but too we want to live in a village that is overrun with tourists throughout the summer? We've done that before when we lived in Florida, but, of course, the tourists and older people came in the winter for the warm weather. We definitely plan to visit Pezenas in May when we travel to France.

Roquebrun

This is another town that made the list of charming and best markets, but the article begins by saying it isn't easy to get to. That might discourage tourists, but it might also block us in more than we want. 

I think I might like to nestled against the mountains like this. 

This village has a market on Tuesdays and Fridays and is known for its wines, according to golanguedoc.com. A river runs along the town too, providing for some water activities like canoeing. 

Photo from flckr

That might be fun.

Olargues

The final village that makes both articles is the medieval town of Olarques. Apparently, it has a market on Sundays that features food, including cheeses and wild boar pate.

Plus, Olargues even makes the list of 151 most beautiful villages in France.

I'm interested to explore all of these places, plus so many more, and I hope that it just feels right when we find it.
How bout you? How would you narrow down where to live if it didn't depend on a job? What criteria would you choose?