A Pretty How Town

Last year about this time I was eating lots of cheese. The problem is and was ... I'm dreadfully allergic to it. I've been sure of my dairy allergy for at least six years. I saw a doctor but shrugged it off. After all it was cheese. Cheese is my life.Those days all ended in China. Cheese is not easy to find and when you do pay the eight euros for it there is a huge meh factor. I gave it all up. Now that I've given up dairy I feel so much better. My skin is clearer. My eyes are...

The best way to catch up is in a bullet post.Everything is going well and I'm really happy living back in our old hometown. I hope we won't have to move again for a long, looooong while. The kids are happy with their school and we get lots of exercise walking them to and from school, uphill all the way. I'm keeping fit!I've been looking for work in Switzerland and I hope I can find a good placement by next year. My goal is to get my French citizenship approved by next September. It's almost...

Life has certainly changed in the past six months. I'm not exactly where I imagined I'd be. I thought I'd be sipping Chinese tea in my modest 15th story apartment complex in Shanghai, taking art classes with expats, homeschooling my kids. Life though decided to have me rethink everything from top to bottom. I guess you could say that I am not even the same person I was six months ago (which in retrospect isn't necessarily a bad thing).My biggest changes are in my professional life and in...

I came across this vacation picture of our cat from a year and a half ago and it made me smile.

Well here comes my little break from the blog. Posting will be on the lite side as we delve into our new life over there. And just when I need to blog too--so much to share. Go figure.Someone mentioned to me that I hadn't talked much about our homeschooling lately and this is true, probably because we haven't done much of anything different yet other than having the kids home. Right now we're unschooling and trying out little bits and pieces of Waldorf style homeschooling. We really do much...

We still haven't left. Yep still here. We have visa issues,...one of us is American, one is Mexican, and two are French. It's a good recipe for disaster if you're asking a third party to do your paperwork for you. We should leave in another week or so.I wanted to share a few photos of our Paris house, finished. Unfortunately I didn't get very many pictures of the whole project. Our finished bedroom came together just as the new renter was moving his things in and we didn't get any photos, but...

Well here we are just a few short weeks away before we leave. Both houses are officially rented, "whew" . It's such a relief to tie up all the loose ends. These last few weeks with finishing up our Paris house has been exhausting. We were a little surprised that the first person to see the house wanted it and wanted it fast. They were a couple who dropped in right before Christmas and honestly I thought they hated the house by all the husband's snarky comments, but it turns out I was...

It was a fun week with La Chandeleur and our Imbolc celebration. The two are essentially the same holiday/festival. We made candles for Imbolc and then on la chadeleur we decorated our morning pancake table with all the candles in the house. This was our second year celebrating Imbolc as a family. The kids were very excited that it meant Mrs. Thaw might come soon and clean up. They'd open the door and say "she's here, look I saw her and it is getting warmer see!"We always do crêpes...

I'm still here! Life is flowing nicely and we're building a calm routine (as I say this the kids are in the middle of a screaming match!) I'm reading through lots of homeschool curriculum materials and trying to plan our school year. My hope is to start first year in the Fall with Little S. I hope Seb agrees. For now it's just a matter of building rhythms. I'm really liking our life now. Everything feels like it just works better.People are very curious when they hear the kids aren't in...

It feels so strange to be back in our old house, strange but somehow right. It's a warm place and welcoming, at least to us. Apparently our renter told everyone he hated our house. I don't think he loved the house very much though so I don't think it loved him back!Christmas was hectic and I'm happy the move is over. We leave in February and have a few months to relax and do almost nothing before we go. I haven't started homeschooling yet and may not until September of this year. It...