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Showing posts from December, 2017

Current Status: Madness

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We're down to 4 hours until the car picks us up and we head to the airport. All the 429 suitcases are packed. And I'm just looking around my house in a daze. It looks like a hurricane hit. Serenity now. But not likely until we have moved the 429 suitcases into our temp apartment and I've taken off my shoes. Then, and only then, peace. For now ... madness.

The Need for Scooters - Paris Friday Update

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With the house packed up and half-gone, my week was spent finalizing paperwork for school, the temporary apartment and the shipping company. So far, so good. I also had a bunch of errands to run to pick up perscription refills and Leah's orthodontist file. She'll need braces in Paris. And cleaning/organizing what's left in the house. We also celebrated Hanukkah and got ready for our Christmas trip to Orlando, which will provide some much needed distance from all this madness for awhile and recharge our batteries for what's to come once we get on that Paris-bound flight. Less than two weeks away! Scooters for Everyone When visiting school options in October, here's what we saw ... ... scooter parking! Apparently, it's the best way to travel the neighborhoods around the 16th. We saw a scooters in a Parisian toy store and they were pricey, so I came home and started a search on Amazon. I looked for scooters that were inexpesive (it's a city and thin

Our Paris Flat - The Details

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I'm excited to share with you some of the details of our Paris apartment. But first, a little story: Back in 2010, we took our first trip to Paris. It was only for a few days while we were based in Berlin for two months but I quickly fell in love with the city. I remember pushing Alice's huge stroller through the 7th on the way to the Eiffel Tower and telling David that I'd like to live here someday. Have a little pied-a-terre ... "any of these buildings would do" ... and pretend to be Parisienne for a little while. He thought it was a great idea but impossible. Heh. (You can read about that day  here. ) Anyway, fast-forward about seven years and viola ... our Paris flat: It's on the corner of a residential neighborhood right across from a cute park, in the 16th district on the outskirts of Paris. Look at those trees! The building is from 1910 or so and near the Bois de Boulogne, the huge park to the west. Its location is perfect because it's clos

My Five Favorite Paris Movies

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I've been a Francophile for quite a long time, long before I visited Paris for the first time in 2010. Mostly, maybe, because of all the Paris-set movies I've loved. Here are my all-time favorites and links to watch clips or trailers. Amelie So obvious, but I really, truly, madly loved Paris after seeing this movie. And the film is legitimately in my top 3 all-time favorites and I still watch it annually. I love the Amelie character, the whimsical story, the beautiful cinematography, and filters. It's art. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I know French because I can follow along without reading the subtitles. Watch the trailer then go find this movie and enjoy. Creme Brulee Anyone? French Kiss I took my VHS copy of this movie to college and watched it on rainy days in my first apartment. It was required for my sanity. I love this movie so much I don't even know where to start the praise. Meg Ryan in all her most adorableness. Kevin Klien as the good-at-h

This Week Was Busy - Paris Friday Update

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The Highlights From This Week It's been a crazy week over at our house, let's review. On Monday , we got word that the apartment with the dining room murals was ours. Huzzah! Finally, a confirmed address and a place to go. (More details about the apartment later.) And not a moment to spare, because that night I made changes to the items we had earmarked to move. For example, the master bedroom is not large enough for both dressers, so one of them is staying behind. And the kitchen is small, so I edited out some things and added the bar-height table from the basement and the white stools, hoping they'll fit in the small area by the window. That kind of thing. Then on Tuesdays , the movers arrived bright and early with two trucks. One was a smallish container meant for the sea move. And the other was a white truck for all the items going by air. There were four guys and they worked fast and efficiently. They even packed up the desk in Alice's room I hadn't ori

It's Moving Day!!

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Well, not moving day for us, just all our STUFF! After weeks and weeks of planning and strategizing and the last-minute apartment find and everything ... it's time. The movers are here packing up all our stuff for their journey across the ocean. Some will go via plane and the larger things will go via sea. Just One of the Piles of Stuff! We wanted to get this pack-up started as early as we could manage it, so it all got a head start to our final destination in France. Sea can take up to two months to arrive. While air is pretty fast, at about 2 weeks. But that's all pending the holiday schedules, delays, paperwork and customs. And because we're not taking everything we can still live pretty comfortably in our house with what will be left. Though, the kiddos will be missing some of their favorite toys and stuffed animals. So, I'm trying to be useful as the four guys load out most of my favorite things ... including toys, beds, stuffed animals, books, shoes, dis

Holiday Shopping List - 2017

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I love all the round-ups bloggers and websites do about the things they are shopping for this holiday season, so I thought I'd make my own. Picture Gifts - For Fans of Your Instagram Feed The Young House Love folks just mentioned this amazing daily photo calendar from the nice folks at Social Print Studio  on their podcast and I had to share it. I've been using this small business studio for years to print out my Instagram masterpieces and this year I had a poster printed for David's birthday to decorate our apartment in Paris. Instagram prints are great to print out because you've already edited them, picked them as favorites (because you shared them) and are a pretty little square. Gilmore Girls Again - For Late Fans For whatever reason, this was the year two of my sisters decided to get on the Gilmore Girls bandwagon and binge all the shows. Years late to the party, girls, but I'm cheering you on. I watched it religiously (except for that last season, let

Success - The New Apartment

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It only took four trips around to look at apartments but Dave and I settled on a "new favorite" that we hope we can snag before anyone else does. Gah! Here's a teaser photo, I'll share more details and photos once we can safely confirm it's ours. Yup! That Dining Room Has Roman Murals on Two Walls!  Fingers are crossed! Related posts: All the Paris Move posts

Lost Apartment and Deep Thoughts on Packing - Paris Friday Update

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Lost the Apartment In a dramatic turn of events the apartment we loved and thought was ours went to another party. They got their file in hours before us and the owners felt they needed to play fair ... even though our case looked way better. So all the imagining I did with placing furniture and neighborhood research went out the window. Very frustrating. Dave is making a valiant effort to do his FOURTH apartment hunt today. Please keep your fingers crossed we find something we like. If we don't, and we go to our backup-backup plan of apartment shopping in early January, shipping of our household goods become complicated. Plus, my sanity is a stake here, people! Temp Housing Search Meanwhile, we're hunting down a temporary apartment for the transition between arriving in Paris at the end of the month and the arrival of our beds, and other necessities, into our permanent residence (assuming we are successful today). Why not a hotel? Because we could be there awhile and it

Apartment Hunt DRAMA!

There was another interested renter for OUR apartment, and they got their application in hours before us. So we lost that amazing apartment. CRAP CRUD SHOT DAMN SON OF A .... (trying to keep this PG) :( Back to the listings!

Apartment Hunt Success!

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Dave looked at eight flats on Friday, all the while texting and sending me photos. We found one we both LOVED and is in our IDEAL neighborhood. We got a chance to look at it again today and fell deeper in love. So we're hoping to get the paperwork started ASAP and lock it down. Here's a quick preview: The building's 1880s front door... Front Door and Also Garage Door! Once Upon a Time: The Way Horses Entered the Courtyard And the dining room with balcony doors. That Floor Your Drooling Over is Called Herringbone Parquet More details to come once we get word it's ours. Related posts: Catch up with all the Paris Updates

Apartment Hunting, Packing and School Newsletters - Paris Friday Update

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The Apartment - It's Happening!  Have you ever seen House Hunters on HGTV? (Of course you have!) So picture the couple separated by a few thousand miles. The one  actually  looking at the apartments sending updates via text while the other one is in PJs on her laptop is taking notes and looking at apartment listings online. That's basically how we're apartment shopping today. So, not ideal. But I do feel like the person in the spy movies who is furiously typing and watching surveillance feeds in the city while yelling into the earpiece of the spy "get out of there!" or "what do you see?" and "how big is the bathroom! We need two toilets, at least!" Fingers crossed we find the place today. The Business of Packing Now that we don't have any parties or social events planned for the house, it's time to get down to the process of pulling rooms apart and deciding what goes and what stays. How? By making piles. The game is to make