What Ana Does

I've been giving a lot of thought to my five-year goals . Since moving to Paris, I have all this precious time to think about what I'm passionate about, what I want to accomplish, and the life I want to have once we return to the States and get back to "real life." (While taking full advantage of living in Paris, too.) I've come up with list of FIVE GOALS I feel pretty excited about. There are a few things I can do while here in Paris, and then other steps that will need to wait until we're all back in the States. Once I hit "publish" these goals will be out in the universe, which can be magical!  It will be time to start talking about them and making them into reality. Or see them change and morph into something else. Goals are fluid like that. 1. Become Bi-Lingual. I'm not even close with French, but Spanish ... yes thanks to years of lessons and my Spanish family. So, once I leave France I'm going to really focus on Spanish. Next St

We had been warned that Paris would be positively empty in August, as most residents take the month off from work and go to the beach or into the mountains. But we were unprepared for how empty the city is. There are only a few cars parked outside my window. The roads are a slow trickle of traffic rather than the normal rush. The grocery store had no lines at the checkout. And several businesses, including the fresh market, is shuttered. Of course the tourist attractions were still busy but our visiting friends said that most bistros are filled with Americans or non-French speakers. And given the lack of air conditioning and the heat wave that hit at the end of July here (thankfully after we had left for Illinois), I don't blame them for the exodus. We're unsure when the masses return. With school starting next week, and August ending, I assume within the next seven days. But you never really know.

Time to go! It was a busy few weeks on our summer vacation here in Illinois. We saw lots of friends and family. Ate a proper American cheeseburgers, grilled and made biscuits a few times. And I got the house a bit more sorted. But, now it's time to head back to "home" and Paris.

This month we're home in our Illinois house for summer vacation and I'm literally surrounded by plastic and it's making my head spin. The thing is, our Paris apartment was a blank slate. And I knew as we were moving in that I wanted to focus on using less plastic -- getting creative and avoiding certain things that I've already detailed on earlier posts. (For example, not accepting plastic bags at stores and finding alternatives to the packaged food.) But now that I'm back in our home of seven years, it's full of plastic ... and the food we're used to is packaged. (Trader Joe's, damn you!) Luckily, it's summer so I have a weekly farmer's market I can shop plastic-free. But, otherwise, we're in plastic-packaged food wasteland. It's crazy. For example, I was carrying a bunch of spinach and carrots (because I forgot my reusable produce bags) and a helpful produce man ripped off a plastic bag and offered it to me. Argh. (I thanked

It seems lately all I do is look at European hotels, researching places to stay for our weekend adventures. It's not a bad gig, though it can be a little overwhelming. So, after so many searching, I've developed a useful workflow to filter down the results and judge the hotels. And I've gotten pretty good results, too. Hope it will help you, too. I use Orbitz for my hotel searches because I like the filtering and layout -- and I'm just used to it. But you can probably use whatever hotel search site you prefer.   Once I search a destination, I filter for only 4 or 5-star hotels . In Europe, unless you're really pinching pennies, you don't want to stay in anything less than 4 star. Often they're the same price as the 3 and 2-star, but better quality.  I scan down the results page looking at the prices, so I can do a quick calculation of the average . It's usually around $200/night. The super-cheap will likely be undesirable, and the super-expensive wi

I loved all my options but the budget/time factor just got to be too much. We really just need something to keep it organized and looking nice until we permanently move home. So, we drove to Ikea and spent about $130 on three Billy bookcases , and $50 at Home Depot getting more of the white paint ("Polar Bear" from Behr) for the walls. And that's it. AFTER: White and Clean and Full of Books! Honestly, I'm so happy with the results, I could do cartwheels! Here's that Before picture again ... BEFORE: Reminder, This is What It Looked Like Painting the walls only took me a day. And the Ikea Billy shelves had to be propped up a bit, so we rigged up some scrap wood we had in the basement to ensure it was level on the carpet. We also installed the topple-guards. The books were piled in a few corners (the bookshelves were moved to Paris), so they now have a good home. I might install some quarter-round trim to give it a more "built-in" look, but

Option 2 for the upstairs hallway is built-in shelves . Similar to the Option 1 in that I'd find already-made cabinets and fit shelves above it so it all looks custom and built-in. Here's the Pinterest board inspiration (search Built in Shelves) ... And it would look something like this ... This looks easy but a lot of holes in the wall. Now to get to work on one of these options ... Related posts: The Upstairs Hallway BEFORE pic My Pinterest Home Decor board