Musings
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Housekeeping – NaBloPoMo
I’ve been enjoying participating in NaBloPoMo this year…it’s very different than in prior years. Years ago when I participated, that meant going and putting your url on a big website (like BlogHer), and that was it. I would check out a few blogs, and a few would come visit me, but there were hundreds of people participating, so it was a bit overwhelming. This year, San is hosting on her personal blog, and there are 16 people in total. 16 people is manageable. I haven’t been to every blog every day, and some have issues where I am supposed to log in to Google in order to comment and I…
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Asmara Ethiopian Food
The picture above is not mine, I grabbed it from Trip Advisor. Today, Maya went out with a friend, and Ted and I went into Oakland. We had no big plans, but I wanted to go to a gourmet grocery store to get some fancy Italian chocolates for Christmas gifts, as well as a couple of birthday cards. After buying the chocolates, we wandered up the street to a local independent book store, where Ted bought a book for a gift, and I bought the birthday cards. Then we started walking around, looking to see if we might find something for a late lunch. We didn’t have any luck, nothing…
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Mayonnaise Turkey
We’re having Thanksgiving at our house this year. There will be 8 of us (2 of whom are vegetarian), and I’m making 2 turkeys. We do this every year, to ensure enough leftovers. Ted was reading the New York Times the other day, and they had a recipe for Thanksgiving Turkey, where you dry-brine it, and give it a mayo treatment. Why not (aside from the fact that I am not fond of mayo as a condiment, but why not rub it all over your turkey?) However, while we do have a subscription to the NYT, access to their recipes is a different subscription, which we do not have. Facebook…
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Dizzy Blonde
That sounds like I’m about to make a blonde joke, but no, I’m not a fan. Instead, it is an issue that I have been having recently. When my cousin and I flew to France in early/mid September, I had zero jet lag. Neither one of us were able to sleep on the plane, other than a quick doze for maybe 1/2 hour or so. So we left on the afternoon of the 9th, and arrived in the late afternoon of the 10th (we had a layover in Paris before flying on to Nice.) If you followed along in my October posts about my trip, you know that I had…
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Meme Monday
This isn’t truly a meme, but instead some words of wisdom that I gathered from my bloggy friend Roma 8 years ago, that she posted on Facebook. Does Roma still have a blog? I can’t find her old one, but honestly, I’m not even sure how to look. Should have kept her on the sidebar maybe, but then again, if I removed it it was likely because she wasn’t maintaining it anymore. ANYWAY, the message is timely and one that I try to keep in mind, especially during the holidays. Resist everything except what your heart dictates. If it makes you happy to polish the silver, go for it. If…
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Mulder’s Fabulous Friday!
Hi everyone, this is J’s puppy-boy (PB), Mulder, and I’m here to tell you about the Fabulous Friday that I just had! I have three bosses, my Big Boss, (Ted), my Medium Boss (Julie, aka, J), and my Little Boss, Maya. Medium Boss and I started out the day with a nice walk downtown, She thought we might try to find some new pianos to take my picture with, but they are gone. She was sad about this, but really, I can’t play piano very well, and during rainy season, it is probably a bad idea. Is she even thinking? In the place of the pianos, there is a lot…
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Thanksgiving Prep
This is the current situation at my house. I have washed the good china, and just finished polishing the silver. I’m not going to use our good crystal glasses this year, they are too fragile and I don’t want to risk them getting broken. Back when we got married, almost 30 years ago, couples registered for china, silver, and crystal. We don’t use them often, but we do use them a couple of times a year. Sometimes for Valentine’s Day, always for Canadian Thanksgiving, and then if we have Christmas or U.S. Thanksgiving here. We celebrate two Thanksgivings, just because it is fun. Ted was born in Canada, though his…
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Friday Randomness – 5 Things
Today’s post will be 5 Things I’m thinking about.
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NaBloPoMo
Here’s a random photo from a recent morning walk. When Maya was little we always entered this park through a local trail, and didn’t know what it’s official name was, so we called it ‘Elmo Park’, after her favorite Sesame Street character. I realized the other day that my blogging etiquette has gone to hell. I mentioned on November 1st that I was going to try to post every day, but at that point I didn’t know that there was anyone trying to host a group of bloggers with a list and so on. I wandered over to NGS’s blog a few days in, and found that she was participating,…
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Picture of the Day – Cemetery in Vincennes
My cousin and I didn’t go to any of the famous cemeteries in Paris when we were there in September, but we did happen upon this walled in cemetery on the same street as our hotel in Vincennes. Knowing nothing about it, we didn’t explore and see if we could find any famous people there. Looking at this picture, that fourth grave has a lot of flowers, perhaps a recent addition? I like the calm of cemeteries, and these multi person tombs are lovely. But somehow it feels strange to explore too much, so we just looked around for a few minutes and then got on our way. I did…
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Get Out the Vote
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m starting my day with Wordle, a cup of tea, and some post card writing. I have a stash of generic looking postcards that I bought a few years ago on Amazon, and I’m sending encouragement to registered Democrats in Georgia, encouraging them to get out and vote, and re-elect Senator Warnock in the run-off election on December 6th. If you’re inclined to join me, time is short. I go through an organization called Tony the Democrat, and once you sign up with them, they will text and/or email you a list of addresses, as few as 5 and as many as 50. I have 14…
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Cheese Glorious Cheese
Here you see my cousin Carey, talking to the Fromager at the little cheese shop in Vincennes, the town where we spent our nights (and some days) just outside of the Paris city limits. I told you about the day we were too worn out from our travels, including lots of driving and late nights, to stick with our initial plan of driving to Versailles. We stayed local, got massages, had a glass of wine and watched people, then got some food to eat, brought it back to our time-share, and watched a movie, ate bread, cheese, salami, and drank wine. And did laundry. It was a nice, lazy day.…
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Onion Soup in France
This sad, sad picture is of our dinner one evening in Cannes. We had had a lovely lunch (I think this was the day we took the boat to Saint Tropez and had a big lunch, so we weren’t terribly hungry), so we thought we would a light dinner. Carey had been wanting French Onion soup, so when I saw ‘Soupe a l’oignon’ on a menu, we decided to give it a try. I don’t think it’s that big of a thing in the South of France, and we hadn’t seen it on any menus yet. This was the soup we received…the broth was not the dark, rich broth, the…
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Pictures of the Day – Fruit in Mougins
We absolutely fell in love with the local boulangerie in Mougins. We began our days by walking down our little hill and getting a baguette, croissant, or pastry for breakfast. The quality was AMAZING, and the staff were wonderful. Above is breakfast one day, amazing croissant, amazing fruit, amazing French butter and locally produced jam. The tea is British, I brought my tea bags from home, which I buy from the local Indian shops and are imported from England. The ashtray is useless, but I left it in the picture because it seemed very French to me. Due to COVID, there was often a line in front of the store.…
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Picture of the Day – Shopping for Gifts
While in France, I did a little gift shopping. I bought Christmas gifts for Ted and Maya, and for my siblings and Mother figures (that’s my step mom and my mother in law). One thing I wanted for Ted was a nice shirt, but not something for work. Too much like getting school clothes as a gift. There was a shirt I liked at a shop in Vincennes, but I wasn’t sure of the size, and I wasn’t sure it was something he would actually wear, and it was almost $200. I would absolutely spend $200 to get Ted a shirt from France that I knew he would love and…