Worst Airports Article

Yahoo! posted an amusing-to-me article today about the worst airports in the world. If you travel alot, you might be amused by it too. The journalist gave a disclaimer in the beginning that he was only rating major airports because the small shack by an open field in India shouldn't have to compete against CDG.

That said, I laughed. Outside of the US, the only country to make it onto the list twice was FRANCE. In fact, the only Western country apart from the US to make the list was France.

Beauvais, which IS NOT IN PARIS, but is listed as a Parisian airport is on the list. Remember the time I was flying home to Paris from Venice and got rerouted to Liege, Belgium and had to take a bus back to Paris? Yeah, it was that airport.

CDG (the main airport in Paris), came in at number 5. They'll probably go on strike for being named on the list.

I agreed with the list about JFK being the worst. I flew through there once and said never again. There weren't escalators in the international terminal! Watching all those international travelers lug their suitcases up and down stairs was just sad.

My favorites: in the US, I'd say Charlotte. I love the rocking chairs. Internationally: Mumbai and Seoul. Oh man. Mumbai has these leather lay out chairs that look like something from the first class of the airplane, and are just what a lay-overed weary traveler needs. Seoul has 30 minute hot showers for $7. And when I hadn't had a hot shower in a month, and I'd already been traveling for 3 days and had 2 more to go before getting home, that was the best $7 I'd ever spent. In fact, I paid it twice to stand in the hot water for a whole hour.

My least favorites: CDG and Beauvais, as already noted. Frankfurt. It used to be really crowded and smoky and all around unpleasant, and while all that has changed with the new terminal...I still have the old feelings about it. And there's no Starbucks.

Because really...a Starbucks can make any airport feel just a little bit better.

Let Us Eat Cake!

Last year, I bought a King's Cake and some Champomy (sparkling apple juice) for me and CSI to celebrate Epiphany. No, I'm not turning Catholic. But I have gotten to where I do like participating in yummy tasting cultural traditions around me, and learning where the tradition comes from. If it's celebrating a certain saint, while I believe that every believer is a saint (saved by grace), I also think it's great to look at the lives of those who have gone before us. Learn from them. I can appreciate their testimonial life without worshipping them. And I can eat their cake.

So...January 6 is Epiphany. I know, I know, it's January 26 when I'm writing this. I'm a little behind. You can blame CSI. (Ha!) Epiphany is supposedly when the Magi (kings) arrived to bring their gifts to baby Jesus. (So, when you're setting up your little manger scenes next Christmas season, you should really put your three wise men off somewhere away from the manger. They're in route...not arrived yet. Camelridingcowgirl does this and I think it's brilliant.)

Since gold, frankincense, and myrrh don't taste so good, and we live in the country where good eatin' is a national pastime, why not bring baby Jesus a cake instead? Works for me! The king's cake is sold throughout the entire month of January in pretty much every bakery and grocery store in France. And I totally think it's acceptable to eat more than once.

Inside the cake is la fève, a little trinket. Or is supposed to be. That's where this year's king's cake comes into the story. Here's a picture of last year's king's cake.

A sweet little Japanese girl that would crack your tooth if you bit down on it. Whoever's slice of the cake has la fève gets to be king/queen for the day and where the crown that comes with the cake...And has to buy next year's cake. CSI got la fève, and thus had to provide this year's cake.

She brought the cake this year, and we were all hoping that the Artist would get la fève. CSI and Pantene will both be gone next January (sad, let's not talk about that), and so the Artist really needs to get la fève so that she can buy the cake. I suppose in French tradition, the youngest person at the party is supposed to sit under the table and call out who gets which slice, so as to ensure that la fève is given at random. For some reason...we couldn't convince CSI to get under the table?

When serving the cake, we realized that it was not apple (like the yumminess of last year), but almond paste. Count me out.

CSI bit into what she thinks is a giant nut, and exclaimed that it's all rubbery.

"Is it la fève?"

"No...it looks like a nut. And tastes like rubber."

She spit it back out, and we examine it. It looked like...a bean. Not a trinket.

WE GOT GYPPED!

I went over the computer and began to read from Wikipedia (the source of all true and correct knowledge for the information junkie), and it turns out...France has several kinds of king's cakes. I prefer the APPLE one, please. And down here in the South, it is more common to have the traditional bean in the cake than a trinket. Or a sweet little baby Jesus (as a popular blogger would call him).

We got gypped.

Pantene didn't seem to mind that we got gypped, since she got to wear the crown for a bit. What girl doesn't love a little diadem-al bling?

Later, CSI went back for a second slice, and it turned out...there was also a little baby Jesus in the cake. Not or. And. If one person found the bean, and one found the little baby Jesus, who gets to be king/queen for the day and wear the crown? I suppose the one who found the little baby Jesus.

It seems a little weird to me to put a little baby Jesus into a cake. What if you bit Him!? Does it honor Him to have Him smothered in almond paste? How does He feel about you taking His rightful crown and wearing it, simply because you found Him? Should I save all my king's cakes' crowns from over the years to lay back down at His feet one day? What does it say about my faith in Jesus that I'm disappointed that there wasn't a little Japanese fève but instead a poorly crafted but appropriated covered baby Jesus in the cake?

Numerical Dyslexia

Back in August, I transferred my old cell phone to a friend who needed a contracted phone for a year. I had a year left on my contract, and wanted to stitch to a new contract with a new phone. Giving her my old phone was a good deal for both of us.

However, when I'd signed up for that old phone, I'd signed up for insurance on it too. I'd noticed that the 8 euros for insurance every month came out of my bank account separately than the phone bill, but it'd never bothered me. Until I switched the phone contract over to my friend...and was still be charged for the insurance.

On a phone I no longer posses. Hmmm...how to fix that?

I went down to the store of the mobile provider on the old phone and asked them how to cancel the insurance. They told me I would have to call the customer service. Oh man, I just love talking on the phone in French. (Note the sarcasm.) I called them, and they informed me that the insurance had been provided through the store where I bought the phone (in Besançon), and not through the mobile provider. Well, I can't really just run over to Besançon and pop into the store, now can I?

I looked up where one of those stores might be in Marseille...not anywhere easy for me to get to. So I looked up on their website a way to contact them. While there was no phone number to call, there was a messaging system within the website. So I shot them a message with my email address explaining the situation (thank you, Google Translate), and that I would like to cancel the insurance on the phone no longer in my possession.

They emailed me back with the phone number to call. Oh boy, here we go again with the talking on the phone in French.

When I called, it was one of the automated teller things where you have to press numbers for various options. None of the options were to speak to a human being. All of the options were said in speedy-French with words I didn't catch/know/understand/etc. Ack. I called five different times pressing various number options all the while talking into my phone that I just wanted to talk to a person.

Which is humorous in French because the word for 'person' and the word for 'nobody' is the same. (Which really confused me when I first started speaking French.) So I'm sitting there pressing buttons saying, "somebody," "anybody," "nobody" into the phone by just saying "personne" over and over and over.

Suddenly, a person answered! Joy! I gave my new have-mercy-on-me schpeal of, "Hi. I'm a foreigner, so French isn't my first language, but I'm going to try." I've found that that line said with my "charming" (read: Southern) accent can get a girl far in this country. The operator laughed and said, "We can do it!"

I explained the situation and she told me it would be easy to cancel my insurance. I just need to send a letter with the code she will give me to a certain address.

Wait. You can't just click click click and it's done? I have to write a letter in French?! That's worse than the phone because I can't use my charming accent to win over whoever reads the letter. And while Google Translate might be the best thing since sliced bread, it's not perfect. And certainly not perfect enough to win over a French paper-pusher who loves for their ridiculously irregular language to be impossibly perfect in written form.

Stress.

She starts to tell me the code and I stress out even more. It's all numbers. I hate numbers.I think I have some sort of numerical dyslexia. My brain just jumbles them all up and I go into a panic freeze. Now take that and make me do it in another language and I have mental meltdowns.

I somehow managed to understand all the numbers in the code, and even repeated them back to her to verify that I'd gotten them correct. Then she goes to give me the address where I need to mail the letter. And when she says the number of the building, the mental meltdown occurs.

She said, "Soixante dix." She kept talking to tell me the street name, but I was frozen.

Soixante dix? I can't remember what number that is. ACK!

In French, every number from 1-69 has its own word. Starting with 70, they say "sixty ten, sixty ten one, sixty ten two" and so on until 80, when they say, "four twenty, four twenty one," and so on. Do you see why I hate numbers in French? I hear "four" and immediately start trying to figure out if they're saying "four" or "forty" or "eighty" or "four hundred." Ack.

So I guess I'd reached my numerical limit when she'd given me the code number because my brain could not process soixante dix. Could not. I asked to please wait a moment for me to catch up. I kept muttering "soixante dix" under my breath.

I even spelled it out. What is the matter with me that I can spell it out, but can't mentally register the number that represents it?!

She finally says in shy, broken English, "I zink it iz seven sero."

"YES! Merci!"

We finished and I hung up. Traumatized. Embarrassed. Five years in France and I still can't get my numbers straight.

And now I have to write a letter in French. Ack.

Why I'm not in Jordan

I should be floating in the Dead Sea right now.

Instead, I'm still in France, not on vacation. On January 1st, Alitalia called me. I was slightly taken aback. First, it was a Sunday. Who does business on a Sunday? Second, it was New Year's Day. Who does business on New Year's Day? Apparently, Alitalia does.

The woman informed me that Alitalia is cancelling permanently their route to Amman, Jordan. And thus...my upcoming flight is cancelled. When I asked her if they could rebook it through one of their constituents, she replied, "Our only constituent who flies to Amman is AirFrance and they are refusing to cooperate with us on this. We sincerely apologize."

I laughed and wanted to tell her, "Honey, I live in France. I understand the 'refuse to cooperate mentality'." Instead I said, "So what are my options?"

"You can fly to Jordan and back before January 8th, or we need to cancel your full itinerary." Well, since I couldn't leave for Jordan the very next day, I asked them to cancel my full itinerary.

"Would you like to be refunded?"

Well what kind of question is that?! No, no, y'all go head and keep my rather expensive vacation plane ticket for yourselves and I'll be content with no vacation and no money. I think they were hoping that I would say I'd like to use the part that got me to Rome, and therefore to keep some of my money. The thing is, I've been to Rome. If I'd wanted to go to Rome or anywhere else in Italy for my vacation, I would have booked my ticket as such. But I wanted to go to Jordan, and that's why I booked my ticket to go there. Crazy, I know.

"Yes, I would like to be refunded, please. Will you be sending me an email that explains you cancelled my flight and refunding me for it?"

"No...you can use your confirmation email from when you booked your ticket as your documentation."

I scratched my head in confusion. A confirmation email for a confirmed, booked, paid-for ticket will by my proof that THEY cancelled my ticket and are going to fully refund me? After a week had gone by, and I'd received no email and no money, I called Alitalia back.

After this particular woman had confirmed that my flight definitely was cancelled, and the original call had not been a scam, she too, asked if I would like to be refunded for my flight. Um, yes please! I in turn asked her if I could please receive some sort of documentation about all of this, and she replied, "My department is incapable of providing that. You'll need to contact customer service."

Huh? I understand contacting customer service...but you'd think with this many cancelled flights they'd have a blanket email they'd already typed up and just click "send." In today's day and age, it sure seems ridiculous to me that they were not providing any kind of written documentation about why my flight was cancelled. I wrote the customer service asking for something, anything, in writing.

I have not heard back from them. And don't really think I will.

The good news is...the money finally showed up in my bank account yesterday. A full refund. I am grateful for that. However...the tickets to Jordan during the next two months (when I have to finish up "this year's" vacation time) are way more than what I'd originally paid. So while I might still hopefully get to float in the Dead Sea this year, I don't think it'll happen in the next two months.

It looks like I'll either be doing a staycation or a Pariscation before April 1. And probably avoiding Alitalia from now on...

I would also like to add that I think it was God's providence and grace that Alitalia cancelled my flight. The friend I was supposed to stay with and visit in Jordan had a sudden family death this past week, and thus had to return to the US. If I were in Jordan right now, I'd be floating in the Dead Sea all by myself. And I'm very glad I'm not. And sad for my friend and her family. And thankful for the hope that we have as Christians that she only had to say goodbye-for-now.

God is good...even in cancelled vacations.

The Joy Dare

For a few weeks now, I've been reading the blog, A Holy Experience. I was telling someone about it recently: the wife of a farmer, mother of six homeschooled kids...sounds a bit like the Wise family, just in English! The blogger is the author of 1000 Gifts, a book I am currently reading and that you might want to check out. Anyway, on her blog, she's encouraged people to join her in The JOY Dare.

In the Joy Dare, you strive to count 3 gifts a day from God...thanking Him for the little gifts He graciously offers us, all around us, every day...every day of the year. At the end of the year, I ought to have counted up at least 1000 gifts He's graciously bestowed upon me. Recognizing the small gifts and thanking Him for them grows joy in the little things that add up to...abundant life.

Count your blessings...

Name them one by one...

Count your blessings,

See what God has done.

To help us out, Ann posted a free printable of gifts to look for during the month of January. You can find it HERE. She's got an app you can load to your phone for free (just look up 1000 gifts in your app store), and use it to capture photos of the gifts, and it counts them for you. I'm currently up to 52.

When life doesn't always turn out like we'd expected... when siblings are taken to be with the Lord before we were ready to say goodbye-for-now... When babies don't come... When spouses don't show up... When we just can't find a job... When heroes say hurtful things... When it's hard to find joy in January's cold and darkness...

We can still count our blessings. He still came that we might have life abundant. He still deserves to be told thank you for the manna He provides in the desert journey towards the promised land of milk and honey. He is still worthy of our praises. And I have found that I can sing praises when I've been thanking Him...

...for a compliment the Artist gave as a side remark, not even knowing that she blessed my heart with it.

...for the bittersweet awesomeness of lemons.

...for my hot water bottle that has been sufficient to keep me warm enough to not need to turn on electric heat.

...for good sleep and hot showers and awesome water pressure.

...for sunrises...

...and for sunsets...

I've been playing the attitude of gratitude game since the summer of 2008...what you thankful for?... and I've had that little button on the side of the blog pretty much since I got back to France in 2010. And yet...I complained alot last year. I grew angry and bitter. My heart shriveled up into the cold black stone that it would remain to be if it were not for the awesomeness of our God. He is daily giving me a new heart, His heart, to replace mine. I determined at the end of last year that 2012 would be different. It will not end feeling so empty because He is still giving me gifts...every.single.day. And this year, I will count them.

I will thank Him.

18 days into the Joy Dare and I'm already thanking Him for gifts beyond the 3 that Ann sent me out to look for...

...for the free desserts the baker gave us yesterday because we were enjoying our lunch in her bakery so much. When we said, "Merci," she responded, "Bah, oui! C'est la France!" (But of course! That's France!)

...for the delicious molten chocolate lava cake my friend made for us at her birthday party.

...for the beautiful sunset I got to see on a night when I was somewhere where I could see the sunset.

...for the way the morning light hits the building across from mine and creates such a beauty to see first thing in the morning from my balcony.

My little French quilting store

I recognize that I don't live somewhere exotic like China or India, and that life for me in France is much easier than for those who do live in those type places. I don't have to make my own cheese or chase monkeys away from my laundry. But some days, it still isn't easy here. Well, it's not as easy as in America. In America, if I realize that my sewing machine is missing it's foot, I can go to Joanne's and buy a new foot. (Don't ask me how my machine lost a foot because I JUST DON'T KNOW.) In America, if I didn't have a Joanne's in my town...my town would be small enough to have its own homegrown quilting store and everyone would know everyone and I'd be able to find it. I recognize that in China or India, it wouldn't be that easy. Well, it's not that easy in France either.

I needed to find a foot for my machine. "Foot" is one of those words that you can't just put into the google translator and hope it gives you the correct word for the mechanical part that attaches to the machine. It's sort of like trying to look up the verb "to snake," (as in a drain). Not so easy.

Pantene suggested that we go to Eurodif, a nifty little store that has a sewing section. They did sells needles and thread and bobbins and zippers and buttons and pins. But nothing hanging on the wall looked like a sewing machine foot. Oh boy. Here goes my daily dose of humbling myself to look like the village idiot.

"Excuse me, ma'am? Hello. I'm looking for something that I don't know how to say in French. It is part of the sewing machine, is shaped like this, the needle goes through it like this, and in English we call it a 'foot.'" She stared at me for a minute like I was the village idiot until everything I'd said sunk in.

"Oh! You mean 'a deer's foot?' We don't sell those."

"Well, do you know where I could buy one?"

She (and the woman hanging out nearby us who decided to just join in the conversation) explained how to find this sewing store. "Head to the big square just off the port, climb the stairs, and turn right down the first street. You'll see it off one of the streets up there." (Reminded me of my UAE days when people would tell me to head to the "big round-a-bout" and turn at the mosque, and it's the building by the two palm trees.)

Pantene and I headed in that direction, figuring maybe we'll find it. Once we got on the first street at the top of the stairs, we walked for a block or two until we saw a seamstress' shop. It wasn't what we were looking for, but maybe she would know. We went in there, and I explained, "Hello ma'am. I'm new in town and I'm looking for a store where I can buy a deer's foot for my sewing machine. Do you know where there is one near here?" She grinned at us with a "bless their hearts" grin and gave us directions. "Head back down this street a bit, and after the Lidl, don't turn down the first little street, but the second one. You'll find it there." I noticed her antique Singer machine and my heart warmed from the connection I shared with her over it.

We followed her directions, and sure enough, there was a sewing store. They sold all sorts of stuff for sewing machines, and looked like they did their own sewing in house as well.

They sold beautiful fabrics that made my heart soar (not sore, but soar). And they repaired regular sewing machines AND antique sewing machines. But I'm getting ahead of myself. They also sold...quilting materials!!! Boards, rotary cutters, measuring sticks, hand-quilting thread, patterns and more! I was in my own little quilter's heaven.
I went to the back to ask the repairman about my sewing machine. I explained that I really didn't know most of the terms that go with a sewing machine, and he told me to sit down, we'd figure it out! So I explained, as best I could, the ways my machine was being persnickety...missing a foot and not having been used for 2.5 years can do that to a machine. He told me how to detach the whole needle arm, and to bring that in, and he'd find the right foot for my machine. (Which, by the way is a Toyota! Who knew that Toyota made anything besides cars?!) As he was talking, I noticed all the antique machines behind him in his repairman's work area. Maybe I could bring Jasmine to him?

As I went to pay for the fabric I bought, I found yet another reason to love my little French quilting store. They use an antique cash register from America!
Look at those fun buttons! And the change drawers inside are beautiful wood.

It even has the awesome little tabs that pop up with the price like something from long before the Price is Right ever came up with pricing games to showcase something cool like this.

I walked away from my little French quilting store with a happy heart. Happy that while it wasn't as easy as Joanne's, and it took asking in two other stores first, I found what I was looking for without that much difficulty. I found something in France that can help me keep being American me...in France. Another step towards adaptation. Another step towards settling down. Another step towards being content to just live life here.

Aigues-Mortes

The Chef is in town for a few weeks to pack up his house for the final move back to the US. He brought his two daughters and their cousin with him, and as the cousin has never been to France, he thought a day trip would be a good break-from-packing, I mean educational outing. So a bunch of us loaded up into two cars and headed out of Marseille.

In the car, Creedence asks if any of us have ever been to Aigues-Mortes (where we were headed first). Flower responded no, she had not. I turned to her and said, "Yes, you have. You went with me. In 2008." She responded, "No, we went to Arles."

I then explained to the car my confusion between Arles and Nimes, and that I finally got them straightened out back in October. But while I am often confused between Arles and Nimes, I'm not confused between Arles and Aigues-Mortes. Aigues-Mortes is a medieval walled-in city, and Arles has a colosseum and the cafe that Van Gogh painted...and I'd never been there until October. Flower said, "Well, I've been to the walled-in city." Yes...in 2008 with me. I seem to remember taking photos then, but I can't find them now, and I didn't even blog about going. But I do know that we went, because I remember there was a temporary exhibit that had stuffed sheep being thrown over the city walls, and well, that was just weird.

Once we'd arrived in Aigues-Mortes, we went straight to lunch. We found a pizzeria and I was surprised to see that the special of the day was a filet of kangaroo. I asked the waitress if that was really true and she assured me that it was. I immediately thought, "Well, I can eat pizza any time, but how often do I see kangaroo on the menu?!" So I ordered it. It tasted like steak and was very tender. Very good. I laughed afterwards that it could very easily have been from a cow, because it sure didn't taste different, but would be easier to sell as kangaroo. Because really? What's a random pizzeria in a small medieval French town doing selling kangaroo?!

After lunch, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping. While I was in a shop, a man approached Pantene and me and immediately began to speak to us in English. For about 10 minutes non-stop. About how he's a blues musician and plays with Michael McDonald. And how he lives in Cuba because it's a great place to live and there aren't that many communists anymore. And that his name is Patti Fatti, P-A-T-T-I-F-A-T-T-I (he spelled it twice for us), and that we can google him and here is his business card. And "you're from Alabama?" and of course he had to begin singing Sweet Home Alabama including the guitar riffs until he couldn't remember the second line of the song and needed my help.

Oh my.

So once we escaped the-man-no-woman-would-want-to-marry (because her last name would be Fatti), we headed over to the Tower of Constance. There is a memorial to the Huguenots (French Protestants) in front of it that was pretty cool to see. I've been reading some French history stuff lately, and when you add the fact that I am a Protestant living in France, the Huguenot part is really interesting to me. Aigues-Mortes is a walled city that King Louis IV (Saint Louis) built during his reign, leaving for two of the crusades from there. He was "the first king of France to have a Mediterranean port...Sheltered by the city walls, in 1278 the port became the only southern port in the kingdom, handling goods such as spices and wool. But when Provence became a part of France in 1481, Marseille took its place. After the revocation of the the Edict of Nantes in 1685 (which established Protestantism as a religion in France), the towers of Aigues-Mortes, formerly a Protestant city, were turned into prisons for the Huguenots." (From the brochure at the Tower). There were several statues of Louis around town. Even though he was taken captive during one of the crusades, the book I read didn't mention that his hands were cut off...

The Tower of Constance is not famous for Saint Louis, though.

It's famous for Marie Durand, a Huguenot who was imprisoned for her faith. She could have won her freedom by simply stating "recant." She refused, and instead carved the word "resist" in the stone of her tower cell. She remained there for 38 years until she was justly freed. What a testimony to persevere in the faith!

Because of the persecution the Huguenots faced for their faith,they fled France, and carried the Protestant faith into the world. I am thankful for that. (This memorial represents that with their cross in the top left, the prison bars in the bottom left, and the sail boats on the right.)

After seeing the "resister," we had some fun storming the castle...

Above is a view of the city walls, and the town within the walls. Below is CSI, me, and Pantene showing our excitement about being up in the tower.

And then we headed over to Nimes. I just loved the way the sunlight was hitting this church steeple.

We walked by some Roman ruins (although this one doesn't look too ruined).

Me, CSI, and the Artist in front of some ruins.

Took a spin around the colosseum.

And called it a day. What a good day it was! On days when Marseille gets to be too Marseille-ish (yall who've been here know what I mean), it's good to get out into the beautiful small-town southern France.

Finished Jewelry Display

Last month, I wrote about how I was feeling crafty, and thus had replaced the plastic orange "jewelry box" with the beautiful painted tile drawers and bought a chair that I see the potential for reupholstered magic in. I promised a post to come of what would replace the dreaded duct-taped Taboo box... That day has come. The orange plastic box is gone. The duct-taped Taboo box is in the trash. I now have a beautifully unique jewelry display in my bedroom. Here's the journey.

While at the Goodwill-like store last month, I did not find what I was (and still am) searching for: an old six-pane window frame to use to hang photos in. I did find, however, this cabinet door. For 5 euros. Score.
Handy dandy Shane pulled out his power drill and within minutes I had holes. Score.
I had hoped to paint outside on the balcony...but um, it's January. That's not going to happen for a few more months. So, I made a painting station in the spare bedroom, and taped my lines on the door so that I could make it two-toned. I didn't want to keep the white, for several reasons: 1. Most apartments here have white walls, and I didn't want a white cabinet door against a white wall. 2. I like painted wood. 3. There's just not that much white in my bedroom, and I kinda like it that way. 4. I was feeling crafty. Need to paint more!
So paint I did! (There are still remnants of that color all over my hands and I'm kinda glad that it's not turning my pretty white Mac that greyish blue. I like the blue. I don't mind it on my hands. I don't want it permanently on Precious, though.)
I painted 3 coats in the shadow indentation, so it was good and solid. When I'd been painting the other doors, I realized I liked the look of the brush strokes on the wood, with the old color behind. So when I went to paint the rest of the cabinet door, I tried my hand at "dry-brushing." You'll see the result below. Then I added in different painted drawer-knobs that (sort of) match the painted tile drawers that hold my earrings.
Then I hung my necklaces.
The finished result: No more Taboo box. Eventually, I might add a few more knobs to hang some bracelets on, but for now, the bracelets are happy in the box. I'm more than happy with the look of my dresser. Thrilled!
Score!

The Doors

Anyone who knows me knows I love doors. Not of the Jim Morrisson brand, but of the hanging on hinges kind. I don't really know when or how the love came about, but I know that I really began photographing them in earnest in Turkey, and by the time I'd moved to France it was full-blown. As I've moved into my own home, I have begun playing around with the idea of refurbishing old doors as a means of decorating and furnishing my home. Pinterest has really helped with that...

So a few months ago, I was walking along the avenue du Prado in Marseille, and came upon a dumpster diving TREASURE. Once a month (or more often, as Marseille goes...), people can put out big pieces of furniture on the curb for the trashmen to pick up (if they're not striking). So it's not uncommon to see dressers, desks, baby furniture, couches, etc., near dumpsters. This particular day, I found a wardrobe (or chiffarobe, as it's called in To Kill a Mockingbird, and I like that word so much better), taken apart and lying disassembled on the side of the road. Not near a dumpster, but near a tree. I would have walked on by not even noticing if it had not been for the wardrobe doors. A bit of beautifully carved wood caught my eye, and I flipped the wood over to get a full look.

Oh my. Beautiful. And except for a few tragic Hello Kitty stickers and temporary tattoos, the doors seemed in fairly good condition.

I called the Artist, who lived nearby, and asked her to come take a look. As we inspected them, several women lingered, waiting to see if I would take the doors. Take them I did! The Artist and I laughed as we carried these doors down the big main avenue through Marseille, but I was thrilled with my find.

Back at my house, I got them cleaned up and sanded, all the while dreaming about how I would paint them. The Artist sketched the doors for me, which I then photocopied to have a gazillion copies of, and colored each one different ways until I'd decided how to paint them. Blue and grey? Blue, grey, and wood? Only blue? Only grey? How much wood to leave unpainted? Everyone agreed that the carved flowers ought to remain unpainted. They're so beautiful on their own...and they'd be too hard for a novice like me to paint!
The Artist and I headed to the local version of Lowe's, and she talked me through buying paintbrushes and paint. I finally decided on the color 'Stormy Sky,' which I thought looked like a grey-blue...more on the grey side. Once painted, it appears to be more on the blue side. Below you can see the carved flowers that make my heart soar they're so pretty!Here is the final product...two doors on each side of my bed to greet me each time I walk in the room. Perhaps eventually I'll get another door to hang as the headboard of my bed.
Thanks, Artist, for all your help, instruction, and encouragement along the way! Yay for doors in my home!

Most Awesome of 2011

Inspired by this post on Stuff Christians Like, here's a list of the awesomeness of 2011 in my own life.

Most awesome books: The Rookery and The Fiddler's Gun.

Most awesome movies: Harry Potter 7.2, My Favorite Wife, Soul Surfer

Most favorite new (to me) artists that I can't get enough of: Josh Garrels, Mandi Mapes, Seryn, Nick Gainey Band, Mumford & Sons, Amos Lee

Most precious moment: Master Yoda marries Princess Leah

Most laughter with someone: CSI (she has made me cry from laughing so suddenly and so hard on more than one occasion)

Most never-will-forget-it experience: Singing and dancing with a million other people while watching fireworks at the Eiffel Tower on the 14th of July

Most unexpected: Spending the summer in Paris

Most needed: Unpacking and moving into my own place after 27 months of being homeless

Most fun: Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot