Ma Vie En Francaise

I've been dreaming in French again, which is a really lovely experience to have, except for the fact that I don't actually speak French. The last time it happened was while we were living in Berkeley where one of my neighbors and dearest friends there was French. Since she spoke only French to her children, just spending time with her meant that I started to pick up on some very basic commands. Adding to that, there were also three other French-speaking families in our building, so on any given day there was a lot of conversational French (and fabulous food!) taking place in the little outside common area. Let's just say, if I ever visit France and someone tells me to point to my nose, find the cat, get the ball, come with mama, be gentle with the baby, change my pants, look over there, listen to me, and eat the bread and cheese, .....I think that I'll be ok.

So thanks to that mini-immersion, I started having a few dreams in French. Don't worry however, this was no miracle of tongues because, of course, it wasn't actually real French. It was proably more like the kinds of conversations that Isabel is currently having with me. She carries on and on in her English with absolute certanity of her fluency--and, sure, I won't deny that there are plenty of "words" with appropriate inflection, and that there are even some recognizeable sounds, but mostly it's complete garble. And, alas, such is my French.

Well, it happened again. This time it's because we recently watched the movie La Vie En Rose, an incredible (which, if my French can be trusted, you should prounce as "een-cred-ee-bleh", if you don't mind) movie about the true story of Edith Piaf, the famous French singer who lived in the early 2oth Century. And I was so taken with the story and the music that I started listening to the many of Edith Piaf's recordings thanks to our online music subscription. And I mean listening straight....for days on end.

Then...I read the equally een-cred-ee-bleh book, Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The book is made of two short novellas, the first about Parisians who are fleeing the city on the eve of the German invasion in June 1940, and the second is about a month in a small French town under German occupation. The stories and characters themselves are rich and compelling, and the writing is tremendous, but what makes it even more incredible is that the author wrote these stories concurrent with this history taking place and all while she was in hiding in Southern France since she was born a Russian Jew. Her book was never finished as she was taken to Auschwitz where she died later that year.

And then......since I was leading the discussion on this book for our book group last month, I did a little bit of reading up on French political and military history during and after WWII to get some clarification. (And incidentally, Adam and I also recently re-watched Cassablanca, which, call me stupid, but it now makes soooo much more sense. Phew.)

So, now I'm thinking that I'd better start planning for how I should celebrate Bastille Day this year. Any suggestions?

Addendum: You can't miss the post Anna did for me on her blog in response. Spot on. Merci, mon amie!

Addendum part deux: Per Adam's request, I have made a link of my search results of French military history. It's a good laugh....if you're not actually French, that is.

Floors

Last week the floors were finished/refinished. I had the existing hardwoods in the DR and Living Room also sanded and refinished since I wanted to change the color from a golden oak to a more medium brown (nutmeg is the name of the stain color, actually).




Can I be prideful and vain? I don't have great pictures of these new floors (and they're looking a little redder in the photos than they do in real life), but you'll have to trust me when I say that they look faaabbbbuuuulllloooouuusss. In fact, I think that I love them more than a person should really love a material possession. And considering that I spent more on the floors than we did on our last car, I guess this is only evidence of what I'm come to recognize as a bit of a fetish with fine wood and millwork.

I admit that when I tour historical homes (of which there are plenty in this area) that I spend more time looking at the kind of mouldings, casing or crown is in a room or hallway than browsing through the extensive collection of soup tureens. And while I'm on the subject, can I just say that they don't do millwork today like they used to! Well, I suppose they do (because I have spent more than my fair share of time oogling the displays at a local lumber store), but it just costs a pretty penny. And since I'm already in a braggy mood, can I also just say that I have now learned how to navigate my way around the pieces in the lumber store's millwork aisle and that I can now throw about terms like ogee, feather edge, beading or eased edge with aplomb. Seriously, just try me.

Ok, well that's enough for now. I'm off to stroke the floors before head up to bed.

April snow and other good times

We were lucky enough to have Grandma Sha-sha, Auntie Kami, and their friend Ruth down for the weekend. And after Kami and Ruth ripped out a few overgrown shrubs, dug out an enormous root, and sifted some rocks in the yard for me (many, many thanks ladies!), we spent the afternoon at Longwood Gardens. Outstanding.

More of Last Week's news: Spring Arrived

After a few weeks of seeing the "signs" of spring (like daffodils and forsythia) but still not feeling at all like it actually was spring, thanks to temps that were waaay to cold for my taste, last week it started warming up enough that I think I can safely say that it feels like winter is over. Three cheers!!

Last Week's Work

Here it is almost the end of this week, but I kept meaning to post the work that got done last week. There's a lot that happened last week, even if it's hard to actually see any major differences.
All the electrical was fully hooked up
Windows and doors painted
All trim painted
2nd coat painted in kitchen
and the DR is now finished

Here's Jesse installing the wall paneling pieces for the wainscot (with help from Isabel):


Close-ups of the primed paneling pieces



And Max is showing off the final product

Breaking News

Max has finally lost his first tooth! We've been waiting for this one since it first started to loosen on the weekend before his 7th birthday in February. It seems that he's had one of his fingers in his mouth playing with it ever since. It came out just this afternoon on the bus ride home from school. Hooray!

Flipside: The new permanent teeth are starting to poke through in the gums behind the baby teeth....I think I see one lucky orthodontist purchasing a new boat paid for by the work that Max's mouth will surely need.

Is this weird?

All of these are currently in our fridge:

I think that we really love ourselves some yogurt around here.

Eating Demolition-style

One of the most common questions I've been asked regarding this whole remodeling project is about how and what we've been eating. Truthfully, it hasn't been as bad or as hard as I had expected. I'm kind of proud of us that we've ordered out only three times so far. We have set up a temporary kitchen on our dining table moved into the front room.
I've been cooking by using a borrowed electric skillet, a rice cooker, a crockpot, the microwave and the waffle iron. We eat a lot of skillet stuff, like stir fry, something in a Trader Joe's simmer sauce, or a simple ratatouille. I can do all the vegetables, meat or tofu in the skillet and then serve it over rice or couscous. When I put the veggies over couscous, I will "boil" water in the microwave and then pour it over my couscous grains and seal it all in a tupperware for 10 mins to "cook." Once I went to a friend's house and made a huge pot of hearty soup that we reheated to eat for two days worth of dinners.

Here's Adam making waffles--our after Church tradition.

The part that I'm getting the most sick of, however, is washing dishes in the laundry room. It will be really nice to have kitchen sink and dishwasher again.

Kitchen, part 3

Here come the cabinets. It's starting to look like a kitchen again!
This first photo is from the opposite side of the room than I am usually standing in to take progress pictures. I'm standing in the DR doorway right now. Here's the wall that will be the sink and fridge side. The fridge will go in this close leftside corner, then the DW, then the sink base. There will be two upper cabs for either side of the window and a cabinet over the fridge.

This next photo is the wall that used to be our "eat-in" area on the opposite side of the room from the DR. I'm usually standing here when snapping photos. This will be our "mud room" since that back door you can partially see is our main entrance to the house from the garage. In fact, it's more commonly used by visitors, neighbor kids, etc. than is our front door. And since everyone comes in here and just drops their shoes, bags, groceries, mail, etc., but it was always an unorganized and cluttered space. I needed something more suited to the way we live. So this will give me some cabinet space for pans, small appliances, etc, but then we'll have this little bench area for kids to sit and put on/off shoes as they go in and out, there will be drawers below for shoes, scarves, mittens, etc. in the winter and swim goggles, flip flops, etc. in the summer. And there will be some hooks on the wall for hanging backpacks, the diaper bag, and stuff. Then there will be open shelves for my cook books and all my chachka, and then I will have a little "office" area on the right as a place to organize mail, calendar, and all the week's school stuff. Well, this is the idea anyway. Here's Adam testing out a piece of cardboard as a countertop to simulate our island. The island is in cherry (and the perimeter cabs are in painted maple) and we'll have a slide-in downdraft range in the middle. There will be a 12" overhang for some saddle stools and a place for kids to eat breakfast and snacks. It won't be a transition to be eating all of our family meals in the DR as we were doing that already as our "eat-in" area was too small for a table that would seat all of us.
We'll have soapstone countertops that we....uh, I mean Adam..... is fabricating and installing himself. We found a place in New Jersey where we can buy the slab for a quarter the price of going through a normal fabricator/installer. Soapstone is a softer stone than granite and it can be dry cut. We found a few people online who have done it DIY and so Adam has been in email contact with one guy back and forth and with the stone supplier about the details. It's looking somewhat promising, and we don't an especially difficult space either. It looks like we'll only have to do one seam. It's the cut-outs for the undermount sink and the stove that will be tricky.

This picture is a mock-up with some paper plates to give me a feel for choosing some pendants for the island. I've been in agony for a couple of days about choosing a pendant. Well, I finally ordered one since the electrician will be back on Monday to wire in the stove and the rest of the plugs. I sure hope I like them. I'll leave the details until then just in case I say what they are and then I get negative feed back. I'm not sure I could take it right now. So, whatever you see after Monday, just tell me they look great!

Everything is pretty exciting right now. However, we've hit a few snags: most of the drawer fronts were slightly different color than the rest of the cabs and doors; no seat top for the bench built-in; two warped doors on the pantry wall; ends are slightly different color than face frames; sent wrong size for over refrigerator; and wrong size ordered for side of window. Yikes.
Can you see that the drawer on the left is lighter than the one on the right?
So yesterday the Company Rep and the salesperson who sold us the cabs came out to evaluate. It was a good meeting and the Rep saw that we were not just making this stuff up or being overly picky. So they took a good door and will send it back to do some color matching for the replacement parts and for some skins to fit over the ends. They'll also re-order replacements for the warped doors and for the wrong sized cabinets, and they're going to custom make a top for the bench area for us. For the most part it means that we can still move ahead with the installation, floors, and counters to getting a functional kitchen. The down side is that it puts us a good 3 weeks out from getting completely finished as we can't do anything about the uppers and trim installed along sink and fridge wall.
Oh well.

Ok. This is where we are so far.