Baby corn!!!

You can feel that  summer is on its way out... the mornings are crisp and the wind has changed (yes, spoken like the true profound gardener! haha). This Summer was a big disappointment with Spring having the summerlike weather and too much rain in July and August... I'm hoping for Un bel été indien ...

In work news the woman I've been replacing is coming back to work September 13th so my contract which goes until September 10th most likely will not get renewed. That said she's coming back part-time so who knows what may happen. I'll have to wait to see with the director as well as HR. In the meantime I'm getting ready for some family fun in October. I'm so excited my little sister is coming to visit! She hasn't been here since I lived in Caen back in 2005 (pre-blog!!) I think it was... and I haven't seen her since I went to Australia! She's coming all the way over here for only a week so I'm planning things to do... hehe

Garden progress

Sadly my tomatoes kicked the bucket with some mysterious (to me) disease... The rest is doing well though!














Corn!!!

Baby pumpkin!!


















Teenage spaghetti squash being a typical teenager and trying to escape!

Monday beach walk

peach pie 2.0

I made peach pie this morning. The last time I made one was two years ago according to my blog!  We're invited to a friend's house for lunch and I wanted to take a dessert that wasn't too rich and chocolaty. I got some white peaches and even made my own crust this time around. I'll let you know how it tastes... I can't really cut a slice out before we go... although I'd love to!

Squeeeee!!!

Garden update

 Yup, garden update. I ran around taking pictures of my garden to blog while Mystery Guest started up the BBQ! We had his family over for a good 'ol fashioned American BBQ for lunch. On the menu? Homemade burgers (this ain't no MacDo!), marinated chicken, potato salad (with purple potatoes!) and his mom brought over some salad and some carottes rapees. Unlike a French lunch there was no entree nor cheese course but we did start off with an apero before hitting the cheeseburgers and fixins! Of course for dessert I had to go a bit nuts with not only cookies but a big Red Velvet that always impresses people :) Yum.

So everything was yummy and we had a great time sitting outside enjoying the sun (which decided to show itself after a good week of rain around here - good timing!) and I gave a couple tours of my garden:

 Blueberries on the left, tomatoes in the middle and a combination of pumpkin, butternut and corn to the right.

 Monster pumpkin!

 Love the little tendrils that hook on to anything and everything!

 Zucchini!

My garden is going bonkers!!

It's official! I've got my new birth certificate!

job update

This week has been busy, a huge learning curve and on my feet all day. Plus I'm working Tuesdays through Saturday so now that it's Sunday I'm totally confused!

This have been going well. Luckily I'm familiar with the computer system from my experience with the Company last year but it's a whole new world other than that. Before I was on the phone all day, in English. Now I'm on my feet all day and dealing with customers face to face in French - aside from the random English person coming in and then asking where I learned my perfect English (haha).

I think the hardest thing is dealing with numbers. I know my numbers in French but have always had a hard time with rapid fire telephone numbers etc. So when someone comes in and spits out their number I'm trying to catch up on the quatre-vingt-douze etc by typing in a 8 first then deleting it for a 9 and then missing out on the rest of what they've just told me. But I'm getting better.

Surprisingly I haven't had too many comments on my accent, maybe once a day but never criticizing, just curiosity which is nice especially considering that I'm not working in a big city so people aren't exposed to that many foreigners around here and country folk can be extremely wary of foreigners. Luckily here in Normandy Americans still have a very good reputation from the war (not like the English and their more recent, and well deserved I might add, reputation) so when I do say I'm American people smile instead of giving me snide comments.

So the job it self is going pretty good so far. It's a one-month contract for now but there is a chance it could be  prolonged. But at least it's a great experience, my first 100% French job for a big French company and that will be nice to put on my CV in any case.

First zucchini of the season!

Blueberries from the garden for dessert!

Weekend O Fun

Blue room!

 

FYI I am a loyal Auchan customer, love their products and actually prefer their store brand to many national brands. I decided to try their paint.... I do not recommend it simply because it is not monocouche!! I love the color but honestly having to put a second coat made it not worth it...

back to the grindstone

I got a call on Friday from the DRH from where I used to work in Caen offering me a 1 month contract locally for the month of August.

I jumped at the chance - not only does it look good for the unemployment office to see that I am "actively seeking work" but it might be my foot in the door working for them in the future.

I start August 2nd.

And am totally nervous.

See the thing is that I've never worked in a 100% French environment, all my jobs here up until now have been to utilize the fact that I speak English and therefore there is a certain leeway when it comes to language stumbles etc. It will still be an asset that I speak English given that there are English customers and tourists around but it will not be the focus of the position. And it is a customer service position so I'm going to be face to face with (French) customers all day long.

I am totally looking forward to the fact that I'll have an 18km commute each way instead of 118km commute each way!

The good thing is that if it all goes well it gets my foot in the door and if it really is not my cup of tea then it is only a month (and with decent pay, no SMIC this time!)

decoration help please!

 Ok faithful listeners we are in need of some decoration help! I've been painting all weekend and it's looking great but for some time we're stuck on how to decorate - specifically window treatment. We've got 2 big sliding glass doors facing south that we'd like to add a little something to but not block the view.

(Please ignore the mess, I just took a quick picture!) The thing is that basically all of the windows in the house have volet roulant which are fantastic metal blinds that are outside and you can roll down either by hand on the smaller windows or electrically on the big doors. They block out light really well and help keep the house warm during the winter nights.

The problem is that it was much cheaper to put the coffre inside instead of outside. From the outside it looks much nicer but on the inside it poses a huge problem for curtains/window treatments! These things are big and while they don't bother me to have them visible would it look weird to put curtains etc under them?

We don't need to block out the whole windows, something sheer or just on the side etc. I like having huge windows to look through and we don't have a lot of people driving/walking past our house (we're down at the end of a dead end). If we do want total privacy we can always drop down the blinds anyway. I'm really looking for something just to give it a bit of decoration more than anything else. I really like the Japanese panels but again it's how to go attaching them, around the coffre? under? above?

Does anyone else have this problem? How did you fix it?

garden update!

For those of you interested my little garden is coming along! It's just been just under 1 month since I planted (some seedlings and some from seed) and it's looking pretty good! We've had alternating hot sunny weather and really really rainy weather and apparently it makes for happy plants.
I've got sweet corn, spaghetti squash (flowering), zucchini (baby zucchinis!), pumpkin, butternut squash, cherry tomatoes (taking over the garden!), normal tomatoes, basil and blueberries!
Yesterday I planted some wax/butter beans cause the box I saw in the store said they could be planted through August. I thought I had missed my chance with beans but I thought why not, let's give it a try!

Mexican lunch!

Inspired by the rainy weather (and Masterchef Australia!) I decided to cook some sunny Mexican food.
I marinated the chicken thighs overnight in lime juice, tomatoes and salt. Then I rolled them in a little taco seasoning before pan frying them. Oh my god that chicken was heaven!!!!

I also made Mexican rice by cooking plain rice first and then in a separate pan sautéing onions and garlic before adding tomato paste, salt, pepper and cumin. Then I mixed it all in with the rice - yum yum!

 Finally I made some spelt tortillas inspired by Andi & Homesick Texan. They came out yummy too!

Then it was just a matter of pulling the chicken off the bone and putting together a burrito with fresh tomatoes & avocado! The only thing missing was cilantro & sour cream... Oh and a picture 'cause I ate too fast! :-)

celebrations

I'm still trying to recover from a HUGE weekend! On Wednesday we drove up to the région parisienne to attend one of Mystery Guest's best friend's wedding. Thursday was the bachelor and bachelorette parties (respectively!) I was lucky enough to be invited and had an absolute blast with the girls!! They were all so nice and fun. We drove into Paris and went to a hammam where we melted away and then enjoyed a fantastic lunch on their terrace. Afterwards we took the bride back to her house (blindfolded of course!) where we surprised her with a chef à domicile for a cooking class.

Friday was lots of prep getting things for the wedding organized and helping them out as much as possible and wouldn't you know it, the beautiful weather on Friday turned into huge thunderstorms ALL DAY LONG Saturday. They had booked a stunning manoir just over the border in Haute Normandie (near Vernon) and were disappointed that instead of walking around the grounds we were huddled under umbrellas. But it didn't ruin anything for the guests, we had a great time. The ceremony was simple and sweet and they booked in 3 acapella gospel singers which really got the audience in the sprit of things. The cutest thing was when their little 18 month old son brought up the rings and then stayed to boogie with the singers :)

Dinner was exceptional delish guinea fowl trou normand for the boys and violette granita in champagne for the girls! plus all the desserts... the table we were put at was just the best. Great people, fun to talk to and have a good time and then dancing the night away. Mystery Guest even busted a move and taught me a thing or two! I have to say I'm always in shock when I see 60 French people hear a song and all of a sudden line up and bust out the line dancing... cracks me up! They didn't understand why I was laughing so I said imagine you're in the States and all of a sudden a group of Americans jumps in a circle, joins pinkies and busts out the Breton dancing - I think they understood ;-)

The weather Sunday was iffy but we still had a great post-wedding BBQ before hitting the road. The bride's mother made my day with a huge pack of Ghirardelli chocolate that they had brought back from their recent trip to the US... yummmm!

Good thing there are no major plans this weekend because we've got to get ready for the Danish invasion in 10 days!

Bachelorette party in a hammam? Sounds like my kind of party!