The title is tongue-in-cheek, because although we are all over the place traveling, my thoughts are all over the place too. You’ll get a nice glimpse of that by the time you reach the end of my post.
I woke up at four A.M. today because we just returned yesterday morning and I’m still jet lagged. My kids are the opposite. I had to drag them out of bed at noon.
I sat in the living room and drank my triple espresso (oh, how I missed my European coffee while in the States) and watched the light play on the leaves outside the window. Then I just kind of sat still with God and enjoyed the peace.
What I felt was gratitude. I was grateful to be home, grateful for routine again, grateful that we got to have such an adventure and that there will be another one coming up when we go to Switzerland. There are so many things to be grateful for!
This is our living room. We only had two days after Brittany before we left for the States, and now we have a quick turnaround again before we leave for the Alps.
It’s messy and cluttered, but I’m grateful.
And, oh my… our garden! I’m hoping these will soon be the “before” pictures as we get our act together and completely resow the lawn. We came back and discovered there had been a heat wave and drought in the Paris area. Can you see all those weeds there on the sides? See how green they are? They weren’t impacted by the drought. They were just fine. I know there’s a spiritual lesson in there.
On the other side of the wall is our old vegetable garden, which we no longer have time to care for. Plus, it makes no sense if we’re just going to be traveling all summer to try and grow anything. Matthieu had installed a watering system from our well while we were gone (for the baby apple tree), so all the weeds around there are doing just great.
Those wooden boxes are supposed to be vegetable beds. Sigh.
Overall, I’m happy to report the weeds on this side of the wall are doing even better. Greener and healthier.
Speaking of walls, it’s that cement wall straight ahead that we want to tear down. It will require a lot of manpower since we probably don’t have the funds to hire anyone. I suppose I’ll also need to remind my husband that he’s 50 years old now.
On the upside, my kids are teens or nearly so, so we should be able to get some child labor out of them. (I’m laughing because my parents handed my brother, sister and me the old photos from our childhood and had us divide them up. There were ones of us shovelling upstate NY snow, traipsing to the farm each week, carrying in firewood for the woodburning stove, and remodelling the rooms of our house. There was lots of teasing our parents about child labor, teasing our kids about how good they had it, and reminiscing about the “good ole days”).
Here are two pictures of me at my very best.
What can I say? Style just comes naturally to me.
Just cracking myself up here.
So back to the garden. What I’d like to do is have one lawn not broken up by a wall, a couple fruit trees, and then I need to find a way to replant the lavender, irises, hydrangeas, peonies, rose bushes, and tulips – oh, and the herbs. Like, where the heck am I going to put all those things? I definitely want to keep them all, but they don’t grow very well near the laurel hedges. I love the idea of raised garden beds, especially if they’re made of old stone – may as well dream big, right? – but they will take some time and money to put up and my uprooted perennials will wither before it’s done.
Any ideas, o Master Gardeners? For a weed-free, gorgeous yard?
For our trip States-side, we flew into D.C. then drove to Charlottesville for the first night. (D.C. traffic is murderous). Then we drove to Blacksburg, VA. After that, we were with my dad in North Carolina. This is the view from his house.
Then my mom and her husband rented a house for us near Jonesborough, TN so we could stay in the area.
We then back-tracked to attend church in Asheville, NC, because we have friends there, before driving to Roanoke for another night. (I’m sure some of you are going to say – I live right near there! – to one of these places). In Roanoke, we went to the Texas Roadhouse and the kids were simply appalled at the peanut shells all over the floor. Ha. Innocents. They don’t know how to have fun.
Another as-good-as-it-gets photo:
Then we spent another night close to Dulles with friends before flying home.
It’s kind of remarkable that you can visit family and friends so easily, isn’t it? A two-week whirlwind trip with these kinds of views:
This is Tennessee, heading into North Carolina, I think. I always say how Switzerland is ridiculously beautiful, but America is not so shabby either.
While we were driving to all these places, I finished the rough draft of my next book, A Friend in Paris, and now I need to start the next series of drafts and beta-reads. I also plan to write a short Christmas Regency novelette (about 5 chapters) as a bonus for people who sign up for my author newsletter. No worries if you’re already signed up. You’ll get one too when it’s ready.
Otherwise, the latest and last bit of news to round up this all-over-the-place post is that I’ve been invited to be an affiliate for a company called Insidr with amazing resources for if you’re planning on traveling to France or Europe. (What being an affiliate means is that if you click the link and purchase their services from my website, I will get a commission. I rarely agree to be an affiliate, but this company is so suited to my readership I couldn’t turn it down). I’m going to devote a whole post to the topic but in case you happen to be traveling to Europe this week or something, you might want to check it out.
And that’s all. Are you well? Enjoying summer? Starting school already? We don’t go back until September.
