Café Copine

Copine means ‘girlfriend’ in French, and is pronounced like co-peen. A couple of girlfriends in my town – moms, whose lives are flexible like mine – have instituted a regular get-together over coffee so we can catch up on each others news. We call it café copine.

This morning we met at my house over café, and cinnamon coffee cake muffins, sampled on plates that Matthieu’s great-grandmother hand-painted at the turn of last century.

And we caught up. Since it’s been awhile since I did a newsy-sort of post, I thought I’d invite you for a virtual café copine and catch you up on news.

My daughter is a full-fledged teen pre-teen. It’s hallucinant!- as they say in French (ah-loo-see-non). I’m sure you can guess what that means.

She’s taken over my computer.

And sometimes I stumble over evidence that Gabriel, my next pre-teen, has taken over my phone.

Cutie. I haven’t taken photos of William lately (gasp), and the most recent was when we went to fetch his cello at the luthier. He’s still having fun with it.

Otherwise, we’re about to start major construction on our house to add another level (with sloped ceilings) so that we have enough bedrooms for people. I’ll take pictures as we start the work so you can see what it looks like.

In other budget-sucking moves, we needed to get a new car because our 1992 Toyota Corolla did not pass inspection and the price to fix it was greater than the market price of the car.

So we’ve moved up to a 2008 Yaris, with air conditioning, airbags, and a working radio. I feel so grown up.

Our first kiwi has fallen from the vines we planted five years ago. So teeny-tiny.

It wasn’t ripe, but there are many more on the vine, ripening and waiting to be eaten. (Yay)!

We still have tea roses blooming this fall, and they smell so heavenly. (Yes, lots of these photos also appeared on my Instagram account, which you can access on the sidebar or down at the bottom).

And, speaking of the outdoors, I still have to share my cold-processing soap adventures from this summer, using herbs from our garden! Stay tuned.

Otherwise, I went into Paris for such an exciting reason (to see the dentist). Pure elegance.

And I did a silly trial run on Periscope as I walked towards the Arc de Triomphe. I wanted to see how it worked. I would give you the link, but I don’t know how to (or if it’s possible to) access old broadcasts.

And then I decided to get dressed up in cute little kitten heels to match my most comfortable jean capri pants. That lasted a good hour.

The blisters on my heels are still raw, which poses a tiny problem since my husband and I are heading away for the weekend to celebrate our fifteen-year wedding anniversary! I’m not sure I can get away with sporting sneakers with my evening dress.

It’s a surprise trip, but I’ll tell you all about it when we get back.

My blog is officially finished. I had one reader tell me she couldn’t subscribe to the blog without getting an error message. But I – and two others – tried it without a problem. Will you let me know if you run into any complications?

My author’s website is not done, but that’s okay. I’m totally zen about it because I’m working hard on other things – like actually writing the books! I’m still redoing my memoir to shorten it, and will then do an overhaul on the romance, implementing all the things I learned in the writing-editing course I took. I hope to get those to you soon.

And that’s it! That’s all the news!

You see? We had sooo much to catch up on. Aren’t you glad we had this little café copine?

Bisous!

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