Aix-en-Provence

Aix-en-Provence was one of the first places that we visited on our trip.  It was a quiet Sunday morning and we were some of the first visitors to hit the city.  The main street that is notoriously wide for streets in Europe and lined with the most beautiful trees.  We wound through older neighborhoods and enjoyed encountering fountain after fountain as we went.  A poet once said of Aix-en-Provence that a blind man walking it’s streets would assume that it is always raining because no matter where you are you can always here the sound of a fountain near by. 

One of the first stops on our tour was an old church built in three different centuries.  Is was quite pretty inside and I loved taking pictures.  I love the way that light filters in through old churches.  There is a peaceful and reflective quality to it, also I love the quiet that you find in a churches.  I’m not very religious but I still find a peace in being in a place where people have come before me for hundreds of years and contemplated their lives.  It makes you feel connected to them in a very odd way.

Then I got yelled at by a priest in French.   Think that it was for taking pictures of the organ but I’m not sure and our whole tour group got kicked out of the church. It is however, far more pleasant and less embarrassing to be yelled at in a language one does not understand.  

Outside the church we wondered a central town square and their local farmers market. It was enjoyable to see how similar the farmers markets here are to the ones at home.  I liked the similarities and differences that made up so much of the trip.  I find those kinds of things fascinating.  It is one of the things I like best about traveling.  Like lampposts, everywhere we go I take pictures of lampposts, I love how they are everywhere, but in each place they are also a little different.   

Finally we wondered through some of the older residential streets and courtyards.  They were peaceful in the early morning.  We bought some local candy flavored with lemons and some with figs.  We stopped in a local market and bought a baguette which we ate sitting on a park bench and feeding pigeons.  We also bought a crape with nutella and lavender flavored gelato.  ( We stopped a bought gelato almost everywhere we went but the lavender gelato on the main street in Aix-en-Provence was some of the best.)

15 Facts About Me

1. I am a picky eater and it embarrasses me all the time.

2. There is a mountain of laundry in my bedroom more often than not.

3. “White Oleander” is my favorite book of all time. I like the way the author constructs sentences and uses metaphors, it makes my inner teacher geek really, really happy.

4. I dye my hair with a $6 kit from Wal-Mart and it is the only thing about my appearance upon which I regularly get compliments. (Ok, I don’t dye it. I con one of my sisters into doing it for me)

5. I get a “cold buster” Jamba Juice (fruit smoothie) at least once a week wither I have a cold or not. They actually greet me by name when I walk in and ring up my order before I’m through the door.

6. I still miss my mom a lost and feel guilty that I was not a better daughter to her.

7. I am a list maker and a multitasker, I get really excited when I am able to get things done.

8. I hate being asked about my taste in music because I don’t know enough about music to describe “my taste.”

9. Sometimes, I steal magazines from Drs’ office waiting rooms because I can’t bear the thought of missing out on an idea or recipe that they contain just so it can go in the trash at the end of the month.

10. I snack the whole time I cook.

11. Writing and creating things makes me really happy.

12. For years I only bought clothing that matched my black shoes so that I would not have to buy a brown pair. I’m seriously thinking about going back to this, it made life easier.

13. My desk at work is a wreck!

14. My biggest regret from college is that I did not live abroad.

15. I like my feet, I have particularly cute toe nail, which I sometimes paint red just to remind me of my mother.

Guilty Pleasure or Pleasures

I watch too much crap on T.V. for sure. I love Janet Evonavich books and consider them to be brain candy. I used to have real guilt over what I read that everything had to be very literary and on a college reading level just because I can read on that level. The fact that I majored in English probably didn’t help. (And yes I know that it is very funny that I majored in English but cannot spell, I can however give you an example of irony) Then I had this brilliant professor who was talking in class one day about reading Bridget Jone’s Diary and loving it and I thought I loved that book too! After that I stopped pushing so hard. I really love children’s and young adult lit but as they are “work” related I feel that it’s “ok.”


Food defiantly falls in this category for me. I have a few things that I love to eat for dinner like Macaroni and Cheese (the Kraft kind in the blue box) that Todd gives me a hard time about. Whenever he is out for the night and I’m on my own for dinner it’s my go to meal. Kinda sad I know.

I really love to sleep late on the weekend. And I love to lay in bed for an hour or so after I wake up just reading. I have actually responded to the question “Why don’t you have kids” with “Because it will affect my ability to sleep late on Saturday morning,” for years. (I am however rethinking this opinion of late)

If You Could Have Any Job it the World What Would It Be

I think that I would love to be an artist or a writer.  I love to create things.  I look at women who are professional bloggers and get to spend all day making stuff and am envious.  I do realize there are a LOT more complications to it and that doing anything you love with the pressure of deadlines or for money changes it.  I really liked selling stuff I have made at the farmers market over the summer but at the same time loading everything up, selling to people, managing the money, and making the same things over and over every day lost its appeal.  But the ability to just freely create new things all day without pressure would have great appeal to me.

A Moment I was Most Satisfied with my Life

Well there are some obvious mile-markers here like the day I got married, or bought a house, or finished school, or Kyle came to live with us. But I think it might be more interesting to talk about some of the littler times. There are many small moments in my life where things are just really, really good in a sweet and simple way and if I am a very lucky girl I realize right then just how awesome my life is. I can think of one of this back in high school right before a show (I was in stage crew, nerdy I know but It brought me a lot of other good things) and there was a group of us just hanging out and I felt that way. There was a day on a cruise ship in Mexico when Todd and I were standing on top of the boat watching this AMAZING sunset over Mazatlan and I felt that way. Often when Todd and I are having dinner alone together (Eating out of course) and the conversation is good I feel this way. I feel this way when Todd and I are making a meal together at home too, and of course when we dance in the kitchen.



Oh and Sunday Mornings, I love Sunday mornings when we sleep late and go get breakfast. I love the ability to move at our own pace. I love going to a museum or movie on a Sunday afternoon with Todd.

My Favorite Childhood Toys

I had a knock-off cabbage patch kid that I called Mary. I LOVED that thing and slept with it every night until I was like 12 and my cousins started making fun of me. Emily and I each got one for Christmas one year and my mother made us each a diaper bag and TONS of clothing to go with them. We even had several outfits that she made us to match our dolls. My mother was amazing!



When I was older I got an American Girl doll for Christmas. I got Samantha but I was getting a little too old for dolls by that point and only played with it for a year or two. What I really enjoyed was sewing cloths for that doll and tot give to my sisters as gifts for their dolls.


I don’t have many other memories of specific toys. We played Barbies a lot but what I really enjoyed was playing pretend and making things. I had delightfully imaginative cousins and all of our games has very intricate plots. If we were playing Barbies for example we would be French Models on vacation in Hawaii for the summer and we spent as much time building beach front mansions out of chairs, books, blankets etc and discussing/creating our back stories as we ever spent “playing.” We once played Jungle Barbie and tied hundreds of pieces of green yarn from the ceiling in my Aunts living room and then hung Barbie tents that my grandmother had made for us and spent the afternoon “swinging” from one “vine” to the next. (We also played Monchhichis this way.) Other days we filled up all of the sinks in my Aunt Sherry’s double bathroom and the tub to play Mermaid Barbie. Other times we played fairies or desert dwellers without dolls building elaborate tents in the basement or in trees in the back yard as “houses.” Yep, I had one very, very, very amazing childhood.

My Zodiac Sign and Does it fit my Personality

I am a Virgo, I will be honest I do not know a great deal about what that means.  I believe very strongly that belief in and of its self is very powerful.  I think that if you read your horoscope and go about your day looking for it to be true you will find it is.  I prefer to start my day picking a goal or focus I want to work on or achieve and looking for that to be true. I am not a believer in fate, or religion.  I believe in the lessons that I have learned from my past, taking time to really think about decisions, and trusting a sense of peace when I have made the right decision.  I think that feeling unsettled or anger that you cannot make peace with tells you very important things about changes you need to make in your life.