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Last night I woke up in the middle of the night searching my darkened bedroom, trying to figure out where I was.
Weird.
Apparently, my mind is still in a Paris hotel room, but my body is in Bakersfield.
This morning I wanted a freshly baked chocolate croissant with coffee served from a silver pot.
I got dry whole grain toast with a Starbucks latte in a post consumer recyclable paper cup.
(Sigh)
...back to reality.
Encourage one another,
Monday we totally rearranged the store.
There were bolts of fabric EVERYWHERE!
Amanda said I should take a picture to show you the mess, but I couldn't stop long enough to get my camera.
We're cleaning and rearranging for the Shop Hop in less than three weeks (yikes)!
So if you come in and ask where the kids fabric is...give me a minute to find where we put it (I know it's here somewhere).
Monday night I came home and went straight to bed. Moving thousands of bolts of fabric with jet lag...not a good idea.
Encourage one another,
I'm home to deal with a mountain of mail, emails and blogs to read, phone calls to return, roots to color and nails to fill.
If that weren't enough, now I have to get used to making my own bed!
Three weeks of vacation certainly comes with baggage.
I wanted to share some photos of Giverny; a magical spot an hour outside of Paris where Claude Monet lived and the spot that was inspiration to so many of his magnificent paintings.
Like Monet I couldn't get enough of its gorgeous grounds.
Encourage one another,
After a ten hour flight from Paris to Dallas we missed our connecting flight to LAX so have a chance to relax and watch the basketball game for an hour before our last leg home.
It will feel good to sleep in my own bed tonight!
Encourage one another,
Just back from a day at the flea market. It was fabulous as always, but we bought very little this trip.
We found an old kitchen scale that we both loved and got the price down, but the estimate to ship it home was more than $800 so we passed.
I did buy some great old paper embellishments that I'll photograph and share with you when I get home to a better internet connection.
I leave you now with this photo of me eating bone marrow.
Bon appetite,
In Paris's 1st arrondissement (district) is a wonderful yarn and craft store, la droguerie.
In english la droguerie means drugstore and like an old time drugstore you'll find walls lined with jars of eye candy for the creative kid in you.
Jars of flowers
and jars of leaves,
buttons and beads.
There are little felt baskets for collecting your treasures
and walls of ribbon and trim.
There is a room filled with wonderful yarn and samples
and a clerk there that wagged her finger at me and pointed to the "No Photo's" sign!
Aurg! (Hate when that happens).
Despite their unfriendly demeanor the store was buzzing with customers, ideas and inspiration and getting someone to wait on me was next to impossible.
I did come away with a couple of kits
and the most luscious Liberty of London bias tape that they use for jewelry and all kinds of things.
I have a favorite headband that I purchased at Nordstrom for $30 and found the exact flower for 7 Euro.
I'm going to be on a mission to find these for the store when I get back!
We're enjoying our last few days here in Paris. Today we're shopping some and on Saturday we go to the famous flea market, all things we originally had no time for before the volcano.
Want to know a secret?
Our travel agent called just after midnight last night to tell us she had found two tickets to the states and to be ready to go at 6am this morning if we wanted to go.
Bill looked at me to see what I thought...
...two thumbs down.
We're staying til Sunday!
Encourage one another,
Note: This is my five hundredth post! That's a lot of posts in just short of two years and I've loved every minute of it!
One thing that I've learned in forty two years of marriage is that you've got to compromise.
We've seen a lot of fabric and antique stores in the last few days.
It was time to do something that Bill wanted to do.
Since the tour of the underground sewer system was closed for the season (I'm serious there is a tour of the sewer) his second choice was Les Catacombes.
Just before the French Revolution, most of Paris's overcrowded cemeteries were emptied and the bones were transfered underground to the crumbling Roman tunnels beneath the city streets.
As macabre as it sounds we walked through tunnels lined with artistically arranged skulls and bones. Hundreds of thousands of them.
Today?
We're taking the Metro to La Droguerie, my favorite craft and yarn shop in Paris. (Promise you'll like those photos better).
Viva la différence!
Encourage one another,
Travel update: We have confirmed reservations to fly out on Sunday so with a little luck and no more eruptions or interruptions we'll be home next week. Miss you guys!
Todays tutorial is on how to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull, the erupting volcano in Iceland that is playing havoc with world travel and keeping me in Paris and away from my sewing machine.
However you pronounce it, Eyjafjallajokull spells trouble for travelers around the world.
Today we made friends with other stranded travelers in a laundromat.
We were scheduled to return to the USA on Monday the 19th of April and now it looks like we could be stuck here in France for up to ten more days. (We keep reminding ourselves that things could be worse).
I guess you could call our extended vacation a volcation.
Encourage one another,
So. We're here in Paris unable to get home.
This morning I took a walk around the hotel to get a feel for the neighborhood and see just where I was going to be stuck for a few more days.
Guess what?
Our hotel is in the heart of the fabric district!
This is the design center of Paris with it's fabulous designer home decor stores.
Here's a few of the windows I found on my walk.
Osborne and Little and Kenzo
Being surrounded by all these beautiful fabrics makes being away from my little store a bit easier.
I'm really suffering here people.
No. Really. = )
Later in the day we took the Metro to a wonderful ribbon store I try to visit every time we come.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped by the brand new five story Ralph Lauren store that just opened last week. It's THE most beautiful store located on the left bank at Boulevard Saint Germaine. A fabulous space from a renovated hotel with a lovely courtyard in the center.
Do yourselves a favor and stop for afternoon tea in the courtyard if you're ever in the area. It's breathtaking.
The courtyard was closed while we were there and empty except for a handsome gentleman and his two female companions. They were having a light lunch and enjoying the warm sunny afternoon among the lush plants.
I told Bill that I was sure that the gentleman was Ralph Lauren. As we shopped I kept peaking out of the windows to see if I could get a better look, but by the time we got down to the ground floor he was gone.
As we went onto the street outside the store I looked up to see him talking to two other gentlemen. He looked directly into my eyes and said "hello".
OMG
It WAS Ralph Lauren!
Encourage one another,
Today we were forced to take a coach to Paris instead of a train because the railroad is on strike.
Tomorrow we'll be staying in Paris instead of flying home because there's ash in the air.
So what's a girl to do with an extra day or two in Paris?
Go shopping of course.
Holy crepes! Hope we get home before our money runs out.
Encourage one another,
