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‘Lifestyle’ Category

  1. The bucket theory

    May 9, 2012 by Audrey

    When I first arrived in Lyon, I met up for drinks with my friends Y. As I was telling her about my new arrival adventures: getting a cell-phone, getting all my administrative paperwork in progress, settling down in my grandmother’s house and helping her with the daily chores and with the overall packing of the house, trying to get my social life together and seeing some friends, keeping an eye on my Philadelphia clients, keeping up with the blog… and complaining that I missed going to the gym and I was looking for a good one; she looked at me puzzled and asked: “How do you fit it all in?”

    I didn’t feel like I was doing anything extravagant… How could she, a working-mother-of-two, wonder how I could fit everything into a single-working-from-home-free-as-a-bird life? I have no obligation to anyone but my clients, the administration (once in a while) and myself. I don’t have anyone depending on me, and someone else is making my meals… How can I NOT fit it all in?

    Well, if you noticed, I took a 10-days hiatus from blogging. Why? Because Y. was right to be doubtful. It appears that I’m no wonder woman and that I have to stop putting everything at the same level. Obviously, after taking a short break to visit my parents, I short-circuited. Was I drowning myself into work and all that good stuff to avoid looking at the reality: I have no idea where my life is going? One can think so. I don’t know. All I know is that if I want to keep my sanity and keep everyone happy: clients, friends, family… I’m going to have to do some serious prioritization.

    Enters “the bucket theory”. It’s a classic from time management training and it’s time for me to use it. That’s how it goes: how do you fit big rocks, stones, sand and water in a bucket? You only can if you start from the bigger items. Fill your bucket with water first and you won’t be able to add anything else to it!

    Same thing goes with my days; putting my bucket together would look like:

    1. The Rocks:
    Weekdays: my clients. Whether they’re French or American; whether it’s about working on projects or working on administrative stuff to get the business going, or even attending networking events. This is my #1 priority.
    Weekends: my friends and family. Time with others is always time well spent.

    2. The Stones:
    Me, myself and I: doing the things that I like and the things that I need. Feeding my creative side by taking time for reading, writing, going to the movies or seeing an exhibit; taking care of my body by not skipping the gym – 10K here I come!

    3. The Sand:
    The not-so-fun stuff that needs to get done: grocery shopping, cleaning the house, running errands, doing all this administrative craziness…

    4. The Water:
    The fillers. Everything else.

    If I can stick to that plan, I should be in good shape, right?

    How do you manage your time? What’s in your bucket?

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,,,,,,, | No Comments

  2. Life essentials

    April 25, 2012 by Audrey

    I am a big fan of Joy The Baker. Not only I can’t wait to have a kitchen to try her recipes, but I also thoroughly enjoy reading her quirky personal posts. One of them, Life Essentials, lists a few (ahem) things that, to her, are essentials. A list… of course, my heart skipped beat and it inspired me to make one of my own.

    So, from totally whimsical to absolutely serious, here is in a complete lack of order what is essential to me…

    Freedom: The ultimate luxury. Freedom to move, freedom to love, freedom of speech – there is no flavor of freedom that I don’t find essential.

    My iPad: Because it replaced my books, my magazines, my CD & DVD collection, my planner, my notebook… Because it keeps me organized, alerts me when something needs to be done, entertains me when I travel, allows me to chat with my friends around the globe or to splurge on a new pair of shoes, keeps me connected with my social networks and let’s me work remotely without weighting a ton.

    My iPhone: See iPad. Add make phone calls and tells me how to get where I need to go.

    My nail polish collection.

    Sunshine: Since I moved back to France I saw very little of it. It has been cold, rainy, windy… A perfect November weather. I am digging deep into my willpower savings not to get depressed. That’s when I realized how much sunshine is important to me.

    Hugs: French people don’t hug. It’s sad.

    My family: I see a lot of sadness around me lately and it reminds me how much I cherish my family and how important it is to give them my time.

    A French Press: There’s no better coffee in the morning.

    Yoga.

    Chanel #5.

    Jazz music: In the large sense of the term. There’s a really great radio station around here, Frequence Jazz; it reconciled me with listening to the radio.

    Peanut Butter: But of course, if you know me, you know that.

    Cats: Hearing them purring under your caress is the best and most relaxing feeling in the world. You were wondering about that photo, weren’t you?

    Black patent leather stilettos: Because they make pretty much anything look sexy.

    The Internet: Without it, we wouldn’t be here, chatting, would we?

    I’m sure I forgot things here and there…

     

    What are your life essentials?

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  3. Smelling the roses…

    April 24, 2012 by Audrey

    Or even better, the wisteria… I love the contrast in that flower between the delicate pastel color and the sweet, almost sensuous fragrance.

    There are wisteria bushes in my grandmother’s garden. I wish I had taken the time to stop and smell them when I first arrived.

    But I didn’t.

    Because, since I arrived, most of my time here, it rained. So I run in and out of the car, pass the wisteria, look at it and think: next time I’ll take the time. Next time I’ll stop.

    How late will that wisteria be in bloom? It’s already starting to crumble.

    How long will it rain? It seems like it will never end.

    So, a couple of days ago, as I was coming back from who-knows-where, running out of the car, in between storms, I got closer to the wisteria, took a picture and inhaled deeply.

    All I could smell was wet grass, no soft and velvety wisteria fragrance. I was too late.

    I don’t know if the wisteria will bloom again (I vaguely remember it as being a summer flower) and if I’ll get a second chance. But if I do, I promise I won’t miss my second chance. Life does not give them that easily so it’s important to seize them, whether it’s something as light as smelling the wisteria, or as scary and challenging as starting over.

    And then there are the second chances that you wait for all your life, the ones that might never come. For all those ones that you might not get, seize the ones you do.

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  4. Tea Time!

    April 17, 2012 by Audrey

    It is common to hear that the longer you live alone, the more habits you develop. I’m also starting to realize that, when you’re living with another person, you tend to hold on to habits as  a way to define your own identity and your own rhythm in the cohabitation. I don’t know if it really works this way for couples (my experience is limited at that level) but I can guarantee that’s the case in a roommate situation. Especially when the roommate is my 84 years old, very opinionated, grandmother.

    According to my grandmother:

    Breakfast should be sweet, and it should be light. Hers: a coffee and a little brioche; mine: eggs & veggie omelets. She cringes.

    Lunch should have at least an appetizer and an entrée. Hers: salad + meat or fish + vegetables + cheese and/or fruit (on a light day). Mine: salad or soup and 1/2 sandwich. She cringes.

    Soup at lunch is a blaspheme. Soup is made to be eaten at dinner.

    Doors are made to be closed. I just can’t seem to remember that rule.

    The washing-machine is HER territory. If I want to do my laundry, I need to ask her first how to use it.

    Wet clothes go on the drying rack a certain way. In a certain order. With a certain distance between them.

    Washing dishes (by hand, we don’t have a dishwasher) is and art. I’m not allowing her in the room if I do it (when I find a way to sneak in during her nap time and do it) because she’s getting palpitations seeing how I do it.

    Vegetables are made to be cooked “au gratin”. I bought microwavable steamed veggies one day and when she realized they were steamed, she ended-up putting them back in the freezer and making a zucchini gratin instead.

    TV is made to be watched 2 networks at a time, skipping at each commercial break. Of course, there’s a schedule (and Monday’s Cold Case always make me home sick but I can’t tell her that).

    Now, there’s one habit where we ‘re getting along just fine: tea time! We moved it from the 5:00 p.m. traditional British way to our own 4:30ish p.m. It give me a little break from writing/answering emails/doing geeky stuff on the computer and it breaks her afternoon. It’s our time to chat (no TV games to watch), to reconnect and to recharge our batteries. It’s the time  where we’re not terribly matched roommates but we’re back to a loving grandmother/granddaughter relationship. And it’s for those moments that I am glad I made the decision to come back.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,,,, | 8 Comments

  5. Taking Chances

    April 11, 2012 by Audrey

    No, this post is not related to Celine Dion‘s eponymous album (how amazed are you that I actually know that there’s one). Forgive me, Celine, but I prefer getting started with quoting Henry Miller.

    All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

    In my thirty-something years of existence, I took a lot of professional chances: jobs abroad, creating a business, or simply choosing the path of marketing and communication when my parents wanted me to have a tourism degree (we lived on the French Riviera, if you want a job there, you need to work for the tourism industry).

    I leaped in the dark when took a job as a dance instructor for Club Med at 28, I leaped in the dark when I moved to Philadelphia at 30, I leaped in the dark when I created Raison d’Etre, my marketing consulting firm… and once again, I leaped in the dark, a couple of weeks ago, when I sat in this plane, coming back to France. Did all my leaps take me upward? The answer is YES. From each one of them I learned something, I developed a network of friends, new skills, new experiences. From each one of them I grew stronger, faster, wiser.

    So you would think I’m the kind of person who makes “taking chances” a motto in her life, wouldn’t you?

    In theory, yes.

    In practice, did I always take chances when the opportunity knocked? Not really. I’m good at taking chances in my professional life. I’m confident that in the eventuality of a fall, I will rebound higher. The chances I took in my personal life did not feel the same. I took some. I fell. I didn’t rebound very high at all. Chance after chance, I kept on going downward, more jaded, more bitter, building higher and stronger walls with each ending story.

    It makes me wonder: have chances a better chance when there is a layer of control? Or is it cheating when you know there is an exit sign somewhere? Do “taking chances” and “calculating risk” work together or cancel each other out?

    Today, I’m working on letting go of my fears, breaking those walls and welcoming new chances into my personal life. It’s a harder job than it sounds. So I turned the words of Confucius into a new mantra:

    Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , | 2 Comments

  6. The art of writing | Part 2

    April 7, 2012 by Audrey

    I made a vow, back in January, to write more cards… It was about time to comply.

    When I decided to move back to France, I was confident that thanks to today’s technology, I would keep in touch with my American friends pretty much the same way that I did while I was there. After all, we have Facebook to keep in touch with each others’ lives, we have emails to give news on a regular basis, we even have iMessages to chat about in the moment adventures (granted the time zones are in our favor).

    I joked once to a friend: “We’re so lucky, what did we do before telephone & internet?” What we did: we wrote.

    When I celebrated my departure a couple of weeks ago, my (lovely) friends, came armed with gifts and cards… It was my duty to properly thank them, and the least I could do was to pen a few thank you cards. Because of how crazy things were before I left, those cards had to wait for me to settle-down here and find a little bit of time. But what I did not realize until I did that was:

    • I did not even have a physical address for most of my friends. Since we started hanging out on the “Inter Web”, did we forget that people live in actually houses, somewhere? Addresses can be so poetic… I always wanted to live in Loveland, CO, just to be able to get mail there.
    • I enjoyed the feeling of the ink on the paper. Granted it was a ball pen and a simple white card. But the silence of it was nicer than the clic-clic of my keyboard.
    • Writing those few cards gave me a stronger feeling of accomplishment (when I dropped them in the mailbox) than sending all the emails in the world.

     

    Exercise was conclusive. There will be more cards written in my future.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , | No Comments

  7. First impressions

    April 1, 2012 by Audrey

    Sunday morning wandering at an Old Car show

    It’s Sunday afternoon, here in Lyon. The sun is shining. I’m comfortably set-up on my (king size) bed, on the second floor of my grandmother’s house… I’m officially moved back. I sometimes have to say it out loud because it still hasn’t completely sunk in…

    The flight to Lyon (via London) was a breeze. British Airways is a pretty good company to flight. When they don’t lose your luggage… Which this time, they didn’t. Couldn’t believe how easy it was to go through customs once in Lyon. The immigration agent barely looked at my passport and there was NO ONE inspecting luggage. It took me about 10 minutes from getting off the plane to meeting up with my uncle. What a change from PHL. France gets points.

    My first order of business was to get my cell-phone set-up and internet installed at my grandmother’s. There, I ended-up being able to exchange my iPhone 4S for a brand new iPhone 4S (the US one was locked), and get a bunch of goodies with it. New phone cost: $0. Total monthly bill for cable TV + landline (with pretty much all possible calls included) + Internet WiFi + cell phone (lots of call time, unlimited text, unlimited internet): $110 (half of what I paid if you add Comcast & AT&T). France gets points.

    Saturday night, I was invited for a dinner party at a friend’s house: home-made pizza, wine, and conversations on the value of symbolism. Total cost $17 for the bottle of St Joseph I brought. Excellent time catching up with friends, and brain stimulating conversations. France gets points.

    Now, I had to go to my grandmother’s car insurance to get registered on her car insurance (until I get my own)… We were missing a paper and I suggested that I could email it. The girl’s response left me speechless: “We don’t have email here.” U.S. gets points.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,,, | 2 Comments

  8. Ready, set, travel!

    March 23, 2012 by Audrey

    Earlier this week I was telling you all about my 10 dream (next?) destinations… I’m dead serious about it. And to prove how serious I am, what better than start planning for each one of them.

    So, alright, I don’t have my travel companions yet, or even the money to buy any ticket, or the slightest idea of when I will feel comfortable to stop my new beginnings in Lyon and head out to the world (that would be sooner rather than later though…)

    But what I know is that the best way to see something happening is to make it happen. And the best way to make it happen is to make… A LIST! Looking at trip planning, researching prices, establishing budgets, working on itineraries… all of that, to me, is part of the thrill of traveling and allows a little mental vacay while still being stuck behind the laptop.

    The first thing to do is to pick your travel theme. What type of trip are you envisioning? Romantic escapade? Girls shopping spree? Solitary retreat? You want to make sure that everyone is on board with the theme and that there will be no unsatisfied expectations. Then get your group together and pick your time-frame and your destination.

    Enters the funnest part: online research (oh I’m such a geek, I know…) google away your destination, browse travel photos, journals and videos posted by real people sharing their experiences (hello Pinterest boards!);  and make lists: places to visit, restaurants or hotels that have been recommended… Crowd-source your connections: is there anyone in your friends and/or professional entourage who knows someone who knows someone in this country/city? Chances are the locals will be happy to, at least, make recommendations, at best give you a tour, introduce you to other people and give you an experience that you would never have with a travel agency or a pre-packaged trip.

    We live in the world of web 2.0 – what a wonderful thing.

    Now for the details (you want to be somewhat prepared – don’t overdo it, leave some room for spontaneity and what life might throw at you), here’s a sample of what’s on my travel-preparation list:

    • Activities list: the DO NOT MISS while you’re there.
    • Reservations: transportation, lodging, emergency contacts, local contacts, travel party.
    • Packing list: clothes, toiletries, gadgets.

     

    How do you get ready for your trips? Do you have any go-to websites to help you organizing? What do you like most about the pre-travel phase? 

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,, | No Comments

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