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Posts Tagged ‘family’

  1. A day in the life

    May 21, 2012 by Audrey

    A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about re-organizing my life and making the most out of my days thanks to the Bucket Theory. Time to see if I’m holding on to my words… in all honesty. Best way to do so: look at a day in the life… What do days look like when you’re an at-home, soon-to-be entrepreneur, in a new country…

    6:30 a.m. Alarm is ringing. In French we say “the future belong to those who get out of bed early”. I know there’s something similar in English, just forgot the exact say (feel free to put it in the comments, that’d be helpful).

    6:45 a.m. After glancing at emails on my phone and checking Facebook alerts that came during the night (that’s the thing about having half of my friends in a different time zone), I finally get out of bed.

    7:00 a.m. Coffee & breakfast before my grandmother wakes up so that I don’t have to hear anything about what I eat.

    7:30 a.m. What I SHOULD do: go to the gym. What I actually did: answered email and scheduled Facebook & Twitter updates for a client.

    8:00 a.m. Shower

    8:45 a.m. Head in the computer… working…

    10:00 a.m. Commute to center city Lyon

    10:30 a.m. Apartment visit… I actually liked this one.

    11:00 a.m. Commute back to the house

    11:30 a.m. Head in the computer… working…

    11:50 a.m. Hear grandmother yelling “I’m hungry…”

    12:00 p.m. Actually going downstairs. It’s a matter of principle: not coming down before noon or she can make us have lunch at 11:15 am. No kidding. Lunch in front of the TV and her favorite game show: Les 12 coups de midi. I’m thinking about signing up for it. That would make her so happy…

    1:00 p.m. Head in the computer… working…

    3:00 p.m. Writing this blog post (the rest of it is what I’m expecting to happen…)

    3:30 p.m. Going downstairs for tea and/or a piece of chocolate and checking on grandma’

    4:00 p.m. Conference-call with client in Philadelphia

    4:45 p.m. Trying to catch-up with emails…

    6:00 p.m. Commute to center city Lyon

    6:30 p.m. Meeting with M., S. & E. before our big presentation in Paris this week. Usually in front of a platter of munchies… which will serve as my dinner.

    8:30 p.m. Commute back to the house

    9:00 p.m. Watching an episode of Cold Case with Grandma.

    10:00 p.m. Excusing myself and going back upstairs to watch the latest Mad Men episode downloaded automatically via iTunes during the day (love that service).

    11:00 p.m. Quick check on emails (in case of an emergency… never know) and friends’ Facebook updates (some people’s lives are so much more interesting than mine…) before shutting off the light.

    This routine is so different from the one I had back in Philly… and I’m not happy with it at all. I’m wondering how much it will change when I have a place of my own…

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,, | 1 Comment

  2. 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

  3. 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

  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. 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

  6. Moving Away – Moving Back

    February 27, 2012 by Audrey

    Tomorrow will be exactly one month before I board a plane back to France. I have now lived in Philadelphia for 8 years and have been calling this city my home for a while. And here I am, starting everything all over again.

    There are so many emotions linked to a move abroad. Whether it’s a move away or a move back, or both (in my case).

    8 years ago, I was moving away. I was leaving behind me the comfort of a familiar city, a close family and a faithful group of friends. I remember taking the subway, about a week before I left, and running into someone I knew. It became clear to me, at that moment, that it was time to go. I was craving the idea of being incognito and being able to reinvent myself; become the person I knew (thought?) I was. The person that wasn’t tied to family expectations, friends assumptions due to our common history, or even general reputation.

    The week after I arrived in Philly was the week two major TV series season finales were released. In Friends, Rachel accepts a job in Paris and then changes her mind when Ross declares his love to her. And I thought: “What if I missed my opportunity for that one-true-love?” And I cried. In Sex & the City, Carrie moves to Paris to follow Aleksandr and then becomes home sick and misses her friends. And I thought: “What if I lose my friends?” And I cried.

    It only took a few more weeks for me to realize that:
    1. I was already making some great new friends (2 of them I met within the first 48 hours I had moved here)
    2. There was plenty of male eye candy in Philadelphia and I had a lot to learn and experiment about the American culture of dating.

    8 years later, I’m back. But this time, I don’t feel like I’m leaving anything behind. All the great things that I have found here, I’m taking with me: my experiences, my memories, my freedom.  Friends, I have all over the world at this point. And I’m lucky to live in the 21st century where Internet keeps people connected and where everyone only lives a plane-ride away. As for my one-true-love… Who knows? Maybe he was there, all that time, just waiting.

    Had you asked me a few month ago how I felt about the possibility of moving back to France, the answer would not have been pretty. Behind the tears was a terrorizing fear of the unknown. But, somehow, I don’t feel fear anymore. I feel excitement about the unknown. I’m not sad about the days left behind, I’m looking forward to the days to come.

    I want to close that chapter of my life, with words from my favorite poem: If by Rudyard Kipling

    …
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
    …
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
    …
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much:
    …
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

     

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

  7. The Wise One

    January 30, 2012 by Audrey

    This week I traveled to Houston, TX. What’s in Houston might you ask…

    Houston has been for several weeks now the location of Aloha Base Camp: a room at the Jesse H. Jones Rotary House, only a skybridge away from MD Anderson. If you’re lucky, you’ve never heard of MD Anderson and you have no idea what I’m talking about.

    The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has ranked #1 in cancer care in the “America’s Best Hospitals” survey published in U.S. News & World Report for eight of the past 10 years, including 2011. When you have been living with stage 4 Metastatic cancer for over 2-years and you just got diagnosed with an additional cancer in your spinal fluid, when you need a shunt in your head to drain fluid down to your belly and an Ommaya reservoir to allow intra-cranial chemotherapy, that’s where you want to be. So that’s where Team Tigger has set up camp, affectionately nicknamed Aloha Base Camp.

    My friend V. has been on a healing mission since she was diagnosed with Lobular Carcinoma breast cancer in the summer of 2009. That mission first took her to Atlanta, GA, where she was treated at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. The goal was to get closer to her friends and family; and that’s where Team Tigger started to form: V.’s husband, her family, her childhood friends. All along, V. has wanted us to trust ”To fear for me is not loving me” she said in her CaringBridge Diary. She always thought, and still thinks, that she will beat that cancer. Both of them.

    On June 16, 2010 V. celebrated her 45th birthday in Atlanta. In February of 2011, she was feeling good enough to move back to Maui, HI. Before this week, the last time I saw V. was in September, in Las Vegas, NV where she had a celebration for life with her 17 closest girl friends. Those women finished putting the T behind Team Tigger and when in December V. had to be rushed to MD Anderson developed an intricate support system that I’m extremely grateful to be a part of.

    So, when I disappeared for a few days last week, that’s where I was, at Aloha Base Camp. It was my turn to take care of our friend. I helped preparing her meals, and was on pill-watch because I’m better at following a schedule than her big Australian Teddy Bear of a husband. I was a sounding board for the rest of the team (husband, dad and stepmom), and a presence and source of entertainment for V.

    Again V. is a miracle. I was expecting to find a sick person, I found a healing person. V.’s favorite joke: “you girls are so crazy that all of you know that I pooped before I even get out of the bathroom”. Yup, that’s how tight the Ocean 17 net is. V.’s laughter is contagious.

    V.’s stepmom nicknamed me “The Wise One” because I tried to direct all my love and energy into appeasing the fears and the anger that we all develop against cancer. I concentrated on trying to bring everyone together into a strong loving bound. I tried to stay objective and at peace. I absorbed. I discovered that 45 minutes can feel like hours when you are witnessing a friend being in pain and you know that there’s a way to relieve her but you can’t and you have to wait. I realized that the family ties are among the strongest and the weakest at the same time. I experienced empathy in its purest, rawest, draining form.

    Everyday I try to respect V.’s request and not to fear. She gave me this necklace that says “Trust” and I’m caring it around my neck. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little afraid of letting go of my fear and simply trust. But for V. I’ll try to take the leap of faith, because I don’t think I’m the Wise One, I think she is.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,, | 3 Comments

  8. Christmas cookies

    December 23, 2011 by Audrey

    France. Sweet France. Christmas with the family and my young nephews; 2 and 4 1/2 years old. Of course, as soon as I arrived I was the dedicated baby-sitter… Except that, well, I’m not much of a baby-sitter and I don’t know what to do with 2 little boys. So, going against my mother’s advice, I decided to start a cookies making workshop for M. Bought cookie cutters in all different shapes and food coloring… For the rest, I left it to the Internet and its fabulous collection of recipes.

    I decided on the following: Sugar Cookies from Delish.com and the Ornamental Frosting from TLC. It was not as easy as I thought it would be to find something easy that didn’t involve crazy ingredients (like meringue powder) or that meant another trip to the store and I was not in the mood.

    Day 1: Baking

    I guess it’s when you’re making them yourself that you realize that cookies are pretty much simply and obnoxious amount of butter and sugar…  Playing with the dough was fun and M. enjoyed all the shapes of cookie cutters. We decided to go with a star, a shooting star, a Christmas tree and what we think is an angel. According to my sister one of the shape we didn’t use was actually a Santa… Oh well, guess our imagination was limited on this one…
    It took me a couple of batches to find the right thickness, the right over temperature and mode. At the end of Day 1, we had 3 dozen cookies that were acceptable enough to be decorated. And I was exhausted!

     

    Day 2: Decorating

    It’s a actually a good thing that M. was not here today to play with the food coloring. I discovered something: food coloring COLORS… everything… starting with my fingers. Ok, well, I’m not the best artist when it comes to playing with colors. So I called for help… MOM!!! Thank god, my mother is the painter of the family and she ended-up having fun with it, which was not a guaranteed win when you know how much she dislikes baking. It took us about an hour. I applied the large first layer, and armed with a syringe, she did the extra stuff. It still doesn’t looking anywhere professional but for a first time (for both of us) I think we did ok. My grandmother was really happy (with all the sugar – because yes, frosting is nothing more than more butter and more sugar) that we were going to have homemade cookies and that made my day.

    Now, I’ll have to try some but believe me when I tell you that I’m SERIOUSLY looking forward to get back on the treadmill after the Holidays! If you know any good recipes, whether it’s for the cookies or for a lighter version of frosting (and maybe less grainy too, smoother), please shoot them my way, I might give them a shot for Easter!


    Category Eating & Drinking | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

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