Life

Not Sleeping in Paris

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Last year when we traveled to Paris for our 40th anniversary, we poured over Rick Steves’ travel book planning our trip. As he suggested, we stayed in the Rue Cler neighborhood and booked a room at the Hotel Relais Bosquet (www.hotel-relaisbosquet-paris.com). The hotel is close to a Metro station and within easy walking distance to the Eiffel Tower. The Rue Cler area is filled with quaint little restaurants. A gelato shop and French pastry shop (complete with bees buzzing amongst the pastries) were our top favorites, although we had to leave the cheese shop when we started to drool. There was also lots of great boutique shopping.

Did I mention the hotel even had a lovely breakfast? Not being a coffee drinker, I had my own pot of hot chocolate every morning. Hubby had his pot of coffee.

Try booking a room on the ground floor. It was small but newly renovated and very modern.

There is one negative aspect of European travel I have noticed and just have to mention. The beds tend to be hard as rocks. Haven’t slept on one that you could minimally sink into yet and we don’t hang out in hostels. I mean if you love sleeping on a board, you will be right at home. But that may be the point … who wants to sleep when there are art museums that make your eyes glaze over from all the eye candy, sidewalk cafes to linger in and people watch, and architecture that will knock your socks right off your feet!

Paris in September

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It has been my experience that September is a great month to visit Europe. The weather is mild, the college kids are all back at school, and generally, lots of people are back at work dreaming about next summer.

Our favorite way to travel is the “Rick Steves” way. With the help of his books, we make our own itinerary, book our airline tickets and even our cute little hotels. And when we get to our destination, take ourselves generally where his guide books lead us. My husband and I are not seasoned travelers, but we adore the adventure of depending on each other, exploring on and off the beaten path, and celebrating with high-fives at the end of the day that we actually make it back to our hotel!

Last year for our 40th wedding anniversary we traveled to Paris, the City of Lights. Did you know that the Eiffel Tower puts on a glittering light show starting at nightfall during the first ten minutes of every hour till 2 a.m. in the summer, 1 a.m. in winter? Basically, the tower is grand during the day and breathtaking at night!

Paris a very walkable city and also home to the imposing Notre Dame Cathedral and The Louve. I still pinch myself when I think about attending Mass in Notre Dame. Did we really do that?

And yes … we even learned how to use public transportation! I’ll never forget purchasing our Metro tickets in the underground subway station. Half of the tickets didn’t work and the Metro dude in the cage just shook his head at us like we were the dumbest tourists he had ever met. I remember sitting on a bench on one of the Metro platforms. The Metro map was incomprehensible. We had no idea how to get to Notre Dame from our hotel until we befriended an English-speaking family of four. I could tell by his haircut he was military. Turned out the husband was stationed in Germany and traveling around Europe with his wife and two children. After he gave us our subway lesson we were experts, only getting off at the wrong stop once the rest of our trip.

Next time … our favorite hotel/neighborhood in Paris!

Is it too early for Halloween?

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frankenstein
I just started reading the gothic novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. I don’t know what took me so long. I still recall watching the 1931 movie version starring Boris Karloff, and many other versions, so the monster story is very familiar.

Back in the ‘60’s when I was a kid there was a television program called “Creature Features” that came on every Saturday night that played all the old vampire, lagoon creature and “Frankenstein” movies. It was an awesome way to spend an evening around the popcorn bowl with the family.

I have to say Shelley’s writing has me hooked. She doles out just enough information to let your imagination go wild. I can tell I am really going to enjoy it.

But I was so surprised how the novel began. It starts out with a self-absorbed man looking for the North Pole. During his voyage into icy waters littered with sheets of treacherous ice, he comes across a man, and one remaining dog attached to a sled, that have fallen through the ice. There is a rescue involved and the waterlogged gent recovers to tell a long story about his interesting life.

The family name of “Frankenstein” is finally mentioned on page 76 and that is where things get interesting. Need I say more?

The quilt has a name!

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Mimi's flower garden quilt
I had lots of great suggestions for a name of the quilt I made that will be donated to The Village Learning Center (www.villagelac.org) in November. I loved all the suggestions! Loretta was the one that tied Mimi to the donation and I believe best fits the quilt. So “Mimi’s Flower Garden” it is!!! Why didn’t I think of that?

Macarons, marshmallows and mini cupcakes … oh my!

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I’m getting a new kitchen floor this week so I have to stay out of the house. Twenty inch ceramic tiles … it’s gonna be awesome. At least it will be very nice right about Wednesday afternoon when the refrigerator makes it way out of the living room and back into the kitchen!

It’s one of the reasons I wound up driving all the way into Houston today. I got to play with my daughter Katie. On one of our stops we wound up at Petite Sweets for like two hours just hanging out and catching up on life. I love days when I get a little “Katie time.” It is so soothing to my soul.

If you have never been to Petite Sweets (www.petitesweetshouston.com), it is located at 2700 West Alabama. It is a mini cupcake, macaron, whoopee pie, cakeball kinda place, and oh, so much more! Kendall was the sweetie pie behind the counter that gave us the grand tour. Personally, I so respect a place that makes homemade pistachio marshmallows. Don’t you?

After making our selections, Katie and I settled down at a table with the small assortment of sweet delights. My personal favorite was the salty caramel macaron and the oatmeal whoopie pie. I took home a chocolate toffee cakeball and a red velvet macaron for hubby. Next time I’m loading up on some of their mini cupcakes.

Life … it doesn’t get any better than hangin’ with your daughter and sharing a whoopie pie.

My happy place is a quilt shop

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One of my New Year’s resolutions many months ago was to make up several scrappy quilts to have on hand. That’s so I don’t look like a deer in bright headlights about to get creamed by an eighteen wheeler when someone asks for a donation for their next fundraiser. I know what you are thinkin’. What is up with the Christmas fabric? It’s nearly the Fourth of July. I like to be prepared. Part of my Girl Scout training.

So this particular quilt was created with a disappearing nine patch pattern from my stash of Christmas fabrics. Easy and breezy! I promise to blog about the pattern in a future post. My friend Debbie demonstrated the pattern one day at Prayer Quilt Ministry. She is awesome! It’s my new favorite pattern if you need to create a quilt top quickly.

So last night I pulled out some of the larger fabric pieces from my personal stash that would be enough to bind the quilt. For you non-quilters, the “binding” is the edging that finishes off the quilt. One-half yard is about the right size but my options were limited. I didn’t like the all-over candy cane fabric for the quilt. And the batik with the red and white berries wasn’t speaking to me either.

It’s why today I traveled to The Quilt Room, http://www.thequiltroomhuffman.com, to purchase some binding fabric. The ladies are so nice at The Quilt Room and are always up for pulling down bolts of fabric for auditioning purposes. Adela helped me pull some Christmas fabrics over to the cutting table so we could figure out if any had potential. Laura, who also works at The Quilt Room chimed in with a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. I came out of there one happy Girl Scout camper with a half-yard of dark green foliage and tiny red berry fabric. Let the binding begin!

Celebrating 80 big ones … and 5 things my mom taught me.

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We celebrated my mom’s 80th birthday over the weekend. There was lots of old-fashioned fun with cake, candles and family!

Today I reflected on just five of the hundreds of things my mother taught me.

1. My mom taught me patience. When I was a little girl she taught me how to knit. She is a righty and I’m a lefty, so there was lots of frustration on my part. After dropping many stitches and finally getting my tension just right, I finally got the hang of it. Today the rhythm of clinking two needles together is still music to my ears.
2. My mom taught me about the power of stories. I still remember sitting at the laminate kitchen table when I was probably 8 or 9. It was at that kitchen table I first learned she was a little girl when German soldiers marched into Holland during World War II and stayed for a number of years. Mom would tell me how she peeled buckets full of potatoes every day. It finally dawned on me the story wasn’t really about the potatoes. It was all she and her family had to eat.
3. My mother taught me love is in the little things we do for others each day. I’ll never forget how she spent the first two weeks with us after our Katie was born. In the middle of the night we’d bump into each other in the hallway after our newborn cried out for another feeding. “I’ll take this one,” my mother would say, “you go back to bed.” She would stay with us again when the next two were born.
4. My mother taught me how to iron a shirt. Back then there wasn’t such a thing as permanent press. Everything wrinkled. There was lots of spritzing and heavy steaming involved. Of course, the skill wasn’t just about properly ironing a shirt. I also learned to walk my little brother around the block in his stroller about 10 times so mom could finish making dinner. Basically, I learned to pull my weight so mom could keep a home with a husband and five children running more efficiently.
5. My mother taught me there is beauty in the smallest things like the white paper snowflakes we folded and snipped with scissors as kids. We hung them all over the front picture window every winter. Or the flowers she grew in her yard each spring and shared with family and friends. Too bad I didn’t get her two green thumbs. Obviously teaching is a lot different than inheriting a gift!

“Kick in the Pants” Chicken Salad

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It’s beastly hot outside. Yep … summer in Texas. So what to cook tonight for dinner? I was thumbing through a stack of cookbooks looking for a recipe that didn’t require turning on the oven, or the stove top, and came across one for chicken salad that looked moderately interesting. After the first taste test, I decided it contained just the right amount of cumin and chili powder. It really gave it some zing! I’ve renamed it “Kick in the Pants” Chicken Salad. So instead of literally heating up the kitchen … decide if it might be more fun to simmer a couple of taste buds instead. On a scale of one to five my husband gave the recipe a five. And don’t forget the corn and bell peppers. They give it just the right amount of crunch! I just had to share.

Chicken Salad with Corn and Cilantro
Serves four

Serve with salad greens, or roll the chicken in a wrap for a quick lunch.

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 2 limes)
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon Tabasco or other hot sauce
4 cups cubed cooked chicken
2 ears yellow corn, kernels removed
½ cup chopped cilantro
½ red bell pepper, diced
4 green onions (white and green parts), thinly sliced

To make the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, lime juice, chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt, pepper and hot sauce in medium bowl.

Add cubed chicken, corn, cilantro, bell pepper, green onions and stir well to coat. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Adapted from “Pure Flavor” by Kurt Beecher Dammeier