Almost gone

Well here we are just a few short weeks away before we leave. Both houses are officially rented, "whew" . It's such a relief to tie up all the loose ends. These last few weeks with finishing up our Paris house has been exhausting. We were a little surprised that the first person to see the house wanted it and wanted it fast. They were a couple who dropped in right before Christmas and honestly I thought they hated the house by all the husband's snarky comments, but it turns out I was wrong. He's egocentric as they come, a professional sport instructor in a very snooty sport. I got the bad energy vibe off of him, flashing red lights, sirens-- the works, but Seb was too nervous to listen to me. He just wants the house rented as soon as possible so we wouldn't be stuck, which I could understand but I still think it might have been wise to choose the person better so as not to be stuck worse a lot later. I relented against my better judgement, or should I say against feminine instinct--usally a very bad idea. So they're in the house and there isn't much else to say. I hope they just stay quiet, pay the rent and don't wreck the house. So far they're doing one of the three. Complaining seems to be a sport that the new renter also teaches. We have to replace the basement's back door and put in an electronic gate before April *rolling eyes* He told us all this after we signed the rental agreement papers which I thought already showed a lot of underhandedness. When we buy and renovate these old houses I never dream that one day we will rent them. Renting out an old place is just trouble because honestly he can pick the house apart every month if he really wants to. There are a lot of problems in a hundred year old house and he just didn't seem like the type to overlook squeeky door hinges and rooms with "character." My alarm bells we're going off for a reason.

The house looked really nice when we were finished and it was very hard not to feel like we were making a big mistake. I had light switches that worked everywhere and TWO bathrooms. My bedroom extension was completely finished with a modern shower and sink. It was a dream house! After two years of major MAJOR sacrifices and the worst marriage strain imaginable it was incredibly hard to just walk away last week and say "okay let's go, ASIA yay!" I guess maybe it's all the extra baggage of a mature adult that makes adventuring tough. It's the desire for security and nice things. I'm just going to muddle through it though and let the house and all that go. There damn well better be adventure on the horizon or I'm going to be really pissed off. And the light switches better work in our Shanghai apartment!

The Fisherman's house is only rented for a few months to someone we have close ties to. This is giving us time to come back to France this summer. After that we can evaluate things and decide if we want to rent it for a full three year bail or continue to rent it off season. I'm looking forward to summer break already. I think a French Alpine vacation will definitely be in high order after a few months in Asia adapting to expat life.

We haven't done much in the way of preparing our leaving with all the keys being passed and last minute painting (Mister Ego made us paint the living room a third time). I still have a list a mile long to cross off. I'm not even sure that I'll get through it in time. As I said before this is the difficult part of the moving, the details, the stress the waiting in line before the ride. It really bites.

This week I met an American on my street in TLB. She's really nice and I think we'll become friends. She's about my mom's age. I look forward to getting to know her better this summer. She's one of these really interesting international ladies, citizen of the world types that you can talk with for hours.

I'll do a picture post soon with photos of the finished Paris house. As if destiny wanted me to not dwell on it too much my camera battery died on my last visit to the house and I'd brought the wrong Canon charger. I could only take a few pictures.

I better run. I've got a few things to check off my list. brb!

Adventure quest

It feels so strange to be back in our old house, strange but somehow right. It's a warm place and welcoming, at least to us. Apparently our renter told everyone he hated our house. I don't think he loved the house very much though so I don't think it loved him back!

Christmas was hectic and I'm happy the move is over. We leave in February and have a few months to relax and do almost nothing before we go. I haven't started homeschooling yet and may not until September of this year. It will be hard to convince Seb of this but I'd really like to start fresh and get a little closer to the seven year change for Little S. Anyway for now it's at least two months of unschooling and it's going really well. I see lots of changes in our boy. He's so much calmer and more focused.

I'm really excited about all of our changes. The kids were my biggest worry about leaving but I feel secure about them now that we're homeschooling and I can just look ahead to what we have in store for us, --lots of adventures.

So long

It's the last day of school for Little S today and it also represents the beginning of our move next week and the change from public school to home school. I haven't packed much or seperated much--too overwhelming I guess. I'm feeling very lazy as the holidays approach. Or maybe it's a form of denial.

It's hard saying goodbye to friends and I'm terrible at it. My neighbors get teary eyed and I don't know what to say. I've moved around my whole life. It's second nature to me. There is something in me that doesn't get too attached to people, or that won't let me fall in to that trap I suppose. I'd much rather shrug and say à bientôt! than speculate about when we'll possibly next see each other. It's my little defense armour but of course deep down inside there is a twinge of regret about not being here anymore.

It's much harder saying goodbye to their kids. They'll grow up and change and I'll miss that. A small group of Little S's friends are at our house so often it feels like they're part of our family. It's hard to just say so long to them.

I'll be signing off until after the New Year. We have a few months in Th*n*n before we leave and we'll be transferring life there for a little while. Until then Happy Holidays and have a pleasant New Year!

In a nutshell

"...lots going on so this is just the bits all scattered in one post as they pop in my head"

We've had a lot of snow and it's been really pretty. I'm really enjoying the views of our backyard. We do have a gorgeous piece of property which I love. I'm going to miss my trees.

I bought a new sewing machine to replace my Mexican one which although it adapted to our current okay with a transformer, it had bobbin issues and needed a tune up. Taking it to the repair shop with the transformer seemed daunting. I just decided to buy a new low budget one and will be giving this other one to my sister to take back home next time. Now I just want to attack sewing projects but we have the move coming...dread!

My neighbors (ie local girlfriends) strongarmed me into having a Christmas party this coming Saturday. I'm not so sure it's such a good idea. The adult part sounds fun to me but thirteen unsupervised kids tearing through my house scares me a bit. It's too late to back out but I did consider using gastro as an excuse once or twice.

Little S's bully is at it again and now has stolen his new hat. I'm really mad because this kid is a terror and bullies all the little ones at his school but especially S. He's stolen lots of things from S over the past few months including his entire Dreamworks card collection. This was a really nice ski hat I bought in the alps and gave to S to wear recently because it's been so cold so he stole MY favorite ski hat, little f*cker. Why are 12 year olds stealing hats from six year olds on the playground anyway? Who's watching what's going on? Tomorrow I think I'm going in to see the directeur and I'm going to ask him that very same question. SO, so, soooooo happy to be done with public school in one week and "Jordan" The Terror.

I'm really into all my Steiner books right now and currently reading John Holt, on my second book now, but usually divided between two or three books at a time. It's great reading and I can't get enough of it. I just wish I could get Seb to read some of this so I'd have someone to discuss it with. He doesn't have time but I think it's important, especially the Steiner because it's important to understand the why. I'm trying to concentrate on building my knowledge of Waldorf/Steiner schools and not so much focusing on homeschooling right now. It occurs to me I'm actually doing my teacher training that I'd wanted to do this year. I can see from the readings that I would be a wonderful Waldorf school teacher and I would love every second of it. I guess I get my wish as far as being a Steiner school teacher but I hope the homeschooling aspect of it works out. Loving the pedagogy and teaching a homeschool version of it may be two different things. I also feel like I don't know near enough about Steiner to insert this into my home without it feeling stiff. It's very vast and I want to know it all before I start, but it's practically impossible because Steiner runs deep let me tell you!

Seb has been gone for the last eight days but he comes back tomorrow. The things we get used to. I don't know why we're always apart. I'll be happy to see him back home for a bit.

We move our things out of the house in 12 days. That seems impossible to imagine. After that we're living out of suitcases. Kind of adventurous so I don't mind but it is kind of nuts. I was explaining to Charlotte why we couldn't put a Christmas tree up and then I just gave up. We went to the store and I bought a few decorations which we hung on the doorknobs. Voila! ummm ....Christmas, yes. I say that but it's hard for me to let go of the holidays this year. I know it's important to let go of all that sometimes and I'm trying. I just hope I won't have a meltdown at mil's.

I ordered all the kids gifts off of Etsy. I found some wonderful things! I encourage everyone to buy handmade next holiday. I'm so excited to see their gifts because they're really special. I tried to order for my family too but had some logistical problems with address changes and international credit card orders-- anyway I was happy to at least do most of my shopping this way.

The picture at the top of this post is of some snowflakes we made and then painted using Steiner wet-on-wet painting which I love btw. They're really pretty like stained glass in the daylight. I cut them out and the kids paint them although S is starting to get the hang of cutting them out. I'll try to post an atelier about them but I bet I won't have time. So very quickly I'll say: watercolor papers, paints, scissors (scrapbooking scissors are fun too!)--snowflakes-- just follow pdf instructions found easily on internet and then, drop flakes in a waterbath for a few minutes, and then watercolor using primaries only (RBY). Let dry on a radiator and be careful because they're fragile.

Hopefully I'll get a few more posts in before we tranfer ourselves to Th*n*n at the end of December. We're spending winter break in the alps before we leave! yippee!

Free time

Too good to be true is all there is to say about our new renters. I'm learning, I'm learning. Anyway luckily we have our insurance because they do in depth financial background checks and the new renters kept giving us the runaround. We heard it all, ... "my e-mail is broken" and "we accidentally exchanged telephones my wife and I, oops" and even "my sister is pregnant and I missed all your messages in all the excitement!" and then two week more of excuses of reasons why they didn't have all the documents ready. Finally Seb just got firm and said "tomorrow is the deadline, sorry but that's it." And of course they haven't called us back since which is quite nice of them considering they asked us to hold the house for them and stop showing it. I should have known with their going from their small place up to ours, that the big step up in rent made no sense. And they had a lot to say about their finances, --too much really. They talked about how they wanted to buy a bigger car and maybe even a second one and about how they were doing really well, --money money money, that I should have known and I guess I kind of did. So our new rule is no more people from the village and we're definitely using the agency because two weeks of telephone tag and their phone calls about coming over to take a second look at this or that was very annoying.

The agency on the other hand isn't all butter and cream. They called me this morning and said "can we show the house in twenty minutes or so" and I looked around at all the tools and laundry scattered on the floor, the makeshift bed for Charlotte and my dingy coffee cup rings on the desk and said, "umm, I need more time--it's a little sudden" and the women got all huffy. "They're here from London TODAY and they need to see the house because it's exactly what they're looking for." I sighed and proposed the afternoon, and she sighed harder and said "they'd really like to see it before lunch," but I stayed firm. Finally we made a three o'clock appointment and of course they never showed. At four the agent called. They'd changed their mind but she had someone else who'd like to see the house Friday at maybe two. I told her fine and she said "of course I'll have to confirm it with the client but I'll let you know." I think if we have to go through this until the first of the year I'll lose my head. We have so much work going in in the house and because we have two small kids it takes HOURS to pick up the mess and make the house presentable.

We move in about three and a half weeks and I'm so ready to get that over with. The stress is building up and weighing on our family like a great stone around our necks and I just want it done. I'd love to be just enjoying Christmas but it's nearly impossible with all the planning for the move, the plane tickets, where the kids will stay, seb's new job contracts, homeschooling, pet passports. Today a mom friend of mine came up and asked me if I wanted to make wreaths with her and a few other moms on Monday and I just stared off in space and muttered something. I'm not even sure what I said because it just struck me as absurd. I suddenly realized that everyone else's life is going in slow motion and mine is whizzing and whirling like a tornado but I can't really even explain this to anyone. It's all very Alice in Wonderland and I thought as I drove my car away from her "How odd that people have time to do craft projects." I want my free time back and it's all I can think about.

*we move our things in three weeks but we're in France a little longer...

whew!

On Monday Seb and I both looked at each other and said "we can't do this anymore!" and we decided to take all the pressure off the move and leave in December instead. It was a really hard decision for a lot of reasons but as soon as we said it we knew it was the right one.

So he'll still be leaving in September without us (the hard part) and we'll join him after Christmas. The kids will start school here and I'll manage the rest of the work in both houses and try to get both rented by the time we leave.

Suddenly life just got muuuuuuch easier.

Dead critters

We had a great weekend with Seb's 40th birthday pretty much taking over all our free time but it was fun and we needed to take a few moments to celebrate. We were in the middle of transferring the downstairs kitchen upstairs and we got as far as moving the stove and fridge and connecting the electricty but the water still wasn't connected and our dishes and food were still in a downstairs cupboard, impossible to move because it's nearly cemented to the wall. I spent a lot of time running up and down the steps fetching everything under the sun and washing up. We were also smack in the middle of finishing up our bathroom with that sink partially installed but still leaking so it was definitely a trippy weekend--probably not the best weekend to have guests. Poor guests, but at least someone else got to witness first hand the madness of what our life has been for the past six months. It was sort of like visiting day at the refugee camp.

I always talk about my great neighbors and there are only one or two left hanging about because this is the big vacation time on France. The few that are here have been fabulous and were really helpful and if it weren't for them I think I would have keeled over dead weeks ago. They brought food over and babysat almost the whole weekend and they really boosted my morale which was a bit low when I looked around and saw what a wreck my house was...again.

My neighbor's husband found the source of the ranky smell that was floating through our house all week--a dead tomcat just on the border of our property. The kids were facinated. Little S is curious about anything dead now anyway since the mouse we found a few months ago. He asked me last night "what's inside of the cat that stinks so bad?" and then he asked "what eats the cat?" and then just on and on questions. I remember with the mouse he'd asked after we'd found it "comment on fabrique une souris maman? (how do you make a mouse?)" which is a fun question to answer. I love all these little questions. We left the mouse in a matchbox for a day or so and I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to light the candles for our dinner on the small terrace and stuck my fingers in the box without looking. Aaaagh!

A few days later the fur on the mouse was moving and when I opened the box I thought for a second "wow, he's still alive, how..." but then I realized that nature was taking its course even in the little matchbox. I decided not to show little S and we finally buried the mouse at the end of the garden.

That's all my dead animal stories for today.

Excuse me I have to go now and take apart the Playmobil hospital in Little S's room and pack it in a plastic box and I'm really dreading it. It takes about six hours and three glasses of wine to put it together again. It's HUGE and has no instructions because it was a gift from a neighbor, just a little photo from the box that I squinted over for days when I first put it together. I hate moving. Have I mentioned that before?

Hopefully I'll get the time to take some photos of the house in the next few days to show what we've done. We've done a lot. Meanwhile, au boulot!

Onward

Crazy weekend, we did so much and then looked back and said « what did we actually do ? » because it didnt look like much. Seb started on the living room and he did a lot of electricity and plumbing jobs so that’s probably why it isn’t looking like much because it’s all stuff you dont see. I did more painting, hallway detailing and started the little washroom and the stairwell.

On Sunday I escaped to do a little thrifting and make a donation of three bags of toys at the same time. I bought the mirror I’ve had my eye on for about three months, finally had the motivation to ask about the price and was surprised when the guy said ten euros ! It’s a really heavy mirror too, 1930’s revival (probably mid eighties production). I also got an old metal alarm clock but like the mirror it’s a reproduction. I’d been looking for one for a while though and they’re hard to find, (especially for one euro !). Later in the day we went out to get some plumbing parts for the house at the diy store and I found some some chairs for the terrace. We actually have two terraces, one big off the kitchen and a small one off the living room each getting diferent sun at different times of the day. We kept having to steal chairs from the one terrace to use on the other and it was getting annoying to keep hauling them around. I think Seb is tired of giving me his speech of « you shouldn’t buy that because we’re leaving you know …» It doesn’t work because I have this nesting vibe that I can’t turn off even if we’re moving halfway around the world.

The mason started building our bedroom extension on Saturday and we were really impressed to see how much he got done. The bedroom will be enormous ! It threw me ino a funk though and I had a hard time on Saturday night, pms meltdown or something, because seeing that bedroom being built made me really frustrated. I’ve been waiting so long to have it and now it will be for someone else, boo-hoo poor me huh . I got over it on Sunday and I guess the shopping helped. A little retail therapy can work wonders. Like I said before though, not having a home yet in China is giving me nothing to focus on but this house and that makes it hard because this house will be gone soon , cue viscious circle.

I think I was also frustrated because of the rental negotiations we've been going through lately. We offered our house to rent to a young English couple recently we found through a friend of a friend and we agreed to entertain the idea of letting them have the place for nine months to a year, in other words a meublée (although really let’s face it I’m only leaving three things in the house so it’s only a meublée on paper). But, they were stalling,-- mainly on the price, which was kind of annoying because the price we proposed was way below market, friendly negotiation and all that. The house is all new on the inside and includes a gardener two times a month so the price was more than fair. Anyway it all reached a stalemate because of the price and I began to rethink the word of mouth type thing like you know « hey I have a friend with a dumpy house you can probably rent in France for a few hundred euros… » When I flat out asked the friend’s budget I went white because it was obvious all the talks were a waste of time. They're more likely to find a 30 sq meter studio for their price if they’re lucky. People have all these romantic notions of bohemian Paris I guess. Five hundred euros doesn’t get much even in the ‘burbs.

So I just looked at the new bedroom the other day and got all deflated because it’s going to be such a great house and hopefully we’ll find good tenants but these just weren’t the ones. The agent is going to start showing the house in late September and I’m hoping it will rent fast and to someone serious and careful. I keep thinking of my neighbor, the Kool-Aid* mom to the ados, and the day I went to her house to pick up little S. When she answered the door there was a gooey nutella sandwich glued to the door. She chuckled, rolled her eyes and left it there, « oh those boys ! » and all I can think of is my door …my pretty new door. Nooo !