Escaping the Empty Nest

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Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

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I'm the Mentor Mom

Pictured: Paris Mom of Preschoolers on the town with dashing French tour guide and a few grandmothers. When we moved to Paris last year and joined a new church, I knew I needed to get involved. I’m an introvert, and if I don’t join something I’ll just slink in and out on Sundays and never meet anybody. Also I wanted to help out. I also knew the...(read more)

Nice Will Get A Second Chance

Because Paris gave us three solid months of gray skies with alternating rain and snow, we headed south during Kid 3’s winter break. The South of France is warm and sunny, as everybody knows. When I booked the train tickets, weather reports said Nice would be about ten degrees celsius warmer than Paris, so that seemed like a reasonable place to...(read more)

Codependent No More! Your Move, Paris

I was so proud of myself. I had figured out how to live in Paris and be treated humanely, talking to the locals and getting pretty good customer service. French classes were going well. Clerks and waiters had begun addressing me in French instead of English, which means I no longer look like a tourist, and I blended in with the other Parisien ladies...(read more)

Your Second Trip to Paris

I know what you did on your first trip to Paris, because it’s what we all did. You saw the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. You took the Bateau Mouche boat trip on the Seine or spent a day on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. You took a day trip to Versailles. You strolled along the Champs-Elysee and ate crepes and got a little lost in the Marais. You ate at reliable...(read more)

Paris in the Snow

When it snowed in Paris this February, everybody was shocked.
It was the first time it had snowed in several years, and the city just couldn’t handle it. The Seine is still well over its banks, so Paris had two weather events happening simultaneously--flooding and snowing. How much can one city take? Actually, it could take a lot. People were still...(read more)

Hey, Empty Nesters! Let’s Get on the Millennial Bandwagon!

No, I’m not saying we should move back in with our parents. Hear me out. You, empty nest women, have been taking care of everybody and everything for decades. You’ve worked hard, managed kids or husbands or parents, helped your loved ones study and move, bailed...(read more)

My Fully Furnished Apartment

Our US furniture was unworthy of being shipped to Paris. I had to start over. For the first time, I was able to shop slowly and chose things I liked instead of deciding which Ikea sofa went with our garage-sale end tables. I scoured flea markets and furniture stores. I consulted Parisians and expats. Our shipment of American household goods (books...(read more)

Practicing Fear: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring

When I checked the listing of concerts in Paris last weekend, one caught my eye: Rachmaninoff’s first piano concerto and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, in a big echo-y cathedral. Rachmaninoff is big and splashy and thrilling and swoony and if an orchestra and a pianist and a...(read more)

London Has Been Waiting For Me

I first visited the UK as a child. My older sister had moved there, and my mother and I went to visit her. Being from Texas, I was raised knowing that I lived in the best place on earth, so it was a shock to go to another country and see that they had interesting people, delicious food, green grass, castles, bookstores, cool accents, and men wearing...(read more)

12 Days of Paris

Living in Paris is lovely year-round, but Christmas time is especially beautiful. It’s cold outside, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the season. During these Twelve Days of Paris, I’ll show you some things Parisians see during this time of year. Joyeux Noël!...(read more)

Are You The Ti?

When we moved to Paris, we joined a big, old, formal Presbyterian church. The building has stone floors, stained glass, a cavernous vaulted ceiling, a steeple, rooms for every purpose, real wooden pews, and bona fide catacombs. The choir wears robes. The clergy wears robes. There is an organ with pipes the size of a drive-in movie screen. It’s the...(read more)

The Truth about Paris Style

Style tip--match your clothing to nearby artwork. If you google Paris style, you’ll get a thousand articles that tell you to cuff your jeans at the ankle, wear a striped shirt, and eat delicious food while miraculously remaining a size two. That kind of help I could do without. Then I moved to France, and I saw that these women have truly got it going on. They...(read more)

I'm Yvonne, and this is my blog.
The kids are leaving, I’m retired, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. If you are as perplexed and excited as I am about the second half of your life, come eat, travel, and figure it out with me.