Photos du Jour - Marché aux Fleurs

One of the best reasons to go to Béziers on a Friday - the Marché aux Fleurs along les Allées Paul Riquet.

Memories of Childhood Awakened by a Peanut Buster Parfait

The Peanut Buster Parfait.
The perfect mixture of salty peanuts combined with sweet, hot fudge and cold vanilla ice cream. Such a simple and wonderful thing.

Ok, I know this is not the height of gastronomic sophistication, but I do love it so!

My sister and I (secretly) ran over to Dairy Queen this afternoon while my niece was at a friend's and my nephew was at school. We each ordered one and absolutely every bite was sublime.

Photo du Jour - Salade de Roquette aux Tomates et Copeaux de Parmesan

Keeping it simple. Keeping it cool.
Or trying to anyway.

Photo du Jour - Ladies Who Lunch

This little lady was enjoying lunch out with her companion yesterday.

How I Got My 10 Year Carte de Résident

As fellow Americans who have been living in France for about as many years as I have, Walt, Ken, David and Sam were all very excited when I announced that I had received my 10 year Carte de Résident. Sure, they were happy for me, but they were more excited at the prospect of being able to apply for one themselves!

The big question: how in the heck did I get this coveted Carte?
Here's the story, in a nutshell.

1. 2002 - Decide to move to France
2. Spend 6 months gathering the appropriate paperwork and getting translations for the Long Stay Visa
3. 2003 - Arrive in France with said Visa in hand and apply for a Carte de Séjour within 8 days of landing. This will require a medical visit that is arranged for you by the powers that be, and all of the same documents as the Long Stay Visa, only this time they will need to be translated by an Official Translator at an astronomical price for each page
   
4. 2004 - Receive first Carte de Séjour
   
5. Spend endless hours of your life over the next five years gathering, photocopying, sorting, translating and begging for paperwork to reapply for each consecutive Carte de Séjour. The process gets more difficult and confusing every year
6. 2008 - Decide that the Carte de Séjour process just isn't torture enough and apply for French Citizenship
7. Receive a phone call from the newest fonctionnaire at the sous-préfecture in Béziers who tells you to come in for a meeting
   
8. Meet the woman who will prove to be your personal savior and best friend at the sous-préfecture. (if you don't have one of these, find one!) She will single-handedly get her co-workers asses into gear when dealing with your paperwork
   
9. Receive a document stating that you are to appear at the Bureau des Étrangers in Béziers. No idea why
10. Go to the Bureau des Étrangers at the break of dawn and find out after waiting in the December cold for a hour that you're being interviewed for your 10 Year Carte de Résident
11. Go home and drink a celebratory glass of Champagne
12. 2009- Receive your 10 Year Carte de Résident
    

So there you are.
It only took six years, seven if you count the Long Stay Visa process. The time seems to have passed by in a flash.
And it was definitely worth the wait!

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Well-Watered Garden

" 'The Lord will guide you always. . .
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.' "

Isaiah 58:11 NIV

Karleen's garden is one I always enjoy visiting. It's so nice to have her as a neighbor and friend. Her garden always inspires me and fills me with feelings of tranquility and old-fashioned sweetness. It's a riot of color this time of year, and as always, so well tended. I really enjoy her cottage style of gardening so much, as her garden reminds me of the one my mother always kept.

Thank you for visiting Gracious Hospitality. Please come back soon!

Taken from http://www.gracioushospitality.blogspot.com/

Absence

Also, ceramics classes have absorbed many of my free hours, quickly becoming a new passion: this much word vomit hasn't spewed out of my mouth onto friends and family since tea first became an interest. I can only thank them for putting up with the boring rantings of a novice potter. Tonight, I trim my first successfully thrown pieces, which include a chawan, a teacup, and three bowls of different shapes. I'll post pictures when they're finished. I don't anticipate them coming out very good. In ceramics as in tea, practice produces aesthetics.

These past few weeks, my teapots have brewed mostly sheng and shu pu'er and dancong. My dancong brewing noticeably improves each time, becoming more and more second nature. These improvements appear to enhance my brewing of all teas. For example, two shu teas once written off as mediocre now taste quite good, even when I'm not paying them so much attention.

More later. If you stopped by and read this post, tell me what you're drinking lately. :)

Taken from http://puerh.blogspot.com/