happy thankful for birthdays thursday

today, is my birthday so i thought it would be a good thing to be grateful for.   after all, as the old saying goes, "birthdays are good for you.   the more you have, the longer you live.".

it has started out great, my husband actually remembered it . . .in the morning even!   to be fair, he doesn't remember his own so it doesn't upset me.    we just don't do much for our birthdays.   the kids, we celebrate, ours are just whatever.   it's not a matter of age, although i will admit to lying about my age on occasion.   when my 29th birthday came around i figured no one would believe me anyway.   i mean how many women are "29"   for decades?   i figured, "why go through the hassle?" and just told everyone i was 30 for two years.   i'll be doing the same with 39.   so, happy first 40th birthday to me!

like i said, my birthday is no big thing.   i saw this picture on fb and it's actually how i've felt for years about my mom.

i stole this from the i really love being a mom page on fb.   although this is how i feel about my mom, i don't feel like this about my own kids.   i love a day to celebrate my kids.   i am so blessed to have them.   every day they drive me crazy in some way or another but it's not like crazy is far from home so no big deal.   birthdays are a great time to reflect on a person's worth in your life.   it's just an excuse to sit back and send an extra little love to someone.   if you do it every day, it's not special.  ok, we all need some love every day, but i mean something extra.   not gifts or material things.   the time it takes for someone to leave a comment on your fb wall, make a phone call or send a card are all a little something extra that lets people know you care.   should we do those things more often?   definitely!   i'm grateful for birthdays because it's a day that reminds me of how wonderful someone is.   gives me  chance to appreciate their presence in my life.   gives me a chance to reflect on how they have touched me.   it's a day that i miss someone who has past away and celebrate the time i had with them.  

be grateful to your mother on her birthday, and yours.   whether she gave birth to you or not, your mother has borne you on her heart, in her mind and in her soul every day since you came to her.     be grateful for her.

be grateful for every birthday.   be grateful for all the things that person has given you.   be grateful for all the things they have taught you.   be grateful for all the chances they have given you to learn patience.   be grateful for all the tests, strengths, lessons, inspirations, and mostly the love that you have because of that person.

make each birthday, a day of thanksgiving.

three on the side braids

separate into 3 sections across the head to the point where you want your pony to end up.   i used some curved lines instead of straight across.   the front is all together just because it holds those shorties in better.   

i always under braid because it's easier for me and seems to hold her hair better.

 this is after school, so it seemed to hold up well.   she always has some escapee ends.

curvy braids

this is not at all hard, it's just a curvy split in the hair and then following the curve with the braids.   it dresses up a regular braid a bit but is still fast and simple.   

it actually is split in the center at the bottom but her head is turned to see tv.   it turned out pretty well, i think.

this morning i was not wanting to be awake.   this is, "mom is sick and only up so you don't go to school with the braid you slept in" braids.   daddy was home to get the kids off to school but he forgets to have her take out the loose braid i put in her hair at night.   yah for all 3 being in school so mommy got to go back to sleep this icky sicky morning.

consequences

i have to begin with a definition.
con·se·quence    1. the effect, result, or outcome of something occuring earlier.
     2. an act or instance of following something as an effect, result, or outcome.   (i love dictionary.com)

i think the word consequence has taken on a bad connotation when in fact it's just an effect.   every choice has a consequence.   good consequences and/or bad.

as a parent, consequences are no longer just the natural and legal ramifications of adulthood.   not only do your actions hold consequences for the next generation and generations to come but you are now in charge of dealing out consequences yourself.   the point of consequence is not just putting an immediate stop to the behaviour,  but also teaching and steering future thought processes.   but, hey, no pressure, right?

one of my favorite things is brainstorming with other parents.   i mean, two heads are better than one, right?   so, all of us parents put our heads together to come up with new and ever more twisted ways to torture our dear children . . . .i mean more effective and pertinent ways to teach our children.    yeah, that's what i meant.   what have we come up with?   nothing new or exciting, i'm sure, but when you find something that works better than what you have been doing, it's new and exciting to you.

some tried and true methods hold still true today.   while i use a smack on the hand when my toddler gets into something he shouldn't or a smack on the back pockets to get attention, it's not the best answer for everything and loses it's effectiveness and appropriateness as they get older and more capable of understanding.   ok, the older two still get a quick smack on the shoulder or leg or whatever is handy sometimes with a, "what are you thinking!?" or,"knock it off".   my husband gets one on occasion as well, come to think of it.

natural consequences are always best.   our job as parents is to allow our kids to feel the natural consequences of their actions without doing any permanent damage.   for instance, when my towering teen was a not so towering toddler, he had a love of the stove.   he touched a hot plate, oven door, pan, whatever several times.   no matter how closely you watch your child, they are fast and persistent.   he was never severely burned, and always went back.   i watched him even more closely.   when he got burned i explained again how the stove is hot and he had to stay away from it.   i learned how to treat burns very well.   (cold water with ice floating in it was easiest at the time.   since then, i've tried used black tea bags usually with an ice cube on the top of it, and vinegar with baking soda works well too.)    i held his hand high over the burner to help him feel the warm and explained that it was hot.    he started feeling above things on the stove before touching and stopped getting burned.   this is the same little stinker that snuck his hands up on the cutting board to sneak a piece of onion to eat.   that just came down to mom watching his fingers and giving him a piece before i did anything else.   the natural consequences are a bit harsh for that one.

aside from allowing them to feel the natural consequences of their actions, parents get to come up with great consequences that resemble natural ones.   my niece was dragging her feet in the morning getting out of bed.   after my sister and i discussed the problem, my niece was informed that if she could not get up in the morning, it must be because she was tired and should go to bed earlier.  she didn't want to be going to bed at the same time or even earlier than her younger brothers.    she started getting up in the morning with no problems.   that was easy.

this is a regularly occurring one in most households.   schoolwork.     my kids learned spelling with daily spelling tests and writing the words they got wrong correctly 3 times.   see?   not punishment, good study habits.   they almost always got 100%.   recently a friend of mine instituted a similar one.   her son hadn't told her about all of his homework that he had to do.   so, while he was reading every day, he was not writing the summary sentences he was supposed to do along with it.   here's her stroke of genius: he now reads twice as much and writes twice as much to make up for what he missed, and a bit extra because when we avoid work, we create more work than we had originally.   ahhh, the joys of being a parent.   isn't it funny how the consequences of our children fall on us as well?   all worth it.

elderberries to dye for

we are  renting a place and this is our first year here.   there are several trees and lots of room to plant.   fortunately, the owner lives next door and is very helpful with what things are and how to use them.   my german is still pretty lousy so i have to ask several times and sometimes just have to resort to asking through my son or husband.   getting there though.

recently, i've had my eyes on some berries ripening on some large bush/small trees.   at first i understood that they were not edible so i was wondering what color they might dye some things.   might as well use what you can.   right?

then the neighbor told me that they are indeed edible.   even better than dye!   whoo-hoo!   he calls them hollander but after talking to my grandmother, i figured out that it was elderberries.   nice!   elderberry jelly!

i had the kids pick them and gather the giant pot full of everything they could reach.   we got them inside and i was trying to explain that we needed to wash and separate the berries from the stems etc.   the kids weren't really listening and then the munchkin started getting rowdy, past dinner time, need to get everyone going . . .ya know.   stuff erupted.  before i knew it, the berries, stems and all were on the stove, too full of water.   i figured i would take care of it in a minute but i was just happy to get everyone calmed down, settled in, and in bed later.   so it got left.

the next day i figured i'd take the berries off and cook off the extra water for jelly.   i tasted it . . . not good.   not a lot of flavor but kind of a strange after taste.   hmmm. . . the hard water? . . crap. . . it's the stems.   ok, time to call in my secret weapon.   GRANDMA!   we discussed it and she thought i should be better safe than sorry because of the strange things that plants do.   rhubarb is great, unless you eat the leaves.   tomatoes the same.   dang!   i didn't want to loose the jelly but. . . i thought dye first anyway and now i just had to get a ladder out there for the kids to get the rest of the berries for jelly.

we had squeezed some of the berries already so i knew the dye was looking red-purple on the cloth and our hands.   well, it was at first anyway.   the tomboy princess wnated to make cookies so after she washed her hands we set to that.   her hands were turning dark purple to gray but my towwering teen and i still had the red purple.   weird.   then later, i washed my teen's hair with some baking soda.   (we are battling teen hormone greasy hair, but that's another story.)   anyway, the baking soda turned my hands green!   sweet!   this could be fun!   my teen later "helped" with cookies and his hands turned the dark color like my daughter's only where he licked his fingers.   we are going to have to experiment more with this stuff!

i learned that you need to soak whatever you want to dye in alum water first.   it was interesting tracking down alum here.   in germany, you can only get alum at the pharmacy.   it's about the same price i think though.   good grief.   the stuff we did turned out ok with the alum water afterwards.    it turned out the gray purple color.   not ugly.   i put some baking soda on some of it and it turned it greenish so part of the cloth i did looks like a bruise, which is kind of cool.  

ah, the weird stuff you get when you stumble through life experimenting!

ringing in thankful thursday

 this last week has been a long one.   the kids started school, my 3 year old started school, and i started school.   all great and wonderful, happy to have the opportunities that school brings.   everything worth having has it's down side as well.   the kids have to be there before 8.    ugh.    that means we have to get up at 6.   double ugh.   i am so not a morning person.   this morning, my alarm went off at 6 and i wished i could roll over and go back to sleep, but i'm a responsible , however unwilling, but responsible parent and i rolled out of bed to wake everyone up instead.   thankful thursday has become a habit now so i'm always thinking about what i can be thankful for. this morning, no matter how much i dislike what time my alarm has to go off, i thought about how grateful i am for it.   so, today i am grateful for bells.   alarm bells, jingle bells, cow bells, door bells, sleigh bells, tinker bells, church bells, school bells, bell flowers, wedding bells, bell peppers, musical bells, ice cream cart bells, call bells, telephone bells, emergency bells.   most of those things have now been replaced by digital alarms of some sort.    maybe that's why i am grateful for the ones that are still around.

i thought this might be a good time to show you some pictures of bell towers.   every town in germany has a church.   the church tower is generally the tallest thing in the area.   each tower has bells to toll the hour, each quarter hour.   some, like our town also rings for events like weddings, mass beginning, funerals or to announce the birth or death of someone in the town.  each town has their own way of doing things, their own things they toll for or not.    our town is really old.   seriously, it celebrated it's 850th birthday in 2011.   so it has some old traditions, it does all of those things and it rings for morning and night and lunch as well.   it was for the farmers a long time ago, calling them to wake in the morning, come in for lunch, and come home from work at night.   that's a lot more than most towns, but very cool.

here are some of the bell towers we've seen here.    the first one is our home town of forst.   it's the one you see the donkeys getting blessed on the front porch and probably in the back ground of a few more here and there.

  the next ones are all bell towers in bruschal.   not all bell towers are on churches some are just left overs from warning systems or look out towers.   the first ones are part of the castle.   this is the corner of the main part of the castle.   it's pretty loud.    it started ringing when we were standing here.   wow!   the castle has actually had to be completely rebuilt after the war.

this is the main church in bruschal.   there are several and they ring at sightly different times and not very loud to avoid tolling over each other too much.

this is another church in bruschal, not far from the main one.

this one is actually the oldest tower in bruschal.   it's the only tower to have survived both world wars.   the roof had rotted and has been replaced but other than that, the bell and structure itself are still in great condition.   they have done some repairs, filling bullet holes and such.   so says my towering teen from a tour they did in school.   how cool is it that they can do a walking tour and see things like this?

his is a shorter, more modern bell, um, sort of tower in upstadt

this is michealsberg church.   it's pretty cool because it overlooks the whole valley.   it doesn't toll very often because it's a place people come to enjoy the scenery.

this is a tiny, really tiny church tucked back in behind trees on a little back road on the way to michealsberg.   i don't know if it has a bell, but it has a steeple, traditionally, churches here have bells.   it's kind of a major deal for the church to have a bell even if it doesn't ring very often.

now, i can't remember where these are.   i'm such a slacker!

this one was cool.   i don't think it has a bell anymore but it's in the middle of restoration so it will at some point.

this one was in speyer.

this is in heidelberg

this is a modern one in karlsruhe.   i like the more traditional ones better

these are bells on the town hall in karlsruhe.   one of these days, we'll hear them ring but they were pretty quiet while we were there.

the next few are in france actually, and not germany.   the same thing seemed to be true of most towns in france, they generally had a church steeple sticking up out of the town.

this is one under construction in switzerland

a very large clock and bell tower in switzerland

my favorite bell.   cow bell!    everyone needs more cow bell!    in idaho, cow bells are for making a ton of noise at bsu football games.   go bsu!   but the ones like this cow happens to be wearing in switzerland, actually serve a purpose.   they are not horribly loud, and every cow and sheep has one on.  it is just a constant quiet clinging in the alps so they can be found.   

this is a video that my towering teen took in the swiss alps.  (he knows his mama loves cows) you have to listen carefully because the wind is blowing and the kids are yakking, but you can hear the cow bell in the background.

.

so, i love bells.   i love jingle bells and here i really love the church bells.   still not a fan of alarm clock bells, but something has to get me up in the morning.   i'd rather it be bells than my little blond curly boy getting into things.     we'll settle for bells.

a few of the sites that i used to remind me of some cool bells and some lists and details of other famous and fun bells in the world that i have yet to see

famous bells
famous bells in england
more famous bells
world heritage site

coconut cookies

so, i'm really off timed on this but i thought i'd share anyway.   my grandmother makes easter bunny cookies every year for easter.   she adds some yellow food coloring to a plastic baggie with some coconut and shakes it up for yellow chick fluff too.   

this year, being away from her, we decided to make them ourselves.   

i made the cookie cutter with a can.   then made sugar cookies, frosted and dipped in coconut for fur.  added chocolate pieces for eyes and noses.   now, i'm seeing all of the christmas things going around on pinterest and thinking, "hmmm, snowmen!"   so here's coconut fur or snow cookies, fuzzy bunnies, chicks or oscar the grouch.   whatever furry cookies you want..

i used this cookie recipe



mix wet
3/4 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla


mix dry
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

mix wet and dry together

flour your surface and and roll out cookies.   i used a can to bend a bunny head cookie cutter.   bake at 400* for 6-8 minutes.

for frosting, i use a stick of butter, a brick of cream cheese and 2 tsp vanilla with enough powdered sugar to make it as stiff as you want.
i'll post pictures when we make snowmen!

update -

i couldn't get my tin can to be a snowman cookie cutter.   what a rebellious can.   i did have some little trees and stars and circles though, so we made snow covered trees with some green frosting and some snowballs and snow flakes with the stars and circles.  

the daddy person brought home sprinkles for us to put on our cookie trees!   yah for the daddy person!   we made some coconut covered cookies with sprinkles on them, no theme but they taste good.    

we discovered that if you put on coconut first and then sprinkle and press the sprinkles in a little, it works best.   if you do the sprinkles first, the coconut covers them up like any good snow would.

have fun with these fuzzy, snowy, just yummy cookies!

fun stuff in the driveway

chalk drawing are the best.   my kids love drawing with chalk.   my little blonde curls loves drawing on the car, furniture, trees, walls, and everything else with chalk.    yeah, we had to set some boundaries but at least it doesn't do any damage.   mom sits out with them and draws stuff.    they draw scooter courses, trails and hopscotch.   my tomboy princess likes to color each brick in the brick part of our driveway a different pattern.   great pattern play.   we call it her museum.     she drew a pizza for the curly boy and he decided to taste it.   yah for harmless chalk.   they actually started with a chunk of brick but then mom bought chalk when we went school shopping.   the older kids got school supplies, and the blonde curls got sidewalk chalk.   our driveway is very colorful now!

this was lots of fun!   i got something packed in bubble wrap somewhere.   it was a huge piece so the kids decided that instead of just popping the bubbles, they would drive on it.   they tried out every wheeled thing we had.   they walked on it, stomped on it, and hammered on it.   mostly they just enjoyed rolling things across it.   the scooter and skateboard wheels worked best.   bikes and wheelbarrows and wide tired things didn't work so well, but why not let your kids find that out for themselves?

hairy thankful thursday

today i am grateful for hair!   not just because i love my long curls or because it do crazy stuff with my tomboy princess's hair.   my mom and grandmother have beautiful hair as well.   some of the men in my family are known for their hair as well.   not on top, that's not really happening for the men in my family.   my dad says that it's because they are tall, they just grow up through the top of their hair.   yeah . . . ok, dad, we'll go with that.    no, the big gnarly beard is really part of  my dad and cousin especially.   they grow it out, shave it off and start with something different.   from sweet mutton chops to righteous goatee to full on burly beards.   i love the look of a nice handlebar mustache.   not sure i'd want to kiss one but it looks cool.

since we're here, let's start with body hair!   oh yeah!   big ol' hairy us!   body hair is useful no matter how much we don't like where it grows, how thick it is, how long it is, or how much there is (or isn't) of it.

hair keeps your pores open and helps the body rid itself of cells and other stuff your body just doesn't want anymore.   the hair in your nose and ears and your eyelashes all serve to filter things from getting into those orifices.   those are pretty handy hairs.

while i am grateful for all of those things, there are other things that hair blesses our lives with.   ok, some of the ones i found are less useful and more just silly.   but silly is a good thing as well.

i'm loving my animal's hair.   petting an animal is actually very calming.   that's one reason they have animals going to hospitals, retirement homes, and various kinds of therapy.   people with animals tend to have healthier hearts.   more allergies maybe, but it's worth it for me.    i am horribly allergic to everything, but i just don't feel whole without an animal in the house.  i don't go for the really fuzzy ones because they need more brushing.    those mop dogs and afghan dogs are cool to look at, as long as i don't have to take care of all that hair.   i have enough to do without brushing all day.

the long hairs on cats, whiskers, are there to keep them from getting into something they can't get out of.   when they put their head in something too tight, the whiskers pull and they back out.   that's how it's supposed to work, but some cats don't know that.

the thick coat of some dogs helps them get into and out of tight spaces.   chows thick coat keeps them insulated but also allows them to squeeze through small spaces because it protects their body from what they are squeezing through.   that was useful as war dogs in china, not so much with my uncles chow/escape artist.   that dog could get out of anything and any yard.

horse hair is really useful if your a music lover, the best bows are made from horse hair.

evidently, horse hair was the original fishing line.   i didn't know that.
http://www.ehow.com/info_7834622_things-made-horse-hair.html

where would artists be with out natural hair brushes.   horse, sable, squirrel, camel, boar, goat.   all have specific uses for painting with.   amazing!
http://painting.about.com/od/artsupplies/a/BrushHairs.htm

i know a boar bristle hair brush is great for your hair.   it helps distribute the oils from the top of your head down to the ends.

next up.   i like to wear clothes, naked isn't my thing, so fabric is important to me.   i love knitting and crocheting so i'm diggin' yarn as well.   there are several types of animals that give us hair for fabric and yarn.   we use the hair from rabbits, alpaca, camels, sheep, and some goats.   some dogs have hair you can harvest for yarn as well.   anything with a nice fuzzy coat can provide some undercoat for making yarn.   i'm not into furs but it is important to a great many people living in the arctic climates.   if your eating it, you should use the coat too.   but if´your not eating it, don't kill it.      that's my environmental statement for today.

moving on . . .you can stuff pillows with hair, i wouldn't, but you could.   i might make a pincushion out of it though.   the oils in hair keep your pins from rusting and helps them work better.   my grandmother would always check the sharp end to make sure it was straight, then run it across her head, carefully, to put some oils on it to help it slide into fabric better.

evidently, you can use hair to absorb spills, especially oily spills.   i think i'd just end up with hairy oily hands.

jewelry!   when i was a teen, and friendship bracelets were popular, i actually made 2 friendship bracelets with my hair braided into them.   i know you can put a lock of hair in a locket, less creative, but useful all the same.

during your day today, think about all the things you do with hair.   not just swiping it out of your face and trying to keep it out of your mouth.   i have really long hair, i do a lot of this some days.   i mean, how else are you going to know when it's cold or scary or chilling unless your hairs stand on end?   how are you going to get your point across if you can't grab the hair on the back of someone's neck . . or chest hair works too.   where would that blond guy, um . . .fabio, (had to look it up) be without his golden locks?   elvis would just be left with swiveling hips and snarling lip without his coiffed hair.   he'd still be awesome though.

here are some of the sites i used to inform or just remind me of things i knew about hair.

the vid on this one is hilarious!   you have to get over the first boring part, just keep watching.
http://www.wisebread.com/9-helpful-and-weird-uses-for-hair-and-excess-pet-fur

http://ecosalon.com/6-uses-for-hair-clippings/

http://thebeautybrains.com/2007/12/30/top-10-strange-uses-for-human-hair/

lastly, if you do want to get rid of some hair, here's a thing called threading.   i'm going to try it.   this is a great instructional video on how to do it at home.   this is really cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwd2T8NKb0A

ok, kids, go be hairy!

paris in a bubble

last week we were able to drive to paris.   we actually went to look at something for my husband's business but figured we might as well take in some sights while there.   it was supposed to be a 5 - 6 hour drive but for some reason it took 8.   such is traveling i guess.   we left at 3 am so we saw the sunrise in another country, at a rest stop, with weird toilets.   one of the things we noticed is that france has more open space than germany.   germany is all forests and towns.   there are farms but they are tucked in between trees and buildings.   sometimes there are small patches of trees and or huge power poles sticking up in the middle of a field.   france landscape was more like idaho.   large spaces of open farmland where the skyline is flat except distant hills.   it felt like i was sprawling out after being cuddled up for a year.   funny, i hadn't thought about it much until we were driving through something that seemed so familiar.   

 same rest stop.   i love watching the farmer.   i'm sure he had been out there since before sun up.   i caught him taking breakfast from his lunch box before going back to plowing.   this was definitely like home . . .until the rocket train went whizzing by right there on the at the end of the field.   your not in idaho anymore, girl.

 on the road again, road construction is a bit different here.   they use moles to do the digging evidently.   at lest the signs are more interesting that the plain ones in idaho.

 this was our first glimpse of the tower.   i think it's interesting how the skyline goes from a city full of tall building to nothing to the tower sticking up out of nothing at this distance.   it doesn't seem that way when your inside the city.

 you can just barely see the tower sticking up over the apartments between the light poles.   this picture actually shows something else that i thought was interesting.   there were always zippers crossing the sky there.  the constant crossing of contrails was fascinating to me.  

 i just loved this conglomeration of cranes.

 this is how they clean under the eiffel tower.   i'd love to see the vacuum they use while the tower picks up it's feet.

 just a fun building

 finally, the tower!   we parked in a garage and walked over to the tower.   it was just easier.   the parking, as well as everything else was expensive.   the opportunity to see a major landmark was worth the 13€ to park for a few hours

 there was a young man making huge bubbles under the tower.   he was very cooperative with me and made them over my camera.   the structure is really beautiful but everything is better when viewed through a soap bubble.


















  there is a bridge and then a fountain in line with the bridge.   all beautiful, even more so together.

 we hung out at the foot of the bridge for a bit and watched the barges floating past.

 and the animals play in the water

thsi huge fountain was amazing.   it's like a park with everyone gathered around, swimming in the fountain and just hanging out having lunch.   there were kids that walked down with their sack lunches.   it made me wonder if they think think it's as cool as i do.   

my husband grew up in germany and never saw any of the sites.   he said that he never thought about it until he moved to the states and had kids.   he wanted to show them the things that he grew up near but never saw.   now that we live in europe, we are trying to see things.

   

it made me wonder what things i missed.   what things did i have near me and never saw because it had just always been there so wasn't important.   what opportunities did i have that i never took?

stop for a minute and think about what things are near you.   what things do other people come and see?  have you seen it?   do you appreciate the world you live near, the opportunities you have and the things you can do?

 just a thought.

 we got a few more shots of the tower.   if you go, everything is expensive.   a hot dog is 7€, soda is 3€.   just be ready for it.   worth it, but be ready.   we brought our lunch but forgot it in the car.   so much for planning.

we couldn't stay the night so we headed back around 5.   paris has rush hour too so avoid that.   rush hour was interesting.   everyone just went and zipped in where ever they could.   places that were marked for 2 lanes had 3 lanes of cars with 2 lanes of motorcycles and mopeds stacked in between them.  everyone was pretty mellow about the chaos though.   the only honking was the 2 wheelers honking to let you know they were coming between the lines.   it was fascinating.   it was the most organized, rushed, patient, chaos i've ever seen.   amazing.

the good thing about the stop and go traffic was that we got to do some clicking on the way.   i call this drive-by photo shootings.   alas, this is what we must do sometimes.

the glass topped grand palais 

horse sculpture atop the grand palais

 i wonder if the people that live her think the light poles are as cool as i do.

 i've always, like since i was 3, wanted to go to the louvre.   well, for now, this is as close as i've ever been.   someday, maybe i can spend a week in there but for now, her it is.   it's huge!   it takes up more that a city block and is at least 3 stories.

 one day, when i don't have crazy blonde curls to entertain, i hope i can go in.

 this was an interesting street market.   there are several of these that lock up at night.   people seel all kinds of things out of them.

 out of the city, we got a glimpse of some more country side before dark.

that's our quickie in paris and france.   a couple more observations about france.   

there is a lot of litter, france is a dirty place.   

don't walk in the grass around rest areas.   people have no problem using the bathroom on the side of the road, the white you see in the grass is tp, nuff said.    little bit gross.   

paris is expensive.   it's a huge tourist attraction so of course it's expensive.      there are people walking around asking for donations for things, yeah, i'm sure the money is going to the handicap or whatever.    the guys walking around selling eiffel towers didn't seem as expensive, but we didn't get one.    i might next time.   

have lots of change for toll and for the restrooms, they are free but you should still leave a tip for the people running it.   there are performers, like the guy with bubbles, leave them a tip as well if you stop to enjoy their performance.   it doesn't take much.   although, if your used to dollars, be aware that the 1€ and 2€ are coins.    freaked me out when we first got here.   you don't want to give people a hand full of change and have it be full of 1€ and 2€ pieces.   that would get spendy quick.

take the opportunities that are around you.    take the time to see the world around you.   and when things look around you, at the things, the people and life around you . . .look at them with new appreciation.   when things look their worst, look at the world through a soap bubble.