I am having a I MISS MY FAMILY DAY.  I found out last night that my nephew had a jog-a-thon!  He is only five years old!  He ran 19 laps!  I didn’t even know about it to sponsor him.  Sometimes I wonder what kind of aunt I am to live so far from my nephew and niece.  I love them so much.  I want to not only know about and donate money to this jog-a-thon, but I want to be able to go watch him!  I was so proud of him!  He is growing up so fast!  I guess he was sore today from all the jogging and was limping around!  How cute is that???  I never knew of a little guy to run so much at that age!  He did it for the Lego prize I am guessing, but still, he did it.  I am proud. And my little…

I just can’t do it anymore.  I strongly dislike working.  It’s true.  I would say, "hate," but that is a bit of a strong word.  I have always despised going into work.  I guess I should say certain aspects of work, like things I HAVE to do that I don’t necessarily love to do. Now that I live in Paris I work from home.  I have to be better with my time.  It’s hard.  It is really hard!  Today I thought I would get up early and get some of my work done that I need to for our training that is coming up.  It is hard.  It is really hard to motivate myself.  I would like to go to Starbucks to work, but it is SO cold outside!  So of course I found other things to do and before I knew it, I was hungry for lunch.  I heated…

I am all about respecting cultures.  I mean, I try to be all about it, as much as I can.  It is definitely hard living in such a quiet country, especially for me, who was considered "loud" when living in the States.   I try though people.  I try.  Getting on the noiseless metro and not making a sound is not an easy task for me, but I have been successful so far!  OK, at least up to the point of when my friend Bandna got here.  I love friends.  She is one of those people who you just give a certain look to and then you start laughing hysterically, not realizing that everyone around is staring at you like you are a fool.  So that has happened a few times.  What are you going to do?  The other day we were on the metro and this guy bent over as…

Today I woke up with a sore throat.  I didn’t think much of it as I continued my day as normal.  I forgot about the sore throat, but noticed I was feeling a bit more tired than normal.  I thought it could just be the super crazy sleep schedule that Justin and I have been working on getting back to normal.  My friend Bandna and I thought it would do us good to get out in the fresh brisk air and go on a walk to the Starbucks.  It is a good twenty minute walk.  While there, I started feeling worse.  The body aches and chills came over me while sipping on my drink.  Shoot.  It started to snow.  Bandna and I walked quickly home in the snow with cold chills and all.  We had purposely left our metro tickets at home thinking that we needed the extra walking since…

It is so cold in Paris!  I have never experienced cold weather for this long in my whole life.  Maybe I was this cold when I lived in Oregon, but that was so long ago that I don’t remember, or maybe I just blocked it from my mind because of how traumatic it was.   Or maybe I learned to deal with it because I didn’t walk everywhere when I lived in Oregon.  I remember still wearing my "hoochy" tank tops in the middle of winter to go to dance clubs that I shouldn’t have been going to. I was very smart in moving to sunny California as an eighteen year old right out of high school.  Tank tops GALORE!  Even in the middle of winter!!!  I thought I was smart in moving to Paris with my husband as a 26 year old.  I don’t know.  Being such a sun lover,…