Les Plus Bas...Prix.

After lounging around the house for most of the morning, I finally decided what to do with me mum yesterday. After much deliberation, I took her shopping. At Tati.

Yes, Tati. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Tati, I have nothing but pity for you. Tati is the gold standard for trashy bargain basement shopping stores. Oh, and they have a bridal department! Need a pair of gloves for under 2 euros? Tati has it! Need discount hair gel from Mexico? Tati has that too! Need a pair of pin-stripe pants with lace sewn onto the back pockets? Have no fear, Tati has you covered!

I guess if I were going to compare it to a store in the US it would be comparable to an “odd Lots”, or a “Family Dollar” store. (Do those even exist anymore?) But let me remind you, they have a bridal department.

Anyway, going to Tati has kinda become our classic mom/daughter shopping tradition for when she’s in France. You see, my mom and I are absolute psycho bargain hunters. In my youth we spent entire weekends at garage sales, yard sales, the Salvation Army, Goodwill….the list goes on and on.

Anyway, check out the booty we scored yesterday:

1 pair of grey Yoga pants.
1 bucket of my favorite conditioner.
1 leave-in conditioner that smells like almonds and coconuts
1 mini zen garden
3 “designer” winter scarves
2 pairs of “shorty” underwear
1 pair of blue legwarmers
1 extra-warm wool undershirt

Total price 38.51 euros SCORE!

Feel free to share your Tati love stories and bargain scores in comments.

Diet Sabotage.

The only thing harder than sticking to good eating habits during vacation, is sticking to your good eating habits when your mum comes to visit. For me eating has always been a social/celebratory event. So having invited guests for a stay is absolutel and utter diet sabotage for me.

Also since she doesn't get to France often, I feel obliged to treat her to delightful french meals complete with champagne, a 3 course menu, 2 types of wine, followed by a buttery/creamy dessert.

This week I'm going to try to control myself and me mum. Otherwise I'm afraid we'll both end up a total of 20 lbs. heavier by the end of the week.

Mad at the snow.

It snowed yet again sometime during the night. This is bad. Now, normally this would be no big deal. I'd simply stay in the house all day and work. But now that me mum is here visiting I feel obliged to take her out places. But where?

Folks, I know I live in eastern France, but I don’t know how much more of this snow bullsh*t I can take. I feel like it’s been winter for a good 5 months already.

To make matters worse, we had the worse rainy sun-less summer ever. I barely remember what sunlight looks or feels like. I’m so pale that I can’t wear my normal brown bronzey make-up anymore because I look like I’m doing Blackface. Me mum keeps saying: “Girl you got your winter whites on!” And she's right.

So if anyone has some spectactular ideas for fun, cool, hip things to do with me mum during winter in Siberia lemme know.

Afro Bella

It's February, it's cold, and I am in full-on hibernation mode. I don't have much to blog about seeing as how I've barely left the comfort of the Barbie Dream House for the last week or so.

The hilight of the past two weeks was a few days ago when I had a really good hair day. And so, I bring you a photo of my fro:

Voila!

Measurements: 36 centimeters across at ear level and 96 cm in circumference.
so that's like 14 inches and 38 inches or something. (Yes, I actually measured my head.)

Not a bad start.

Barbie Dream House Update #16: Let There Be Light!

I haven't done one of these posts in awhile...mostly because there hasn't been much to talk about. After living in the Barbie Dream house for a year, we still have so much stuff to do, and frankly I've been really really lazy about it. The walls are in the first floor are still bare and we don't even have curtain on any of the windows thanks to the glorious magical invention that is electric "volets", which for you not Francophones is electric rolling shutters that at the push of a button roll down and render a room pitch black. Magic. Magic!

Anyway, we did however manage to finally order a chandelier for the dining room. Mind you this is a year in the making. We originally saw this light in a magazine about 2 years ago, but they forgot to list the name of the manufacturer. Fast forward a year--FrenchBoy finally e-mailed the magazine for information and was directed to the company's website. Unfortunately they only sell wholesale, so we went about hunting down a retail distributor. We were lucky enough to find a local shop that could order it for us.

In about 6 weeks, this lil marvel will be hanging above my dining room table:

It's called "Tundra" and is made by a company that specializes in making decor from natural and petrified woods. Since the rest of the house is uber-modern minimalist, I figured this piece would offer some much needed warmth. I like the combination of "slick" geometric and "organic". I dig it.

Now, if I can just figure out how to work a water element into the room, it will be Feng Shui'd up!

Tag, you're it!: "25 Random Things About Me."

OK, this TAG has been spreading around the interweb and Facebook quicker than the clap in a college dorm, so I’ll just get it over with and post mine already:

1. I have entire conversations with the voices in my head---aloud. So loud in fact, that my FrenchBoy can hear me from all the way downstairs and often interjects: “Who the hell are you talking to this time?”

2. I’m really bad with numbers, and simple math of any kind.

3. When I’m drifting off to sleep I yell weird sentences like someone who has tourette’s syndrome. Last night I yelled something like: “It's coming in under the f*cking door!”

4. I have 3 brothers but I only know 2 of them.

5. I have the names for my first 5 kids already picked out, but I'm too busy to actually make some.

6. I’m only 5’3” but with my hair I’m at least 5’7”. That is mad rockstar.

7. I had a tracheotomy when I was 11.

8. I'm a nice person, but after too many drinks, I am pure Id.

9. I have no armpit hair.

10. I believe the space between my two front teeth makes me lucky. Also, I can fly.

11. I hate tomatoes, pudding, custard, apple sauce, grits, bananas, jello, or any soft food that feels weird in my mouth. Seriously, I will hurl.

12. I was blonde for 3 years.

13. I’m 6 chapters into my first novel. (I figure, if Dan Brown can do it, how hard can it be?) It’s a murder mystery, yet the main character is psychic.

14. When I was 16 I punched a drunk guy at an L7 concert. "BRICKS ARE HEAVY B*TCH!"

15. I have 8-10 tubes of chapstick that I use simultaneously. There are 2 sticks hidden in every room of my house just in case I have a dry lip emergency.

16. I haven’t left my house in 2 days. I hate leaving my house. It’s effin’ nice in here.

17. I haven’t had a “real job/day job/9-5 job” in 7 years.

18. I miss my husband the very second he leaves the house. Sometimes I wish we were siamese twins, but not the kind connected at the head because that would suck.

19. I can eat an entire cake in one sitting without breaking a sweat.

20. I kinda hated grad school.

21. I can drink you under the table. (Especially if I have just eaten an entire cake in one sitting.)

22. Every night I have dreams in which I fight people and win. But once this freak bit off all my fingers. That sucked.

23. My mom is an ordained minister.

24. I'm hopelessly addicted to coke. Coke Zero.

25. I firmly believe that cleanliness IS godliness.