This is no Wal Mart

 So we stumbled upon this shop last night. 

They had all kinds of stuff including candy from the U.S.

 Twinkies, marshmellow fluff, nerds, snowballs..... All the high vitamin, good for you food you could dream of. 

And then to my delight I looked at the prices of some of the pantry items and had to laugh. 

Who in their right mind would pay almost 8€ for colored high fructose corn syrup. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe Aunt Jemima can technically be called "pure maple syrup".....at which point I could see shelling out the big bucks. 

Next on our list was JELLO,  ringing in at almost 4€....

that's some expensive porc gelatine !

Followed up at the same outstanding price,

KRAFT Mac and powdered cheese.

But my personal favorite had to be, hands down, no competition, the box of Lucky Charms.

I don't recall ever tasting them as a kid. 

Perhaps I am missing out on something amazing.

But by judging from the look on the leprechaun's face, I'd be willing to bet, after eating one bowl of sugary sweetness, I'd look just as scary and strung out as him. 

(Those rainbow shapes give me goose bumps !)

At nearly 13€ for a box, 

they had better be downright out of this world.

Like good enough to transport me to another planet, 

time travel good enough.

And there you have it...

your Friday night comedy section.

La Roche D'Oëtre

Say that fast five times.

A nice place very near Chênedouit. 

The last time we went Seb was probably 7 yrs old and I was convinced he'd fall off 

a cliff so we didn't stick around.

Seb and I returned over the vacation. 

It was the perfect day.

Take 1....nope.

 Take 2....steady......

Take 3....

gone fishing

So here we are...fishing away. No bites mind you but Seb didn't mind. He had fun anyways. 

and me ? Well, I was killing time with the binoculars. I noticed this man on this zodiak raft looking thing. We had seen a few on the lake the day before. I zoomed in as close as I could. 

 I basically stalked people coming in and out of the lake in these things with my binoculars, ( and there were quite a few) until I realised that you sit in waders with your legs hanging off the end and just use flippers to move around. Crazy cool....

Then checked on line at the local sporting good store and there it was. They only cost about 200, not bad considering a set of waders was listed at 80 euros. Anyhoo, thought it was pretty darn practical for the occasionsal fisherperson with a small car.

And then I came across this picture on line ....

I was like, NO WAY would I be hanging my feet in the water with big old muskies like that lurching around! NO WAY! 

In anycase, I had to laugh because I couldn't think of many people in the U.S. using this thing. 

Jeff and Mark...have you ever seen it? 

Or is this some european thing for men 

who want to get that leg workout while fishing.....

That's right...

a great birthday it was.

Happy Halloween.....

 Did you know Fat Albert did a halloween special?...

So one of the amazing advantages to being under perpetual home renovation....You want to hot glue things directly to your living room walls? No problem, the more glue the better. 

In fact, it is actually recommended, because when scraping off the paper and glue, 

dry wallpaper paste and paint just pops off with it. What a time saver....

Can't wait till Christmas. 

Forget the real tree...I'm just gluing some things to the wall, 

hanging my ornaments from the ceiling 

and by New Year's we should be ready and prepped to paint.

Apartment mash up.....

So the office is slowly coming around. 

It's no longer green. Yeah!

It's no longer COMPLETELY filled with boxes! 

Yeah! 

It's no longer smoker's white, but actual white. 

Yeah!

The desks are in, just waiting for the floorboards before we can attach them for good. And when you see the eventual photos and fully comprehend the size of the work tables, you'll understand what I'm talking about. 

Patience my little Jedi, patience.

apartment update

In all honesty not much new on the home improvement front. 

The month of August just hasn't been very productive. We've been to the house a lot and geez, it's been nice to step back and do something else.

In any case, a shot of the kitchen with the map hung.

 Here's the before and after of Seb's room. 

 The before and after of our bedroom.

Here's my week of work on the hallway. I took off a wierd partition that was behind the light coming down from the ceiling and spent alwost three days taking off wallpaper. 

Seeing as I hadn't quite had enough fun, 

I took off the base tiles as well,

 including in the toliet and hallway into Seb's room. 

By hand. I'm glad those two jobs are done.

And last but certainly not least..

the joy and delight upon discovering what was hiding

 under the wallpaper in the toilet.

That is some serious blue and yellow going on in there.

 It does allow one to play,  "where's the wild animal?" though while doing your duty. 

We have thus far found a cat, a dog and an elephant head. 

I personally don't spend enough time in there to have discovered more than the cat, but hey, whatever. We're thinking tile. Yep, instead of scraping, priming, patching....tile it. 

And there you have it. The continuing saga of our new apartment.....

I know, I know. It just makes you keep coming back, 

like Falcon's Crest or Days of our Lives.

Flea market

Hit a flea market last weekend...scored on some good stuff. 

The town had this cute little bridge,

church....

 and an old wash house with  crystal clear running water.

 It was a welcome find on a super hot day. 

Some doll parts which didn't come home with us.

what's up ??

pickles, rhubarb...

and two crazy big enormous mushrooms

 that tasted like an omlette when fried up in a pan. 

Good stuff.