Bonjour from Paris - 23 September 2013.

The first real day in Paris. We both woke so early (around 5:30 am) after a fitful night sleep. It was very warm in our apartment and if you opened the window you would here the noises from the nearby apartments. The bed however was the most comfortable bed I had slept in.

I got up around 6:30 am and had a shower (the shower head was amazing, so big). Then Brad had a quick shower and then we went for a walk around to find some breakfast. We both had a croissant each (mine had chocolate in it, of course). This was about 9:00 am. There was hardly anyone around, few parents walking their little ones to school. The kids are so cute here in Paris.

Brad and I walk to Notre Dame which was only 15 minutes away. There was no line up, so we both went in and looked around. It is so beautiful. When we finished, we went outside and was shocked to see how long the line was to get into the church. We didn't go up into the bell tower as the line was so long.

Brad and I outside Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Lighting a candle for Bella

We then hopped onto a tour open-top bus and was taken around to all the major sites in Paris. We then walked to the Latin Quartier and then went to the Le Musee de Cluny (the museum of Middle Ages). This museum was amazing. Only down size was that our camera misbehaved and we don't have many photos (insert unhappy face). Would thoroughly recommend this place. To see so many things that was around many, many years ago is so amazing. We walked home from here which took about 30 minutes.

We arrived back at our apartment, tired and hungry. We just had a light dinner and went to bed around 8:30 pm.

There are a lot more photos to post but you probably bit bored with these already.

Bye from the 23 September.

Pauline

Life

Today is a beautiful Saturday in the nation's capital. The sun is shining, birds are singing and the temperature right now is 4 degrees. 

This weekend will be busy for the family and myself. Not that we have to go anywhere but the house needs cleaning, the yard needs attending to and lots of cooking will need to get done for next week as I am extremely busy at work. I must admit that I find it really funny when some people hear they are cutting jobs in the public service they think you will lose your job the next day. It doesn't matter work like that but I really can't be bothered explaining.

Anyway, this week menu:

Saturday        meatballs and spaghetti with homemade garlic bread (yummo)

Sunday           Beef wellington and vegetables

Monday          chicken and vegetable pie

Tuesday           Toad in the hole (sausages in batter)

Wednesday      Spaghetti bol

Have a great week.

Pauline

p.s. Hubby and I need to get a run this week-end so I will wait it is a bit warmer.

Improvement in Life

Such a long time for an update, no excuses sorry.

Recently, I have been thinking about how to improve my life (and my family). My family eat too much junk food. Not only does it costs money, I realised that I was wasting a lot of food. My new challenge is to write here what I plan to cook for the upcoming week. I starting from a Wednesday as this is the day that I receive my fruit and vegetables from Aussie Farmers. I can recommend them as the produce is very good, they do cost a bit more than in the supermarkets but I am hoping if I cook each week I will save money as I won't be wasting the food. Keep turn, I will let you know how I am going.

It is ok to have some junk food every now and then but we were buying it at least once a week.

Also, I have to remember NOT to take my husband shopping. I just needed to get a few things from Aldi and Coles or Woolworths. I had planned that the shopping should be only around the $70 for the week (remember this doesn't include vegetables and meat as I buy things from Aussie Farmers) but the amount was $70 at Aldi. He came shopping and 'needed' muesli bars (I can make these), few other things, including a fire extinguisher. I think he will be 'banned' over the next few weeks.

Recently I have started taking some fruit into work as I was didn't want to throw away the fruit in a few weeks. It has been a great hit. My co-workers and I have the fruit platter in the afternoon and have a quick impromptu meeting about what is going on. At the moment, my workplace is so busy, it is a great break in the afternoon, even though it is just 10 minutes. Trust me, a lot is discussed in this 10 minutes (good and bad) and really seems to help everyone. I think every work place should offer this.








My list for the next week's dinners:

Wednesday - Feta and lemon chicken breasts with mashed vegetables

Thursday - Beef stir-fry

Friday - Potato and leek soup with crusty bread

Saturday - Home made pizza (one meat lovers and one vegetarian)

Sunday - Roast Lamb and vegetables

Monday - Left over lamb and vegetables pie

Tuesday - Chicken schnitzels and vegetables

My bathroom is slowing getting renovated (it is taking so long and stressful). It is looking ok, better than before but it is taking so long. So far, it has been 8 weeks and still has a fare way to go. They are blaming the carpenter who in turn is blaming us about the doors on 1 cupboard. The tiling still needs to be completed (how this is being held up from the carpenter, I don't know), the shower and taps needs to be connected and few other things. When we was given the quote, the person working on it said it would take only 4 weeks. Boy, don't believe them, also don't be like us and pay most of the money before the job is completed. Will post photos once it has been completed. Hopefully this will be soon.

It is getting cold here in Canberra, not a fan of the cold weather but I am trying to keep an open mind this year and do more walks as I love the leaves changing colour.  I will post photos from our walk we have planned for this weekend.

Have a great day.

Bonjour from France 21-22 September

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in posting but I finally have started.

21 SEPTEMBER

Around 1:30 pm on the Friday before we were due to fly out of Sydney, we received a text (and an email) from British Airways advising us that our flight was being delayed by 5 hours. Having this delay from Sydney meant that we would miss all our connecting flights in Singapore and London.
Thank goodness for Leesa at Flight centre in the Canberra centre. Leesa managed to change our flights to Qantas for the next day which left from Sydney, flew to Dubai then London and then to Paris.

Declan and Liam dropped Brad and I off at Jolimont Centre. Some tears (ok, a lot of tears from me). Caught the bus and waited for about 4 hours until our flight to Dubai. It was a great flight, the air hostesses were fantastic. They couldn't do enough for us.

On the bus to Sydney (after having a few tears)

We waited in Dubai airport for about 2 hours and then boarded our flight to London. Arrived at London and had about a four hour wait in Heathrow Airport. It was long and we didn't have any English money and we were so tired. The flight from London to Paris was quick and very short (about the same from Canberra to Sydney).

Our plane, double decker (we were on the top deck)

22 SEPTEMBER
Arrived in Paris and had no trouble going through customs.

Caught the RER train to near our apartment and walked for about 25 minutes (it would have taken about 15 minutes but we got lost a few times). We turned up our street, OMG, there were so many people in our street. It turned out that it was some Jewish celebration and our apartment was in the middle of the Jewish area.

Our street - Rue de Rosiers

We were met by a lovely lady who could speak English very well and showed us to our apartment. There was scaffolding around our apartment as they are 'updating' the outside which was a bit disappointing. Then we had to carry our bags up four flights of stairs. Now these stairs are very steep and narrow. It was very hard with our bags. We arrived at our apartment, which was very small but nice.

Brad is on the stairs above where our apartment is. Look down and you can see the ground.

It was about 3:30pm, once we had settled in for about half an hour we decided to go for a walk to see what attractions there were nearby. We walked and found some many amazing places. We went to Saint Paul-Saint Louis church which was only about 10 minutes away. It was beautiful.

Inside St Paul-St Louis church

St Paul-St Louis

There are so many yummy pâtisseries in Paris. Here is one with lots of macrons in the front windows. YUMMO! I tried to have a chocolate eclair a day, it was a difficult task but I did succeed.

yummo

We also walked around and found we were only 10 minutes (the other way) from the Pompidou.

Paris is amazing. I have realised several things about people who live in Paris:

• they like to ride bicycles and motor scooters (not at the same time of course)
• it appears they smoke (alot)

Brad and I had dinner at a small cafe (crepes) and then came back to the apartment and went to bed around 8:00pm (we both didn't sleep much on the plane). The bed was so comfortable and there wasn't much noise around (the windows are double glazed and we faced a court yard). 

That is all for the 21-22 September.

Pauline

Challenges

It has been a long time between posts. Nothing exciting has happened just been very lazy.

I have decided to set this family a very hard challenge for June. I am planning to budget $80 per week for groceries. I will be cheating a bit with some of the already in the cupboard but I am trying to prove to myself that I don't need to buy everything that is on sale.

Also, my husband and I are saving like mad for our trip for our 25th wedding anniversary. We are planning a trip to France for 4 weeks.

Budgets, Budgets, Budgets

Hi,

Have been feeling unwell for about two weeks and ended up in hospital for a few hours today. Really bad pain in my left  arm, nothing to worry about (thank goodness) apparently just muscle pain.


My biggest issue at the moment is trying to keep to a budget, not really me but my DH is finding it very hard. For example, I sent him to Aldi to buy a few items that we needed (eggs, milk and bacon), he came back with so much stuff (different vegetables, nails, a container, baked beans), the cost was around $73. OMG!!!! That is almost what I spend there for the weekly shop.

http://savingissexy.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/How-to-Cut-Your-Budget.gif

I remember reading Rhonda's book, Down to Earth, (worth to be bought, great book) that it took a little while for her husband to 'come around' to her ideas. She just kept going, making the small changes and her husband started seeing the benefits. Fingers crossed that my DH will eventually 'come around'. I keep leaving Rhonda's book lying around and hope that he will pick it up and start reading. Please, please purchase this book it is a book that I believe every house should have.

http://www.penguin.com.au/covers/catalog/9780670075928.jpg

I know it will take sometime to change our habits, especially as we both are spenders.

There has been some many tomatoes coming off our vine, it is amazing. I have made loads of tomato sauces for our pasta. I really get a kick out of cooking things fresh from our garden. Also, I bought a goji berry plant about four years ago and it has never produced anything fruit, well I has started flowering and now has four red berries on it. I am so excited.

Have a great night and happy valentine's day.
xxx

Productivity

Good morning,

The last few days I have not been too well but I am feeling so much better today, probably because it is Saturday.

I love the productivity from the vegetable garden at this time of the year. Although it has been very hot, I have been picking many vegetables and they keep coming. Just this morning I have picked tomatoes and capsicums, which I proudly paraded in front of my family. There are still so much more to come.

Last night I decided to do my grocery shopping after I ate dinner. I needed to buy lots of meat and several other items (tandoor paste, rice wine vinegar etc) as I have planned out my menu for the next two weeks. I was really surprised how little it costed for so much food as I always budget $210 per week for food (I have two teenagers in the house, both boys). For the all the groceries I got it only have cost me $210 so in theory I have another $210 left over and I am sure I won't use that much for the essentials (bread, milk etc).

As it is much cooler here in Canberra today, I plan to do so much cooking so that there is food in the freezer and I can get it out in the morning and don't need to do much when I get home.

As this is the year for me to really curb my spending, I am tweaking my budget really. Come February, I will really look hard at what I am spending my money on and what I have been saving. With the $50 per week for my spending on lunches, I didn't use any of it this week except another colleague had her baby (I have three more colleagues due in the next two months) so I gave $5 towards some flowers. I think I have $81.50 left in the kitty, I haven't checked.

Will post photos of my lovely overgrown vegetable garden very soon.

Have a great day.

xxx