Little Escape

 

This is the cutest collection of commercials by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola.

I'm in love with Léa Seydoux!

Enjoy.

French Pharmacy Finds

One of the things I am still kicking myself over is not taking any time to explore a few French pharmacies while Shug and I were in Paris.  Yes, yes, we spent our days filled to the brim with fun and red wine, but I love exploring drug stores in different countries to see what beauty products they have to offer!

Luckily, Amazon is making the world smaller in a much better way!  I have a few staples I use religiously now that come straight from the aisles of a French pharmacy.  The first find is the amazingly moisturizing Ducray Ictayne Creme.  It is non-comedogenic and sooooo nice for parched winter skin.  I usually slather this on at night over a serum to wake up to soft and super-moisturized skin.

Link Love and Lovelies

Crazier weeks have happened, but I daresay this has been a pretty insan-o week for me!  I had my first midterm for my graduate program and.......well, let's just say I'm glad I won't get my grade back until the end of the month!

I am SO excited, though, because I get to hang out with Mumma and Sissyteef soon!  We're planning on brunching and girltime, both of which I am sorely in need of!  It can feel really isolating when you are just plowing ahead with little time for friends or family, so needless to say I am over the moon that I get to spend an entire day with these ladies!

~  Shug and I were in Paris this time last year and we couldn't miss it more!

~ Going to make this!  It's gluten-free AND lemon-y, i.e. perfection!

~ EVERYthing in this collection.

~ This serum has brightened my skin like crazy.  Highly recommend!

~ Adore this chair makeover.

~ This.

~ LOVE her house!

Have a lovely fall weekend!


*Photo of me jaunting through the gardens of Versailles last year.  No big deal.;)

A movie to watch: La Chamade

 

If you know me you know I am enamored with French cinema.

Yesterday I had the treat of catching La Chamade while I was playing hooky from work!

(Shhhh, don't tell!  

I had to work until almost midnight last night, anyway, 

so not really feeling too guilty over here;)!)

I love this scene and it really made me laugh at how anti-AMERICAN

it is!

All the talk about relaxing and enjoying and living!  

In a bar full of people at midday, no less!

I was listening to a radio show on NPR the other day with a yoga specialist and he called

stress the "American disease!"  I couldn't agree more with that!

We work, work, work and stress, stress, stress!

We (the lucky folks) get 2 weeks paid vacay a year and Germany, well, they get 6 weeks!

Most of Latin America still takes a 3 hour siesta each day.

Enjoying a break in France means a leisurely cup of coffee with a friend,

not scarfing an energy bar at your desk.

All I can say is,

WE ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Solutions, anyone?

Paris: Exploring the Sacré-Cœur

Is it summer yet?  The hail/snow/wind/rain dealio we've got going on right now in Utah is a little crazy.  I'm ready for vacation weather!  I'm taking a little vacation back to Paris today, just as a little mid-week pick-me-up!  It's so crazy that I have almost our entire trip in Paris to still blog about!  So I thought I'd start back at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, a beautiful church nestled atop the highest hill of Montmartre (and of Paris.)

 

When we first arrived in Paris, our plan was to take the Metro from the airport to the center of the Red Light district, where we had found a hostel.  Unfortunately, we had chosen a weekend that the Metro was closed from the airport to the city for construction!  Shug and I speak only the crudest of French, so figuring out the logistics of getting from the airport into town was a bit of a challenge...and it took us hours longer than we had anticipated.  A few buses and Metro trains later we were spit out into the beating heart of the Red Light district, with our huge, annoying backpacks and incredibly lost looks on our faces. 

We actually had pretty amazing directions from the hostel, so after a bit of a walk we found ourselves at the base of the huge hill the Sacré-Cœur was built on.  While our hostel had only the barest of amenities, the view from our rooftop was breathtaking!  We had a full view of the Sacré-Cœur!

 After an amazing meal at a little cafe (next to the brattiest American teenagers on the planet), Shug and I decided to turn in for the night.  The next day we explored the Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre.  We had to sneak pictures of the interior, but it looked like we weren't the only ones with that idea!  I felt that if I didn't use the flash, I could be forgiven for breaking the rules!

A word of advice, if you ever are lucky enough to find yourself in Paris, don't visit the Sacré-Cœur (or Montmartre, for that matter) on a Sunday.  It was literally crawling with people!  I tried to snap a few shots of the chaos, but most of the time I was just trying to enjoy the view while Photoshopping all the people out of my way with my imagination.

Even with all of the people, Shug and I managed to have an amazing first day in Paris!  The Sacré-Cœur was so beautiful and such a great place to visit to start our adventure in this amazing city!

Pretty Sure I Belong in the 60s

Oh, and Europe, too.

GIF amazingness here, you won't be able to look away!

Via A Cup of Joe

Perfect Day

Some weeks are so insanity-filled I like to take little mental health breaks throughout the day to recharge.  I like to imagine my perfect day.  It changes all the time, but I think it changes to meet me where my stresses are greatest.

Some days, I'm on a chairlift, the wheels happily squeaking against the line.  My legs feel comfortingly heavy against the chair because of the weight of my skis.  The sun will be shining through a light cloud and when the rays hit just right they sparkle like glitter suspended in the air.  The snow would muffle the occasional whoop and holler from other skiers below and it would be, just, perfect.

Other days, I'm back in Paris with Shug.  We're sitting in a park enjoying a bottle of deliciously cheap wine and a picnic.  We get to sit in the mid-afternoon sun and watch the tiny dogs run around with the serious purpose of playing.  The dull thunder of traffic is actually cut out here and there by the water splashing in a million-year-old fountain nearby and both of the sounds together are oddly soothing.  Shug will make me laugh so hard my cheeks hurt and we may even take a catnap there on the grass, warmed by our full bellies and the sun low in the sky.

And then there are days where I'm cannon-balling into our family condo's pool.  It's still a liiiiiiitle to cold to be swimming, but I don't care.  I be sure to stay away from the leaves floating here and there like little brown lily pads and wait for my Grandpa to skim them out and away from the clear water.  I know he enjoys this morning ritual, we get to talk and I show him my impressive backflips. 

See!  SO nice to take a little break!  What is your perfect day like today?

*Swoon!*

 

Having some serious wanderlust today!

Where would you go?

What the French Girls Are Wearing Right Now

 

1) Shorts over tights.  Add heels for extra points.

(Yes these lovely ladies aren't French, but their style is!)

2) ANY boot by Isabel Marant.

3) Always use an iPod on the Metro.  

If you don't have an iPod, 

a good book you can easily stash in your purse is a great alternative.

4) A scarf.  Always.

 5) Perfume.  

French women not only look amazing, 

but smell amazing, too!

In which we find we are not only joined by our hearts...

...but our stomachs!

Shug and I have always enjoyed eating the local cuisine when we travel.  Our heads just about exploded over Irish Breakfasts.  And all we lived on in Costa Rica was gallo pinto, avocados, and cacique.  So you can imagine our excitement when we knew we were headed to Paris!

Since the dollar was so weak against the euro while we were in Europe, Shug and I decided to have one "real" meal a day, bolstered with some café au lait and inexpensive snacks.  Our first sit-down dinner in Paris remains Shug's favorite: steak, pomme frites, and haricots verts with an amazing mustard cream sauce.  We shared a lovely bottle of red wine and I ordered the escargots and cheese plate for my gluten-free fare.

Have you tried escargot?  It sounds like the most vile thing a human could ever want to eat: snails.  That green slimy-looking stuff is actually an amazing mixture of pureed garlic, butter, and herbs that have been slathered all over the little slugs!  They taste like a nutty, chewy mushroom dipped in butter and heavensauce!  Shug was a little skeptical at first, but decided to ignore his reservations about consuming an invertebrate and dove right in!  He was more than pleased with the cuisine risk he took, and escargot were ordered at almost every meal we had thereafter! 

On the walk back to our hotel we passed a sign that made the 11-year-old in us giggle:

I suppose that was lost in translation on us!  I am guessing it means served platter-style as opposed to sandwich or wrap-style, but it didn't stop us from laughing...!  I couldn't find the translation in my French phrasebook, either, so maybe the restaurant owners were playing a big joke on everyone who passes that sign!  Who knows?  If any of you speak French, please explain!

I hope you have a lovely weekend.  Are you ready for spring yet?  I know I am!  xo.

A Breakdown of French Style

I was so very lucky to get to people-watch while strolling the streets of Paris.  I was so enamored with the recurring chic style of the Parisian women.  I was able to distill a few common factors these lovely women all seemed to possess:

1) Slightly messy or imperfect hair.  French women seemed to have lovely hairstyles, but every style I saw also looked touchable and soft.  There wasn't a tight curl or a lacquered 'do in sight.  The "I-couldn't-care-less" hair just added to the overall beauty these women conveyed.

 2) Glowing skin free of foundation or obvious makeup.  Every French women that caught my eye had amazing skin.  It didn't matter what age they were, their skin all was (what appeared to be) make-up and foundation-free.  There wasn't a garish eyeshadow color or severe "contouring" on  a single, lovely Parisian face.  Parisian women's obsession with great skin is apparent in all of the potions for sale in every pharmacy we passed!

3) Aging isn't a beauty-killer.  It's actually a beauty enhancer!  I could not get over how many wrinkles and faces with expression I passed in the streets!  Coming from Utah where everyone is trying to "keep up with the Jones'" when it comes to Botox and cosmetic procedures, it was refreshing to see, well, expression in women's faces!  If Parisian women are getting cosmetic procedures, they seem to be erring on the side of natural-looking, not younger-looking.

4) Hair-tucking!  Fall was just hitting Paris when we were there and letting locks stay warm in scarves was the look to be imitating.

 5) Confidence.  You really didn't get the idea that any of these chic women were wallflowers.  The way these women carried themselves not only conveyed how they thought of themselves, but how the people around them should think of them, as well!