This and that!!

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog.  Does that mean that we haven't been doing anything.  No, not really.  Just that I'm a little lazy and have been enjoying the sunshine these last two weeks.

Beautiful weather
Before these past weeks we had only seen our new house in the sun during the bitter cold weather that we had in February.  We now know what it looks like in the sun when it is warm outside.  We have the sun in our backyard from about 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. (since the time change).  It hasn't been too hot, so we've been able to eat outside every day since last Friday.  I love eating outside, even when we don't grill.

The first time we ate out we made it a real picnic with merguez (a hot sausage type of meat) and chipolatas (a mild sausage type) served in French bread with Dijon mustard.  I made several kinds of salads too (coleslaw, taboule, and macaroni salad)  Soooo good!!!

merguez and chipolatas

Another day I made barbecue chicken on the grill with a fresh fruit salad.  Oh my, I love summer, even if it is only spring.

Unwanted visitor
What is worse??  Finding mouse droppings in the cupboard OR finding the mouse "caught" in the trap.  Yep, we had a mouse.  I had to go to the store and buy some mousetraps.  I told Mike that I would set them.  But if we caught one, he'd have to empty it!!  Wouldn't you know it but the next morning, there "she" (in French a mouse is always feminine) was.  "Caught"!!!  Mike took care of it.  Since Sunday we haven't caught any more or seen any more evidence.  Hopefully they'll know better and stay outside!!

New glasses
A couple of weeks ago I went to the eye doctor to get my eyes examined.  Last year when I was in Greenville, the eye doctor told me that I had the beginning of a cataract and to get it checked every year.  And my glasses  had lost their coating for the anti-reflection and I could hardly see out of them.  The eye doctor here saw the cataract and said that we'd keep an eye on it but for the time being it wasn't anything to worry about.

This week I picked up my new glasses.  AND I can see!!  It is sooo nice.  My prescription hadn't changed too much but the scratches were pretty bad.

sunglasses

Oh my!!  Who is that old lady??

Tracts and mailboxes
Even before the weather  warmed up, Mike and I were in the habit of taking an afternoon walk.  We decided to join "l'agréable à l'utile".  Mike stamped the tracts with the address and e-mail of our new association "Pain de Vie Normandie" And starting in the third village that makes up Grand Couronne we started putting tracts in mailboxes.

Le Petit Essart (to the left), Le Grand  Essart (in the middle) Grand Couronne (at the top)= 9500 people

Little visitor
This is the kind of visitor that we like.  We were sitting out in the yard and all of a sudden we heard "knock, knock, knock".  I looked up and there was a little bird at the birdhouse.  He would go in and out.  Mike said that "he is hanging up his pictures".  I don't really think he moved in, though, because, even though we have seen him again, he doesn't seem to live there.

 Clear nights
With all of the beautiful weather we have had, we have also had clear skies at night.  Perfect for looking at the stars and the moon.  One night when Mike took out the trash, he came back in and got me,  not to put me with the trash, but to look at the stars.  We could see lots of stars, in spite of the street lights.  We also saw the moon, Jupiter and Venus.  It was sooo neat!!

The moon is in the middle with Venus above it.  On a diagonal between the moon and the bottom street light is Jupiter.

 Have a great weekend.