Hidden In France

pink couch therapy

I'm just a LITTLE tense right this minute. I saw myself about to hurl a turkey carcass and a fist-full of leftover stuffing at a certain someone, thought better of it and decided to try and blog instead.

You know what I do to de-tense lately? (as opposed to relax which I don't know how to do at all) I play house on Pinterest.  I have become such an image hoarder.  Here is my Pinterest account by the way if you want to hoard along. 

I'm apparently collecting images of pink couches. I wasn't trying, but looking at my board I sat back and had to admit my undeniable attraction. Damn, i'm such a girly barbie girl! And you'd think it would tone itself down with age.  What next? a pink poodle hairdo?

For the image credit it's a bit tricky, you have to follow the link.  sorry i'm being a slob about credit.

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

Source: hiddeninfrance.typepad.com via Hidden on Pinterest

 

 

What is it about blogging?  I feel better now.  So much better than I did when I wrote the first line of this post. I feel sane now.

Well... let's not get carried away :)

I think blogging for me is a way of saying 'this is me. I exist on this plane. I am carving a little piece of dream and peace for myself in this time of folly.'

I think I'll turn the turkey carcass into soup, instead of a weapon.

 

Note: the layout is all messed up but I have to go...

I've lost my blogging way

I used to take great joy in hunting the web for new blogs and new images.  I used to take great care in recording all my favorite blogs on my blog roll.

But I've been lazy.  I called it busy but it was lazy.

Yesterday I went through my blogroll and discovered so many blogs were defunct.  The bloggers seemed to have had terminal cases of bloggus interruptus. Just like that one day they folded, some without ever saying good bye. I did not realize because my Gmail Reader only shows me blogs updates. 

via inrednings

I'm also guilty of not commenting on blogs because that takes so much time.  It's easier to suck up the info and images and imagine the bloggers are fine with that. All that hard work and passion taken for granted!

And I missed out on the relationships. ( I can hear your sneer, but to me those are relationships.) And just like in real life friendships, it's easy to assume that you can always call to touch base later.  Only sometimes the person actually dies and there never is a 'later'. (It happened to my friend Jean-Jacques.  I had not spoken to him in two years when he committed suicide.) 

k chataigne

Another thing:  I might be a writer, and author and whatnot, supposedly online to promote Hidden in Paris, but really what I like to read and the bloggers I'm into are the design bloggers. I read a million blogs on the craft of writing, marketing and self-promotion, but at the end of the day, all I want in my own blogs are pretty images of ... couches.  

Design p#rn I call it. 

via driftwood interior

So I updated my blogroll.  If I missed you please let me know, and I always reciprocate so don't be shy. No more dead link in the left column as of today.

via caravan style

 oh and a propos of nothing, don't forget to sign up for the art giveaway here. 

An Artistic Giveaway. Art by Isabelle Bryer.

This is my very first giveaway!  I hope all of you participate because I'm doing it to promote the work of my favorite artist and friend Isabelle Bryer, and she is simply awesome. (A quick story of our friendship is below if you have the patience to read before entering the giveaway.)

Isabelle is a big shot international artist with exhibitions, openings, her work in the house of celebrities and even decorating the walls of your favorites TV shows sets.  She blogs here, and tweets here.

Recently she decided to create a line of affordable products for those of us who do not dine at Chateau Marmont and can't afford original portraits of their children (she is famous for those). You can find prints, giclées, and prints on wood of her work on Etsy, and lots of goodies on CaféPress. 

(Felicity True Bliss)

Isabelle and I have known each other for about 18 years.  Two French girls with drooling babies, recently married, isolated in the L.A. Jungle.  We found each other and never let go.  She's my sista from another motha. We find each other's humor hilarious, tell each other everything, we eat each other's food (mostly I eat her food) and try to be the best of friends and support each other through highs and lows.  

(Felicity Tree Hugger)

I remember the first time I saw her work.  I had know her for a short while and she had not mentioned she was an artist. I don't think she even saw herself as one. 

She had painted illustrations on a wooden trunk for her baby daughter's bedroom and I was stunned.  It was a little like I had made friends with Clark Kent only to discover weeks later that he was Superman.  I was amazed by her effortless ability to fly through the air (oh wait, that's superman, I've got my metaphors all mixed up.)  in a word, I was smitten.  

  

(Felicity)

But really, the reasons I love her are so many.  The encouragement, the empathic ear, the voice of reason, the support and playfullness make her a vital part of my life. Every girl should have a friend like her and I feel truly blessed.

The pictures are of her new series. I call it the purple-haired girl, she calls it the Felicity series.

You might not want to spend thousands for the originals, what with your recent purchase of that Pink Maserati, but you can enter to win a signed, limited edition print of Felicity right here:

Here is how to enter the giveaway:

1-"like" my Hidden in Paris page on Facebook. I know it's artificial but it makes me feel..well, artificially "liked" which (I think) is better than not to be liked at all. 

2-  sign up for Isabelle's email newsletter here (you can always cancel the newsletter later on, no pressure) OR leave your name and email address in the comments below.

3- IF you spread the word via twitter (and let me know in the comments or on twitter), your name will be counted twice.

The giveaway is open to all countries.

The limited edition print is on 11 x 17 paper and the image is 10 x 13.25

The giveaway ends on November 30th.  In time to receive the print before the holiday season.

Here is a photo of the print where you can see the little hand-glued crystals:

 

Can't wait to hear from all of you! 

Productivity-obsessive-compulsive

There is such a thing as POC, or Productivity Obsession Compulsion.  The only reason I can make such anoutlandish claim and practically add a new chapter to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder or DSM is because I got it (the affliction, not the manual). 

I do not measure how valuable my day was by how loving I was to my family, how helpful I was to my friends or how generous I was to this cause or that one.  Not even by how many books I sold. No, I measure the value of my day on how much I got done. 

Here is how it gets tricky: Nothing has to be done well. It only has to be done fast and in large quantity. If I've shoved giant piles of leaves from one side of the yard to the other, written 7 pages-albeit crappy ones-, tweeted to the wind, coaxed my kid into finishing that lame project, driven him all over town looking for a video game I disapprove of, cooked a flop of a three course meal (They don't like octopus with creamy polenta after all), then only can look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day. I have been productive! 

Today I got little done ( my husband showed me how to use his camera and we took a walk, ate leftovers for lunch and I wasted time on the computer the rest of the day) and I feel antsy and guilty.  I feel as though I wasted my precious day.  I was a bad girl. Hence this blog post which is really an attempt at cramming some productivity into my day and assuage the guilt.

Pathetic.

I often think of my fantasy life, the simpler life that I dream of. But if I were to be placed in a small village in France and have everything confiscated from me, all my toys and distractions, all those things I click with, look at, and make stuff with, how long before I get island fever?  1 day?  Five minutes?   Would I be able to look up at the sky, count clouds and smell the boursin? If I don't start learning to be happy with a slow life, slow food, slow thinking, slow travel now, it isn't going to happen on its own.

When it comes to being green it's not enough to Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. But it's not enough.  First you have to Refuse. Same thing with being sane. You have to learn to say no to a whole lot of things before you can slow down your life. You have to learn to stop the wheel from spinning.  It's an addiction.    

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this.

How to look at simple things and realize they are beautiful

Nadia, the amazing talent behind the blog La Porte Rouge is speaking about Hidden in Paris today in a fun interview in the doubtful case you're not sick of hearing me talk about my novel yet. Oh and by the way, Hidden in Paris is a novel set in Paris.  No shit! you say... but I needed to write this sentence to improve my google searches.  Full disclosure, haha. 

But this gives me a great chance to talk about Nadia.

No need to tell you how I became mesmerized by all things Nadia.  All I need is to show you her pictures.

Okay, I'm in chatty mood, so let me illustrate the pictures (all stolen from her blog) by telling you a few words about her.

And if you ever doubt that friendships can be started on the internet, you can see that we go way back.  I think it all started with this post.

Nadia has been a source of inspiration to me not only because of her stunning artistic eye but because of her poetic spirit and the rawness of her emotions.  And because she make everything, even the simplest things so beautiful that she forces me to reexamine how I look at simple things. After I read her blog I am always reminded to look closer, not to rush by, to appreciate light, and texture, and color.

We've all gotten pretty good at rushing.  But another thing we have become exceedlingly good at is protecting ourselves from the world, either by not caring too much or by developing a think skin.

Nadia has not developed a thick skin.  

I find that marvelous. Of course I am not in her skin so who is to say if this is a blessing or a curse, but the way I see it, as we manage to numb ourselves from the painful things in life, we also end up numbing ourselves from its joys.

You don't get to be selective about self-numbing.

The last two mosaics are pictures taken when Nadia was part of a food styling trip in the Dordogne region of France with the famous Aran of Canelle et Vanille.  I have NEVER lusted more for a trip to France than I did about that one, which you can read about here, here , and here

So what do you think?  Should we make ourselves less or more vulnerable? And what do we have to lose or gain by being vulnerable?