By now this is week-old news, but here you have it!
I'm not sure this answers the question posed at the start of this blog - how does an expat "come home" after a decade abroad? One thing we've learned is that the US will never be 100% home. We left our hearts in Paris and probably won't "find home" until the day we move back, but our finances and our careers have other ideas for now. What does feel special is that we've broken the holding pattern we've been in since moving to the US: hunkering down, lining our savings accounts, living in tiny spaces with roommates, and paying our monthly rent in places that would never be ours. The roommate situation might not be changing for now, and we'll still be adult-bunk-bedding in our king size loft, so this isn't a 100% leap into full adulthood. But there are some big wins: we'll finally have a slice of our very own outdoors, a major gift to the fur babies. And we've finally escaped that landlord middle-layer. After the trauma of our arbitrary eviction back in 2017 from a beloved home for which we'd always paid rent, just because our landlord felt like taking it back, these keys in hand feel like a massive weight off my shoulders. It's funny to think that this is what home ownership looks like. I'd always imagined the big day would involve falling in love with the perfect home. This isn't that, but it's the right next step for us, and a very sensible two-bed two-bath in a charming community in a nice part of Emeryville, just a few miles from our previous place in downtown Oakland. And it'll soon be home. Here's to next steps, even if they aren't the big leaps once envisioned.
The ink has dried on our notarized contract signed two full days ago, and the final countdown has officially begun! While we wait to get our hands on the keys, I've been getting mine on a few more works of art. Etsy is just such a magical place.
Theme: Boss Ladies with Fins Remember those "few charmers" I off-handedly introduced at the end of my last post? Don't ever trust me to let the strays stay that way. The mermaid riso print from Four Eyes Illustration is now paired up with another mermaid riso print from artist Doriane Millet. I'm expecting these works will land somewhere around my desk space in a corner of our future bedroom.
Theme: Black Girl Magic I've been trying to be more conscious of the default whiteness that exists in art depicting people. The fact that not all of us get to see ourselves equally reflected in art really eats at me, and I want to make sure that our home doesn't further propagate that issue. So when I stumbled across Tabitha Brown's prints, whose beautiful designs, vibrant colors, and modern style work perfectly with the look we're building for our living/dining spaces, I knew they were a must-have.
Theme: My cup of tea The top of this pair, a piece from Anne-Julie Aubry, isn't entirely new to me - it's something that's been hanging in our current home for a few months now, but I'd like to port it over to our future home. I'm imagining it'll fit snugly into a corner of our bedroom, maybe near my desk and those riso mermaid prints. After a very long hunt for a proper pairing, I was excited to come across the works of Carlos C. Lainez. I had put a rule down that I wouldn't buy any new cat art for our home since the three feline residents already do enough to express our cat crazy without our walls doing just the same, but I found this piece to be so unique that it was worth bending the rules.
Theme: Cats! Last but not least, these limited edition prints that I'd purchased from Jane Ormes back in 2016 for our big move to Brighton might just make the cut - we'll see once we've begun settling in.
We've also managed to frame the little piece of Brighton art that we'd used as the marker for our table of honor at our wedding back in 2017 as well as a photo or two from the big day, something that's never actually reached any of our walls in the nearly 5 years since. The only thing left on the docket is the potential purchase of a decorative clock or two. Nicolas may have won the fight on the front to actually have me wait until we move in before purchasing something. But there's still time, so no promises. 😅
T minus 4 days until - yes, I'll put it in writing - Nicolas and I will officially become home owners!
Who are we kidding, was I ever going to stop with a reasonable set of three different decor themes for different walls? Releasing me into the depths of my Etsy app is like sending an unsupervised kid into a candy shop. Zero self restraint. So what the heck, why not, here are a few more inspirations and charming internet finds from the past half-week.
I'm very intentionally trying to steer clear of my penchant for excessive cat decor. I'm afraid the three-cat household already speaks volumes when it comes to my crazy cat lady status. The least I can do is build a slightly more diversified decor.
By now you know where I'm heading with all this. After all, I did mention that our Eurotrip led to some bigger post-trip news. Still, let's wait until we've dotted all our i's and crossed our t's before we make it all blog-post-official.
By mid-July, it seemed pretty clear that we'd actually be allowed to take the France portion of the trip we'd booked back during our Christmas "vacation," which we'd spent primarily on our couch in our living room in Oakland, California, thousands of miles from our standard Christmas crowd. England, on the other hand, wasn't looking so bright. On their big July 19 re-open, quarantine-free border crossings were opened up for all of western Europe *except* France. After four hours on hold with customer service, we managed to change our SF → Paris/London → SF round-trip to a simple SF ↔ Paris, we re-worked our easy week-in-Paris/week-in-England to a grand Tour de France, and everything seemed set. That is, until the week before our departure when England had a change of heart. Suddenly we had to sort out how to squeeze a quick stop across the Channel.
This entire trip was originally planned around two weddings just twelve days apart, one in Brittany and the other in Southern England. With all pandemic-related travel restrictions lifted with mere weeks to spare, we could hardly miss either. Nor could we cancel the Tour de France and let down all the very enthusiastic family and friends along the route. Suddenly our much awaited trip became a jam-packed adventure. Forget relaxation, this was a Eurotrip on steroids.
For lack of mental bandwidth, I'm afraid this post won't be much more than a photo dump. But, given that this blog is my glorified photo album, I think that will suffice. And after all, the most exciting part of this pandemic Eurotrip unfurled in the weeks since we've returned Stateside. Stay tuned!
We spent our first weekend abroad in Brittany to celebrate the wedding of Odile & Tancrède.
After Brittany, we got to enjoy a couple of days in the City of Lights, spending time with old friends and discovering a fantastic new ice cream destination in Alain Ducasse.
Next stop, Beaune! Only took me 8 visits to finally check out the Hospices, a rare example of a perfectly preserved medieval hospital. We met up with Nicolas's dad, Serge, on this leg of our journey.
Serge took us over the border to Geneva for a day filled with hiking, swimming, and fine dining.
Southward-bound, we next hit up Lyon where I fell in love with an adorable little tea salon called Le Luminarium.
In Crest, Nicolas and I finally got to meet his youngest (for now) nephew, Merlin, who's had some time to do some serious growing up since the start of the pandemic.
Our final destination in France, the Ile de Porquerolles, gave us our first and only day of proper vacationing, a world away from all our responsibilities, in a perfect slice of Mediterranean France.
We managed to cross yet another international border, entering post-Brexit England for the very first time to see Emma and Pete finally tie the knot - third time's the charm! (Third not for the actually getting married bit but for the scheduling and planning it all out.) En route to Battle, we squeezed in an evening in London with old friends and a proper British pub dinner, followed up the next morning with our breakfast of champions: scones and clotted cream.
This past week I officially joined the fully-vaxxed club. I'd honestly thought it might be a more emotional experience. There was a moment when I watched some of my long-time colleagues get their first jab that caught my teary-eyed. I hadn't realized how braced I'd been to see at least one colleague die before the pandemic ran its course. We've mostly been working on-site since last May so the odds seemed good to me. Seeing them get the jab, knowing that we wouldn't face that collective trauma atop the general stresses of everyday life at an Elon company, was a relief I hadn't realized I'd needed.
Honestly, by the time the second jab came around, I just found it to be an inconvenience. I was literally pounding away at my laptop until the moment the needle had to enter my arm. The next day wasn't fabulous but still found me back at work by lunch time after passing a feverish night - nothing particularly special. It's wonderful to get to share that I'm one step closer to the end of this nightmare, though the potential for a vaccine-resistant strain still looms large. Still, cheers to this step, I suppose?
Another year and with it, another chipped "engagement" ring. ("Engagement" because we never really did the getting engaged thing. I just got myself something colorful and sparkly once we'd decided to start wedding planning.) Soon after ringing in 2021, I realized it was time for yet another ring upgrade. I was already on my third in as many years of married life - the first one having lost its center stone, and the next two having been an amazing cerulean topaz that I'd purchased for color without enough consideration of durability. It was time to start looking into tougher stones.
Enter moissanite, today's top-tier diamond substitute. At 9.25-9.5 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (compared to diamond at 10, sapphire at 9, and topaz all the way down at 8 on this logarithmic scale), we're looking at a gemstone approximately half as tough as diamonds, but a good fifty times tougher than my former fav, topaz. Moissanite is the gem name for silicon carbide, a material whose name gets tossed around more than a little in my workplace, adding an extra nerdy Neuralink bonus to the stone. The gem name comes from the Nobel Prize winning scientist Henri Moissan, who first discovered silicon carbide while studying meteorites in Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. Predominantly (if not exclusively) found in meteors, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the moissanite on the market is pretty much always lab-grown. With no mining required, moissanite has some serious economical and ethical upsides compared to diamonds. Oh, and it's readily available in a full spectrum of colors which were all calling my name.
Having never gotten into the gem craze around the time I'd gotten engaged, this was my first deep foray into the world of gemstones. So many cuts, carats, colors, and settings to consider! How could I possibly settle on one?
I began my collection with a classic round brilliant-cut icy blue 1.3 carat moissanite set in 14k yellow gold. The setting is delicate with a bit of an organic touch in the curves and detailing.
Engagement ring #4 - an icy blue moissanite
One of the most curious features was just how differently the colors shine until different lighting - check out the transformation in the video below from nearly clear to sky blue!
There was no stopping me now that I was aware of a durable stone available in nearly any color at such a low price point. (Think anywhere from about $50 to $450 for a 1 to 1.5 carat stone.) The next thing that sucked me in was the Portuguese cut - with about twice as many facets as the standard brilliant gem cut, the sparkle was just out of this world. Pair a deep dark stone with all the shards of the rainbow at the slightest twitch of the hand and, well, how could I resist? I will confess that this addition was the priciest bit of my growing collection, but can you blame me?
Love love love. Another 1.3 carat stone in 14k gold. This was my first foray into designing my own setting, so I may have gone a bit overboard on the side stones, but live and learn, right? That center stone - swoon. The stills just don't capture any of the ring's rainbow sparkle. Check out the video just below to see that Portuguese cut in action!
By now I was on a tear, ready to build up my right-hand ring collection to cover any and all outfit pairings. After all, it was now 2021 and that Class of '09 Brass Rat was starting to feel just a little outdated. I couldn't help but fall for this dusty rose, goes-with-anything charmer, also coming in at 1.3 carats. It's just a brilliant cut, but the color pulled me in.
Brilliant cut chocolatey-pink dusty rose moissanite, 1.3 carat set in a 14k gold semi-mount lined with teensy-tiny diamonds.
Finally, to round off the collection, I simply had to add an Asscher-cut stone to the mix. The Asscher cut stands out for its large step facets and cropped corners. It's a cut that was especially popular in the 1920's and has recently made a resurgence. I'm captivated by the big bold flashes of light from the long facets on the sides and the cross pattern from the cropped corners. Finding a stone in the same caramel shade as Senator Furnie Sanders's eyes just pushed it over the top.
An Asscher-cut 1 carat caramel moissanite (the color of Furnie's eyes!) custom-set in an assymmetric 14k gold ring that previously held the single white diamond floating on the side. I gave my jeweler a run for his money with this setting request.
Check out that Asscher-style sparkle!
And now, having filled up all the ring slots in my jewelry holder, I think it's fair to call a wrap on my second major pandemic project - a bit pricier than table making, but with less risk of burning down the house.
