C'est la rentrée !

Here we are again, the first of September. Teachers report today (students go back Thursday) as well as everyone else in France that takes the month of August off. Once again, Mother Nature is following right along with the calendar and it's gone all dark and rainy (though, to be fair, it's actually the remnants of the hurricane that flew up the east coast of the US a couple of weeks ago).

I spent this first morning "back to work" puttering around the house tidying up and trying to wear Fry down (it worked, he's passed the sacred hour and a half mark of his noon nap!). And of course as soon as I typed that he woke up.... I'll never learn!

Anyhoo, I mentioned before that we've got a couple of big projects going on. They are not things that have to be worked on constantly; in fact, they're going to kind of run in the background for a while. For example, the first thing is that I'm preparing to request French citizenship. There are a few documents that need to be gathered and then translated before we head back to the courthouse in Troyes. We grabbed a copy of our marriage license when we were in Asheville a few weeks ago, and we're now waiting for a copy of my birth certificate and my criminal record. Hopefully we will get everything gathered and translated before three months expires, or else the whole thing starts over again. Good times!

So, why citizenship? Well, I knew I'd do it eventually, since we are going to live here indefinitely. It would be nice to be able to vote and not having to request ID cards would be nice (though getting cards is a lot easier since we moved to Tiny Town and I can do it through our town hall). But what pushed me over the edge was doing the paperwork for Fry's passport last spring. At one point, there was a question to whether or not I had the right to sign for him on his passport since I wasn't French myself. The answer is a definite "yes" but just knowing that there could be a doubt prompted me to get the paperwork going straight away.

The next big project is that I'm kind of sort of looking for a job. Now, the thing here is that I don't have to work and I'm not taking the first thing that comes along. I've been super happy being home with Fry, in a way I never expected, but I need some grown up interaction as well. For now, I'm just flipping through the announcements on the job site and sending in my resume if I see anything interesting (so far, one thing interesting popped up, but no news on that). It would have to be something with normal working hours that I have previous experience in, and hopefully if something does come along we won't have any trouble finding some sort of care for Fry, since there aren't any day care facilities in Tiny Town. And if you're newish around here, no, I won't teach English.

So, that's been kind of exciting, but the biggest thing that's happening in the background is that we're starting to look into buying a house. Again, we're not in a super hurry, but I think Stéph's idea of waiting a bit changed when he saw Fry in an environment where he could run around a house that was child-safe, unlike ours, where we have to basically keep him in baby jail because of all the dangerous areas of our rented apartment.

I was walking by Tiny Town Realty last week with Fry and saw an announcement that looked too good to be true, so of course it was. I told Stéph about it and we went to talk to the real estate agent about it. Unfortunately it doesn't fit into what we're looking for in the end, but for a minute I could almost imagine Fry playing in the backyard. In any case, we have very specific requirements (can't be on a main road, must have a certain number of rooms, have some kind of garden or courtyard and be in Tiny Town or one of the villages surrounding it) and meet our budget, where our maxed out budget means the home is in perfect condition and ready to move in. There is one house on Tiny Town Realty's website that seems interesting and I've sent them an email about it, but other than that, they have our info and will call us if they get anything else that meets our requirements.

So, that is what is going on around here! Lots of fingers in pies around, and we'll see what we eventually pull out!