Where my bells at?

Has anyone noticed a serious shortage of Salvation Army bell ringers out this year? What the heck? I set a personal goal every year to give at least a little bit to every single bell ringer I pass, but at this rate I won't even go through the change under my car seats!

Oh, and to the grammar police out there, I know you aren't supposed to end a sentence (or blog title) with a preposition, but I just couldn't help but give a subtle homage to my favorite ad campaign and hilarious you tube video found here.

Anyways, I am back from Paris. I published a post right before I left but for some reason it showed up several posts down the page. Blogger error? Not sure. More likely user error. Anywhoo-- it was a very quick, very busy trip. I arrived to the city of lights lightly blanketed in snow which I didn't expect. It was stunning. I loved seeing those little villages covered in snow from the plane. So quaint and sweet. I imagined every one one of those houses looking just like Kate Winslet's character's house in The Holiday and I could practically smell the chocolate croissants baking in the kitchen.

Speaking of chocolate croissants, or pain au chocolate if you will, I ate many many of these during my stay. I wasn't a huge fan of the fancy food we had available at our meeting so I pretty much ate carbs the entire time. I swear the bread and butter there is the best I have EVER tasted. I also made a cab driver take me past the Eiffel Tower so I could see it decorated for Christmas one night. So worth it. The entire city was decorated, it was so gorgeous. And, in a move that seemed to shock both of us, I told said cab driver where I wanted to go in a full French sentence and he actually understood!

But as they always say, there is no place like home. I am happy to be here and to wake up to Madelyn's sweet sounds, eat homemade American food, and speak a language who's grammar rules I know enough to actually be aware when I'm breaking them.