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In just that order.
I hope to do more of the same this weekend.
Happy Halloween! Rich & I are going a Celtics game tonight. He won tickets for center court suite seats. A treat indeed. Enjoy your weekend. I will be back next week with my calendar & some other goodies.
My days have always been fairly busy - from working the non-profit scene in the morning to printing late in the evening. But this little one here has helped me take a few moments each day to take a moment, go for a stroll, relax, & take it in. We go for quick, chilly morning walks before the day begins & a bit more leisurely, sun-setting strolls in the afternoon.
There is a big tree in the yard next to our house that we like to lay under - me staring up at the leaves, her chewing a stick, leaf, bug, or anything else she can get her mouth on. I have really enjoyed these moments as they have given me time to get my mind focused on all the design & print jobs I have lined up for the next few months.
I have been busy finishing my 2009 calendar & it is just about done. It will be a bit different than last year, mostly in size. I decided to make it smaller {4.25 x 5.5"} this year & I am loving it. It has been printed with my gocco & will be an edition of 250...100 more than last year! This will most likely be my last gocco calendar due to the diminishing supplies which means...a letterpress calendar for next year! Not to get ahead of myself or anything.
I will be updating my shop around the first full week of November with my calendar. Other holiday goodies will slowly trickle in including letterpress & gocco holiday cards, postcards, gift tags, coaster sets, & letterpress ornaments. I am excited!
Happy Tuesday!
A view from inside The Louvre. We spent two & a half days in the Louvre, spending most of our time in the Egyptian & Renaissance art.
A picnic in the Tuileries.
It took some planning to be sure we saw what we wanted at the Louvre!
The flower markets outside of Notre Dame.
Notre Dame.
The sleeping pigeons of Notre Dame.
Matching the marigolds outside of Notre Dame ever so nicely.
Musee de l'Orangerie home of Monet's Les Nympheas {The Waterlilies}. This was one of my favorite places we went. So quiet & beautiful.
Sainte Chapelle. Absolutely stunning.
In Place du Tertre, the heart of Montmartre where artists set-up their easels & sell their work. Artists such as Picasso, Modigliani, & Utrillo lived & painted here. This was another favorite part of Paris. I loved living in Montmartre for those ten short days.
Around Place du Tertre.
A view from atop the Arc de Triomphe looking at Sacre-Coeur.
Pere-Lachaise Cemetary where we saw the graves of Oscar Wilde, George Bizet, & Jim Morrison {of course}.
A view from Montmarte at dusk on our last night in Paris.
The last view of Sacre-Coeur.
With that, our trip to Paris comes to an end *le sigh*.....
The garden at Invalides.
Moulin de la Gallette on Rue Lepic in Montmartre.
The street behind our apartment leading to Sacre-Coeur.
Sacre-Coeur at the very top of Montmartre.
Le Metro at Abbesses in Montmartre - one stop before our Metro at Lamarck.
A boutique coffee shop in Paris...named after Rich...
Place de Concorde with the Champs-Elysees & the Arc de Triomphe behind me.
Inside the Musee d'Orsay, an amazing museum in an old train station.
My Aunt & me at Versailles.
Just standing in front of my gilded gates. No biggie.
How come I do not see this when I look up in my dining room? {I suppose I need a dining room first.} In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
Jeff Koons had an exhibit at Versailles. Personally, I was not a fan, but you can read more here. This piece did make for a fun photo op in the Hall of Mirrors however.
The gardens of Versailles.
More photos tomorrow! I wish I could share all {300+} photos with you...but then we would be here for quite some time. Until...
La Tour Eiffel. Even if you have not been to Paris it evokes some sort of emotion. For me it was a kind of romance & glamor that only existed in dreams or days gone by, & certainly not something that could exist in my reality. But that all changed.
Rich & I set out for the tower on our first full day in Paris, each with our own agendas {unbeknown to each other of course}. We enjoyed our daily dose of pain au chocolat & crepes au chocolat {seriously, we are in Paris. Chocolate for every meal is quite okay} we walked through one of the small parks below the tower. It was early still & few people were in the park. We stopped at the pond to admire the ducks {because the Parisian mallard is so much more chic than the American, no?}.
What occurred next is still as hazy as the morning it happened. I snapped a photo of a duck, looked over at Rich to discover he was down...on...bended knee! What!?! I am not sure if he held my hands or I clutched the camera, but I do know he asked me to marry him & I do know that I said YES! As in "yesofcourseohmygoodnessIcannotbelievethisishappening. Okay breathe." He stood up & pulled the ring out of his pocket. The ring that he carried around everyday in his work bag for two weeks before our trip & for 3 days in Amsterdam & 1 day in Paris. The ring that he, with a bit of help from his mom & sister, picked out by himself. The ring that is absolutely perfect & the first real piece of jewelry that I have owned & actually worn. Then I cried. I knew when the day came that Rich proposed to me it would be a surprise. He always said it would be. Was it ever!
Eventually we did climb 668 steps to the second platform of the the tower. The haze added to the dreamy feeling I was in. We decided not to climb to the top, but this was close enough to the sky for me!
When we came back down {though my heads were still in the clouds!} we went back to the spot where he proposed to snap this photo...just as the sun came out. We walked around Paris for the remainder of the day, visited Les Invalides then went back to our apartment in Montmartre for some wine to celebrate!
I will be back to share more photos & stories from the rest of our trip tomorrow!
