Day 9

It's funny how the weather influences my mood. Today was gray & cloudy, and while I felt well-rested, the gray skies outside didn't do me any favors.

I finally got fed up with not having a proper alarm clock, so I ventured out to Forum Les Halles, which is a big shopping mall that happens to have a metro stop attached to it. There's a bunch of stores there, but I had an agenda. My goal was a store called Habitat, which is, based on my own observation, the British answer to IKEA. The store itself is pretty neat, and I found a decent clock at a price that still feels like a lot of money. I think part of me won't ever let go of the exchange rate...

After purchasing my clock, I wandered into an H&M. Now, I love me some H&M, but at this moment, I'm trying to hold onto all the cash I've got. There were a few things in the store that I absolutely loved, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything today. I blame the weather. The last store I wandered into before departing from Les Halles was a store called Nature & Découvertes that my mom & I wound up visiting last time we were here. This store is an interesting collection of eco-friendly stuff, ranging from camping gear to kids toys to tea & teapots to diffusers (for essential oils) to travel pillows. One of the neat things I saw in the store was a travel neck pillow that was filled with cherry pits, which is certainly something I've never seen before.

I returned to the apartment to make myself a late lunch, and then before I knew what had happened, I was waking up from a nap (luckily with plenty of time to prepare to pick up the kids). I grabbed a few things for the kids to snack on while we were out at the park, and then went to go get them from school. As always, I picked up Youngest first, and then we waited outside for about 10 minutes until Eldest was released. We returned to the apartment, the kids got their scooters, I got the snack bag, and we all headed to the park, where they played until 6.

We returned to the apartment, they got cleaned up, and then it was dinnertime. Tonight was a meal that came together more quickly than I expected...galettes (savory buckwheat crepes) with ham & cheese (chicken instead of ham for me), a small salad, cherry tomatoes, and yogurt w/ Nesquick mixed in for dessert. By the time I finished cleaning up dinner, the kids were playing & already in their pajamas, so I used a phone the family has that has free calling to US landlines, and caught up w/ daddy (although he was at work), which was nice, since I haven't been able to talk to him on skype lately. The call was short because he was still in the middle of his workday, but shortly after I finished with him, the mother came home, and I was relieved of my duties for the day.

So, as I said before, not much happened today, but I still blame the clouds.