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Copain and I just fit what most people do in five years, into one. Almost exactly one - seeing as how last time I left you was one day shy of one year ago today.

I'm happy to be on the other side of it, still in one piece and not rotting in a French jail for strangling my boyfriend or throwing baguettes at idiotic bankers. 

We have been through the wringer people.

This all sounds horribly bad - très mauvais - but basically, we used our driving force of 2013 - Avancer - and took it to a whole new level for 2014.

In 2014 we:

1. Put in an offer on the cutest apartment in the world. In our favorite Parisian neighborhood.

2. Realized the that the apartment was above a dry cleaners (dangerous perc!). Freaked out.

3. Urgently visited the environmental police office in Paris and combed through their files to research the dry cleaner's level of danger - finally decided it was okay to move forward and that we wouldn't die of perc-induced cancer.

4. Bankers! loans! Documents! Different banks! Different loans! More documents!

5.  Took a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia - almost got hit by lightening in the plane to Siem Reap. Hiked to a remote village, stayed with the villagers. Swam through the Dark Cave, tried not to die.

6. Decided to get married in November. French paperwork! More paperwork! But then this:

7. Said, OUI! then flew to Budapest -bouquet and all- for our wedding dinner... just the two of us.

At the airport: You are a few meters from a new beginning...

8. Moved out of our Teeny Parisian Apartment into our new humble (but adorable) abode in the 11th arrondissement - down five flights of stairs on one side, up five flights of stairs on the other side! 

9. Celebrated the holidays as mari & femme - in a heated apartment! With lovely stockings from Budapest, and our first Parisian Christmas tree.

10. Got rid of the taupe couch! 

Before:

After:

11. Bought our first dinner table, first new bed, a rug,  and finally hung photos on the walls. I even bought a Le Creuset casserole dish and made a boeuf bourguignon.

We are finally home.

So you understand why French Cannes Cannes went on hiatus for a year there. It was nutso up in this heezy. I was a crazy lady - une folle! 

But I'm happy to be back and to share 2015 with you.  We are done with Avancer, so now we can VIVRE.

Boom Boom Thao

It's been rough times in the Cannes Cannes household. Or should I say, craphold. 

We are literally in a crap hold. Our teeny Parisian apartment has got us in the biggest crap hold of all time. I fell off the blog grid during The Great Apartment Search of 2013 and left for Christmas in the states thinking that Copain was signing for The One (with the power of attorney I gave him the day before my flight!). 

When I woke up in San Francisco after a night of celebratory nachos and cocktails with m'moom and seester (okay, we totally had artichoke dip and a pizza too, long live America), I learned that we had fallen down the crap hole, back into the crap hold. After wiring a (BIG) "show of good faith" payment, and surviving 3 hours of negotiations (read: yelling matches) with the owner and her posse, Copain said, "Adieu," and peaced out of there, leaving our apartment forever.

We should have seen the bad omens floating in the Parisian sky when the 78 year-old owner fell down the stairs during our first visit, breaking her little grandma arm. We should have known when they promised us the gigantic, American fridge and then took it away, leaving 25 year-old kitchen appliances in its place. We should have known by the funky smell on the landing, and the brown socks with orange tassels vibe, the fact that the owner's son-in-law is a lawyer. 

But we fell in love with the location, the balcony overlooking trees and a children's square, the beautiful hard-wood floors, the parking spot (!!), the CLOSETS in the hallway...yeah, closets. 

We turned a blind eye to the wallpaper from 1975, the beige sink and bathtub, and the over-glossed paint job in the kitchen. We'd live with it until we could afford new furniture AND new decor. We'd make it work because we'd finally be out of the craphole and into chez nous.  Our house.

Alas, it didn't go down like that. 

The day after the failed-sale, the owner threatened to sue us for backing out. Copain joined me in the states and our friends and family helped us out of our funk, told us we'd probably side-stepped a land mine. If the owner's posse was so crazy-cray, who knows what else could have happened along the way. 

And so here we are. Here I am. Back on the taupe couch.

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Paris is just now starting to buzz back to life after the holidays. The Sees candy and California taco-overload is melting off as I Vélib to work and walk back home along rue de la Roquette. Copain and I feast on homemade soup and salads from the marché, and our eyes roll back in our heads at around 10pm, as we adjust back to the time zone.

Avancer 2013 is not dead, but it's on hiatus. Instead of looking for apartments this week, I looked at the yoga studio's schedule and got myself to Thao's class at Rasa last night. Girlfriend kicked my sad, yogi buttocks that haven't seen a yoga mat since Bali (ahem, September). You'd think she would have taken it slow for the New Year, but no; at one point I was supposed to get my foot locked into my elbow, while reaching overhead with the other arm to stretch my quads, but that didn't happen. I was just lucky to be able to grab my foot at all without falling over or seriously pulling a muscle. 

Which brings me to 2014. Equilibre. Balance. That will be the name of the game. It's not to say that we won't avancer -  we will. But I don't want to lose sight of my equilibre, which was very off in 2013. So off, that I found myself visiting the gastroenterologiste for some serious issues with my stressed out intestins (poor dudes). 

I need time for Copain, time for work, time for friends and family, time to make soups and go to the theatre, time to Cannes Cannes, time for movies and walks in the city...

Time for fitting my foot into my elbow.