chroniques d’une fraise

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

Translation: “Strawberry has strawberries.” Hmm… Strawberry strawberries strawberried Strawberry strawberries. English is great. Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo! But I digress.
I was browsing a “nature products” store here (Nature et Découvertes) last week, waiting for a bank wire to come in […]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

After gorging myself on as many color and style ideas as I could, narrowing them down by my new apartment building’s own style (art deco, pale yellow/eggshell walls and pale green shutters) and my own tastes, yesterday I decided on a color scheme […]

When I first discovered the web in 1994, I loved its premise: links! Being able to jump from one subject to the next! A giant library of interconnected ideas from around the world! Today was especially fun for me, so following is some of my path.
Starting from DIY Ceiling Cat (beware bad souls, else ye […]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

I went to the bank as scheduled today, and would have signed the mortgage but for the fact that the banker had mistakenly put me down as being French. For that simple oversight, the dossier has to be officially re-approved, but it should […]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

The neatest little basic teapot was for sale in my favorite antique store. I couldn’t resist its curved simplicity and its red! I plan on replacing the old glass ceramic hob (cooktop for US English speakers) in my new apartment with an induction […]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

One of the plants that came with my (current) apartment is about to flower. At my new place I’ll no longer have a balcony on which to put balcony boxes, but the extra room will be great for my maple and pine trees. […]

Getting a broker was definitely the right decision for me — just three days after he submitted an application to the best mortgage he could find for my profile, and one I was very happy with, the bank in question accepted. As of this afternoon I have money to buy my apartment! (Not yet signed […]

For the benefit of any bankers who want to send their clients running as fast as they can to competitors, here are a few quotes from my banker today. I wrote them down in French, so will give the originals and their translations.
After I asked whether it were possible to adjust monthly payments to account […]

Signing on my apartment is proving to be a great learning experience. I’ve always been shy, and dealing with all that surrounds such a major purchase, in a foreign country, for the first time ever anywhere, is not at all easy for me. I don’t have a partner to fall back on when I realize […]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }

The same cartoonist who created the animation of a cat waking up his owner has done another, called Let me in. Again he captured the essential characteristics of felines. Malo does the very same things: he’ll go outside, then scratch on the door […]