The Bitter-Sweet Taste of Irony

I was shocked to see that 3 weeks have slipped by since my last post. Our house has become a maze of boxes as we pack, waiting for that elusive moving date. One delay has piled onto another (will we ever understand how everything is supposed to work here?). But keeping our eyes and ears tuned to our Good Shepherd is faith building.

The headlines here in France have been blazing with a story that has made me chuckle out-loud. No, not Sarkozy and his heiress/model/popstar girlfriend. Societé Génerale, the bank that sifts through all their accounts, down to the most meager accounts in order to prevent and extract any undesirables, is enduring a scandal of global proportions. If you recall, our bank closed our account with no warning or explanation a couple of months ago. The explanation we finally received is that we were suspected of money laundering because every few weeks we deposited cash into our account. (to pay for things like rent, utilities, phone--shocking!) They were very keen to keep riff-raff like us out of their bank. Now it has been revealed that one of their young employees managed to play with 20 billion euros more than the entire worth of the bank and lost 5 billion euros (more than $7 billion). Well, at least they don't have to worry about us ripping them off.

Handsome Hubby has pointed out that it would be wrong to rejoice in the afflictions of others. He is so right.

I'm sorry, Societé Génerale for laughing.

La musique

Happy New Year! Today we are taking down the Christmas tree. Monday the kids go back to school. Happily we had a very musical holiday with the following cds being given and received: Sufjan Stevens-Illinoise, Francis Cabrel-1997-2007, Phil Keaggy-Master and the Musician, Hannah Montana,LiveEarth (CD and DVD), Led Zeppelin-Mothership, Michael Buble-Call Me Irresponsible, The Beatles--the Blue Album, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Disney Holiday album and a four cd set of Christmas tunes. We are all wrangling for our favorite in the car, house, etc. The kids made a cd for family and friends called "Willsong--Christmas EP". The boys took the cash they received as a gift and doubled the wattage of their amplifiers. I now can feel the bass guitar in my teeth and through my spine. Guess we need to build a recording studio in the back of the house!

House Update--we still do not know the closing date! It will be around January 15 and we will move bit by bit through the rest of the month. I'm going back to packing now!