Blog Award for Christine Rochet-Jacob

The blogs Bonjour Romance and The Romantic Query Letter and the Happily Ever After gave me this award for Kreativ Blogger. I feel very grateful that some of you put up with my constant flow of impressions as a French woman abroad!

For accepting this award, I need to:
- Copy and paste the award and post a link to the blog that nominated me.
- Tell seven things about myself.
- Nominate seven other bloggers and pass the award along.

So let me tell you seven ordinary things about moi TODAY - i.e things that reflect my mood of the moment (because I don't believe in generic labels):

1. Today's Sound of Music: Donna Summer's I feel Love

2. Latest though-provoking reads: I loved... Madeleine Vionnet by Pamela Golbin, & Les Déferlantes by Claudie Gallay (in French)
3. Art matters...Visually Important : As I'm writing now, I strangely think of Georges Seurat's The Circus. I owe a lot to this painting! A copy of it was hanging from the wall at my GP's office, when I was a child. It helped me bite the bullet more than once... My imagination would transport me on horseback with the ballerina acrobat, and my doctor could practise his art of the needle at leisure for the sake of my vaccination!

Georges Seurat. The Circus. 1890-91. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

But I also think of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Caillebotte, and Edgar Degas ( Ahhh, La Coiffure, because I've always loved having my hair combed)...

Combing the Hair ('La Coiffure') by Degas, about 1896 -National Gallery, London

or Felix Vallotton (I'm a big fan of his woodcuts, and their bold designs, influenced by Japanese wood-block prints), and finally Hiroshige.

Morning glory. Woodcut print, Kakyo Tokyo meisho,

by Utagawabe Hiroshige III (1842-1894). Tsunashima Kamekichi, 1881.
Courtesy of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York Botanical Garden
Photo: New York Botanical Garden

4. I love the city where I live... because that's where my love is. ;0)
5. Sportswise? Getting there...I like the rush of adrenaline and the healthy exhaustion one gets from physical effort. And yet I have to push myself to go to the gym twice a week, or so - my membership is a great reminder! I like Pilates & Yoga, Badminton, Squash and Tennis. But Aerobics is my new target! I want to exercise with the legendary 1980s sexy trio of the 20-minute work-out videos, which I just discovered on Youtube- remember I am a French woman frecentlly landed in North America!

I used to love riding my bike in town - in France with the V'Lov system in Lyon, and the V'Lib in Paris. But Toronto is way more dangerous! I stopped riding after falling over the handlebars... my wheel got stuck in the streetcar tracks, ouch! Oh, but nothing can stop me from walking the streets of the city. Occasionally, I also love hiking in Canadian reservation parks...Peekaboo, Caribou!
6. Mood of the day: Every day is a beautiful day! (*quote from the film Harvey). And also, for those who can understand a bit of French, watch the following video showing the casting of the young "gouailleur" (cheeky) Jean-Pierre Léaud for the 400 Blows by François Truffaut. It will make your day!

Casting de Jean-Pierre Léaud pour LES 400 COUPS
Uploaded by CinemaMonAmour. - Independent web videos.

7. Scents of a French woman : Among my favourite palette of scents, are...Nature before and after the rain/ Freshly cut grass/Anything cooking in butter on the stove /The subtle notes of a fragrant Bordeaux-Graves/ The head-spinning fragrances of lilac in Eastertime... Not to forget Coco by Chanel, my perfume, and Vétiver by Guerlain, my husband's fragrance.

To learn more, go to Mon Cher Coco, my other blog!

Here are 7 other blogs that I love visiting:
♥ Food Box
♥ A Foodie Froggy in Paris (bilingual)
♥ Lovely Morning
♥ 2 or 3 Things I know
♥ Style Files
♥ An Affordable Wardrobe
♥ Please Sir