Bon jour!
Today's challenge is FRENCH. We use French in a lot of things. French toast. French fries. French onion soup. French braid. French kiss. French manicure.
I didn't get as much time to focus on this challenge today because I decided (last minute) to have a yard sale. A few neighbors were already having one so I thought I would take advantage of the traffic that I assumed would come my way.
It was an interesting morning. I had decided to skip the showering and "beautifying" of myself this morning to get a good start on being ready for the "mad rush" that seems to occur an hour before you are ever ready to open. I got up at 5:15 and was filling up the driveway by 5:30. I was feeling pretty good about how things were shaping up. It was about 6:30 when I was satisfied with my preparations, but decided it wasn't safe to go clean up now since people are usually out for 7:00 yard sales and could drop by any minute.
7:00 am: No people. Not much traffic either.
8:00 am: One person. A whopping $1.25 (after they talked me down).
And so it went throughout the morning. I vowed to shut it down at 10:00 if it stayed with way.
9:15ish: A lady wants 2 of my bulky items as well as a few other things. I give her a total and she says, "I have to go to the bank. It's just up the road. I will be right back to pay you." She leaves.
10:00 am: Things are still slow. The lady isn't back for her things yet. I notice that my Free tote is missing. Not just the free stuff IN it, but the whole tote. This yard sale is costing me more than I am making. <sigh>
Later: A lady comes by and wants to purchase one of the bulky items that the lady who went to the bank has on hold. I decide to sell it to her because we all know that those "I'll be back" promises are rarely ever kept.
Later yet: The lady makes it back from the bank. She apparently forgot where I was so she was wondering town to find me. I wondered if she would notice that an item was missing. She didn't say anything. Paid me for what was there and loaded it into her car. While at her car, she tells me that she has the tote that the free stuff was in and wondered if it was free as well or if I had intended to keep it. I asked for it back (oh . . . yes, I did) and felt relieved that the yard sale wasn't a complete flop.
I'm now vowing that we will close this yard sale by noon, so I begin packing up.
A lady stops. I stop packing. Another lady stops. The first lady gathers a few items and realizes she needs more money from her car. The second lady returns to her car but stops to talk to the first lady. The first lady comes back to pay and realizes that in the distraction of that conversation, she left her keys in her car . . . and locked the door. She calls AAA for assistance. I bring out a chair for her to hang out with me in my garage. AAA's faithful contract company comes to her aid. I pack it up by 12:45.
Now . . . for my French challenge. I didn't do much, but I did a little web surfing to learn a few things. I got inspiration at least.
First, I looked up Scrambled Tea in French. Here it is. My son helped me create this using Photoshop for the iPad.
Scrambled Tea looks so pretty in French. Don't you think?
I decided to learn how the French drink their tea. I came up with very little on the subject. It appears that coffee is more popular than tea, but tea is gaining popularity. The tea shops are called salon de thé. While it seems that the French drink the same kinds of teas that we do, when I looked up French tea, I found a few recipes. For all I know, they could be about as French as French Fries, but we can have fun and try them out anyway.
The first one I found is on About.com and is called Cinnamon Tea.
A blog called Southern Plate has a recipe that sounds really good. I didn't have all of the ingredients and couldn't get to the store today so I'm sharing it here but I will be trying it quite soon. It's called French Mint Tea. I added it to my Tea Board on Pinterest.
What is your favorite French inspired thing? Share it with me in the comments below.
Tomorrow the challenge is "Sincere". I "Sincere"ly hope you'll stop by again then.
Such fascinating writing! We also had the customer who had to go to the bank, and we thought she wasn't coming back. She says she got lost. She's a relative/sister of Pedro (Brian might remember her). In fact, she has items she plans to pick up tomorrow, but they are paid for. We had a most interesting day.
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