French apartment renovations, Day 185: What a blast!

19,712 steps

Last night was cool enough that I wanted more than a sheet. Wow! I had a nice run in the morning and then cleaned up in the Communist apartment, getting everything ready for sandblasting.

We did our first test in the early afternoon. The air compressor fired up right away. But alas, we found out that The Beast is not quite powerful enough for a longer siphon tube. (See the first part of the video.) Ideally we should have 14 CFM, but even this great big compressor only gives a bit over 8 CFM. I think that's why it just can't suck up the sandblasting media through a 3 meter tube.

So we switched it out for a 1 meter tube and put the bucket as high as possible. We stacked up a series of boxes and crates and step-stools so the bucket was chest high. That worked!

It's slow but satisfying work. Sure, it would be faster if we had professional sandblasting equipment but it would cost hundreds of Euros just to rent it for a day. So we'll do the slow, steady, and inexpensive route.

We used most of a 25 kg bag of sandblasting media for one smaller beam and 1/4 of a big beam. We're going to filter and reuse as much as we can.

 


We ended at school pickup time. We have little black granules EVERYWHERE! In our scalp, our ears, our clothes (even after showering and/or swimming and changing clothes).

Eric already went for a swim this morning, so he opted to stay home. I took Ivy, Inga, and Dio to the beach. The waves were huge and very few people were in the water. I took a test swim and was surprised at how hard it was to get back to shore. So I told the kids: sorry, no swimming today! While we were there, the lifeguards had to rescue a woman. I let Ivy and Inga just put their feet in, and then we headed home.



Zari had soccer practice this evening, and it went well. I gave her an unsolicited pep talk and told her, "Take it or leave it, but here are some things that may help."

After dinner, Eric and I put up the drywall in the upstairs hallway. The plumber is coming again tomorrow, so we'll have the water supply lines all finished, I believe. Then once we get the shower base installed, he'll come back to hook the shower drain up and test everything.

I hope to have a good work day tomorrow. I'm so eager to keep this renovation project advancing!

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French apartment renovations, Day 184: Lost & found

11,233 steps

Eric woke up early this morning, determined to find the scuba masks that Ivy had lost. He's not much of a morning person you know it was important! He came back around 9:30, triumphant: he found the one she lost yesterday! It was quite deep, more than he had expected.

I played electrician this morning and hooked up about 3/4 of the circuits to the "tableau électrique" (circuit breaker). I stopped when I ran out of 20 amp breakers. This one came pre-equipped and it had far too many 10 amps, an adequate number of 16 & 32 amps, and far too few 20 amps. So I placed an order with an online electrical supply place and should have them in a few days. (Sorry for the blurry photo.)

I like electricity; it's so logical. You just get the right size wire, hook it up in the right order, and put it with the right grade circuit breaker. The French stuff is all push & click--no screws. It's actually unusual and/or forbidden to have screw connections like we do in the US (in our plugs, light switches, or wire connectors, for example).

We had our usual soccer/grocery afternoon. Then we arrived 7 minutes early to Dio's RDV point to be extra super duper sure he wouldn't get left behind this time.

Ivy and I stopped by a little thrift store on the way home, and she bought a pair of red velveteen slippers for 2 Euros. She then looked up some YouTube ballet classes and did ballet lessons in our living room.

Zari came home from soccer practice a bit glum. "I don't really want to talk about it right now." She had such a good game on Saturday, and it's frustrating when things don't go well.

She and Inga got into a big argument while Eric and I were on a walk (picking up sparkly water). I wish I could say my kids never fought but I'd totally be lying.

I had a Zoom meeting tonight, a debrief about a breech birth that we supported virtually. It was a very difficult birth--the birth attendant got thrown just about everything you can imagine: trapped arms, trapped head, an exhausted mother who was fighting the birth and clenching her legs and muscles, a long labor, and weak & intermittent contractions. Phew.

I think all of us felt better after the debrief. I embedded timers into the original video, and we went through the birth in detail, pausing to discuss all of the things that had happened.

I told my colleauge Dr. David Hayes afterwards, "It's so hard to feel the weight of that responsibility! I usually have the luxury of not having to worry about that; I just get to do the research and teaching." (We had two experienced breech providers supporting the birth virtually--it wasn't just me! But even still, I felt the enormity of it.)

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French apartment renovations, Day 183: Comrade and The Beast

12,207 steps

It seems like one of us is constantly having disturbed sleep...last night it was my turn. I woke up at 4:30 am and just couldn't get back to sleep. Summer solstice partiers were still out on their last gasp of revelry, the birds had already started chirping, and it was starting to get light out. Who can sleep through that? Obviously not me.

So when the 7 am alarm went off, I woke Eric up and asked him to take over, and then I fell back asleep until 9 am.

But anyway, enough of that. Not very interesting for you readers, I'm sure!

I went rock-hunting this morning, since we have some large gaps and small cracks to fill in our stone walls. I totally lucked out: down the street there was a crew of workers emptying stones & earth from a demolition project into a dump truck. They were happy to let me take 2 loads of stones home. I scrubbed them free of dirt. Now I have a nice pile of bigger rocks, and I still need to collect small-to-medium ones. I think if I take a few home from the beach every day, I'll be okay.

After lunch, we met up at Comrade's garage to borrow his enormous air compressor. It's about 5 feet long and weighs a ridiculous amount. I have named it The Beast.

Comrade and Eric loaded it into the back of his vehicle, a small delivery car/van that a lot of Europeans use for work vehicles, and brought it to our apartment. Eric and I managed to get it up 2 flights of stairs, one step at a time with a rest between each step.

By this time it was almost 3 pm. I hadn't eaten yet, so I took a well-earned food break.

The air compressor was missing a small reducer, so we went to the local plumbing supply store. We found the right part and it was only 65 cents! But funny thing is, I only had 48 cents in my wallet and they wouldn't take a credit card for such a small amount. The owner (who recognized us) took my 48 cents and said, "Consider it a neighborly good-will gift."

We were so hot by late afternoon that we decided to take the kids for a quick swim after school. Inga went to a friend's house and then met us at the beach. Dio ended up playing with a friend, so he missed out.

At the beach Ivy lost her second mask in a row (she lost one yesterday as well). We had big waves and cloudy water, so Eric was unable to retrieve the masks. He got upset with her because he had JUST told her not to put a mask on, and then she put it on and promptly lost it when a wave hit her. With less than 1 foot of visibility, there was no hope to find it today. Eric is determined to find both of them as soon as the water clears up.

I stayed for a half-hour and brought Ivy back home iwth me. Eric, Inga, and Zari stayed for a while longer. Dinner was 2 fish (caught by Eric a few days ago), salad, and rice.

After dinner, I was still cool enough from my swim that I felt up to working in the Communist apartment. I finished scrubbing the lime residue off the exposed stone wall. The residue isn't completely gone, but it's about as good as I can get for now.

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French apartment renovations, Day 182: Fête de la musique, how I hate you

I got out the door earlier than usual--well before school started--and did my usual run. Then I picked up Baya and brought her on a walk.

All of France celebrates the summer solstice with the Fête de la musique. It is nice in theory but I don't like noise or loud music, and alas there is loads of it right now in Old Nice. It's the price we pay to live here.

The plumbers came again for another half-day of work. They're great--super friendly and agreeable, happy to explain anything to me (because things are done so differently here!), happy to work around our rather slow pace of renovations.

I cut the drywall for the dividing wall in the hallway, both up and downstairs. Eric helped me hang the first piece, to which we had attached a sound barrier to reduce noise between the front and back halves.

I spent several hours cleaning off the faces of the stones where we will be tuckpointing soon. There is a lot of lime residue left over and I thought I'd clean the majority off now. I've been using vinegar and a wire brush and ample amounts of water to clean and rinse.

I bought the last few supplies for pointing: heavy-duty waterproof gloves, brass wire brush, natural fiber scrub brush.

Baya's owner picked her up this afternoon and gave us a lovely gift of savon noir. I've been wanting to buy some, so it was perfect!

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French apartment renovations, Day 181: Change of plans

13,406 steps

We were supposed to go to a friend's house up in the mountains for an afternoon barbeque. But we got a message this morning that he was in the ER--he had a piece of metal stuck in his eye! They were in the ER for hours, waiting to see an eye specialist. Obviously the BBQ was cancelled for today. But that's okay! We had a lazy afternoon at home.

Inga was gone all afternoon at a friend's birthday party. Eric took a nap, then went spearfishing. Ivy had a friend over. Zari read a book. Baya slept on the floor.

I cleaned out the back room in the communist apartment. I bagged FIVE bags of dust/sand--all stuff that came out of the old stone walls. Incredible. I'm thinking we might tuckpoint the exposed stone wall pretty soon! That will be fun. And a learning experience since I've never worked with lime before.

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French apartment renovations, Day 180: Soccer tournaments & obstacle courses

10,648 steps

All three girls had soccer matches today and they, in Eric's words, "killed it." Zari played the best she's ever played, which is great because she's been so down on herself lately. Ivy and Inga were scoring machines.

The rest of us had a quiet morning (Dio and Zari and I). After lunch, we all watched the first half of the France-Hungary soccer match, then Eric had to leave for Zari's game.

Dio had a friend over. Inga and Ivy built an obstracle course for Baya and finally got her to go all the way up using a piece of chicken as a bribe.

I worked on breech stuff (video captioning) and dinner (sausages roasted with fennel & red wine).

After dinner I went to the communist apartment and blew out all the upper walls (reversed the shop vac to "blow" and aimed the airflow at the walls). The amount of dust released was astounding. I could only see a few feet in front of me. I'll let it all settle and sweep tomorrow.

We have plumbers & HVAC people coming on Monday, so I have to work on something next week that won't be too much in their way. I might do the lime mortar on the exposed stone wall (one of the reasons I blew out the walls today). It will be my first try at working with lime (chaux).

Baya is all worn out after 3 walks today.

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French apartment renovations, Day 179: Hot dog, hot day

17,346 steps

We're watching Baya, the Pekinese, again for the weekend. She is either sleeping or panting. Poor girl with her thick fur coat.

I didn't get much done in the Communist apartment other than drill a few holes. Our downstairs neighbor had a child home sick from school, sleeping all morning, so we decided not to work on it until he was awake.

We made a quick trip to the local hardware store to buy more MAP and lime (chaux). It was over and done in 20 minutes! So much better than taking a half-day or more to drive to Leroy Merlin. I just wish the local prices were more competitive. With the materials we bought today, the prices were fairly similar. But for most things, we pay 3-4x more to buy them in central Nice.

We ended today with a picnic on the beach with a big group of families. We had wind and waves, and the kids loved it. Even the bigger kids, who are sometimes getting to the "lazy teenage" stage where they just want to sit around the house and be lazy lumps 🙂

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French apartment renovations, Day 178: How do you put a wall on a diet?

10,508 steps

Run & swim this morning! Then a full work day in the Communist apartment. The first task was to figure out how to shave a few inches off of a wall. I needed to make a fairly large area about 4 cm thinner than it was, because it was sticking out too far as it neared the corner.

(Let's give the builders some credit--it was about 500 years ago!). But to apply drywall flush with the existing wall below, I needed to thin this part of the wall down.

Not an easy task when it's a rock wall!

My solution was to cut multiple channels with the wall chaser (rainureuse), going both vertically and horizontally to make a grid in the wall. Then I gently chiseled the little squares away. I had to repeat the process in one of the areas that was sticking out particularly far.

It worked well and helped not destabilize the entire wall. I only have the "before" video because today was a hot, busy, dusty, stinky work day and I had other things going on.

 

We also sistered up a new ceiling joist next to one of the rotten ones. We were limited in what we could do in the space and given that we couldn't just break apart the entire floor above the apartment. We have one done and about 2 more to go.

I also filled some of the larger holes in the walls to further stabilize the area before we apply the drywall. Then I treated the new wall we built with wood protector and did a few other little things before finishing up late in the afternoon.

Eric brought Inga to the splash pad. Ivy stayed home and was supposed to help me make spicy crab sushi for dinner, but instead she watched Lindsey Stirling music videos.

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French apartment renovations, Day 177: Reading, soccer, beach

6,023 steps

I took it easy this morning and read a book. What a luxury in my life lately. Eric took Zari and Dio to get their first Pfizer shots; they were just approved for 12+ in France.

After I came back from my usual soccer dropoff, pickup, & grocery shopping, Dio wasn't feeling great. General muscle aches and a slight fever. So I called his coach and let him take the afternoon off instead of going to practice.

We met up with a group of families at the beach at the end of the afternoon. Eric found a starfish and brought it up for the kids to look at. Inga also found a little octopus near the shore and wants to come back every day to follow it, like in "My Octopus Teacher."

We had a later dinner due to staying at the beach. Back to work (manual labor) tomorrow!

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French apartment renovations, Day 176: Never a dull moment

8,652 steps

What a day. Well, first off I woke up before 5:30 am and there was no hope of getting back to sleep. So I got up and did some work instead.

We started building a little wall to separate the downstairs hallway...and then I got called away for a video support of a breech mama in labor. That was intense.

Back in the communist apartment after lunch, we built and installed the wall. Then we cut & jack hammered wall channels for the upstairs hallway and ran a few electrical lines. Sometimes I feel like we work and work and work and there seems to be little to show for all of our efforts.

 


I showered, packed dinner for Dio (he had soccer practice, then the whole team watched the France-Germany match together), and then went to the miroir d'eau (aka splash pad) with Ivy and her friends. I had to run back home to let Zari in after she got home from school, then go back to the splash pad. Then back home for dinner.

The match just ended, so Eric is going to pick Dio up from the RDV point. We let Ivy and Inga stay up late to watch the first half, since they don't have school on Wednesdays.

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French apartment renovations, Day 175: Whirlwind day

14,126 steps

Here's a list of what I did today, roughly in chronological order:

• Morning run
• Grocery shopping at Lidl
• Breech work
• Worked in the communist apartment
• Ate lunch
• Worked in the communist apartment
• Picked kids up from school
• Went to the coulée verte with Inga and Ivy
• Dinner
• An explosion of breech-related work this evening
• Supporting a breech mama in labor all the way in Greece (ongoing since yesterday evening, still waiting for baby)

Busy day! Time to relax.

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French apartment renovations, Day 174: Dinner with Comrade

11,467 steps

Eric and Inga left around 11 am for a soccer tournament north of Nice. The rest of us walked home from Cimiez, stopping at a park with mulberry trees. I wish we'd had a blanket to spread on the ground--you can shake the branches and they fall off by the dozens. We did it the slow way, picking one by one.

Eric had invited Comrade over for dinner at 6:30 pm. But since Eric was gone at a soccer tournament, I had the *cough cough* pleasure of cleaning the house and cooking the dinner. I got all 3 kids to help with some of the cleaning: Dio cleaned the toilet room, Zari folded clothes, and Ivy cleaned the bathroom sink.

I made buttermilk biscuits, salmon fennel soup, and chocolate tart. Eric got home with Inga around 4 pm--earlier than originally planned, since they lost several games--so he helped with the final cleanup and made a tomato, basil, & mozzarella salad.

We had a nice dinner with Comrade and then showed him our progress on the Communist apartment. He's going to lend us his big air compressor this week so we can start sandblasting.

That was our day! Not exactly restful. We got the kids to bed on time, or very close to on time (8:30 pm for Ivy and Inga, 9:30 pm for Zari and Dio).

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French apartment renovations, Day 173: The best way to end a run + insane soccer marathon day

18,128 steps

It's starting to get hot during my morning runs! But...it's also run-swim season for me 🙂 You know, go running, then jump in the ocean afterward. I spent a lovely 5 minutes cooling off in the sea post-run. See my awkward squinting selfie. You can tell I'm not used to taking selfies.

And then our crazy insane soccer day started. 3 of the 4 kids had soccer tournaments today, all in differnent cities up to an hour away. Ivy's was in the morning north of Nice, and Eric had to rush back with her to take Dio and several of his teammates to a match in Cannes. He got back around 5 pm.

Then he turned around and left to pick up a new (used) speargun. Yes, Eric now has 3 spearguns because apparently you can never have too many and this one is super duper powerful, better for catching large fish.

Meanwhile we also sent Zari off to her match, which was about an hour away somewhere else. Who knows where? She took the tram by herself to the RDV spot.

So I had Inga and Ivy in the afternoon. We took a shopping trip to Lidl, amidst much groaning and whining and bickering (but also some fun times, too). Then we went to the beach!

I had to get back for a breech live session. While that was going on, the rest of the family watched the movie "Dangal," which they really liked.

We ended the evening with a walk *after 9 pm,* which feels so transgressive since a few nights ago it was not allowed due to curfew.

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French apartment renovations, Day 172: More MAP

11,048 steps

Let's not talk about last night. I was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep. Again.

My strategy for coping with bad nights is to not stop moving. So today I worked all day on the communist apartment. The plumber came for another half-day this morning (he's been called away to fix a lot of urgent leaks, which doesn't bother us--we're not in a hurry). I cleaned the rest of the chimney while he embedded the water main in the floor.

Then I drilled out the rest of the old walls, making holes every 30 cm about 3 cm deep. Why? This ensures that the MAP (adhesive mortar) has a very good attachment to a surface that isn't crumbly or loose. I basically drill until I hit stone, then I chisel out the little disks with the jack hammer.

Eric joined me to mix up several batches of MAP. We plastered over lots more electircal cables and then started filling the holes in the wall. Notice the cross hatches to ensure a good adhesion with the next layer of MAP.

And that was my day (minus lunch break) all the way until school pickup.

We had dinner (two kinds of quiche made by Eric) and then went on a family walk to buy ice cream bars and then go to the beach. We strolled around, put our feet in the place where the Paillon empties into the sea, and just enjoyed being outside with nothing in particular to do.

We saw a fun street performer doing--honest to goodness--interpretive dance, combined with some amazing stunts on a self-balancing scooter. Ivy was inspired to create a performance of some sort that she could do for the public. I can see her dreaming big in her head.

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French apartment renovations, Day 171: Chim chimney chim chimney, chim chim cheree

5,628 steps

I woke up at 5:30 am. Ding! I was exhausted yet also wide awake. I think it's from the light outside. By time my alarm went off at 7 am, I was soooo tired. I nudged Eric out of bed and went back to sleep for a short hour.

My whole body was exhausted, like wading through syrup exhausted. I did some computer work and finally decided to make myself move even though I felt like I would pass out.

So I suited up and went downstairs. I drilled more holes in the walls where we will put MAP (for adhering drywall). Then I played chimney sweep and cleaned the soot out of the top half of the chimney. Even after showering, I still smell like wood smoke and campfires, a smell I adore.

Eric joined me later on and helped run more electrical lines (this one for the ductless minisplit blower unit). We worked until 2 pm, and then I took a break to eat something.

 

Back downstairs again, this time to plaster over the electrical cables with MAP. We stopped once our first batch ran out, since it was time to pick the girls up from school. I finished cleaning the tools and buckets on the street outside of our apartment (the only place to do something like that) right when Ivy and Inga came home with Eric.

Then...no rest for me! Time to make dinner. I made chicken pot pie, so I had to chop and/or cook onions, potatoes, peas, mushrooms, and chicken; make the herb roux, and then finally put it all together with puff pastry (pre-made because it's super cheap here and it's the real deal made with pure butter).

Zari came home from soccer practice despondent. She felt like she played poorly and didn't contribute positively. And she continues to feel awkward and uncomfortable around the other girls. Being social over here is really hard for her and then it turns into a self-sustaining cycle because she feels awkward and then she acts awkward and the other girls don't know to interact with her and she doesn't know how to interact with them.

I can so very much sympathize. I told her, "I wish I could do something or say something to make it better. It's hard being a parent because we see our kids having a hard time and we can't always fix it."

It's after 11 pm and I've been working nonstop ever since dinner, trying to catch up on my other job: breech work. I sincerely hope I can rest well tonight. I need it!

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French apartment renovations, Day 170: Swimming, soccer, noise

12,237 steps

The plumbers showed up nice and early this morning for a half-day of work. I was going to do some work, too, but decided to stay out of their way. And Eric convinced me to come to the beach for a quick morning swim with all of the kids. It was so gorgeous that Zari went back home to get her swimming suit.

Oh, Zari had her brevet oral today and felt that it went well! Because of that, Dio didn't have any school today.

It's starting to feel like summer. Ivy came out of soccer practice, having dumped loads of water all over herself. I'm always surprised at how long it takes for the weather to get warm. Spring is always beautiful and slow, with very few temperature fluctuations. I generally don't start opening my windows until well into May.

We had yet another failed soccer practice for Dio. He had a RDV at 3:30 pm. We were stuck at a super long stoplight and made it there at 3:31 pm. No one was there! I finally found the coach's number and he told me he'd already left. Seriously?! So we learned we have to be at least 5 minutes early for this coach.

We watched a movie together this evening--well, Eric had a big presentation to work on, so it was the rest of us. Today curfew went up to 11 pm and I am already wishing it were back at 9 pm. Too much noise outside! Go away stupid tourists and locals who make noise. I don't want to be forced to listen to your music and your drunken laughter. Even with my windows closed it's loud.

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French apartment renovations, Day 169: Big delivery!

13,731 steps

A momentous day: two pallets of supplies arrived on a delivery truck! It was mostly sheetrock: white (regular), green (for bathrooms), blue (acoustic), and styrofoam-backed (thermal insulation). We also received sandblasting media, acoustic insulating membrane, and wood for the other mezzanine subfloor.

The delivery truck was unable to deliver it in front of our apartment because the crane only worked to the side of the truck, not off the back. And our street is barely wide enough to fit one car! So the driver had to pull into the nearest intersection and drop it off to one side. There was just enough room for a car to pass once the pallets were on the ground.

 


As we were carrying the drywall down the street, I saw a man in full climbing/rapelling gear descending a nearby building. This is fairly common here; a lot of the manual trades have to be done while suspended on ropes as access is otherwise impossible.

This is life in Old Nice.

Then the not-fun part started: we had to carry everything down the street, into our building, and upstairs. We got everything into the building (with some help from a friend and from the barber next door) but most of the sheetrock is still in the downstairs hallway.

We carried up a few sheets and it about did us in. The staircase is so narrow (for a 4x8' piece of sheetrock) that it required constantly lifting and shifting each sheet around each turn. I can carry sheetrock just fine on level ground. Not so much up our stairs!

We also got a few other small shipments today: more electrical cable and two big buckets of a special enduit de lissage (Toupret Planeo G).

At this point we took a lunch break. I was already pretty kaput. But we powered on in the afternoon and carried 3 sheets of green sheetrock upstairs. We got the first piece cut and installed in what will be the shower! Woohoo! It was a complicated cut, going around a few different beams in the ceiling. But it worked.

I also drilled more holes in the big wall where I'll once again put the MAP. This will ensure that the next layer of MAP, which glues the drywall to the wall, really grips onto the wall. You can see the daubs I did yesterday. Those big scratches are purposeful; they help the next layer adhere well.

I called it quits right before 5 pm. Time for a quick shower, then I brought Dio to a RDV point for soccer practice. Back home to cook dinner (larb). Zari has her brevet oral tomorrow, so she's been practicing this evening.

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French apartment renovations, Day 168: Very late birthday lunch

12,397 steps

Ivy has been talking about having a birthday lunch ever since her birthday. With restaurants opening back up for outdoor dining a few weeks ago, we finally made it happen today!

She chose a nearby Indian restaurant. Indian food in France is SO MILD, like almost no spice at all. The flavors are there, but none of the heat. Way different than Indian restaurants in the US.

When the waiter heard that it was her birthday lunch, he gave her two scoops of ice cream for free. She was beaming and talking a mile a minute the whole time.

I ran and did computer work in the morning. After lunch, Eric and I cut yet more wall channels (we keep thinking we're done...and then we're not!). We hung the brackets for the hot water heater. And then we mixed a big bucket of MAP, which is an adhesive mortar used to attach drywall to walls, to fill large holes in walls, etc. I don't know what the English equivalent is.

I used the MAP to create daubs all along the upper mezzanine wall, where we are going to attach drywall. The wall is nowhere near flat or level, so these daubs were a way of creating a mostly- level surface. We'll put another round of daubs on top of the existing ones when we adhere the drywall to the wall.

So yeah, we're making progress! Our big drywall & sandblasting order arrives tomorrow, along with more electrical wire and "enduit de lissage," a product for smoothing out irregular walls. We might very well have some drywall up by tomorrow. I might even do a happy dance if that happens.

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French apartment renovations, Day 167: Lazy Sunday

13,367 steps

I felt better today, but Eric was super tired much of the day. I had a nice walk up to Cimiez. Then Zari and I walked down past the Monastery and across the river to Cavigal. She had a soccer match in the afternoon. I dropped her off at 12:30 pm and she didn't return until 7 pm! I'm not sure why they met at 12:30 since the match didn't start until 3:30 and it was only 45 minutes away.

We had a nice lazy afternoon. The kids watched a Minecraft playthrough video about how to defend against zombie attacks. Then we went up to the chateau. Inga got really upset because Dio accidentally knocked her over when they were both chasing after a ball. The rest of the time she was Ms. Grumpy Pants. She gets very intense that way.

We ate leftover Thai coconut chicken soup, plus ratatouille on couscous. I'll make larb on Tuesday.

Not much else to report. Bonne nuit!

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French apartment renovations, Day 166: Rest day

3,867 steps

I got a good night's sleep, but woke up with a slight fever and feeling a bit icky. Nothing terrible, just my immune system gearing up. So I took it easy today and did lots of reading and resting on the couch.

I wasn't feeling well enough to go to soccer games in the morning and afternoon, so Eric had to do it all. Inga and Dio had soccer events in the morning and Dio had a match in the afternoon. So much soccer.

I brought the girls out to the beach in the afternoon for some Vitamin D therapy. I wasn't sure if I would swim, but I finally decided to give it a go. It was great. The water is cool but not cold anymore. Inga and Ivy swam with me and Zari decided just to read.

This brought back memories of 3 years ago, when I was going through all sorts of panic attacks and insomnia and anxiety (related to Eric being back in the States for 4 months and me being with the kids on my own). The only time my body felt normal was when I was in the sea. The rest of the time during that stressful period, my skin, my entire body, felt wrong. And I felt brittle, like the smallest thing could shatter me.

It was a long road to resilience. But about a year after it all began, I could finally look back and say that I was thankful for going through it all. It was horrible, don't get me wrong, but in the long run I learned some amazing lessons about coping with stress and gained good-but-painful insights about myself.

Anyway, enough deep thoughts for one day.

We finished watching "I Am Mother" tonight and all of us were left very confused at the end.

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French apartment renovations, Day 165: Reformed epoxy and middle-of-the-night phone calls

13,805 steps

Well, I got out that bad epoxy and shook it around a little. And it started loosening up and getting more and more liquid. Huh. So I gave it a go and mixed it up with the hardener and applied it to the rotted beam. The biggest issue is I didn't have enough. I'll need tons just for this one big beam since the end is almost completely rotten.

I got the entire ceiling prepped for drywall by chiseling down any high (or rather, low) spots and bits of wood that were sticking out beyond level. There were lots! Besides the rotten area in the corner, we're pretty much good to go for the ceiling.

We met with a HVAC installer; we've decided to install ductless minisplits in both our apartment and in the one we're renovating. It's a complicated install because we have to put the heat pumps waaaaay far away on the roof of our building; they can't be installed on the exterior walls due to historic preservation regulations. So $$ but necessary and far more energy efficient than the other option (conventional electric radiators).

We had planned on a picnic at the beach with several other families, but the weather turned overcast and windy right before dinner and then it started raining. So we'll do it another night. Since we were eating in, I made soup (Thai coconut chicken soup).

Zari and I took a walk to Lidl to look at running shoes. Unfortunately they were out of her size (43--same size as Eric!).

What else is new today? Oh, Eric and I got our 2nd vaccinations this morning.

Oh, and how could I forget? The weirdest thing happened last night. I was woken out of a dead sleep at 4:30 am by a phone call. It was someone calling from Italy speaking in passable but accented French, asking for a midwife friend of mine's phone number. It was really bizarre. I told her I'd text her the contact info, but she insisted that I give her the phone number right now. She had the first 3 digits but had lost the rest of it.

Of course after this rude awakening I couldn't fall back asleep. I am SO TIRED now.

This reminds me that I would not be a good midwife because I hate middle of the night phone calls and I hate driving. The being at the birth part is great, but it's the other parts that I don't think I could handle.

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French apartment renovations, Day 164: Bad epoxy

16,585 steps

I was all set to apply wood hardener after my morning run. The end of one of the huge beams is all rotted, thanks to a leak in the sewer pipe next to it. I got out my Abatron LiquidWood...and one of the two parts had hardened in the jar. I'm beyond frustrated as I had to bring this over from the US!

I ordered more LiquidWood at least 6 weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived. There is a product here in France that I could use, but it's a lot more expensive and I haven't ever used it (although boat restorers swear by it). Anyway, it's frustrating to have a plan and then to not be able to get it done.

So we switched gears and ran more electrical lines until we ran out of cable. Then we started chiseling away bits of the ceiling joists that were sticking out beyond level (nothing that will affect the structural integrity). We need the joists relatively level, from one to another, before we can attach drywall.

We also got the little dividing wall in the hallway all the way in place and secured to both the floor and ceiling.

What else? I refilled about 10 bottles with sparkling water and spent some time before dinner at the park. Ivy and Inga were playing hard and I enjoyed the time to chat with other parents.

The house is a bit messy and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to clean or if I'm going to ignore it and read a book instead. What do you vote?

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French apartment renovations, Day 163: Bookkeeping and soccer

10,972 steps

For how exhausted I was after yesterday's field trip, I couldn't fall asleep for a while last night! So annoying.

I spent the entire morning doing bookkeeping for Breech Without Borders. The joys of running a nonprofit.

After our usual dropoff, pickup, and grocery run, I brought Dio to his scheduled RDV to go to his soccer practice. He was going to get a ride with the coach. When we got there...no one was there. Hmmm. I called Eric and got the coach's number. The coach said, "Oh, Eric didn't tell you? Practice was 2 hours earlier today." Nope, Eric had told me the wrong time! Eric got a text message yesterday about the time change but forgot to tell me, and I even asked him today if he was sure about the time. No big deal, but Dio was sad to miss practice.

I made meatloaf Wellington and strawberries with whipped marscarpone cream. We ate early tonight--French people would gasp!--but it was nice to have time left over to go on a walk before bedtime.

Guess what we are doing in this photo? It happens quite often chez les Freezes.

That's all. Time to go in bed and read a non-serious book.

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French apartment renovations, Day 162: Rabbits and chickens and goats, oh my!

I chaperoned Ivy's class trip to a local farm up in the mountains. We gathered a half hour earlier than usual to catch a tram + train up to the farm.

Ivy was SO excited. Like jumping up and down, brimming with energy excited.

This was a small farm up in the hills, mostly designed as a teaching farm for groups. We got to see (and touch) goats, sheep, chickens, geese, ducks, pigs, and rabbits. We had a small atelier (workshop) where we carded and felted wool.

There were two classes from Ivy's school. By time we went home, I was exhausted and overwhelmed with the noise and energy and normal antics of 50-odd elementary students. I talked with another chaperone later on today, and she was so tired she feel asleep on the beach waiting for school pickup (luckily she had set an alarm!).

I'll work on the video tomorrow but tonight I just need to collapse. Phew. How to elementary school teachers do that every day?

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French apartment renovations, Day 161: Another day, another wall

13,154 steps

After a morning run, I went through our receipts and added up how much we've spent on our communist apartment renovations so far. More than I expected but honestly I wasn't even sure where we were at all. It's amazing how quickly things add up. We've probably spent 300 Euros just on screws, washers, and nails!

I had an in-person meeting at the sécurité sociale office to sort out my carte vitale. The woman pulled up my files and exclaimed, "But this is a mess! You've submitted all the documents two, three, or four times! You have everything here, but it's all over the place in our system! I don't understand!" I kept saying, "yeah, I know!"

I think we got things sorted out. Like I've told them every time I've called, I have sent in all of the requested documents, some as many as 4 times. They indeed had multiple dossiers under both my married & maiden names. I even have a temporary number that I can start using. Now I wait for the final number...

This morning I treated a few more areas with the wood treatment (insects/rot). Once I got back from my meeting, Eric and I built a wall to divide the upstairs hallway. We built an extra-wide hollow double wall, wide enough to pass a 10 cm (4") sewer pipe through to train the back-to-back toilets. We got it in place but haven't attached it yet. Even better, we were able to build the whole thing out of scraps from our demolition.

I made saag feta for dinner. Yum. Then I had a Zoom meeting that took the rest of my evening. I'm working on a paper about twin birth outcomes at home attended by an obstetrician (Dr. Stuart Fischbein). A fun project!

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French apartment renovations, Day 160: Piano recital

11,570 steps

We had an international Zoom music recital this evening with my 3 sisters and their kids, my parents, and two other families that are either related or that my mom teaches. Zari was stressing way too much. "I'm going to be the oldest one there and everyone else will be playing much harder songs than me! I'm going to make mistakes; it's not going to be perfect."

But it was fine. She wasn't the oldest and she didn't have the easiest pieces. And everyone made mistakes, even the most advanced musicians.

We watched a few episodes of "The Story of God" with Morgan Freeman and one episode of Queer Eye. We ate lots of fish for dinner tonight.

Dio had soccer practice in the afternoon.

Overall today felt relaxing. I'm ready for another week full of renovating and meetings and work and school.

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French apartment renovations, Day 159: Miracle of the fishes, attempt #2

I wrote a long post about today and it got lost when I hit "post" on Facebook. I see a little spinning thing that's been going on for the past 20 minutes. I think it's unsalveagable.

So instead of writing it all out again, I'm going to type a list of highlights: 

• family soccer match at the chateau 
• Ivy had a friend over to play, first time since this lockdown 
• Inga went to a sleepover, first time ever 
• Dio worked on a Bob Ross painting 
• We let the kids watch the Champion's League final tonight 
• Eric caught 11 fish this afternoon, mostly dorade royal

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French apartment renovations, Day 158: Goodbye, wood worms

14,054 steps

I had a hard time waking up this morning. I laid in bed and pretended I was asleep until just before 8 am. Eric was kind enough to wake the kids up and get them ready. He came back in bed for a cuddle.

I went for a run and worked on video transcriptions most of the morning. Tedious but necessary.

After lunch we tidied up the communist apartment in preparation for wood treatment. I suited up and covered all of my skin, put on my respirator and safety google, and went to work. I sprayed all wood surfaces with a product that treats against wood-eating insects, rot, and mushrooms. Except for the main beams, which need to be sandblasted first to get the paint off, it's all treated in the back half.

Back home, I threw everything in the wash and took a shower as soon as I got in the door.

I took Ivy to the temporary gardens after school, and Eric took Inga to the coulee verte. I like having that down time in the late afternoon, where we just sit outside and talk with other parents while the kids run around. Eric's version of downtime is playing soccer with our kids, and often a large group of other children as well.

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French apartment renovations, Day 157: Braving the wilds of Leroy Merlin

Lots of steps and too many €

Well, today was the day: another big shopping trip to Leroy Merlin. It took us 5 hours and lots of €. We ordered a truckload of larger supplies, to be delivered in about 10 days (ugh I hate having to wait so long): regular drywall, insulated drywall, sound-proof drywall, water-resistant drywall, a soundproofing system to go underneath the ceiling drywall, and subfloor for the front mezzanine. And that was just the delivery order!

We filled our car up with things we could carry: drywall compound, drywall tools, plaster, wood treatment for woodworm and other insects, more electrical supplies, sandblasting kit, mortar for tiling, universal primer, a big sifter for cleaning our sandblasting medium...and the list goes on...and on...

We didn't have time or energy to haul toilets or shower doors home today, plus we didn't bring our roof racks this time. That will be another trip (ugh).

We also arranged for an estimate for heat pump heating/cooling systems. The technician was available this evening, so he came over and looked at the communist apartment, then we had him come to our own apartment, and then he looked at our upstairs neighbor's apartment as well! The exterior heat pumps would all be mounted on our roof, so we climbed out of our neighbor's window onto the roof. I've never been up there before--it has beautiful view of the tiled rooftops of Old Nice.

The technician was great: "Tout est possible." I told him I liked hearing that. More often than not, you hear, "C'est pas possible, c'est pas possible."

We also had our syndic (building co-op) meeting tonight and talked about several projects in our building, some small, some bigger. Fortunately we only have 3 families and one business, so it's easy to get things done.

Inga constructed a "kingdom" for Dolly, complete with a green flag waving in the breeze, thanks to an artfully placed fan. She's been obsessed with setting up the flag and the fan just so.

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French apartment renovations, Day 156: Soccer with an unexpected twist

7,682 steps

I woke up very early--before 6 am--and wasn't ready to be awake. Once Zari and Dio got up at 7, I brought their toothbrushes out (so they wouldn't come in and wake me up) and went back to bed.

We had our usual soccer + grocery afternoon, but then Eric found out that Dio's team at the chateau had been disbanded and combined with a team in La Trinité, a neighboring city north of Nice.

With just a half-hour notice, I had to get ready to drive Dio and Ivy over there. We missed the exit and spent another 20 minutes on a long detour to get back to the right exit. I really dislike driving over here, because there are so many bizarre intersections with very little warning about which way to go.

So until soccer season is over, my Wednesdays just got a lot more complicated. I'm hoping he can carpool so we don't have to drive him every Wednesday and Saturday.

The soccer field was in a gorgeous area, way up in the hills near the top of a small mountain. We were next to an equestrian center so Ivy and I got to watch people taking riding lessons. 

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French apartment renovations, Day 155: On the 2nd day of plumbers...

12,314 steps

My true love gave to me: a toilet drain hidden in the wall!

They managed to chisel out enough rocks to recess the entire 10 cm drain pipe into the wall. It's all connected and is awaiting the final tees when they come back. The rough coat of plaster is in.

They also installed the shower/water heater drain lines and started plastering them in as well.



They're done for this week and will be back next week to finish the rest.

We didn't do anything on the apartment since we didn't want to be in the way. I feel bad for not getting work done, but I suppose work *is* getting done, right?

I went running this morning and did a lot of sedentary computer work. I finally needed to get outside and stretch my legs mid-afternoon. Eric and I read on the beach and I got some good Vitamin D therapy plus a cat nap.

I brought Ivy to a new place after school, the Jardin Albert 1er. We've been there many times, but not as an after-school play spot. There are these amazing temporary garden exhibitions, so the group of girls and fun running around in them.

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French apartment renovations, Day 154: Invasion of the plumbers!

11,737 steps

Lots of noise and excitement today: the plumbers arrived. Cue the jackhammering all day long. It was a bit odd because they arrived and said, "ok, we need you to cut the wall channels here, here, and here." Eric and I were surprised as we figured they'd have the tools for it! They had lots of other tools, but not a wall chaser (rainureuse). So we got our tools out and cut the channels in the floor for the main water line and in the wall for the water/drains.

Then we left them to it. See the video for details.

 

Dio had a school assignment due this evening: a movie & narration of the poem "La Cigale et La Fourmi." Zari and Inga helped create the "set." Ivy had a big meltdown because she wanted to hold one of the puppets but we only had 2 puppets and 3 holders. Then she had an even bigger meltdown because we put her name on the credits. "But I didn't even help! You wouldn't let me."

 

Oh, and speaking of meltdowns....Inga had a 30-minute sob fest yesterday after Zari discovered a little slug on a piece of lettuce she was about to eat. Zari pulled the lettuce off her sandwich, showed the slug to everyone, and then rinsed off the lettuce in the kitchen sink. (Then ate her sandwich.)

But Inga was devastated because "Zari killed the slug. She doesn't even care about nature or wildlife!" So for a long time we heard her moaning and sobbing about the poor slug that didn't get a chance to live.

We had rain all day and school holidays. By mid-afternoon, we were going crazy with the kids running around inside the house. They were happy, but it was crazy-noisy-chaotic happy. We tried to send them out but they wouldn't go until I came along and forced them out the door with me. This reminds me of lockdown a year ago.

We went to the coulee verte, which was almost completly empty except for our across-the-street neighbors (one of Inga's best friends) and maybe two other children. One of the benefits of rain--everyone leaves the parks as soon as a drop falls. It was barely misting at that point.

Eric went spearfishing and came home with 4 fish! A sar, a dorade, a labre, and a saupe. Dinner tonight.

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French apartment renovations, Day 153: Silly movies

13,029 steps

We had a family movie afternoon and watched "The Mitchells vs. The Machines." The movie was silly and predictable, and Zari kept up an exasperated commentary of how ridiculous it was. I think that was kind of the point.

We refilled our water bottles at the village "well" (sparkling water fountain). Ivy and Inga did 1-2-3-swing with Eric and thought it was hilarious when he pretended to be the "baby" swinging between them.

The plumber is coming tomorrow morning--hooray! Once we get the electricity in, then we can start doing things that will look dramatically different very quicky, such as drywall.

Well, I guess we still have other steps before that: reinforcing and treating the rotted wood, sandblasting the beams, treating any wood with xylophene as a preventive. THEN we can install drywall. Always so many steps!

Tomorrow is a holiday so we get to turn off our alarm clocks.

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French apartment renovations, Day 152: Birthdays and soccer

8,848 steps

Ivy and I went to a friend's birthday party at a park about 20 minutes away, while everyone else played soccer at the chateau. I forgot to take a picture of the sea glass art that we made.

We left after over 3 hours and were only the second people to leave. But it was nearly 2pm and I hadn't eaten lunch yet and was getting hungry. I also was feeling people-fatigued.

I like being around people but it also tires me out and I have to recharge from it afterwards. If you're an introvert, you'll understand what I'm talking about. I'm not at all shy but I find making small talk, even with friends, challenging. Give me something serious or deep or important to talk about, and I'm fine. But chit-chatting? It's so exhausting!

Eric had a virtual conference presentation in the afternoon, so I took Dio to his soccer tournament at Le Ray, a municipal soccer stadium in northern Nice. So I was outside most of the day. It was cool and overcast and I wasn't quite well enough dressed for the weather.

All I want to do now is curl up in bed under the covers and get warm and snuggly with a book.

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French apartment renovations, Day 151: Nearing the (ceiling) finish line

20,116 steps

Not a bad exercise day, between going running in the morning, running errands the rest of the morning, and jack hammering in the afternoon.

I helped Ivy make some sea glass art for a friend's birthday party tomorrow. I did more of the designing than normal and, of course, all of the glueing since it's an epoxy and not easy to work with.

Zari didn't have any afternoon classes so she read books and exercised via PE With Joe. She deserves it after the last several stressful weeks of preparing for her brevet blanc.

We were planning on having a dinner picnic at the beach with several friends, but the weather turned chilly, cloudy, and windy by late afternoon. We all decided to cancel as we would have been shivering and trying to keep our food from blowing away.

Renovation update: We went back to the first half of the ceiling that we had removed a few months ago. There were lots of places where the old cement hadn't gotten removed to the level of the wooden cross-beams. (I'm not sure what it's made of, but it certainly isn't plaster. It looks and feels a lot more like concrete or cement. It's really hard, and it's the same material that the terrazo floor upstairs was laid into--it serves as a tile bed, a solid fill between each ceiling beam, and the ceiling plaster underneath. Weird.)

We're going to attach the new drywall directly to the wood, so we needed to take off every bit of plaster sticking out. What did that mean? Lots more jackhammering! Eric wanted to put it off until we were ready to hang drywall, but I said, "Let's just do it now and get it DONE." So now it is done, except for two small areas.

We also cut a few more channels for electricity. We're now ready to run wires for all of the ceiling lights on the upper ceiling.

We have a good 30 bags of debris to dipose of even after many trips. The plumber is coming on Monday so our weekend goal is to get everything cleaned up and vacuumed so it's not such a dusty mess everywhere.

Now that curfew has been moved to 9 pm, Eric and I were able to go on our evening walk! We put Zari and Dio in charge of getting Ivy and Inga to bed. What a luxury to come home without the circus that is bedtime.

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French apartment renovations, Day 150: 2 shower day

11,365 steps

Today was a two-shower day. Eric and I were determined to finish hackhammering the rest of the ceiling, so we worked in the morning, cleaned up for lunch, and then I went back again for the afternoon. I got it all done and about 15 bags of debris filled.

By that time it was around 5 pm, so I called it a day.

It was so dusty that a cloud of dust leaked out into the hallway and created a haze in the staircase. We waited for the dust to settle and then washed the entire staircase down, top to bottom, including all of the handrails.

Zari spent her lunch hours prepping for the big oral presentation, the "brevet blanc oral." She came home smiling just a half hour later: it went great and the examiners asked her lots of questions, but fun ones. (We had prepped her by asking all sorts of questions, which in retrospect were university-level ones. Because that's what you get when both parents are PhD professors! Sometimes it's easy to forget that she's just 14.)

After I got cleaned up the second time, I watched Ivy and Inga at the park and chatted with other parents.

I didn't exercise today but I think jack hammering overhead for 6 or so hours counts as a decent workout.

These pictures are from yesterday. Note that Eric's jacket was black, underneath all the dust.

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French apartment renovations, Day 149: Getting serious about the ceiling

12,674 steps

It's the first day that restaurants and bars have been allowed to open for more than 7 months. Outdoors only for now. But they are packed! What a difference from the quiet streets we were used to.

Ivy was begging to go out and dance. We brought her out several times in the afternoon and evening and she still wasn't satisfied.

 

I felt much better today. Plenty of energy to work on the communist apartment in the afternoon. We decided to chisel off the other half of the ceiling. Yes, it's an enormous pain but there isn't really a good alternative. We got a bit more than 1/3 done in 2 hours.

I didn't have goggles on and I got all sorts of stuff in my eyes. I think I scratched my left eye. Oops. Why was I not wearing goggles? Well, because they fog up and I can't see! I haven't found a solution to that yet. But I've got to be better about wearing them when working overhead.

Zari has her brevet blanc oral tomorrow. She's looking forward to getting it done so she can celebrate and be done with the stress.

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French apartment renovations, Day 148: So, so tired

12,197 steps

What's wrong with me? I've been exhausted all day. So tired I went on a walk instead of running. So tired I fell asleep three times during the day. So tired there was no way I could work on renovations.

On the up side, it was Eric's birthday! Honestly we it wasn't the world's most exciting day, but Eric and I did have time to go the beach this afternoon and read in the sun. (That was one of my naps.)

That's all for tonight. I'm going to lie in bed some more.

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French apartment renovations, Day 147: From zzz to zoom

Yesterday was a Very Hard Day for me emotionally and that carried over into a poor night's sleep and me feeling jittery and exhausted this morning. I did PE With Joe, feeling way too sluggish, and then went on a walk.

I realized that my body needed some down time, so I decided not to work on the communist apartment today. I did breech work all morning, read for a bit in the early afternoon and snuck in a short nap, then more breech work until school got out. I was prepping for a big webinar with ICAN this evening.

I made baba ganoush for the first time and gave some to Dio to sample. He put it in his mouth, his eyes lit up, and he said, "How is this so good?!?" We also ate two kinds of grilled sausages, artichokes, and tiramisu.

I was in absentia the rest of the evening for my Zoom webinar, which went fantastically. We had people from all around the globe: Nigeria, UK, New Zealand, India just to name a few.

Zari's big oral presentation is this Thursday. It's the practice version (but still graded) for the REAL oral presentation later on this school year. Her stress levels are ramping up, and I had to help defuse her enough to get her to bed.

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French apartment renovations, Day 146: Swimming in a church

10,221 steps

We attended the baptism of a family we're friends with: a son who is about Ivy's age. While they were filling up the font, someone forgot to keep an eye on the water level, and it spilled all over and flooded the church. So that was exciting! Inga and Ivy had a hoot being on the cleanup crew.

That's about the most exciting thing that happened today. I had my usual walk to and from Cimiez, by myself both ways this time. I didn't mind--I had a good podcast to listen to.

I helped Zari all afternoon with her oral presentation for the brevet blanc. She is presenting about the differences between the French and American educational systems, mostly research-based but also with some things based on her own experiences. She is very glad that I have been lending her my awesome Powerpoint skills.

It wasn't my day to cook, but I ended up grilling eggplant (to be turned into baba ganoush) and making tiramisu for tomorrow.

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French apartment renovations, Day 145: Soccer & barbeque

7,014 steps

My Zoom meeting ended well after 12:30 am, and then I couldn't fall asleep for a few more hours. I still woke up around the same time but didn't have the energy or motivation to play soccer for 2 hours. So I dropped kids off at the chateau and then took a quick jog back home.

We got invited to our friends who live out in the foothills above Nice. They mentioned they were going to fire up the barbeque, so I stopped by the butcher and got some sausages and shishkebabs.

It was a wonderful afternoon of being outdoors; nibbling on bread, olive oil, & cheese; getting the fires going in the barbeque area and in their outdoor bread oven; lounging in hammocks and sitting on stools. And we did some "work," too, helping chop firewood. Zari, Inga, and Dio all gave it a try. Well, me too 🙂



What was supposed to be lunch turned into an early dinner by time we got everything cooked. This was the friend who is a professional chef, so we ate very well. Zari was making appreciative noises of delight. "Mmmmm, oh, this is SO good!"

We had to be back for a 6 pm Zoom meeting. Definitely a great day for recharging and socializing.

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French apartment renovations, Day 144: We've got fiber

12,386 steps

We had another appointment to get fiberoptic installed, and this time the technicians did their job. We had the exact same problem of not being able to get into the "local technique" a few streets down.

The first guy who came 2 weeks ago just shrugged and said, "Well, sorry, I can't get in so I can't hook up the fiberoptic. You'll need to find the key." Today, these new guys ran over to the mairie (town hall), found the person responsable for such things, brought the person over, got the access doors unlocked, and completed the install.

I went for a run this morning and then worked on my computer the rest of the morning. And again, in the afternoon, Eric and I worked on the communist apartment. We ran more wires and had a lot of discussions about what to do with the ceiling. We still haven't figured it out.

I had to do more drilling into the rocks, but I managed to wire the outlet boxes that will be embedded into our rock walls. The wires will be completely hidden inside the lime mortar.

I have an 11:30 pm Zoom meeting tonight. I hope I can sleep in tomorrow morning!

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French apartment renovations, Day 143: More wires, more soccer

8,192 steps

Eric brought the 3 oldest kids to pickup soccer this morning. It was a bit too advanced for Ivy, so she stayed home with me. She read and played games while I worked on breech stuff.

Our electrician friend came over to look at some of the main hookups and gave us advice on how to connect the two circuit breakers to the main power line. We have to upgrade the main breaker downstairs from 45A to 60A (something that the electric company does, not us).

Our main power supply lines are only 10mm2 (8 gauge), a bit on the underpowered side. 16mm2 (6 gauge) would be more ideal. Our electrician friend said we could get by with them and only replace if we start shorting out circuits. Or we could replace them right now and not worry about it in the future. He's going to give us an estimate.

But otherwise our wiring looks good so far 🙂

After lunch Eric and I ran more wires, mainly lighting and ethernet (green cables). I stayed a little later to install wood slats over the bigger wall channels to hold everything in place. They'll stay in place until we've filled everything in with plaster on either side. Then we take them out and fill the voids with more plaster.

 


We took a family walk after dinner. The kids were complaining, "I don't want to go to the Promenade des Anglais! I don't want to go to the port! It's boring!" What a terrible boring life our children have. I almost feel sorry for them. I should specify that Zari wasn't complaining. She wanted me to write that!

Oh and a random video & song Inga made. She's getting ready for Eric's birthday in 5 days.

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French apartment renovations, Day 142: Soccer, sun, and wind

14,535 steps

I baked bread this morning, then went for a run when the last batch was in the oven. It was super windy and I felt slower than usual. I did breech-related things the rest of the morning.

And the rest of the day sped by, as Wednesdays usually do: soccer, grocery shopping at Aldi on the way home, mid-afternoon lunch (for me), prepping dinner (I forgot that I cooked yesterday as well...so Eric gets 2 days in a row). We let the kids stay up late to watch the first half of the Champion's League semifinals.

Eric and I went on a walk before curfew. Whitecaps all the way to the horizon, gusts of wind almost enough to knock a person over if they weren't being careful, and brilliant sun. Great day for a walk.

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French apartment renovations, Day 141: Pulling wires

9,210 steps

Okay, today the rain came in earnest! I brought the girls to school this morning. We walk up a long, shallow staircase going up the side of the chateau hill. There was so much water that we were essentially fording our way up a river! Several gutters were overflowing, creating waterfalls that we had to duck under.

Free waterpark!

I'm sure Inga and Ivy had wet feet the rest of the day. I thought ahead and wore my beach sandals because I knew I'd get wet just from the short walk to & from school.

Zari left early for her first day of big exams, the brevet blanc (basically, a practice version of the big tests they take at the end of the school year). Oh the stress. But it was better once she got started. She came home at lunch having done the French part and said they had used the 2019 brevet, which she had read and practiced!

We did some math practice during lunch, specifically sine-cosine-tangent (sohcahtoa!) and formulas for the volume of spheres, cylinders, cones, and triangles.

Dio has no school the rest of the week, since the entire middle school is taken over by exams today and tomorrow. And Thursday and Friday are holidays so everyone is off school. I'm not even sure what the holiday is!

Eric and I ran more circuits and cut holes for the ceiling lights in the upper ceiling. We couldn't line them up exactly because the old joists are offset, interlocking a bit where they rest on top of the central beam. We have to drill into the plaster between each joist to not weaken the structure of the ceiling.

We also cut channels along the ceiling for the electrical conduit. In a building that's 400-500+ years old, nothing is simple!

Today was a 2-shower day for sure.

I took a quick walk to the hardware store to buy flexible plastic conduit (une gaine), which is how most of the wiring is done here. I usually buy it pre-filled, but we needed a special color combination that isn't sold pre-made. However, we had all of the wires already, so I just bought the conduit and pulled our own wires through!

We first tried it inside our apartment, but it was nearly impossible, even just doing 10 meters at a time. We finally brought the rest out and pulled 40 meters quite easily, with help from all of the kids.

 


We were technically breaking curfew and Ivy was so concerned that we would get in trouble. I don't think the police would care if we're just outside our front door. Plus we didn't see any police; they have more important things to do than stop young electricians-in-training.

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French apartment renovations, Day 140: More wires, more saignées, and last-minute test prep

12,186 steps

Another misleading meteo: we had rain and storms forecast all day. Which, right on the coast of Nice, translated into occasional sprinkles of rain, not even enough to truly get wet. Back up in the hills it rains a lot more, but we have a microclimate that keeps the bulk of the rain away.

My new headphones arrived, so now I can use them for more than 15 minutes without the battery dying and only one side working. So nice!

After my run, Eric straightened out my haircut; it was lilting a bit towards the left. It's now straight, more or less.

We ran some more circuits this afternoon. We had some head-scratching moments, but I think I figured most of them out this evening after reading my electricity manual. We might have to hire out the main hookup downstairs in our apartment building, as we need to run a second power line for the 2nd circuit breaker all the way from the main floor meter to our apartment. I'm not sure if we're allowed to do work in the common areas ourselves. Fortunately we have an electrician friend. I'm hoping we can hire him to do everything we can't.

But we have lots to do inside the apartment. I cut several more wall channels and drilled holes for the outlet boxes. I keep finding more that need to be done! But we're getting closer.

Zari takes her brevet blanc tomorrow and Wednesday. She's so stressed that sometimes she gets paralyzed and despondent. I spent the evening helping her to study for math and French. I think we've got the math stuff down. I haven't done some of these things since high school! You know, things like sine, cosine, & tangent. I had to remind myself how to do them so I could help Zari.

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French apartment renovations, Day 139: Birthday party at the park

10,606 steps

Ivy's friend had a birthday party at the chateau. Ivy, Dio, and I went up in the morning. Eric and the others joined us at noon. It kept going...and going...I went home with Zari around 2 and the last people came back at 4:30 pm! Good times, though. It's nice to have days where we talk with friends and the kids run around and play and there's nothing else that needs to be done.

I wore my turquoise ombré dress for the first time since I dyed it last fall, along with a hammered silver necklace and my hair down. I like feeling more put together on occasion 🙂

I came home and got hit by a wave of exhaustion. I had a short nap and woke up feeling groggy and slow-limbed, like I'm walking through a vat of honey.

Dinner was country tomato bisque that I had made earlier and frozen, plus zucchini fritters. Nothing too heavy or complex since we had lots of snacks at the birthday party.

Eric and I had time to go on a longer walk this evening before curfew. I'm eagerly awaiting a later curfew so we can do our nightly walks again.

Some pictures Zari took for her art class.

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French apartment renovations, Day 138: Soccer & haircuts

13,255 steps

Normally everyone but me goes to play soccer on Saturday mornings, while I go running. Today I decided to join the rest of the family. Zari no longer has Cavigal practice on Saturday mornings, so everyone was able to come. We had a great match with many new kids. We had 8 on 8, almost too many for the field.

After 2 hours of playing, we were all happy to come home, eat lunch, and rest. Then we went out again, everyone except Dio, to the beach. I took a brief nap in the sun and woke up quite hot. I went into the water up to my thighs...and chickened out! The water felt colder than when I swam in March.

I was the first to go back home. I couldn't convince Dio to go outside. But I was able to persuade him to get a haircut. I think I did pretty well :) I'll take pictures tomorrow.

When everyone got home, I was in a haircut mood. I let all 4 kids have a go. It was time for a generous trim, about 8" (20 cm). It might need a bit of straightening up but it was an adventure!

 


I've decided that I like my hair no longer than my waist. Anything longer and it just starts getting in the way. Now Zari's hair is well over 18" longer than mine!

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French apartment renovations, Day 137: Well grounded

7,735

We've had a hot, dry wind blowing through Nice the past few days. Eric said it's coming northward from the Sahara. Pots are falling off windowsills, doors and shutters are banging. If we open our windows, the wind whistles through our apartment, like a giant blowing across a glass bottle.

I did PE With Joe after our school dropoff. Eric went to to the basement to work, and I stayed upstairs and got a huge grant application submitted! It's taken us over a half year to research and write the application. Now we wait (and submit many more applications).

After lunch, Eric and I installed the ground wire to the ground terminal in our building's staircase. We had to drill a hole through the exterior wall. (And yes we've got to patch up the outside wall where a chunk of plaster broke off when the drill bit came through. But the plumber did the same thing so it's not just us!)

Then we ran the first four circuits into the kitchen: dishwasher, washing machine, oven, and fridge. We're waiting for the thicker wire (6mm2) to arrive for the induction cooktop circuit, which will be #5. Then #6 is all the outlets, #7 is the undercabinet lighting, and #8 is the vent hood.

 


After the kitchen, we'll have 4 or 5 more circuits to run in the rest of the back apartment, plus our ethernet lines.

It's fun to finally *do* something constructive, rather than destructive. And as much as French electrical norms are somewhat puzzling to me, it makes more sense once you start doing it.

Also enjoy this picture of me and my current favorite tool: my Boschhammer SDS+.

Inga and Ivy went to the park after school with Eric, as usual. I ran errands for some essential supplies, plus a bag of potting soil and four large terra cotta pots. Zari has been asking to replant several items.

We met with our other two neighbors to talk about some issues with our buildings: repairs, maintenance, etc. We left the kids with instructions to clean up the kitchen and get Ivy and Inga to bed. They did pretty well when we came back downstairs. Dio and Zari had just put them to bed, a bit late but it's Friday.

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French apartment renovations, Day 136: Circuit breaker is on the wall

17,156 steps

During my run this morning, a woman stopped me to ask about my shoes. I have run with Vibram Five Fingers shoes for many years now. I feel like a walking advertisement!

Eric played soccer this morning, so I decided to get some other work done and run errands. We are upgrading from DSL to fiberoptic, as is France in general. Pretty soon DSL won't be an option anymore. So I went to pick up our new internet/TV/phone boxes.

The fiberoptic technician was scheduled for early this afternoon. He showed up and said he couldn't get into the building down the street where all of the main fiber lines get hooked up. Someone pried open the lockbox and took the key that the technicians use. So we're still waiting on our fiberoptic!

We got a bit of work done before school got out. First, we cut a little channel into the edge of our subfloor and a little notch out of the edge of our joists. This won't affect the structure at all, but it gives us more space to lay multiple cables. They'll all be covered up by the hardwood flooring that will go on top of the subfloor.

Then we attached the circuit breaker and main shut-off onto the wall. We ran the big cables within the breaker to each rung. We started running the first circuit but ran out of time. None of this is hooked up to the power yet, but we do have the main power cable in place.

 


I figured out which size ground wire we needed (16mm2), so I measured the required length. The building has a ground wire installed inside the common area, and on every floor there is a "distributeur de terre" that you can hook up to.

Once kids came home from school, Eric took Inga and Ivy to the park. Dio stayed home to practice piano and then play Minecraft online with a friend. Zari and I took a walk to the hardware store to buy the ground wire, nails, and wall anchors.

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French apartment renovations, Day 135: Not just Cinco de Mayo

6,252 steps

It's really late so this will be short. I'm so tired that I can't even think of what to write about. I did stuff, we went to soccer, I cooked dinner. But how to write about it coherently? Not happening right now.

Today is also the International Day of the Midwife and my mom's birthday. Back in the States we'd cook some delicious Mexican food (usually things from Rick Bayless' cookbooks) but it's hard to find ingredients here. I mean, life isn't all that bad in France. It just doesn't include chipotles en adobo and masa harina and tomatillos and queso fresco very often.

Zari has the brevet blanc next week and her big 'épreuve orale the week after. She's really stressed right now. Tonight when we were snuggling in bed, she talked about wanting to just escape civilization and live on a deserted tropical island (with the 6 of us) and have food delivered every week and have no other cares in the world. Wouldn't we all.

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French apartment renovations, Day 134: What has 3 hearts and 9 brains?

10,417 steps

I just couldn't get out of bed this morning at 7. Eric kindly got the kids up and I slept for another 45 minutes and felt much better. I had a nice run in the morning. It's getting warm enough that I didn't need to bring a light jacket. (Even in the winter, I end up taking my jacket off, but it can be chilly at the beginning.)

Eric saw the gorgeous clear water and couldn't resist spearfishing. He came home with an octopus, which turned into tonight's dinner. He could have caught 3 but he didn't want to take more than we needed.

We started running wires but found ourselves stalled: we need one more size of wire, and we need to install it first, before the others can go in (we have a few spots that have very limited space and we need the important wire to be there first). So yeah, that was frustrating. We ran the main power cable and hung up the electrical panel. And that was it because we had a videoconference at 3:30.

We're looking into installing solar electric panels on our roof, so we had a video consultation with Ikea/Voltalia. The big question is: will the mairie allow solar panels in our location? All of central Nice is under historic preservation, and Old Nice has an additional designated historic zone. Voltalia does all of the administrative legwork, so we will know fairly soon if it's even possible. And of course we have to vote on it among all the building occupants. If so, we'd be installing a 5-6KW system with 18 panels. 

I went to the coulee verte with Ivy and Inga after school. It's nice to take a break and just chat with friends. When I'm home, I have a hard time putting my work aside.

Dinner was octopus salad, shrimp, and French fries. I'm on dinner duty tomorrow. I'm going to do roasted fennel & sausages, provided I can find fennel.

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French apartment renovations, Day 133: Doggone

15,531 steps

I tried running with Baya this morning, and she only made it a few hundred meters before she quit. She would walk, but NO RUNNING. Nope.

Yes, a dog that weighs maybe 5 pounds won that contest.

Eric brought Ivy and Inga out during lunch, while I stayed home and worked (computer stuff). Then after lunch break, we worked on electrical prep, cutting more outlet box holes and more wall channels.

 

Baya's owner came this evening. Happy dog.

We delayed piano lessons so Eric could bring Inga and Ivy to the park after school. They need that exercise so badly! Dio played tag for an hour at school, so I counted that as good for the day. I made Zari do something this evening--her choice. She chose PE With Joe.

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French apartment renovations, Day 132: Dog tired

16,412 steps

We walked Baya for 7 km this morning. Poor girl was tired out when we finally got home! She played with a foofball puppy (2 1/2 months) that looked like a stuffed animal. 

We left her at home to sleep while we went to the chateau in the afternoon for Dio's birthday party.

As usual, we ran into tons of friends and gave away every cupcake and still had more kids wanting some. Ivy and her group of friends were climbing on the ruins. Dio and his two friends did parcours and played other games with Inga. Zari laid in the sun, read a book, and took a little nap. (She claims she didn't sleep...but I suspect she snuck a nap in there somewhere.)

It was full sun all day, a welcome change from yesterday's constant rain.

"Real" school for everyone tomorrow! And me? I plan on running electrical wires.

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French apartment renovations, Day 131: Rain

6,516 steps

Rain all day. We had to postpone Dio's birthday party (which was just 2 friends at a park). He was very disappointed and kept asking if we could do it inside. Sorry, no. Not with the Covid situation.

We frosted the cupcakes and put them away in the fridge for tomorrow.

I went on a walk in the morning, mostly just to get out and to see if Lidl was open. It wasn't. But I'm glad I got out when the rain was light.

Ivy saw one of her friends carrying a bouquet of flowers home for her mom--a tradition on Labor Day. She begged and pleaded if she could buy some. I said no. But sneaky Eric let her and Inga choose two bouquets for me once I was gone :)

In the afternoon we had a family movie party and watched Passengers. Zari: "It was one of those average sci-fi space movies. It had many problems, like the fact that the guy totally did not deserve the girl."

I was reading Obama's memoir later in the afternoon and had an involuntary nap on the couch. But it felt so good!

I still feel groggy after the nap, even though it wasn't very long.

After the movie, we heard loud drumming and music outside our apartment. Eric went out with Ivy to check it out. It was the Festival du Chapeau as part of the Fête du Travail (Labor Day) and everyone was wearing these huge outrageous hats, dancing in serpentine lines, and playing music. Apparently it's an Italian tradition (and remember, Nice was part of Italy not that long ago). Ivy got very disturbed because they were all packed together and not wearing masks.

 


The kids were bouncing off the walls by the end of the day. It's hard being cooped up inside!

We're watching Baya, the Pekinese dog, this weekend. She provided welcome entertainment today.

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