I have barely been posting over the past year largely because I have been working on a certificate in educational leadership through Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. It’s almost done now (woo hoo!), so I am planning to post more regularly again.
Another reason why I have been posting less is because I wanted to read more. When I did my annual clear-out last August, I gathered twelve books from various parts of my home – in storage, in various bookcases – and placed them in the bookcase part of my bedside table. I gave myself un défi (uhn day-fee), or a challenge, to read one book a month and told myself that what I didn’t finish by the end of the year would have to go. I read for hours each day as a child, but as an adult, most of my reading has been to learn, rather than strictly for pleasure. I wanted to recapture reading for pleasure as part of my life.
Marie Kondo, the Japanese tidying guru, gave me the idea. She pointed out that keeping books that we don’t read for years and years is a socially acceptable form of hoarding. I had owned some of the books that I gathered for my one-year défi for over a decade and had boxed them up and moved them twice.
I knew that I had to feel successful with my project early on, so I chose to read the books from the shortest to longest. This plan worked pretty well, but I did begin to get worried as the year went on and some of the books took more than a month for me to finish. Fortunately, the last two books were really engaging and helped me finish well ahead of schedule! I even included an extra book that I received as a Chrstmas gift, for a baker’s dozen.
If you follow me on Instagram (@onequalitythefinest), I posted pictures of what I was reading throughout the year. It was fun engaging with others about titles that they had also enjoyed. As I finished each book, I either donated it to my public library or sold it on Amazon. Having the visual cue that I was being successful as my bookshelf emptied was very motivating.
Somebooks were in French (Anne La Maison aux pignons verts), by French authors (Eric Emmanuel Schmitt), about French culture (The French, by Theodore Zeldin, An Immovable Feast, by John Baxter), or French history (Royal Romances, by Leslie Carroll). And of course, I liked some of them better than others. I think my two favorites were Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Songs in Ordinary Time, by Mary McGarry Morris.
I liked my défi so much that I have already picked out my next twelve books and added them to my bedside bookcase. This time, I’ll read hardcovers first so that I finish up next summer with slim volumes to slip in my suitcase instead of the brick-sized tome that I brought to France this summer. I have quite a mix again – fiction, history, French, and English. If you’d like to follow along, I’ll post pictures on Instagram.
For the last two years, I have tried a one word affirmation, as inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s 
My quest to lose weight was tougher. Despite some early success, no matter what I tried, my weight continued to creep up. In late summer, I found out that I had grown a rather substantial kidney stone that had to be surgically removed. Once it was gone, the weight fell off. The weight gain was really fluid retention due to a malfunctioning kidney. The lesson I learned there was that instead of beating myself up, I should seek medical advice if my body starts acting strangely. The DASH diet and I are now good friends to try to prevent the small stones in my other kidney from growing to the same mammoth proportions.
This year, I have selected SUFFICIENT, or SUFFISANT (soo-fee-zahn), or suffisante (soo-fee—zahnt) when referring to a feminine noun. How do I see applying this to my life? Well, for one thing, I really don’t need any more clothes. In my overly analytical way, I have been keeping track of what I wear on a monthly basis. I found that I typically wore five items of clothing in each major category most months (for example, five blouses, five sweaters, five dresses) and about ten different pairs of shoes in any given season. Yet, I have far more than five (or ten) seasonally appropriate items hanging at my disposal in any given month. When tempted to shop just for the sake of novelty, I’m telling myself that my wardrobe is more than suffisant to meet my sartorial needs.
I’m trying to be more reasonable about what I put my 
But suffisant also applies to things I need to do more of. For instance, part of my new anti-kidney stone lifestyle is supposed to be 100 ounces of fluids a day. One. Hundred Ounces. I have never once made this goal, peaking at about 64 ounces, and yet, the dietician and physician’s assistant both said that this was the most important change I could make. So, I’m going to be more diligent in tracking my fluid intake on my 
Next, is a 
Finally, a purely sentimental recommendation. Read a French translation of a childhood favorite. I recently finished 
When I first started spending time in Paris, I used to love to visit a bookstore in the Marais called Mona Lisait. It was famous for coffee table and art books at discount prices, dust, and creaking floors. But the Marais has gotten increasingly chic and eventually Mona Lisait shut its doors.
This year, I noticed a chic new bookstore in the Marais and it took me quite a while to realise that I was standing in a completely transformed space that used to be Mona Lisait.
The new store, 
A few minutes away from Hôtel Joke, the hotel that I recommended in my last post, I found a lovely little restaurant, La Petite Sirène de Copenhague. My husband has a bias in favor of restaurants with white table cloths that rarely leads us astray; he would definitely have approved of the immaculate linens here. The chef, Peter Thulstrup, has been serving excellent meals for over two decades inspired by his homeland of Denmark.
His evening three-course menu costs 41€ and it was really very good. I had the restaurant to myself when I came at 7 pm, but by the time I left, the charming restaurant was filling up with regular guests and fellow travelers. Thulstrup gave the same warm welcome to all, whether in French, English, or German. I wonder how many other languages he speaks?
I love seafood and that’s the specialty of the house, so I was definitely in the right place. I had salmon terrine as the appetizer, tuna for the main course, and sorbet and strawberries in a crisp crêpe for dessert. I forgot to take a photo of the cheese course before I ate it! It was the most delicious blue cheese I’ve ever had with a prune and a little red onion. If you’re looking for a terrific dining option in the 9th, I highly recommend La Petite Sirène.
The last several weeks have been crazy busy due to the usual back-to-school frenzy and a rather gigantic kidney stone that had to be removed. One of the things that I had wanted to share with you after my trip to France was a recommendation for an inexpensive, yet very pleasant hotel in Paris. And no, those two words don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
I arrived earlier than the scheduled check-in time. After a short wait in the breakfast area (where snacks are available free of charge all day long), I was given the keys to a bright, modern room that was decorated in the hotel’s witty style. There was a fridge that was fully stocked with free water bottles and soft drinks and it was restocked every day. The bathroom had a tub and shower combo to help soak away my jet lag. My only complaint was that there was a spot of mold on the grout that should have been zapped away. A continental breakfast was included, complete with yogurt, fromage blanc, cheeses, cold cuts, fresh and dried fruit, cereal, eggs, breads, pastries, coffee, tea, juices and probably several other things I’m forgetting. Best of all, the room was really quiet and AIR CONDITIONED during a heat wave.
In addition to all the in-house freebies, Hôtel Joke is one of a group of sixteen Paris hotels owned by Astotel. Guests have the right to use the refreshment area in any of the other properties. All of the 3- or 4-star hotels are on the Right Bank of the Seine. They gave me a card with all of the addresses and I did pop into one on a particularly hot day when I had run out of water. It was a nice perk.
