The madeleine Blog

I am not sure the January curse has completely run its course in our home yet. There is no denying that we have been experiencing some...

Well, hello, hello, and Happy New Year to all! Here is to hoping that things will get better on the world front, at least. As far as the...

We are now on the final stretch before Christmas, and as I anticipated, my cheerful holiday mood did not quite make it past the one-week...

I was running out of ideas for my upcoming posts, despite the holiday season that should find me building gingerbread houses with a...

And here we go again. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we are now face-to-face with December, aka the Christmas tunnel for those who...

Just popping in here to honor the day. You will be glad to know that it is already night time here in France and that I am exhausted...

And just like that, another three weeks went by, and I missed not one, but three Thursday posts. It wasn’t for lack of motivation, at...

Writing my piece about Friday night chaos at our house the other day, didn’t feel right once I hit the “publish” button. I have been on...

I should have known, as soon as I hit “publish” on my pumpkin soup post last week , that my sweet, sepia-colored picture of Autumn domestic bliss would come back to bite me. And it did, the very next day, as soon as we sat down to eat the damn soup. Dinner was chaos from beginning to end, with my boys getting up and running around the kitchen at regular intervals, while giggling hysterically and relentlessly asking for more baguette. Which was hopeless since they gobbled it d

Friday is always Soup Day at my house. This is one of the handful of routines I have been able to maintain over the years, since my older children were toddlers. I can count on one hand the number of the routines I actually follow. As a rule, I tend to have difficulty sticking to any given plan. I don’t know if I should blame aging, or undiagnosed ADHD – that thing was never mentioned when I was growing up, and tends to still be ignored in France, as far as I can see. Maybe i

I would never have imagined writing two consecutive posts about figs. I enjoy figs, don’t get me wrong. But not the way I gobble up plump...

So here we go, I guess. The back-to-school thing. We did it, I think. Although no one will say that it was easy. But as if by magic,...

It hit me suddenly yesterday. The whole New York and America thing. It was the last day of school for my boys and as a surprise, their...

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with as a parent is just STUFF. I mean just THINGS, material physical objects - toys, clothes,...

Photo @madeleinediaries Last summer, seemingly overnight, my daughter became a teenager, and I was not prepared. Sure, there had been a...

Photo @madeleinediaries Today I am beginning what I hope will end up being a consistent series, and a new category on my website - a...

Photo Adobe Stock As the title of this post would not let anybody guess, I am back on this site after a 17-month hiatus. I am also back...

Photo Adobe Stock I haven’t done much cooking lately and haven’t felt much of an urge to cook either. Somehow days and evenings go by and...

I’m not sure Halloween still qualifies as back-to-school time. In fact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, and I for one feel like we have been...

I realize the title of this post sounds a little too assertive and over-confident, but this is something I actually feel pretty confident...