Our New French Life
Jan 21 2019
I’m starting a blog. What does that even mean? Is it like a journal? A way to collect and process my thoughts as I’m going through a significant life event? Sort of. Oh that and I’m going to publish it for the “world” to see, read and pick apart. Oh that sounds like a great idea! The only other blogging experience I have is a weak one when my first child was born, and the several that I regularly read. By why not? You only live once and it sounds like a good idea.
Who am I and why should you care? I am a (mostly) loving wife, (often struggling) mother and (somewhat) professional about to embark on a life changing journey across the world (and I’m not talking about the flight!). We are about to to take our family of four on an adventure. We are moving to FRANCE!! There I said it. We have been thinking and planning and discussing this specific idea for over a year now. But the concept and possibility have existed for 17 years or so, ever since I met my French husband in Spain back in 2002. When we announced our engagement to his French grandmother we were given the cold shoulder and there was a sentiment that I was stealing away her precious grandson to a foreign land. Yeah! Welcome to the family!
Fast forward a few years, we got married and settled into California/Arizona before eventually having kids. The discussion to relocate back to Europe was broached numerous times pre-kids, but the consensus was, we hadn’t yet achieved what we set out to in the US. Well here we are, married nearly 15 years later, two kids, some investments, two great jobs, aging parents on both sides of the world, and jobs that barely allow us time off to enjoy visits with friends and family in Europe. I’m skipping over a lot of moves and details in the middle, but you get the drift I’m sure.
I grew up in a quiet bedroom community in the (deep) East Bay area (Northern CA, about an hour East of San Francisco) and my husband grew up in the 19ieme arrondissment of Paris. The two neighborhoods couldn’t have been more different from one another. Since we have been together we have tended mostly toward quiet but somewhat central suburban locations. In my 20s (back when I was mostly about nightlife) I lived in a few large cities and loved them! However, since maturing (ehem) and having kids, I have a whole new appreciation for sleepy suburban (even rural) places to raise a family.
When we were in France this past summer (after about 6 months of obsessive internet searching) we toured prospective regions in the countryside surrounding Paris (calm but commutable) that we could afford and where we would consider moving to with our family. (I’ll save our home search and purchase process for its own post later, as that was quite an experience!). We ended up making offers on two properties and getting an accepted offer in early August on a restored farmhouse in a rural community about 40 km outside of Paris in a village of 400 inhabitants.
After a 6 month process, we managed to close on the purchase of our new home in the Yvelines in early January, while we were in France over the holidays. It was a process, an achievement and a major milestone all in one. Now we are back to our lives in AZ while we wait for the kids to finish their school year and for either job transfer(s) or……come end of the school year we will quit our two very good jobs to look for new ones in France. Sounds crazy, I know. But I have been listening to a lot of FI/RE blogs and reading a fair number of podcasts for the past year or so. And while I feel terrified by the notion of quitting our jobs and trusting in our investments, I am at the same time oddly excited and thrilled by the notion of living a simpler life.
Until next time!
Shawna