Attention anyone who is dreaming of Paris!

You know the wonderful vacation rental, L’Atelier des Beaux Arts, just steps away from the Jardins du Luxembourg that I often mention on this blog?

Here is my friend Joelle, going to work on her candy apple red scooter, and she is the genius behind it. She has a positively amazing sense of design, and the lucky guests of her L’Atelier can live in Joelle’s gorgeously styled universe for a few days or a few weeks (you’ll be wishing for a few weeks, trust me).

Here are just a few of the reasons why I love Joelle:

1. We have provided moral support for each other for years as our husbands (who went to the Sorbonne together) repeatedly attempt to relive their anarchist University days;

2. She doesn’t hold it against me that the night we first met she cooked Franck and I a lovely French dinner and I fell asleep before the main course was served (we’d come straight from the airport and a trans-Atlantic flight), with my head on the table…drooling;

3. She finds the absurd in just about everything, and her laugh is infectious;

4. She does all this amazing stuff (her Atelier, parenting her children, her full-time job) and never expects any acclaim;

5. She served us a Dom Perignon vintage rose once – still the best bubbles that have ever passed my lips;

6. She is one of the most spontaneously generous people I know. Case in point – she has offered to take my bevy for a bit this summer while Franck and I stay sans enfants in her amazing Atelier…

Joelle is one of the friends I am thankful to have in my life, at this time of year and during the rest of it too.