I hope you’re in the mood for a Random Thoughts post. Here are some of the things on my mind, including some of the bright spots we’ve experienced over the last couple of months.

-Have you already watched Little Fires Everywhere? I keep thinking about it. It’s a recent show on Hulu. It was being shared one episode each week, but the first season is officially out, so you can binge the whole thing at once if you’d like. The main characters are played by Kerri Washington and Reese Witherspoon and the acting is SO GOOD. The story is compelling and complicated, and I love that they used actual children to play the children. I was so happy every time there was a new episode to watch.

I’m so happy to get to meet Sabrina. She and her husband and two kids have a beautiful home in Vancouver they have lovingly remodeled from the ground up. Sabrina has that unique knack of finding vintage and used pieces and pulling them all together in really smart, handsome ways that feel collected and curated rather than messy. And Sabrina has been the solo parent for the last four months while her husband has been stuck at their other home in Kenya during the pandemic. You’ll appreciate her wisdom and candor and her stylish home. Welcome, Sabrina!

De-wallpapering at the new house has been a big task. There were eight different rooms, plus the entry, that were heavily wallpapered — including three rooms with wallpapered ceilings!

It felt overwhelming to get started pulling it down, but once we got to work, using a steamer and scrapers, we found it was actually quite satisfying. We made lots of time lapse videos while we worked, which have been wonderful to watch afterwards. We would typically do a 1.5 to 2-hour shift (just long enough to go through one full tank of steam), and it’s rewarding to see two hours of progress condensed into a tidy 30 seconds. (You can watch some of the time-lapse videos on my Demolition Highlight.)

We officially finished de-wallpapering about a week ago, and I thought you might enjoy a little tour of the eight different wallpapers we’ve pulled down at the new house. Something lucky for us: As we’ve explored the house, we found remnant rolls of most of the wallpapers we pulled down.

Hello, Friends. Happy May Day! It’s Labor Day in France today. Schools and shops would normally close today, and they are — but it feels so different this year. President Macron spoke last night and told everyone that he knows today is normally a celebratory day, and that he’s sad this year that there can be no celebrations.

On a happier note, one sweet French tradition is to give little bouquets of Lily of the Valley on May 1st. Apparently, on the first of May in 1561, France’s King Charles IX was given a Lily of the Valley flower as a lucky charm and liked it so much that he decided to offer them each to the ladies of the court.

Other things to report: We cleared lots of rubble at the new house this week, and Flora June asked for a haircut — we cut off 9 inches! Her curls have bounced right up. And Betty finished reading Emma, and wants to watch some of the movie adaptations. Last night we watched the Gwyneth Emma. Tonight, we’ll watch Clueless. And tomorrow we’ll watch the new Emma.

Ready for links? Here are a few things I’ve wanted to share:

Last week, our kids were on “spring break,” and they didn’t need to check in to virtual school. So we set aside one day for a reading marathon. We wanted to do something that felt different — like a vacation — even though during this official school break our daily life was pretty much unchanged,

In the past we’ve tried to hold Family Reading Marathons somewhere out of town, because we’ve found there are too many interruptions and distractions at home. But not during quarantine! There are no surprise visitors or last minute plans these days.

This was our Family Reading Marathon schedule: