Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Day 10 living in Paris
Hi all! We are here and have managed to get settled. I'm a little exhausted from all the "figuring out" that needed to be done for everything and anything, but DD started school on Monday and she's already counting to 10 in French (sometimes skipping around, but still) and when I went to pick her up today, she couldn't be torn away from a teacher who was reading a book to her, in French! As I was putting in the key to the lock of our apartment today, she asked, "is this our forever home? I want it to be." 
I also scored a Le Creuset pot for 40% retail price off in the January sales, so I am feeling pretty good about eating at home more, even though I still haven't figured out how to use all three of our burners at the same time. (It's a Bosch electric stove, if anyone has insight on these. Whenever I turn a new burner on, it automatically turns off the first burner I had going, perhaps as a safety feature?)
I am sure I will have more questions as time goes on, but my most pressing one right now has to do with the hard water. For those of you who deal with this in your own countries, how do you get those gross water stains off of everything? Anything I handwash in the sink (instead of running through the dishwasher with the salt and rinsing agent inside) drips dry with this yucky coating all over it. I'm also not sure if I should be adding a special salt-agent to my clothes washer. My French friends (survey of 2) say they don't add anything to the clothes washer, just the dish washer. And do you do anything special about washing your hair? I feel like mine looks as dull as the hand-washed dishes and have avoided washing it too much as a result. Not sure if there's a product or something I should use.
Re: Day 10 living in Paris
Glad it is going well with your D! That is great that she likes it so much already. We don't have a dishwasher, but as long as we dry our dishes quickly, we haven't had problems with water stains on the dishes. For the shower and the kitchen area though, we need to clean it regularly with the anti-calcaire cleaners that get off the calcium build-up.
Will you be working while you are here? I can't remember. Send me a message if you ever want to get together for coffee or something
Welcome to France!
Glad you've settled in and that your DD is enjoying school.
We use a special salt in our dishwasher but not for our washing machine - I'll have to look to see if there is even a place to put salt in the washer.
I read recently that rinsing your hair once a week with a mix of water and white vinegar helps remove buildup from hard water. I also wash my hair with baby shampoo, but that's because I have sensitive skin.
We have a Bosch electric stove but all 4 burners can be lit at once. You should call your landlord to ask about it. That would be annoying!
Sounds like things are off to a flying start--great to hear!
Re: hard water: If you put in a little extra washing detergent into your washer, it will correct the imbalance. At least in the UK, you can also add tablets to correct for hard water. You are correct about salt in the dishwasher, and you should re-fill this about every 2-3 weeks, assuming you are using it about once every 1-2 days.
Also, we use de-scaler in most appliances that involve water--dishwasher, kettle, and washer. We also soak our showerhead in disinfectant and de-scaler about once every month or two, which kills some nasty bugs and also makes your water flow seem suddenly better, now that all the limescale isn't blocking it. Kind of amazing, and far cheaper than a new showerhead.
Nasty bugs? Fabulous. My shower stall is about 20 feet away from my bed (it's inside our bedroom).
Talk to me more about this de-scaler. Here they sell "anti-calcaire" products that are really specific: sprays to use in the shower, salt to put in the washing machine, scrubs for different things. What kind of agent are you soaking the shower head in? Something made for that or one of the things made for another use?
Nasty shower bugs: http://www.economist.com/node/14446702
I don't know French products (I'm in the UK) but for the shower head, I believe we use a general appliance descaler, but also some bleach and disinfectants. DH actually does this. It's one of the amazing long-term maintenance tasks that he does, which makes me forgive him (mostly) for not being so good at the short-term 'pick up your ***' type of tasks. I can confirm with DH if it helps?
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DUse Calgon for your washing machine with every load, unless you are using the cold temp. I don't know if it does anything for the clothes but it protects your machine.
Use Antikal for the bathroom, kitchen...
http://www.enviedeplus.com/antikal/home.aspx
For kitchen appliances, they sell specific products. For your dishwasher, they sell special salt. It's usually located next to the dishwasher detergent.
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
Ok. That was one link I didn't need to have read in my life. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Gross. Now I'm going to have to resist the urge to hold my breath when I'm in the shower ;-)
ETA: Now I feel really stupid - I was actually originally replying to say congratulations on the successful move, and I'm so happy to hear that your daughter loves it there!
This, you should be able to find colognen at any grocery store, we use store brand.
I also used the anti-calcaire cleaners for the bathrooms. For the laundry, we didn't do anything special, but I used the Carrefour brand liquid detergent in the "aloe" (green) bottle.
I hope the rumour that Carrefour may open in OZ is true, just so I can get that laundry detergent again ... ::sigh::
This is the second reference today to the miracles of Carrefour. A girl at the Monoprix told me I could find measuring spoons there. Apparently, measuring spoons aren't a common item in kitchens here? Now I have a second reason to venture to the Carrefour.