Our Juicy Life

We're done!

Our summer camps are done!  Yesterday we finished camp #12.  In June I remember saying to Bruce, 12 camps, oh my.  Then in July we said only 6 more camps and then in mid-August only 3 and then last Tuesday only 4 more days...it went quite fast.  We had a great summer with all the kids that came to our camps.  144 kids came through the studio this summer, regulars who come to classes, regulars who come to camps every year and some new kids.  I enjoy camps, but it sure puts a wrench in my other life.  I haven't thrown any pottery since June.  I haven't road as many mile on my bike and I come home so tired.  I really like our fall-spring schedule of after-school classes.  I am a morning person, but would prefer to focus that energy on my passions (pottery & biking).  During our fall/spring schedule we don't have to be at work until 3:00 and only work until 5:30 - 6:00.  We do work all Saturday but then have Sunday & Monday off.  I'm ready to get back to that schedule.  BUT...enough about work.  Because I am officially on vacation!  So why am I up at 7:30 am working on the computer? 

Yesterday I ran about 8 million errands and realized that I hate running errands.  Traffic here in Los Angeles is horrible.  I tried to take side streets from here to there and although I didn't sit in traffic (this isn't on a highway...it's just on a street) it was still a pain.  We leave tomorrow for France.  3 glorious weeks in France.  ah....I'm feeling relaxed just thinking about it.  We just bought a new camera a couple days ago.  It's a Canon powershot SD850.  I LOVE IT.  Took the picture above while walking Dashell.  I just love this door it so reminds me of Europe, not Los Angeles.   

I took this one on the walk too.  It has an image stabilizer and takes really great pictures and it's easy to use.  It's also super tiny, great for throwing in the pocket of my bike jersey.

On my errands today I stopped by to see our friend Andrea and her dogs Burdock and Woof.  The are also golden retrievers and Burdock and Dashell are great friends.  Andrea is a very talented designer.  She makes a line of handbags (I have 2) and now she's making ceramic jewelry.  Her work is very unique and so cool.  She gave me this lovely pendant necklace.

Check out her website at Bite Down Bags, she makes amazing things:  bags (all animal free), earrings, cuff links, rings, necklaces.  All one-of-a-kind and so beautiful.  She is so talented it makes my head spin!

I also received this in the mail last week, it's a beautiful anklet from one of my best friends Laurey.  I was so surprised and touched it made me cry.  This anklet has a little boston terrier on it (for our little Daisy that we just lost) and she told me that she made it into an anklet because she was small and down by my feet.  I have worn it everyday since I got it and I just love it.  It's probably the most touching gift I have ever received...but that's Laurey, she's a beautiful person.

We have to take the furry kids up to their vacation ranch today.  The place we take them is amazing, it's called Alpha Pet Lodging.  Last year when we went to France we took Dashell their and he loved it.  Antje is the owner and she is a trainer and a vet tech and a dog lover!  Her place is small, she has a guest house that has 4 rooms inside and by rooms I mean rooms, not kennels.  Dashell stayed in the spongebob squarepants room (so fitting for him).  They have their own bed (not on the floor...a real bed), their own dog door that goes out to their private run and the front of the room has floor to ceiling bars, so all the dogs can look into the "living room" and see each other.  She only takes 4 families of dogs at a time, so there is tons of individual attention.  The dogs also have playtime 2 times a day in a very large arena.  Dashell loved it last year and I felt very comfortable leaving him there.  This time we are taking Dashell, Stella and Augie.  We normally would have someone stay at our house with Augie and Daisy.  But since we don't have Daisy anymore we thought that all the dogs would rather be together and having someone watch 3 dogs is asking A LOT!  I'm not worried about Stella or Dashell, but I must say I'm a bit worried about Augie.  He's 14, deaf and have never stayed any place besides our home.  I'm sure he'll be fine...the other 2 dogs look after him and he'll have new smells to investigate and Antje will take great care of him.  She doesn't take dogs on a Sunday, so we have to take them up today.  It will be very strange having a dog free house until we leave tomorrow.

I won't be blogging while I'm in France.  We are not taking the computer.  I need to free myself from this thing, it just sucks you in.  I don't want to think about work or be tempted to do any work.  But we will take loads of pictures and I know I'll have many stories to share with you.  I also can't wait to speak french everyday for 3 weeks!

A bientot

The Tour de France

Before we started cycling, I never watched the Tour de France.  I had heard about it, but mostly because of Lance Armstrong, but I really never understood it.  Now that we are serious cyclists (average 100-120 miles per week on the bike), I love the Tour and now it's on television, LIVE on the Versus channel Tour de France.  We get up early so we can watch in the am (since France is 8 hours ahead of us) and then we watch it again in the evening.  Slightly obsessed.  It's a brutal race, I think the hardest sport ever.  I love all the colors of the jerseys, so beautiful.

It's not as exciting as it was when Lance Armstrong was riding.  I wasn't a huge Lance fan, but he sure was amazing and always brought excitement to the Tour.  Now with all the doping allegations it's a different sport.  This is/was my favorite rider, Ivan Basso...he was just banned for 2 years for doping allegations!  He won the Giro (in Italy) last year, didn't ride in last years Tour because of doping allegations, got picked up by the Discovery team this year, saw him ride in the Tour of California in April (damn handsome), but then doping allegations came back to the surface and he quit the Discovery team and was banned from the sport for 2 years.  I think most every pro rider dopes, or at least did, hopefully with all the new tests and the fines and being banned from the spot everyone will stop it.  Times will be much slower though!

So, if you read my last post you know that I had a long night (for me) on Saturday but rallied and got up and went on a 40 mile ride.  Not like the Tour (110 miles in one day) but it was a hard ride, loads of hills.  I usually end up riding alone, because I ride with Bruce and our friend Steve came along.  They are fast and as much as I try, I just can't keep up.  I'm a pretty fast rider, but I'm a woman and over 40 and well, need I say more.  I have a great time, whether I ride with a pack or alone, sometimes I enjoy riding alone...clears my head.  It was a great ride and we were beat.  Today we did a short 15 mile ride, just to recover from yesterday.  I was a gymnast for 8 years when I was young and then was a runner and then did triathlons and now I can't run so I cycle and I must say that I'm in the best shape ever.  Cycling tones so much of your body, doesn't build bulky muscles, it gives you long and lean muscles.  I'm on my 3rd bike, no 4th.  My tri-bike was my first serious bike, then I got a Lightspeed and then a Cervello...they were great bikes but they didn't really fit me 100%.  2 years ago I got hit by a car on my bike...crazy lady turned left right in front of me as I was crossing over an intersection.  I had the green and I was in a designed bike lane - she was nuts!  I got a great settlement so I bought a new bike.  I have a Lemond Versailles bike, it's carbon fiber and it fits me like a glove..I love it. 

I'll never be a pro cyclist...it's a hard life, all you do is wake up, eat, train, sleep, eat, train, sleep, train and you travel all the time.  But I love to cycle and love to see the world on my bike.  We took our bikes to France last year and will take our bikes again this year.  There is nothing better than being on your bike.  You don't have to be fast, your don't have to have an expensive bike...just get out there and bike you will see your city in a whole different way. 

Reservations have been made

                                       

We just finalized our September vacation, we are going back to France for 3 weeks.  This is our 3rd year in a row going to this lovely country and we love everything about it.  The people, the food, the wine, the croissants, did I say the wine, the countryside, the love of cycling, the tour de france, the history, I could go on forever.  We have been taking French for 2 years now.  It's so hard to learn a language when your brain is so old.  After our first trip we decided that we wanted to move there.  We both love it and life is too short.  So that's the plan, that's our goal, to move to France.  We like to teach children art, paint and do pottery in our our old Mas (farmhouse).  Our first trip we went to Paris.  Our friend in the states let us stay in her apartment (it was her mothers), it was 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower in the 7th.  A beautiful arrondisment.  We didn't speak the language back then but everyone was very friendly to us.  We both fell in love with Paris but I knew that I didn't want to live in a big city, I wanted to live in the country.

Last year we went to Provence and the Dordogne.  The first week we spent our time in a beautiful farmhouse in Lourmain (where Peter Mayle wrote "A year in Provence").  We stayed in Les Olivettes. A beautiful restored farmhouse.  We then drove West to 1 hour outside of Bordeaux in the Dordogne region.  We stayed in a 100 year Old Bread Oven.  We were in the countryside and this bread oven fed the workers 100 years ago.  The British couple who bought the farm house (Mas) restored the bread oven into a 1 bedroom "gite".  It was perfect.  We took our bikes and road all over.  What a great way to see a country.   We had 1 year of French under our belts, so we were a bit better at speaking.  Although, our first night in Lourmarin Bruce decided to tell the waiter that he'd like him to make the choice for dinner.  What?  Not me....I'm going for the Poulet (chicken).  So, the food came...mine looked like chicken but what was on Bruce's plate?  It looked like a bunch of mushrooms.  Very meaty.  He took a bite and looked at me with a "what was I thinking"...then we saw the cook look out of the kitchen...he wondered who ordered the "vue de rognes".  I tasted it....not good.  Very strange taste, yuck!  There were some people next to us that were speaking french, so Bruce asked them what he ordered.  Oh, "kidney of calf".  Huh?  Kidney of calf.  2 of them loved it and the other 2 didn't.  I didn't and Bruce didn't, but he didn't want to insult the chef, so he ate a little bit.  He NEVER asked the waiter to choose for him again.  Silly American.  We had a fantastic time.  Provence is beautiful, but very touristy.  The Dordogne is a gem.  Rolling hills, wild boars, beautiful villages.  We fell in love with this region.  But, two things were a problem, the first is the weather...it gets very cold in the winter and being from Southern California that just doesn't fly with me.  The second is the area.  It's so remote that we are not sure there would be a town near us that would have the kids who might want to come for art classes.

So, this year we decided to see the Southwest, down by the Spanish border.  We'll fly into Barcelona and drive up to the village of Maury, which is 1 hour from the village of Perpignan.  We'll stay in a beautiful village house called Maison Voltaire.  We'll stay there for 1 week.  Then we'll go North 1 hour to just outside of Toulouse and stay in a restored barn called Le Roucan.  We'll stay there for 1 week.  Then we'll head to Girona Spain and stay in a beautiful place called Raco de Madremanya. We are really looking forward to seeing this area of France.  The weather is nice all year round and Toulouse is a big enough city to have the clientele for us.  We are going to look at some homes while we are there.  We would like to move in 2 years.  The plan is to hire someone to take over our studio and possibly sell it if things go well, that is if we can make it work in France.  If we can, we'll sell the business and if we can't we'll come home and go from there.  Follow your dreams, take a risk...life is too short

Making people smile...

sure makes you feel good.  These two little girls made many people smile yesterday.  The one looking at the camera is Stella, she's almost 1 year old.  The aloof one (who never looks at the camera) is Daisy, she's almost 9.  Both are rescues.  We ride our bikes to our studio about 2-3 times a week.  It's only 6 miles from home and it pains me to start up the car and drive such a short distance.  So we try and save on gas and try not to pollute as much as possible.  We rode to work a few times in the fall and didn't bring any dogs with us and the kids were very upset.  They all love having a dog at our studio, they expect it.  So we decided to get one of the kiddie carriers that hook to your bike.  So now we carry the dogs.  Only two at a time though (remember we have 4).

This is Augie.  He's the man, the gentleman.  He's 14 1/2 and solid as a rock.  This dog is my baby.  I rescued him when he was 6 months.  He's been with me longer than Bruce.  He's deaf now, but other than that, healthy and still Mr. Love.  This guy greets all the kids that come into the studio, he doesn't bark, doesn't lick, doesn't jump, just rests his chin on your leg.  He's very chill.  He and Daisy came to the studio today, in the carrier.

This punk is Dashell.  He's 2 1/2.  He's a golden retriever.  He doesn't ride in the carrier, although he could...but he's afraid of it.  He's the biggest dog we have and the biggest baby.  He comes from an organization called North Star Foundation, which is an organization we volunteer with that raises and places golden's with children who have autism.  We were originally Dashell's puppy raisers (you raise the pup for a family for 6-8 months), we were raising him for some friends of ours who have a child with Asperger's.  4 months into our raising our friend was diagnosed with cancer and died 2 months later - tragic.  The children associated the dog with daddy and decided they didn't want him, but wanted us to keep him...so Dashell is with us and he is also a service dog, he visits sick children in the hospital.

Anyway, today we made 10 or so people smile or laugh.  Most of them looked stressed, rushed or grumpy and then we pull up on our bikes with the carrier and instead of seeing kids they see our little kids.  How can you not laugh or smile.  It makes us happy to make others smile.  Smiling is good...laughing is good.  Hope this made you smile.