Graphite ATC trade

I did a super three card ATC trade last month and  I got some great cards back.  To be honest I've been mildly disappointed in some of the trades I've made in the past six months.  I hand draw or paint nearly all of my cards and they take me about three hours each, so when I get a card back with a scrapbooking sticker stuck on it or a glittery mess it puts me off wanting to trade ever again.  I don't expect everyone to trade a mini Van Gogh but I do like when someone puts in a lot of effort and it shows.  It means they respect their art and I get to have a piece of that.  That's the fun part.

On my ATC trading site which is lots of fun and slightly addictive, I signed up for a graphite trade.  Here's what I sent, (four cards by the way because you always send an extra card as a gift to the gracious hostess of the swap)  I am slightly obsessed with Mayans:

    and here are the three amazing little cards I received in return:

It was a really gratifying trade.  I think I might do more graphite cards in future trades.  They're really stunning.

A sort of scrapbooker rant

I just got a new keyboard and after nearly six years typing on a Mexican keyboard ay carrramba!  I am now back to a French keyboard.  The qwerty to azerty downshift  thing is a little tough but it's appeased by the fact that now I have the good  accents!  in the right place!  yay!  No more upside down exclamations !!!

I 've been making some art journaling videos and watching lots of them on the internet to get ideas.  Some videos are excellent with real artist touting real ideas and some unfortunately are not so excellent.  Some just give art journaling a bad rap.

Here's what bugs me.  It's usually the same type of personality and excuse me for pigeonholing but it's often a former scrapbooker turned "artiste". The problem is they  put all these horrific  embellishments on their journal, stickers and prepackaged crap and call it art.  Okay art is subjective I know but sadly this is not art.  This is craft.   Okay just move on to the next video right.  I mean forget them.  I'm sorry though.  What annoys me most about these people's videos is the hawking of the products.  Everytime they use a product they have to tell you what it is!  It's a giant whorefest for overpriced products.  And some of these people have BINS and BINS of these products.  The money spent on this embellished glitter art!  Calamity!  Paul Cézanne is turning over in his grave every time one of these videos gets uploaded.  And people are saying to themselves "art journaling is THIS, ugh and even if I wanted to do it I have to buy all that crap?  Uh; think I'll pass" and then the whole thing gets a stigma associated with it.

In the great spirit of counteracting anything that goes against the grain of doing something the natural granola way I'm going to start sharing some tips.  These will be some of my very own DIY tips for art journaling.  You don't need Homespun Exacto Glue or Stayrite Ink Dyes or even Lou-Lous Own Fixater or any of these overpriced piece of crap things to art journal.  These are swiss army knife journaling tips.  These are art jornaling war ration tips.  You don't need much to get started.  You just need some cheap paints, a pencil and a few trips to the garage.  Later you might want to invest in some better paints and maybe some inks or watercolor crayons but always, always, always make trips to the garage and don't worry about ruining your art for posterity.  Archival quality?  That's just ridiculous!  You're here to make a mess and if it falls apart and turns yellow in fifty years who cares.  I'm sure by then everyone will be making digital copies of everything in like 3D or something with smellovision.

Sorry for the rant and if you read this and you're a scrapbooker it's nothing personal.  I too like glue and pretty pages.  Just go easy on the glitter and don't call embellishments "embies" or I will hurt you.

Channel matisse

I did another video for the newest artist in my series Modern Masters.  This month I wanted to do Matisse.  Here's a video I did for the first in what I hope to be many journal pages.  My goal is to try and do a painting/collage a day based on Matisse.  So far so good!

The lego club

I spent the weekend with Seb tearing out the kitchen and with Little S sorting Legos and talking with him about the Lego Club hes eager to start.  When we moved to China all the posh private schools had these awesome after school programs for art, pottery, music  and languages and there was even one for Legos.  I never got so far as to find out the details of how the club actually  worked but it really captured Little S s imagination that he could sit around building with other kids one day a week after school,

There isn't such a club anywhere around here which is why we've been toying with the idea of starting one on our own,  I think it will be enterprising and fun for Little S to get it started so I am giving him almost full reign on it, with just a few rules.  It has to be limited to four kids a semester.  The kids have to pay a bit to help cover the costs of feeding them gouter and for my having a full house one day a week...and to keep only the participants who are serious,  And we need  funds to build up the brick bounty so the money will help build  up the supplies.  What fun!   They can build their creations each week and leave them to work on when they come back.  I think it will be a big success,    We just have to work out what to charge and Little S has to find the serious minded Lego kids in his classes.

Night time

Some ATC cards going off to a swap in the US.  The theme was called Into the Night,

Paradise

We had a gorgeous snowy weekend snuggled up by the fire with dog and kids and some really nice food and wine we'd prepared for an apéro with friends. This house is so cozy in the winter it looks like something out of a magazine.  Our friends had given us some wood for the fire, an entire tree, and we wanted to thank them in Savoyarde style, local cheese and wine and dried sausages.  They really enjoyed the house and we noticed we are starting to actually get compliments on it.  This never used to happen.  People were usually too shocked in the past with the piles of floorboards, holes in the walls and plaster dust everywhere.  But now, it's really starting to come along the last few weeks and our hard work is starting to actually show.  We've been working like crazed fools and we are getting close to the part where you put on baseboards and paint, ie. The Finish Line in home renovation...uh, finish line again that is.

In other news I swallowed my pride and called l'americaine last week to invite her for coffee which she finally agreed too,  but she cancelled on me at the last minute, just as I was mixing the banana bread to put in the oven, boo hiss.  She did tell me on our chat on the phone though that she has three english speaking friends here, shock!  Right here!   They're Irish, Scottish and apparently there's an American who owns a bakery in town, Two are moms with kids our ages.  My heart went all aflutter and I really want to connect with them but she'd mentioned them in a kind of "don't worry about me I have plenty of English speaking friends" kind of way rather than a "hey you should come have coffee with us sometime" kind of way.  I'm getting a little tired of prostituting myself so I'm going to stubbornly wait for her to call me to reschedule and she can make the banana bread this time.  At the same time--three years without visiting home is starting to wear on me and I could use that linguistic oasis I mentioned.  I may have to swallow my foolish pride.

I didn't dare ask her about the incident in town but as we were talking about living here she made a comment along the lines of "there's no way I'm staying in this godforsaken ****hole of a place"  and I understood that she hates France (peanut butter prices anyone?) and I'd be getting pulled down that drain. I consoled myself that rather than listen to the stereotypical grass is greener rant maybe I'd be better off listening to my french mom friend's reminders that Charlotte really needs to wear a hat on cold days. There are lots of places where you can complain in the world and I'd agree wholeheartedly,  but here...how can you complain about living here?  Last night as I was walking the dog I actually forgot about her and she went off in the woods because  I was too busy staring at the scenery, the sky was a beautiful pink mist with all the snowy mountains behind like stage props.  It was amazingly beautiful.  I imagine it's the peanut butter though and the people;  the important little things that block out the bigger picture.  Why is that?

Dance class and the american

When Charlotte started her dance class at the beginning of the school year she had a particularly French dance teacher. I don't mean this in a mean way either but when I say particularly French I mean like my mother in law, --very correct, full of rules and using madame a lot when you could just simply answer the question without addressing the person with a curt madame.  I'm so used to this type of woman that I don't even flinch at them anymore.  In fact they're kind of comforting facet of French life.  What would we do without them and their high pitched voices seven octaves above the rest of the world! Oh dear!  What music to my ears they were when I came back from China.

On this particular September day all of the parents were seated on the floor of the dance studio while Martine checked out all of our girls to see if they were in the right class by age.  She quizzed them one by one and then quizzed the parents, and then continured until there was only one left, an adorable little blonde with a sassy ponytail and a downcast eyes.  How old is she?  Martine asked the mom in French and suddenly I heard the familiar twang of an american speaking in broken French "Elle eess seeez anZ"  was the response and Martine kind of crinkled her nose and asked the little girl instead who responded in near perfect French "I'm six!"  She would be better in the other class, the morning class Martine decided so she told the mom who didn't understand and then two or three or possibly seven French people jumped at the occassion to show off their English.  "Eeeet eeez about dee leeetle girl must to changing dees classes to do anUdder classes"  and so on until finally the little girl deciding that a six year old can easily translate better than any French adult can, said "Mommy she wants me to do the morning class if that's okay with you."  The mom smiled uncomfortably and I clammed up embarrassed for her and not wanting to contribute to the chaos.  At the same time I was amazed because you rarely meet Americans living in France unless you live in Paris where they're practically sprouting from the pavement, but here in rural France? Gah!

After the class we spoke a bit.  She was blonde and pretty from California.  She spoke quite a bit about herself and me about well, mostly about her.  It was a first impression to be honest but she seemed a) a little self centered  b) intimidated that her French sucked  c) I didn't care because I figured she speaks English so we'll make it work between us somehow because here was an oasis,--a lovely oasis of an island in a churning sea of french linguistic calamity.  My ears ring with this calamity all day and I long to have a few words at my own speed and in my own langauge.  So yes, she was tolerable enough and even better than any of that, our girls nearly jumped on each other rattling away in English and asking very excited when they could play together at each other's houses.  Charlotte stood amazed.  She has never spoken English with any other child and here in France she only speaks it with me and her marraine so she was in awe that someone her age could speak like her.  I told the mom  we'd see them next week and off we went to catch our bus before it was too late.

The next week unfortunately the class had dwindled to six, no doubt due to Martine's charming introduction.  I arrived a little early for the exit of the six year old class and stood outside the studio waiting for the american mom to show up to pick up her daughter but she hadn't come back.  Too bad I thought.  I won't have my oasis after all.

Okay so fast forward to two months later, as I'm in with my esthetician Sara whose part time job is town crier,  I swear she knows everything about everyone,.  Anyway I remember as I'm numbly  following her chattering telling me about her daughter's school that the american mom said her kids were in the same school when I first met her.  I decide to ask her if she knows her and she says "yes, of course her daughter is  in my daughter's class and they have dance together on Wednesdays"  It turns out after all that she'd loathed Martine's frenchness and changed dance schools alltogether.  Well my esthetician Sara who is super friendly suggests I pass along my phone number through  her and she'll do the explanation but to  be safe and make it clear I  write a little note to go with my phone number in the vein of "I'm the american mom you met at the communtiy center dance class" ... "let's have coffee sometime" .  The note is passed the week before Thanksgiving and three bikini waxes later  no response.  The esthetician Sara asks me every time and I just shake my head, "no not yet."  Then Sara says, "well I did give her the note but she seems tired lately" or something odd to fill the awkward moment..

Now here's the funny part which will tell you how small the world is.  One of the only people I really chat with outside Charlotte's school is a muslim mom who moved here from Paris around the same time as us.  She's really nice and we always talk.   Sometimes our kids play together after school and she's also my occasional running partner.  Turns out her husband who works across the lake in Lausanne happens to work with the american mom's husband and they cross the lake together every day in the ferry boat,  They're guy buddies!  She asks if I can call american mom because she's very lonely and could use a friend.  She also tells me that american mom was in a huge argument where a french person in town spit on her and called her a "sale americiane" or something strange.   She gives me the phone number and says "you should really call her."   This was a week ago.    Each day my muslim friend says "did you call her yet?"

So do I call or not?  I feel a little funny that she didn't call me after my note nearly two months ago.  It doesn't sound like the actions of a lonely person.   I don't want to push anything but our kids would really have fun together.  And I'm dying to know about the fight she had in town.  What could this all be about?  I've never been provoked or spit on in France?  What did she do to get someone to do this?  My curosity is getting the better of me.

One note on all this.  When I met my American friend Bea in Annecy way back when, she told me afterwards "I hate it when Americans speak near me and I move when I hear them in cafés or at the beach"  I said well, then why are you friends with me?  You enjoy hanging out with me, right?"   And she said "well, you're different"  So that always stuck in my head.  Maybe everyone isn't like me.  I don't feel like that.  I think it's nice to have a piece of home here.  I like meeting fellow americans.  There just aren't that many around these days.

It's all groovy!

In the creative files I've been busy lately hosting a little workshop on Art Journaling It's All Good!   My workshop has us walking in the footsteps of three modern artists, starting with Klimt.  If you want to see the video you can click on them here and here.  If you'd like to follow along in my workshop you can join us over at AJIAG.  It's a great place to get inspiration for your art.  You get to peek in everyone's journal pages and steal umm, I mean borrow ideas.  Actually everyone is pretty cool if you steal ideas.  It's about sharing what you're doing and getting new ideas for your journal pages.

Mail art

Look at me all into blogging again.  Go me!!

I've been doing lots of mail art lately alongside my art journals.  Let me tell you if you don't know about mail art it's like the heroin of the art world.  It's so addictive.  You make these little hand drawn or collaged trading cards then you mail them out and you get one back or two or five.  It depends on how the trade is set up.  There are themed trades where you do your art within a theme.  These are fun too.  You send your art to the host and she redistributes your cards and you get three new ones.  I just did a theme trade for Imbolc and I'll be waiting for my cards after January 25th.

There's lots of different format for mail art.  You can make postcards, any sized ones really, and mail them.  These are fun.  You just take some water color paper and slap on some collage work and then draw.  There's a million things you can do to them.  Postcards can be trouble when it's time to mail them.  You can just google how to make envelopes because you'll have to find a home for your artwork--or you  can just write the address on the back and send it off if you trust it to not get too crumpled by the post.

Then there are ATC's.  Atc's (Artist Trading Cards) were invented in Zurich in the 80's by a group who had this idea to do art swaps.  I think it was originally intended for artists who wanted to promote mini versions of their artwork.  Now it's THE main size for mail art junkies.  They measure 3.5 x 2.5 inches.  They're roughly the size of a baseball card.  These are the ones I trade the most.  I'm starting to have a nice little  collection of them.  You can make ATC's out of cardstock or watercolor paper.  If they're too flimsy you can reinforce the back with thin cardboard.   Like I said the themes are endless.  You can even make 3D versions that pop out.

My new favorite is something called an inchie.  Inchies are 1 inch square and they're  nearly postage stamp size.  I've made a few but have yet to get any.  What's cool about inchies is that you can make it into a little book with mini jump rings or maybe best of all throw them in a jar on the table of the living room!  This is my favorite idea.   You can hopefully get visitors to your house to make their own inchies for your jar by leaving blanks inchies nearby with pens.  I can't wait to start my collection!

Mail art is addictive for one main reason.  Nobody sends mail anymore!  It's doing a disappearing act.  It's so exciting to check the mail again.  Pretty stamps!  Little notes!  Handmade art!  Decorated envelopes!  This is heaven to me.  I am right in my element--art+mail+the international element.

My favorite site for trading art is atcsforall.com but there are several.  Go check it out but if you're timid about getting started you can test out a mail art card on me.  I'm up for trading with newbies and especially if you're a friend...double goodness.  I love trading with peope I know and I won't judge your first piece, promise!  Besides you will learn very fast when you get a few cards how to do lots of new things as you examine each new little card up close.

A little rain

It's been a strange weekend culminating in a bizarre Monday morning.  It all began with Friday's horrible news about the shootings.  I was completly shocked.  I had just finished a story earlier last week with my students on gun control in the US and I had explained to them as best I could why people in the US are allowed to keep guns in their house.  It made no sense to them (or me for that matter).  They'd  asked me in their blunt teenage way why Americans are so paranoid and I had just said "I don't know."

This morning I had one of those stupid kitchen accidents.  I spilled boiling hot tea on myself in bed.  It burned my upper leg and stomach (our tea kettle is too efficient!).  It made it impossible to get dressed because I had to slather myself in burn ointment.  I freaked when I saw blisters rising.  Seb was severely burned a few years back,--think I blogged about it--.and we lived with his burns for three whole months.  He could barely work and he couldn't walk for two weeks.  It was awful.  He was cared for by a nurse who came in every day.  Thanks to that though we have all the supplies for burns and we know what to do, luckily.  Anyway I couldn't go to work this morning, mainly because I couldn't get dressed properly right away but also because it was painful!  My boss was in a tizzy when I called.  She didn't ask if I was okay, just got upset because I wasn't coming in and saying "well great what am I going to do with your students?".  I was ready to hang up on her.  I wonder  if she didn't think I was making all this up.  Anyway, feeling better now sitting in a painter's smock and slathered in cream and these miracle burn pads that Seb had left over from his accident.  I just hope my skin doesn't peel off but it was all blistered in some spots which isn't a good sign.  I'm just thankful it wasn't one of my kids.  Charlotte was in the bed with me when it happened.  We're always thankful when it isn't our kids aren't we.

Okay I'm going to hobble outside and walk my vomiting dog.  When it rains it definitely pours.

Journals

On a thread for my journaling forum someone brought up the subject of listing your journals and it got me to actually list mine.  I hadn't realized just how many I had until I counted,  Here's my list:   1)  A moleskine journal for drawing which I started a few years ago thanks to Danny Gregory--mostly reality based drawings.  This is how I learn to "see"   I keep this one by my bed at night.  I draw before bed.  2) I have a homemade agenda which I write dates in, doodle in and keep a small diary in, for example I'll write down if my daughter missed school or if I have to call someone or if I have an appointment.  I also doodle in this and  do mixed media.  I got this idea from Geninne Zlatkis and her agenda journals she post on her blog.  I carry this one everywhere! 3) My mixed media journal.  The one I post here.  Writing, collage, poetry etc.  It's made from an old converted book found in the trash.  It's become too big to take with me places so I work on it about an hour a day in my studio.  4)   I just recently started an abstract art journal which is mostly painting but also zentagles.  This is for relaxing.  This is also an altered book.    I work in this in short spurts.  5)  for writing I  have my blog.  This counts as a journal, right!  6) I also have a watercolor journal that I work in very sporadically.  I started it in 2002 and it's still not full!  It's  so formal and academic and that's probably why I don't like it.  It's stuffy.

My next project is to start a dream journal.  Sometimes they end up in my regular journals but I'd like to start a new one just for dreams.  I read where you should have a notepad by your bed to document them first thing  upon waking in draft form and then a second one to record in more detail after being fully awake.

I am fairly new to journaling.  It's only been about three years since I started my first drawing book.  I hope I'll keep it up and have a collection of journals like Janet Lowry one day.  It's so fun to look back through them after they're finished.

The blogging break

It's been a long while since I've been motivated to write here but the other day I suddenly looked around, wrinkled my brow and said "you know I kind of miss my little blog."   I think it's more likely that I miss writing each few days.  Facebook satisfies the instant gratification of telling someone about something interesting in a blurb and getting a response but I'm not such a blurb type.  I really like to pontificate.  Blogging is for writers!  Blogging is for pontificaters!  So here I am back and on a schedule of a post a week.  and well, ...we'll see how THAT goes.

I also have another reason for reviving my blog.  I'm full swing back into my art and all my new artist peeps have their own blogs where they share their work.  I don't really have a place like that, like a real honest to goodness art blog, but this blog has been leaning that way for a few years so I suppose I can call it my sort of art blog.  I can't bring myself to have an all out art blog for some reason.  Probably because that would mean I'd have to be on a blogging schedule and an art schedule and oh lord the responsibilty would crush any creativity I might be able to muster.  I am pretty much doing art every day though but I won't say that too loudly to myself because I'm going to spark the lazy monster to come out of hiding.

Otherwise life is ticking by.  Our family seems happy in the mountains and it's a lovely life.  It may not last forever but for now we're taking what we can while we can.  The job market is a little unstable here.  It's not the best place to build your career unless you're a semi retired pop star or French actor.  Hopefully by next year we'll have better jobs.

Oh by the way the closet is finished.  I suppose I should share the after pictures.  Barbie would be jealous.  It's an awesome closet and I successfully kicked Ken...I mean Seb out of it so I have it all to myself.

Les Closets

I've been painting our bedroom steadily now for over six weeks.  Yes six weeks to paint a bedroom.  I'm slow like that.  We do a wall, sand it and I paint it.  Then we do another one a week later or so.  There are a lot of angles in the new bedroom bedroom so it's a  lot of walls to plaster, sand and paint.  And of course we're not professionals or those type A personalities that do everything correctly in order and get it done in one week.  Nope, not us.

I'm eager for my new closet.  It's a walk-in closet!  It's so grand that when mother in law saw it she thought it was our place for the bed.  When I said it was my closet she did her thing where she folds her arm and rubs the side of her other arm which I know means she doesn't really understand it at all and wished it would all just go away and be normal.  After all she keeps all of her  clothes and Papi's clothes in one simple armoire neatly arranged which also holds towels and sheets!  And all those clothes.  What must she think of all my clothes!

Yes, my closets are overflowing.  I have two right now stuffed to the brim, ugly plastic hangers, belts tossed just anywhere.  I love belts.  I must have at least sixty belts.  Will everything fit in the new closet?  Will I have to get rid of things.  I hate cleaning out my closets.  I'm always afraid I'll get rid of the wrong thing.  I'm a clothes hoarder.  I get attached to things and I love hoarding vintage things.  My grandmother had closets like this, full of dresses from the sixties that she bought in the seventies.   When my big brother got married I was supposed to go buy a dress.  Instead I pocketed the money and shopped in my grandmother's closet.  It was a red checked apron style dress with a full skirt, vintage early 60's.  She gave it to me along with about six others and I wore them all the time.  I wish I still had them!

 Now I just look for vintage scores in the local catholic charity shop.  I've found a few.  Old French ladies always dress up it seems.   You see them walking their dogs in pearls and small heels.  Where to wear these things I find I don't know but it's fun just to have them for playing dressing up.

Regeneration

Posting has been light but I haven't given up entirely on my blog. I'm still around and I still need to write! Of course as usual lots has been going on in my home, --renovations and tearing out of walls. It wouldn't be my home if it didn't have unfinished drywall up somewhere and an electric sander in the hallway.

 Many people are confused about where I am, including members of my own family. We are back in the mountains in our old house, meaning The Fisherman's House, and we've made a full circle back home, all the family except Milly our cat who seems to be stuck permanently in China. I always consider this house home and so like a homing pigeon I come back here. This time though I'm sitting still and never moving again!! Yes you heard me --NEVER. Okay I probably just jinxed myself but I really don't feel like going anywhere for a good long time. 

The kids are enjoying their school and they love the idea that they can walk to school every morning. It's entirely uphill so we all have buns of steel, including our dog. We adopted a little fox terrier from the pound and she runs out every morning with us, knows the route by heart, so cute the way we test her by going the wrong way and she never falls for it.

I'm not sure where to take this blog because it is a bit neglected. I don't think you need a theme for a blog unless it's a professional blog, so I think that it will just muck along with me and my interests as it usually does. Right now for example I'm into organizing my closet and streamlining my overflowing wardrobe. I'm also into thrifting MORE clothes to put in my overflowing closets, so I thought I might post a bit on that. The kids are still into art and so am I so there's that to blog about. I'm really interested in Dr. Max Gerson right now and I want to do a few weeks of Gerson therapy, or maybe even a month to clean out the system. I'll probably write about that too. And finally I've started picking up my camera again after my Sylvia Plath depression period last year had me pack it away for over a year. It still works and I took some pictures with it for the first time in one whole year--the longest period of my life without my photo hobby.

The last picture on the camera I took last year was of this little girl in China playing in the fountains by the science and technology museum in Shanghai.  And then suddenly we're back here, home again and at Charlotte's baptism a year later.  As I uploaded the pictures I thought about how the sermon by the priest in a Shanghai catholic church at Easter last year had motivated me to leave, something he said about rebirth and regeneration and how it's normal and we must accept it even if it's hard to understand in a moment of crisis that life must change.  I saw the pictures of the baptism which, a year later had the same message and I had sort of a funny crinkly brow moment.

Gluten free me

Last year about this time I was eating lots of cheese. The problem is and was ... I'm dreadfully allergic to it. I've been sure of my dairy allergy for at least six years. I saw a doctor but shrugged it off. After all it was cheese. Cheese is my life.

Those days all ended in China. Cheese is not easy to find and when you do pay the eight euros for it there is a huge meh factor. I gave it all up. Now that I've given up dairy I feel so much better. My skin is clearer. My eyes are brighter and I digest everything so much better. The dreaded mucus has gone too. All blessings.

Oh and I lost my paunch, or nearly ten kilos to be exact.

I also stopped eating wheat and any glutens and down I shrunk to the weight I was before having Little S.

My new way of eating is hard to describe. I'm slowly backing out of an old way of eating so I still have old habits. I still eat some meat, one of my few vices. I'd say about 5 percent of my diet is meat based. For some reason giving up meat is not easy. Mostly I eat fish though, steamed or canned.

Another 5 percent of my diet is gluten free grains. I eat corn flakes with no milk for breakfast covered in fresh fruit. I sprinkle it with cinnamon:

"In traditional Chinese medicine, Cassia cinnamon is used for colds, flatulence, nausea, diarrhea, and painful menstrual periods. It's also believed to improve energy, vitality, and circulation and be particularly useful for people who tend to feel hot in their upper body but have cold feet."

And I gave up coffee for green tea. I will still have espresso when visiting Italy though or when I find some great espresso brewing at a friends house. Coffee was a definite vice but being in China is like being in coffee prison so it was easy to give it up. It's much more fun shopping for tea.

For lunch I make raw salads. Raw foods make up about 85 percent of my diet. A typical salad is spinach leaves, courgette, tomato, carrot, ginger, hot peppers, tuna and maybe an egg. I would like to give up the egg but it's another vice. One day at a time. Dessert is always a piece of fruit.

Dinner is much the same. I eat salads. I love my salads so much I look forward to them. I actually think they're better than restaurant salads because they're so fresh.

I still have some lingering vices that don't fit my raw food, vegan goals. The meat of course is one, the eggs, peanuts, chocolate, sometimes even potato chips * gasp*. I am far from being a saint. I love salty snacks. I'd say my vices account for about 5 percent of my diet.

One thing which pleased me was that I found that I could cook Christmas dinner and still enjoy the things I made in moderation. It was even refreshing to not overeat for once. After the holiday I shelved my cookbooks and went back to raw. It was like going home again. It felt normal.

Lately I've taken up juicing. I'm intrigued by juice fasts and I'll be doing my first one here very soon, maybe at the end of the month. I'm really excited about it. To work up to it I'm juicing now at lunch and eating a much smaller salad afterwards. I have heard that juice fasts are easier when friends do it together. If you're interested in joining in I'd be happy to have some company via a facebook group. Even if you've never juiced before you might want to give it a try!

Bullets for speed

The best way to catch up is in a bullet post.

Everything is going well and I'm really happy living back in our old hometown. I hope we won't have to move again for a long, looooong while. The kids are happy with their school and we get lots of exercise walking them to and from school, uphill all the way. I'm keeping fit!

I've been looking for work in Switzerland and I hope I can find a good placement by next year. My goal is to get my French citizenship approved by next September. It's almost impossible to get a job in Switzerland without being an EU member, at least in the Canton where I want to work--lots of hurdles to cross. Anyway I'm at the end of my carte sejour in June so I have to do it now. Before now I've just been really lazy about it getting my papers done but it's time!

Even though I swore I wouldn't do the sales I've bought about twenty things so far. Shopaholic? Maybe, but the French sales are tempting because everything gets marked down incredibly low. I'll share some pictures. I bought some fun stuff from the usual stores, ProMod, H&M, shoes from Bocage and few pieces of jewelry from the odd shop. I swear this is the only time of the year when I don't thrift my clothes. Normally I buy everything second hand because it's so much more fun.

Charlotte has the chicken pox. She seems to be one of those kids who gets everything. She turned four in November and seems to be calming down a lot. She's still full of energy and sass but in a more constructive way.

Little S is doing really well in school. He loves his teacher. She's really good with him. He can almost read now. He's got a few friends at school but no playmates yet which is tough.

I'm happy but we're all a bit lonely here. I unfortunatey had to leave all my friends I had in Paris when we moved. I had a nice circle of ladies and we were a fun group. I created the group in fact and now they've kept things going without me. We did ladies night once a month and changed whose house we'd hold it in. Our kids were all the same age and it made life easy when you were stuck because I had about six people I could call on for help. Our husbands were all friends too and we did lots of dinner parties. I have neighbors here but everyone is really distant. I invite them sometimes and then it just sort of fizzles. I seem to remember that from living here before. It was really hard to meet people and I was often lonely talking to the walls.

That's all I have for now. I'll add more bullets in another post when I get time.

Back to what we know

Life has certainly changed in the past six months. I'm not exactly where I imagined I'd be. I thought I'd be sipping Chinese tea in my modest 15th story apartment complex in Shanghai, taking art classes with expats, homeschooling my kids. Life though decided to have me rethink everything from top to bottom. I guess you could say that I am not even the same person I was six months ago (which in retrospect isn't necessarily a bad thing).

My biggest changes are in my professional life and in my diet. I work now which probably explains the lack of blog posts. I'm back in the working world and it feels good. And I have a new way of eating which just sort of evolved over the Spring and Summer. I'm gluten-free and dairy free and I'm eating about 75 percent raw. My diet is sort of my new hobby.

My kids are thriving in regular old public school and we live in France again. That's about it. I'll share some photos soon.

Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

I don't really know what to say here right now which is why I've been gone for a while, thinking. I am on a journey, a vision quest whatever you want to call it. I'm trying to balance a plate of dishes on the end of a stick, all the while spinning around myself. I know I'm being mysterious but there isn't much else to say. I'm still here but not there is all I wanted to say.

Yeah just give me a sec would you?

I came across this vacation picture of our cat from a year and a half ago and it made me smile.

School update

Well here comes my little break from the blog. Posting will be on the lite side as we delve into our new life over there. And just when I need to blog too--so much to share. Go figure.

Someone mentioned to me that I hadn't talked much about our homeschooling lately and this is true, probably because we haven't done much of anything different yet other than having the kids home. Right now we're unschooling and trying out little bits and pieces of Waldorf style homeschooling. We really do much of what we've always done,--story time, painting, nature walks and raiding the recycling bin armed with duct tape, glue and string. The only difference being that we do it pretty much full time now and whenever we want. It kind of makes me dread the scheduled version I've created for Fall of next year. I really think unschooling works and I trust it but I'm not alone to decide and I have to respect Seb's say in things. It's been hard enough trying to make him see the benefits of waiting for Fall for S to start reading again. Maybe over time he'll see. A few years back I thought the whole concept of unschooling was completely daft. I mean who lets their kids do NOTHING all day? Now of course I get how it works.

Actually we do a lot in a given day and we've learned lots of new things like mini bookmaking and S is really in to portrait sketches now--no idea why! He never drew people all through maternelle and up until last year. The psychologue who saw him each week at school thought this was a big sign of something wrong Now it seems he ONLY draws people. Of course he only draws people from the story of Narnia, these sort of medieval people with weapons, and then he tapes them all over the walls of our house.



One of the funnest things we've started doing is knitting. I've taught Little S finger knitting and even though it took a few weeks of trying and stopping and trying again he finally got it all on his own in one of those divine "spurt-leap" moments that John Holt talks about so often in his books. It was like suddenly it just clicked in a split second. I'm doing real knitting now which I learned by watching videos and I really enjoy it too. I hope to teach S next year and he's really eager to learn. He's very cute with his knitting and walks around with the yarn everywhere he goes. We try to do handcrafts in the afternoon a little each day to prepare for next year when we'll follow the Waldorf homeschool curriculum I've chosen. We also do a lot of wet on wet watercolor painting which is really relaxing. I have a hard time getting them to use one or two colors but they're learning. Color and paints have always been a staple in our house so it's almost impossible to backtrack and say "okay today it's just YELLOW" but we're getting there. We have a set story time after lunch where they sit around and I read to them from the internet (mainlesson.com is a great resource for this). I sometimes forget about it but they don't. They hound me chanting story time! story time! at exactly one-thirty. I'm surprised they like it so much. After story time we break out the block crayons and they get to draw their perception of the story. I push Little S to do MLB style drawings because I know this will help jumpstart him when we start lesson in the Fall. He does beautiful borders and he even reminded me that people in the moyen age did borders on their pages and books. If you know Little S he is completely obsessed with the moyen age so I'm not surprised he found a connection.



The rest of our afternoon is devoted to being outside, usually a good ninety minutes to two hours of playing, exploring and walking. We've invented some games that we regularly play and we bike a lot. It's a good rhythm.

In a few days we'll pack up the paints and supplies and haul them downstairs. I imagine we'll have to buy more supplies while we wait for our things to be shipped to China. See this is how I end up with so many art supplies--all the moves!