If you give a mouse a cookie....

For the past many months my husband and I have been planning a dream trip. We never set out to go on a long journey, this was one of those “if you give a mouse a cookie” scenerios. About a year ago I joined my long time and dear friend Kari on a yoga retreat. She had become a teacher at Sellwood Yoga in Portland, Oregon and had begun teaching with her friend, studio owner, Savonn. Kari and Savonn were bringing a group to Lucca, Italy and invited me to join. As you can imagine it took me all of 4 seconds to decide to go! Many, many years ago I owned a very small yoga studio in Vermont and although I know very well all the ins and outs of yoga, I no longer practice, and am in despicable shape. I marched myself over to Kripalu for a few warm ups and off I went to Lucca to join this extraordinary trip. Little known fact: Many gorgeous villas and estates throughout Europe rent out their spectacular facilities to yoga retreats. Seriously, who makes better guests than yogis??!! Yoga retreats are also a great value and often include meals made on site by local cooks… and there are sure to be visiting masseuses! I had wonderful plans to meet Don after the Italian retreat, and we enjoyed romantic Lake Como and adventuring around Switzerland - even returned to Murren, where I had studied in college. I did however, feel that Don had missed out. There were other men at the yoga retreat and our group had the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy Savonn and Kari’s classes and the chance to see many lovely sites in Tuscany. We had dinners in neighboring villages, went on a wine tour, visited Cinque Terra, and took Italian cooking lessons. (Which have resulted in the purchase of TWO pasta makers and NO homemade pasta to date!)

When another retreat presented itself, I immediately invited Don to join me. This time in France!! And thus, we have the beginning of “if you give a mouse a cookie” or in our case “if you are going to a yoga retreat in France, you might as well….”

If you are going on a yoga retreat in France, you might as well go to Barcelona!! 6 years ago we had the most fantastic International student Patty come and live with our family. For the last 6 years Patty and our Birdie have gone back and forth to spend great amounts of time with each other!! Birdie has completely adopted Patty’s family and vise versa. It was high time we made our way to Spain to see Patty and meet her amazing mother Louisa!! We tore ourselves away from Barcelona this morning after 3 full days and 4 nights of living it up in Spain. We toured the city and museums, we spent time with Patty and Lousia’s family and friends, we saw other girls who had studied in Vermont. We even celebrated Don’s 60th birthday. Because we were traveling with a local family, we often found ourselves in settings where we were the only tourists, which I love. This included the Barcelona Polo Club. It was very hard pulling ourselves out of our friends’ warm and inviting home but we had to continue on our journey.

If you are going to France for a yoga retreat, and you are going to Barcelona, you must take a week between and drive through the Pyrenees. (Marital traveling tip number one: When you plan a trip, have each spouse pick different locations or activities. Each spouse needs to be very enthusiastic for the other’s activities. This creates great travel harmony and a high percentage of future travel!)

Don loves athletic pursuits and adventure. As evident by the photo above, I am very happy sitting on a couch needlepointing. (Extra points if there is auditory enjoyment such as conversation with family or friends, television, or a great audio book.) I absolutely love to travel but my own personal choices might not include steep inclines, maps, undergrounds, or the woods. I also insist on staying far from Alligators. Don takes me way out of my comfort zone…which includes my current packing accoutrements… hiking poles, hiking boots, and scratchy wool socks. Tomorrow I fill my pockets with asthma medicine, grab my favorite travel tool (my beloved camera), and follow my husband through the gorgeous mountain range between Spain and France. I thoroughly expect a gooey cheese and baguette reward!!

Stay tuned for more Pyrenees stories and the other “cookies”, we are adding to this adventure!

I must really blame Jenny!

The other day I accidentally changed the name of the blog page to "I blame Jenny". I only discovered this by looking at the analytics of this website on my phone and I noticed that my most dedicated website follower kept looking at "I blame Jenny". I was far from a computer and unable to change it, and really had a great laugh. If you know Jenny, you will share this laugh.

Jenny is my college roommate from Freshman year and one of my favorite people on the planet. 

In November, Jenny, and two of my other most favorite people on the planet, Sarah and Aimée (also very best friends from college) all came to visit me on this little island in Florida. A long overdue girls' weekend was had following a most wonderful 30th reunion at St. Lawrence University last spring. All three of these amazing women were instrumental in my life as a young woman. Thirty years ago- with them- I managed to get into all sorts of trouble, we laughed and laughed years worth of laughs, and we talked about everything under the sun as we grew from girls into young women.  Aimee and I also traveled the world together after graduation and visited almost all of the European countries on a fabulous walkabout. These women are part of the core of who I am.

Sarah, Aimée. Jenny, Tricia

Fast forward...November. How truly amazing to spend 4 days alone with these divine friends. No topics are taboo, no explaining who we are, with a deep understanding of each others parents, and a great desire to know all about each other's children and spouses we reconnected right where we left off. Our days were spent relaxing on the beach and riding golf carts into town- where Sarah did her usual amazing job as fashion stylist for each of us. Evenings were spent at my favorite restaurants eating the island's finest fare and enjoying copious amounts of tropical cocktails. ("copious" one of Sarah's wonderful words that reminds me of her every time I use it.)

But Jenny kind of ruined all the fun.... she started talking about weight and health. Damn it!

Jenny had tried the Whole30 with another college friend and was looking into doing it again. She fricking inspired us to give up dairy, alcohol, sugar, and carbs. Like some crazy preacher, we listened to her!! We had a farewell meal fit for queens on a gorgeous deck overlooking sunset on the gulf of Mexico. Farewell to each other, and farewell to all those food items we hold dear. 

There was a bet involved. We naturally divided into teams. Sarah, my partner in another adventure! This was the kind of bet only college friends make. Disgusting financial consequences  with pay offs to organizations you would never want to give money to. Plus there was the added bonus of the threat of dirty T-shirts designed by the other team to be worn on the streets of our hometowns. I can laugh now, but the threat was REAL! 

And thus I started the Whole30. 

The short version is that the first two weeks I was crabby as all hell as I detoxed not only from the items above but from diet coke. I thought I would miss wine, but in fact, I really missed my true love...gummy bears. I also missed Vermont maple syrup, which is hilarious, but I don't think I actually eat it that often. 

Once I got past the first two weeks I felt fantastic. REALLY, REALLY, FANTASTIC. I could breathe, I had amazing energy, and slept like a baby. I did the Whole30 for 37 days because I felt so good. I lost 10.5 pounds easily, no calorie counting, no portion control, just eating a fabulous paleo diet. 

Tomorrow I start again for another 30 days. This time there is a glorious light at the end of the tunnel. I was invited by a friend to join her at a yoga retreat this summer in Italy. Normally, I would have said no. The thought of getting in shape for this event would have seemed like too much! But this me says "YES" because I know with the whole30, I can do it. I just need to get myself back into the grove. Tonight we have really, really fun dinner plans with new friends. Tomorrow is a new day. 

As for the outcome of other challenge. Let's just say that in the end we are all winners because this challenge created a constant text conversation between the four of us. In honor of friendship we each donated to a cause we hold dear and we share the information on each cause with each other. The real win is the reconnection of a lifelong friendship with women I hold dear.