Not being Catholic, I just learned it is from a longer tradition to move out the winter and bring in the spring (or at least hope it is coming soon. The fête is celebrated with the making and eating of crêpes and engaging in a bit of fortune telling, similar to our Groundhog Day. The tradition as told to me is to hold a coin in your writing hand and a crêpe pan in the opposite hand, and flip the crêpe into the air. If you manage to catch the crêpe in the pan, your family will be prosperous for the rest of the year. When you catch the crêpe you can yell,: À la Chandeleur, l'hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur or just Hip Hip hooray!

Similar to Groundhog day, the catching of the crêpe tells you the days will grow longer quickly or will be covered in snow and cold for another forty days.

Ultimately, it signals the beginning of the end of winter..., time for fun, eating of crêpes, and the springtime is around the corner, let's celebrate!

So, tomorrow, February 2, get out your crêpe pan, sugar, jam, and nutella and celebrate the day and help bring in the sunshine.

I just read a fantastic funny article by Ian Morrison, a futurist, about why the French feel they are superior and what we can learn about their Health Care system.  I chuckled and laughed the whole way through it because it is all true!!!

Here's the beginning of the article and click further to read the entire story/

"The French have the best health care system in the world. Just ask them. (According to them, they have the best everything in the world, from cheese to lifestyle.) Yet, the World Health Organization and many other international comparative analyses actually do agree that the French are healthy and that the French health system is at, or close to, the top of the list in performance. Are there any lessons that we can learn from France?

Decoding French Culture

All health care systems are a reflection of the values and culture of their country. So you can decode the health care system only if you try to understand the culture. On a recent visit, I did my best to immerse myself in the language and culture to interpret why the French seem to be so healthy and do so well in the health care comparison stakes. This involved a lot of wine and smelly cheese.

Here are some clues:

The country is in a superior location. France is geographically situated as a perfect hexagon (L'Hexagon, they call it) in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, which gives the country beautiful vistas, rich arable land and the finest products of the countryside. From the cheese of Normandy to the olives of Provence and all the wine in between, France has killer natural groceries. Even the poorest peasant (read "guy who just sold his little farm to some chinless Brit hedge fund manager") knows what good organic food is (they call it biologique)."

Read the rest of the article - you will keep on chuckling.

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The difference is the intimacy that occurs in those additional 2 hours. The depth of conversation that takes place. The laughter that occurs. The satiation of eating a long slow dinner.  

As Julia Child said, “It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about-enjoying things.”

Three tips to making a dinner with friends memorable:

• ·        Focus on simple and beautiful. Add a sprig of rosemary or mint on each plate for decoration or a dabble of goat cheese and dried cranberries on your salad. It doesn’t take much to make it taste good and serve as a conversation piece.
  
  
• ·        Spread the word that it will be a long relaxing evening
  In the states there is a feeling that we must be in bed before it is late or the next day will be wasted. The day is scheduled and there is much to do (even if it is Sunday). Let your guests know that you want this to be a special evening when no one rushes and they can kick up their feet. Plan places for kids to fall asleep or watch a stack of DVDs.
  
  
• ·        Plan some conversation starters.  The key to a great evening (besides the food and wine) is the conversation, sharing, and bantering. The joy is in the debate, the philosophizing, and learning from each other. It is not a conversation just about what you are doing, but about what you are feeling, thinking, and wondering about.
  
  Idea: If you are concerned about what you are going to talk about all evening. Have everyone send in or write a question that is on their mind. Throughout the evening choose questions out of the hat and share what everyone thinks.

Take a night and tell everyone to plan on staying until midnight. To know it is a night of conversation, of pleasure, of laughter, of good food. And then create the environment and see what happens!  You will be surprised!

A few examples on how easy it is to have dinner a la Francaise

In our recent trip back to France we were reminded of this wonderful leisurely way of dining with friends. In honor of our return, our friends Mimi and Anton invited us to their house for dinner with another family.. The understanding was the night would be long and full of laughter, talk, and gossip. Hor d’ourves of bruschetti with sliced tomatoes and basil set the stage as Mimi, finished cooking the main course of chicken with a white wine sauce.  Six adults gathered near the kitchen sampling a new variety of wine as  7 kids flitted in and out of the salon grabbing slices of fresh baguette and olives.

By 9pm we were well into our first course, waving compliments at our friend for the rockette salad with avocado and goat cheese. The kids at one end of the table and the adults at another it felt like one big happy family. The wine kept flowing and the dinner kept coming until it was at last time for desert and a small decaf espresso. The kids who had left the table to go watch a DVD fled back for their chocolate mousse with whipped cream.

As the clock tower struck midnight we all realized we hadn’t moved from our chairs except to squeeze closer in as we told funny stories about living in France or asked for answers to questions about life, work, and kids that we were all grappling with.

Gathering our coats and kids we kissed goodbye, three times on one cheek, another, and then back again and spouted continuous thank you’s to our hosts. Leaving the house, Jean and I just smiled at what a terrific long relaxing and stimulating evening we had.

***

The next night we sat down over a huge tourine of lentil soup and fresh baguette and continued to banter with our American friends, Mike and Mary who had moved to France 4 years ago and their two kids. The time flew by and no one got up to leave the table. When a dip in conversation came, the topic turned to something else we could wrap our minds around from the French tax system to the differences between how teenage girls in France and the US to the latest books we read. It was a cross cultural conversation that kept going until after Cinderella’s midnight bell rang.

In reflecting on these dinners and a similar one we had with a French family in California, we realized that this small simple pleasure could bring a lot of joy too many busy Americans. All they have to do is be willing to sleep a little later the next morning.

Blogging for entrepreneurs and especially those providing any type of professional service is becoming as important as a business card. It is no longer enough to have a nice website and even a brochure, but followers, fans, potential clients, ongoing clients, and most important your target market are searching for those who have a unique way of helping them to solve their problems. Your blog becomes your calling card to express what you have to offer in a way that is unique to you.

To get you started and keep the momentum going, try following these 5 steps to writing and posting fun blogs that your readers will find of value.

1. Speak your blog into a digital recorder or an online recorder such as audacity.com. Driving or maybe even taking your daily walk might provide great ideas. Record these ideas and buy a translator program such as Dragon Naturally Speaking and turn your voice into a blog.  Editing once it is transcribed is fast and easy to do.
   
   
2.  If you work with a team, ask them to contribute to the blog. No one said you have to do all the writing or provide all the ideas. Enlist your team to help you.
   
   
3. Include your customers, associates, and partners in blogging with you. Invite key people to contribute to the blog. Possibly ask them questions in which they respond or link your blog to something insightful they have written.
   
   
4. Set a schedule for your blogging. Decide if you will blog once a week, once a day, or every two weeks. Your readers will want to know what to expect from you.  Allow yourself to write drafts of different blogs as ideas pop up and once a week pull one out, edit it, and voila, you have a blog post completed in 15 minutes.
5. Subscribe to a photo service such as dreamstime.comand you will have easy access to inexpensive photos to support your blogs. Pictures tell a thousand words. If you are an amateur photographer, feel free to include your own photos as well and put your name in the photo credits. This is a great way to develop more of a relationship with your customers.

Enjoy the process and the opportunity to speak directly to your target market and customers and ask for feedback.  

So,, tell me what you think of my blog and what you would like me to write more about. Thanks for reading.

I always thought achieving goals was more about hard work, dedication, persistence, and a vision. Yes this is also important, but what I am realizing more and more each day is that what is getting in my way of having the great life I want is when I go off the deep end into negative thinking, doubts, fears, and impatience.  In reading (and listening) to what the Law of Attraction is about, how simple it is in theory and yet hard it is to train our minds to focus our thoughts consistently.

I am getting more and more clear that achieving the goals, lives, and our potential is all about focusing on those Good Feeling Thoughts, no matter what. Even if I have a hard day, I need to focus my thoughts on what I am appreciating in the moment, what makes me happy right now. Simultaneously (being a practical person) I need to change my thinking to " a looking forward thought." For example, "I am looking forward to all the abundance that is coming into my life and open to the many surprises and people who are coming into my life to support me in achieving what I desire."

So, for this year my one and only New Years resolution and goal is to have "Good Feeling Thoughts" about everything and attract abundance in all areas of my life. It doesn't mean I won't ever feel sad, depressed, defeated, rejected, or worried, but I know that those feelings don't serve me to reach my potential and that is what I want my life to be about.

Love you all and join me in attracting what you want in your life this year.

Are you tired of not getting past February before you have broken your New Years Resolutions? Join the club you are not alone, but yet there is a science to actually having the chance to succeed.  

To avoid being in the majority and breaking your New Years Resolutions and Goals, consider why this might be happening and do the opposite.

1. It’s all or Nothing –Goals are a marker for the direction in which you want to take your life, especially if these goals are related to behavior changes. Provide yourself with a bit of wiggle room in terms of the exact number, timeline or experience you want to create.  Thinking such as you loose 25 pounds or you don’t, you save $10,000 or you don’t, you find a perfect person to share your life with or you don’t often cause us to stop short of our goal when any roadblock is thrown up inhibiting us from reaching it.  Often goals are not achieved by following a straight line. 

Instead of the all or nothing thinking, aim for progress. Aim for mastering your goal a little bit better than you have. After all one day a week of Yoga is better than none. Losing 5 pounds is better than gaining 5.   It might seem like a cope out, but when goals are especially tied to behavior change progress does make perfect.

2. We don’t reward ourselves enough and often enough. Small rewards provide us with an impetus to continue. A pat on the back, a compliment, a good feeling for the day will keep us on track. Don’t wait to reward yourself until you have reached the magic number, every step in the right direction counts.

3. No action plan to propel you along.   If you are going to set a goal, write out your action plan, get support, and make it manageable. Exercising once a week might be all you can commit to, find an exercise buddy, pay for a personal trainer, and put it into your calendar just like any other appointment. This goes for any goal—write a plan to make it come true.

4. Make the resolution something that will give you more pleasure than pain.
Many goals are nice to have but when the going gets tough we don’t have enough pleasure associated with it to keep going. Most people are more motivated by running away from pain than seeking pleasure. Turn up the heat and help the pain motivate you. Is it worth it to have a heart attack and leave your family to fend for themselves if you don’t lose weight? Is it worth it to be depressed in a dead end job for the next year because you are afraid? Make the intolerable, more intolerable and watch what happens to your motivation- it soars.

5. Your resolution is not tied to a bigger dream or vision
People who achieve goals and sustain the results have usually tied the goal to a bigger dream or vision. How is the goal of spending time with your family tied to your bigger vision of your life and dreams? How is the goal of being healthy and fit tied to your
vision of living a good long life?  Tie your New Years Resolutions a bigger vision and dream and see what happens. 

6.  Too Many Resolutions.  Having too many resolutions especially if they require a major life or behavior change is difficult to maintain over the long term. Shorten your list and find one resolution or goal that you want to achieve and apply all the factors to it to make it become a reality

7.  Use the Law of Attraction. Why not use all the tools at your disposal. Focus your thoughts in a positive way on attracting what you want. When negative thoughts pop up replace them with feeling-good thoughts such as, “I am looking forward to the pounds falling off me.” Keep it up and you will be amazed how good you feel and how the pounds come off.

If you are an expert, author, or have ideas you want to pitch, sign up for a few daily newsletters where journalists are asking for expert advice. In doing so, take time to write a good bio (as the journalists) will receive them and pitch only those that are in your sweet spot.

A new site I came across is Pitchrate.com and HARO (help a reporter out). You can sign up as a journalist (or blogger) and pitch your ideas as an expert.

Pitchrate's differentiator is that journalists will rate your pitches and let others know if you are honest, on target, and a good resource. As a result, be careful and take your time to make a good pitch.

I urge you to subscribe for a few weeks and see if anything interesting pops up. It's worth the free PR you might get and if you are a blogger it is a great resource to use for your own research.

This past Saturday, our family headed out to San Francisco to immerse ourselves in the festivities of the holidays and treat ourselves to our mini-vacation. Leaving our home in Marin county at 10 am we headed out to one of our favorite districts - Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights for a bit of shopping and an early lunch at Le Mediterranean, a small Greek restaurant that has been there for over 25 years.  Next we headed down the hill to the Marina where Zoe-Pascale wanted to get desert at Miette, a French Bakery on Chestnut Street and so we said, "Why not. It is our vacation-- anything goes."

In our 20s and early 30s Jean and I had lived in these two areas and we felt our heartstrings being pulled back to the time we were young and childless, hanging out with friends at nearby restaurants. Gazing around we felt nostalgic and sad to say a bit older.

Having booked a hotel at the Marriott downtown we decided to save some of our budget and instead of paying for parking downtown we parked on a side street in the Marina district and took the 30 Stockton down to Union Square. A savings of over $80. This bus ride became our next amusement as Zoe had only ridden the bus once before when she was much younger. Arriving at the hotel, we checked in a bit early and headed off to Union Square for a bit of shopping, a browse through the bookstores, a twirl on the ice at the skating ring, and watching the twinkling lights of Macy's windows come to life with bright wreaths shining with tiny white lights with big red bows.

Back at the hotel we took a rest, read and adorned ourselves in our fancier attire for dinner out at Lulus, a nouveau California cuisine with a brick oven and the best roasted chicken in the city. Splurging on dinner we ordered 3 types of appetizers, the roasted beets and ricotta cheese on bruschetti, were amazing and Zoe sipped her Shirley Temple while we toasted to the future. An hour later we were all satiated with a beef steak, a cassoulet, and fresh tomato Margarita pizza.

By this time we were at hour 10 and felt like we had been gone for days. Returning to the hotel we took a dip in the indoor pool with jacuzzi big enough for 16 and snuggled into bed to watch the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For us this is a big treat as we have no TV at home and our screen is the size of a computer (in fact that is what we watch DVDs on). As a result, the large flat LCD screen jumped out at us with the beauty of Charlie's Chocolate Factory.

22 hours later, we awoke and I happily went down to Starbucks to bring back "Room Service Budget style." Two lattes and a hot chocolate served with hot oatmeal beat the room service breakfast and coffee and at a great price. By 10, we were packed and ready to head out to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Anniversary show, lunch at a nearby cafe, and a whirl around Nordstroms.

By 3pm we grabbed our luggage and headed over to the busstop to catch the bus back to the Marina District. The day which had started out beautiful and bright turned an ugly gray with drizzles threatening to turn big. We are on vacation we said, it doesn't matter, let's end the day with a great walk along Crissey Field from the Marina Green to the Golden Gate Bridge. Over the years the city had upgraded the running/walking path, enlarged the beaches, and provided a vast space for everyone to both exercise and relish in the beauty of the bay. Wrapped in raincoats and carrying umbrellas we forged ahead talking about the new year and what we wanted for ourselves, each other, and the world.

The beauty of the wild bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the peacefulness we felt was such a contrast to the crowds of the city center and Union Square during the Holidays. And yet here we were not even 3 miles away and it was a different world.

The 30 hour mini-vacation might just be the next thing that comes into fashion as hotels look for guests and tourism trys to find vacationers. Meanwhile, create your own, one night hotel is cheaper than two, meals can be at the low or high end, entertainment is vast, and the idea of just getting away for one night is sometimes all you need. 

The secret is find:

•  a great place to stay at a good price,
• a hotel that allows you to walk places, and has a pool (indoor in winter).
• an area where there is something everyone can enjoy

These key elements allow everyone to feel like your 30 hour mini vacation was tailored for them and is as memorable as any other vacation.

In practicing it with her I recognized how this poem is relevant as today as it was when he wrote it (1874-1963). Take a few minutes and read this poem and realize how we all have to choose different roads in different times in our lives and hopefully our choices have made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.