First, I'd like to thank all the members who have shown such a warm welcome to me and my family this first year in France! A special shout-out to my Bar de Arcades Sainte Foy coffee ladies - you're the best! 

In August 2022, my husband, our then 11-year-old daughter and I, decided to embark on an adventure, relocating from America to France. We chose France over Spain, Portugal, and Italy for its lifestyle, food, language, and culture. The French government's self-employment micro-entrepreneur visa was a deciding factor too, to which we applied as soon as we discovered I qualified! 

This first year, our daughter has attended Élie Faure College in Port Sainte Foy, made a wonderful small group of friends, and is speaking French in middle-school slang that leaves me clueless.  

She'll go to Le Cluzeau in Sigoules-et-Flaugeac next year, please let me know if you know any other families that attend there!

I've spent the year setting up my business here in France as required by my visa, and my husband has been the admin ninja for school, visas, driving licenses, healthcare, filing French taxes, etc, etc. So basically...he works more than me. 

My work is as a qualified Life and Leadership coach helping business owners get their life back. I do this through personalized productivity tools, guided personal & professional development work, and applying work / life design principles so life feels fun, fulfilling and sustainable. Really, I just tell everyone to move to France now. Kidding, but only a little!  

A few fun or interesting parts of my history: 

• · I grew up with no formal schooling but graduated as a Registered Nurse with honors at age 20 in 1999. 

• · I Left a religous cult at 18. I lost all my friends but one who realized he was gay and left too. We both had anxiety we'd be struck dead together in Armegedon for years. 

• · I Went to pastry school and helped start a vegan bakery in Houston, Texas, but quit both when we found out we were pregnant.

• · I Married and divorced the same guy TWICE by the age of 27, before finding the love of my life, Jason. We've been together 17 years, married for 14. 

• · I once started and ran a non-profit, voluteer lead neighborhood farmer's market in the US. 

• · We Built our dream house, but then when our daughter was about 4 years old, realized the "American Dream" lifestyle was making us both miserable. We sold it and a car, got rid of half of what we owned, I quit my job to change careers, we moved to a little apartment on a bus line to my husbands office and started a whole new chapter of our lives. 

• · We survived BOTH Hurricaine Harvey in Houston and the Marsall Fires in Superior and Lousville Colorado - one of largest urban floods on record and one of the largest urban fires in recent history. 

• · We moved to Boulder County in Colorado in the middle of the Pandemic. It's beautiful and I still miss the Rocky Mountains.

• · When we moved to France, we had never been here except Paris for 3 days when we were dating. We chose this area for weather, proximity to an airport, cost of living, and finding a house to rent that would take our cat! But luckily, Southwest France has turned out to be wonderful and I'm so glad we landed here. 

Now :

I love doing yoga with Lizzy in Pardaillan, I read everything but horror, hosting leisurly dinner parties is my favorite thing, and I hope to learn to play the piano and tennis at some point in my life!

I could not be more grateful for the DCLI and I'm so thankful to the president and board of DCLI that keeps this organization running. Thank you!!