Paris Lockdown - 30 More Chic Days
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 20 – Planning for Calm & Success
May 9, 2020 Day 20 is titled “Have A Daily Success Plan” in 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris. When Fiona transitioned to a full-time-at-home-writer life, she found that her time management skills needed an update to suit her new environment. In her previous work environment, the structure of having a business location and regular business hours provided by default a structure to her overall life. Without the scaffolding of those out-of-home required hours, she found that she could all too easily drift from task to task and day to day without achieving what she wanted to achieve. The construct of a simple to-do list didn’t meet her needs.…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 16 – Choose Happy
May 5, 2020 In 30 More Chic Days, Fiona Ferris titles Day 16 “Be the Happiest Person You Know.” She encourages us to consciously adopt a positive, optimistic outlook on life. This “Day” is all about what is going on inside our heads. This has nothing to do with winning the lottery or discovering the cure for cancer. It’s all about how we want to feel deep down inside, right here and now. Fiona writes that given a choice between being around someone who is smiling and happy to share a new interest with you or being around someone who is all “gloom and doom”, “the world is going to…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 15 – Dining With Style
May 4, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 15 “Elevate Your Dining Experience” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. Her idea is that we are chic and elegant individuals and we can enjoy an attractive and elegant dining experience. Her suggestion is to use cloth napkins. She claims that they are low maintenance, friendlier to the environment than paper napkins and look much nicer. We will both enjoy by our lovelier, more refined table and be inspired to be a bit lovelier and more refined with our eating choices and table manners. I wasn’t quite sold on the claim that the cloth napkins would be low maintenance with my two…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 14 – Elegant and Active At All Ages
May 3, 2020 Fiona Ferris titles Day 14 “Grow Better Every Year” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. She writes about aging as “growing better each year.” Fiona definitely has a good point about how our attitude and our actions have a great deal with determining how we experience any of our years. Our later years are likewise heavily influenced by our mental perspective and habits. We’ve all seen inspiring examples of people who move with grace and vitality through different stages of life. And we’ve seen the sad opposite. Our best option, as Fiona writes, is to create a chic vision of the people we want to be…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 13 – How To Be a “Lockdown” Chic Success
May 2, 2020 “Become A Chic Success” is Fiona Ferris’s Day 13 in her book, 30 More Chic Days. Fiona encourages us to really think about what our personal vision of a chic and successful life would be. Whatever springs to mind, write it down. With the list, we now have a motivating individualized blueprint of how we wanted to live our lives. I love the idea of it! Our question, according to Fiona, would be “If I was a chic success, what would my life look like?” I’m definitely interested in discovering what my picture of “chic success'” is with regard to my overall life. At the moment, however,…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 12 – Easy Does It
May 1, 2020 “Be Easy To Get Along With” is Day 12 in 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris. Fiona writes that she wants to become “an easy-going, pleasant and positive person who travels lightly through life and enjoys a happy-go-lucky disposition.” She found that she was happier herself when she chose to see the world in an optimistic, upbeat way and to act in kind and down-to-earth ways. Even though things are often not perfect, she has found how to keep her internal setting at a positive level which allows her to enjoy her day. We are all getting a lesson on how to be calm and easy-going…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 11 – Rest & Recharge
April 30, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 11 “Honour Your Feminine Heart” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. In this chapter, Fiona writes about the need to take a break from our daily to-do list and do an activity that feeds our souls. Or to be more accurate, schedule a little time as part of our to-do list to do something purely for joy. It seems as if modern life adores busy, busy, busy. I sometimes wonder within my own, American culture if the cult of “busy” and “over-scheduled” is considered to be a mark of pride. If you ask someone how are they doing, the answer is…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 10 – How to Use That La Vacance Feeling!
April 29, 2020 Day 10 is “From Paris to the South of France” in 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris. When Fiona moved from the city to a more rural village in New Zealand, she used the idea of being a Parisian who had moved to the South of France to help her adjust to and enjoy the transition to her new location. Transition can be difficult even if it’s a hoped-for and planned change. By using her imagination and framing the transition in a uniquely inspiring way, Fiona was able to have fun with the process. Living here in lockdown Paris, transition seems to be the…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 9 – Channel Chanel
April 28, 2020 “Have a Closet Like Coco” is the title for Day 9 in Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 More Chic Days. Fiona writes that Coco Chanel can give us a few pointers for living the chic life of our dreams. Coco created a unique, specific style vision for herself and she lived according to that vision. What the rest of the world was doing and wearing was not important to her. Coco’s style was comfortable, distinctive and timeless. Her color palette was flattering and consistent. She created a style that suited her preferences and her lifestyle and stuck with it throughout her life. What can we learn from…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 8 – Summer Style
April 27, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 8 “Be Chic In The Summer” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. Fiona writes about how she keeps her “chic” when temperatures and humidity are high. She addresses wardrobe, hair and skincare. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this “Day” is particularly appropriate because summer is rapidly approaching. I looked at two parts of this chapter: clothes and hair. When I live in the US, I’m in a very hot, humid Southern state. To compound the challenge, most indoor spaces like grocery stores or department stores have the air-conditioning temperature set very low. I kid you not, I keep…