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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 14 – Wellness and the Holiday Frenzy
December 16, 2020 In A Chic and Simple Christmas, author Fiona Ferris stresses the idea of keeping ourselves healthy during the holiday season. In her case, she writes about how, during the holidays, she had the tendency to go to bed later, maybe miss some walks or workouts and, of course, eat Christmas sweets. These things combined with a busier holiday schedule can make anyone start feeling a bit physically worn out but also a bit mentally more fragile to the stress and bustle of the season. “Wellness” is a word that I see often in popular media. Usually accompanied by beautiful photographs of slim women wearing yoga clothes (in…
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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 13 – Take A Break
December 15, 2020 In Fiona Ferris’s book, A Chic and Simple Christmas, the author mentions that it’s okay to rest when one is tired. We seem to live in a time that idolizes “busy, busy, busy.” Whenever I talk to someone and ask how are they – the answer invariably is a breathless “SO busy” with words falling over themselves at top speed. I fall into this mindset quite easily, too. Today was a good example of starting out with a lovely plan for the day only to somehow get to that breathless, stressed, “busy, busy, busy” mode by mid-afternoon. (Just to be clear here, I am not an emergency…
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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 12 – Declutter the ‘Fridge
December 14, 2020 It’s mid-December – 10 days until Christmas Eve. There’s been a bit of drift with the investment cooking schedule. The creamy chicken chowder has moved to Wednesday. A crustless Quiche Lorraine-ish hopped onto this afternoon’s project list in its place. (I call it Lorraine-ish because there is ham and gruyere cheese in it but also there is some leftover sauteed onions and some roasted red peppers that had been hanging about in the ‘fridge for the last little while.) I make a large crustless quiche almost every other weekend. The quiche acts as a recipient for any leftover veggies and as an easy, hearty lunch during the…
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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 6 – Declutter Before Decorate
December 8, 2020 In chapter 1 of A Chic and Simple Christmas, author Fiona Ferris has a topic heading titled “Declutter what doesn’t fit your vision of a chic Christmas.” In this section, Fiona writes that each year, she donates those of her Christmas decorations that no longer “feel right” for her house. That way, someone else can use and love the items. Fiona also benefits because she has the joy of having only those decorations in view that truly are meaningful and beautiful to her eye. I didn’t have the challenge of evaluating my collection of Christmas decorations this year to see which ones “spark joy” as Marie Kondo…
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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 4 – Breath
December 6, 2020 In 30 Chic Days At Home, author Fiona Ferris writes “Take the Wins.” She encourages us to focus on the good things that we are doing. When we pay attention to what we are doing well and to those things that we enjoy, we enjoy them even more and, more importantly, we do more of whatever it is. Today is the day after my family’s “Thanksgiving” celebration. (We celebrated a week later than the actual American Thanksgiving holiday because my husband was traveling over the actual day.) I detail how the day actually progressed in yesterday’s post. (Hint: it had its ups and downs, as far as…
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A Chic Paris Holiday Season – Day 3 – The To-Do List Goes Rogue
December 5, 2020 In Fiona Ferris’s book, A Chic and Simple Christmas, she explores different ways to create a beautiful holiday season that respects and nurtures her needs and preferences. In other words, she has thought about specific holiday activities and expectations that make her feel happy and comfortable and what holiday things make her feel stressed out and exhausted. Like many of us, Fiona would prefer to feel like she has plenty of relaxed time to enjoy the holiday season. Holiday seasons introduce special activities that come in on top of our already existing daily and weekly to-do lists (hint: doing the laundry does not stop for war or…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 30 – Plan Ahead
December 2, 2020 Day 30 is titled “Future plans” in 30 Chic Days at Home by Fiona Ferris. Fiona has made a list of fun things to look forward to for her near future. The spice of these fun activities gives her hope and the anticipation of interesting things to do even during a difficult year such 2020. Like Fiona says in this chapter, large fun things like big holiday trips are probably not in my immediate future. But I can think of several smaller fun things that would be fun to do over the next few months as France (hopefully) slowly emerges from our second national lockdown of the…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 29 – To Thine Own Self Be True…
December 1, 2020 Day 29 is “Be different to everyone else” in Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 Chic Days At Home. Fiona suggests that we step aside from the news and talk shows and popular culture for a moment (only a moment! No one-way ticket to a deserted island without internet access required for this exercise.) In this moment, Fiona encourages us to choose a more positive (and interesting) way to engage with the world around us by focusing on something other than CoVid-19 and the difficult circumstances of 2020. She gives us several other things that we could use for our thoughts and our conversations – things like what books…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 27 – Beautiful Mornings
November 29, 2020 “Luxurious mornings” is what Fiona Ferris calls Day 27 in her book, 30 Chic Days at Home. She details how a lovely morning routine starts her out on her day feeling pampered and refreshed. An interesting detail she adds is that she has a shower squeegee hanging on a hook in the shower. After she turns the water off, she can give the walls and doors a quick swipe and the shower looks (almost) effortlessly pristine. So, not only does she have a beautiful morning routine that gets her up and moving and feeing motivated and pampered, but she also has a very quick step in her…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 26 – Sleep That Knits Up The Ravell’d Sleeve of Care…
November 28, 2020 Day 26 is titled “Take a nap” in Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 Chic Days At Home. She writes that she found herself more tired than usual during her home nation New Zealand’s lockdown in Spring of 2020. Interestingly, she notes that the news had reported that many people are feeling more tired than usual during this stressful period. Here in Paris, it’s day one of France’s slow walk out of a month of lockdown. In contrast to the last four weeks of sleepy quiet, my neighborhood market street and the main shopping street are hopping with masked pedestrians. Every shop seems to be decorated for the Christmas…