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Notes from Chic Blogging Challenge over Paris’s CoVid-19 Lockdown (3)
June 12, 2020 For the Paris Spring 2020 CoVid-19 Lockdown, I followed Fiona Ferris’s 2 books (30 Chic Days and 30 More Chic Days) day-by-day and tried to implement each day’s recommendation. For the next several posts, I will write about what I learned through my 60-day assignment: In her book, 30 Chic Days, author Fiona Ferris writes about rest on (chapter) Day 22. I wrote a short post of how I interpret and apply Fiona’s idea of “beauty sleep” here. Sleep, and all the good things that it does for us, is back on my mind this week. I thought that the CoVid-19 lockdown in Paris (and elsewhere around…
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Notes from Chic Blogging Challenge over Paris’s CoVid-19 Lockdown (2)
June 5, 2020 For the Paris Spring 2020 CoVid-19 Lockdown, I followed Fiona Ferris’s 2 books (30 Chic Days and 30 More Chic Days) day-by-day and tried to implement each day’s recommendation. For the next several posts, I will write about what I learned through my 60-day assignment: Day 20 in 30 More Chic Days is titled “Have a daily success plan.” Fiona writes about how she created a structure for her days that was both flexible enough to allow her to make use of creative time and supportive enough to help her accomplish important tasks in a timely manner. She didn’t find traditional to-do lists to be that effective…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 30 – What Our Feelings May Be Telling Us
May 19, 2020 Day 30 is titled “Focus On Creating Your Own Beautiful Life” in 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris. In this chapter, Fiona discusses that not-so-delightful feeling of envy that can occur when we start comparing our life, activities and/or possessions with someone else’s life, activities and stuff. Fiona mentions this dynamic in her first book, 30 Chic Days, (which I reviewed here.) In this chapter, Fiona approaches the topic of envy from a slightly different angle. She writes about how she started comparing her life with someone else and felt that her own life seemed a bit boring. She began to feel unmotivated and that everything…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 29 – Chic or Foe?
May 18, 2020 “Incorporate Chic Anchors Throughout Your Home and Life” is the title of Day 29 of Fiona Ferris’s book, 30 More Chic Days. Fiona encourages us to quietly add small habits of beauty into our daily experience. Not only are these small rituals beautiful in and of themselves but they serve to support the chic elements of our lives. It’s all too easy in the rush of a busy life to lose focus of our sincere desire to live an elegant life and drift into … less beautiful and fulfilling ways of living. Our chic anchors serve as the guardians of our heart’s desire. Having only smaller, luncheon-sized…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 28 – Travel Chic
May 17, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 28 “Get Your Chic Travel Game On” in her book 30 More Chic Days. She shares some of her favorite traveling tips and how they help make her travel experience easy and enjoyable. She has found that planning everything out in advance – using a packing list, a travel checklist plus laying her prospective travel wardrobe out on her bed a week in advance of her travel date – makes packing for her trip much easier. With her travel capsule wardrobe carefully thought out and everything in tip-top condition, she is free to enjoy her trip from start to finish. My family and…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 26 – Own Your Space
May 15, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 26 “Create Your Own Designer Decor Look For Less” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. In this Day, Fiona talks to us about our home space. She discusses how she has developed her own look using inspiration from magazine articles, Pinterest and advertisements. She admires the sensibility of Ralph Lauren’s home product line – an English country house style and comfortable and layered. (The layered look, she describes, as something that combines high-quality pieces with rich colors and textures so that the room looks like it has had items added to it over years or even generations.) She does confess that she…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 24 – Bloom in Place
May 13, 2020 “How To Love Where You Live” is Day 24 in Fiona Ferris’s 30 More Chic Days. Fiona discusses how we can make the most of our present location even if it not our “forever” place. She advises us to take our “dream” location and really analyze what is it that resonates with us. If we can describe both the particular attributes and the emotions that the “dream” location evokes in us, it may be possible to incorporate some of the list items in our present experience. This chapter has some good ideas. Even if we are feeling “stuck” in a geographic location that feels as inhospitable and…
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A Chic French Lockdown – Day 22 – Schedule “Chic” Day
May 11, 2020 In 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris, Day 22 is “French Friday.” The idea behind the term “French Friday,” according to Fiona, is that there was a set-aside day specifically to try a new idea to incorporate something small and “French” into her week. It was nice to have a day on the calendar when she would intentionally try a new chic idea or bring back an old idea that had inexplicably fallen by the wayside. Fiona writes that she might upgrade one aspect of self-care, put on her favorite “Paris Cafe” playlist while she was preparing dinner the kitchen or maybe she might plan to…
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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 19 – Just Do It.
May 8, 2020 Fiona Ferris calls Day 19 “Don’t Talk, Just Do” in her book, 30 More Chic Days. She writes that when she talks about a new idea or a project she’s excited about, the energy to actually implement the idea seems to slip away in the sea of words. Likewise, there are some projects that she’s been talking about forever, yet there never seems to be the time to do it. Fiona advises us to keep the big idea or life change a silent project. Using the words of the Nike advertisement, she encourages us to “Just Do it.” So, in the spirit of this Day: Whatever we’re…