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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…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 23 – Serenity & Changing the World
November 24, 2020 In 30 Chic Days At Home, Day 23 is titled “Create order.” Author Fiona Ferris writes about how she works at keeping her sense of inner peace and tranquility during her typical day at home when her home nation, New Zealand, was in CoVid-19 lockdown in Spring of 2020. For Fiona (and most humans,) a degree of outer order provides a calming support for a sense of inner order and serenity. Being at home with everyone in the house definitely creates more disorder as the house is being used more than is customary. Three meals a day and people and pets in all areas of the house…
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A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 7 – “Confinement” Chic
November 9, 2020 In chapter (“Day”) 7 of 30 Chic Days At Home, Fiona discusses how we care for and present ourselves as a way to keep our morale boosted. She wrote her book during New Zealand’s first “lockdown” month which started 25 March 2020 and lasted until the end of April-mid-May. This was Autumn in New Zealand so Fiona’s style preferences were directed towards cold-weather friendly clothing. The main point that she makes in this chapter is that how we dress ourselves influences our emotional setting. We want to be especially intentional in building “mood-lifters” into our day when we are going through tough times. It doesn’t really matter…
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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 2 – Food Is Life
April 18, 2020 I skipped Days 1, 2 & 3 from Fiona’s Ferris’s book, 30 Chic Days, when I started blogging each day of Paris’s CoVid-19 lockdown. (I started writing on Day 4 of Paris’s lockdown so wanted to start on Day 4 of Fiona’s book.) When I went back and reread those days in the book, however, I found too much valuable insight in each day to just cavalierly skip them. Let’s take a look at those first three days of 30 Chic Days before we close the book. Fiona Ferris calls Day 2 “Eat Real Food” in her book 30 Chic Days. In this chapter, she writes about…
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Health Values and Visiting Great Cooks
This past weekend, I picked an idea for handling “holiday” stress from one of Fiona Ferris’s other books, A Chic and Simple Christmas to try. It just so happens that on this weekend, I traveled to visit some wonderful extended family members. So, why was I reading ideas on how to handle stress, you naturally ask. Well, not only are the family members wonderful people, they are also wonderful cooks. And I am trying to follow a Keto food plan (basically, eating very low sugar/low carb.) It’s been surprisingly easy to adapt to this approach as long as I am not surrounded by delicious home-baked sweets, donuts, cakes, cookies…. all…
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Inspiration and Creativity as Springboards to a Beautifully-Lived Life
Want to add a sparkle to your day? Read Thirty More Chic Days: Creating an Inspired Mindset for a Magical Life by Fiona Ferris. Ferris offers a month of ideas that will turbocharge your inner Parisian chic-ster (and upgrade your daily life experience.) Each chapter represents a day in the month. And each day, the author presents an idea to “up-level” the reader’s ordinary life experience. Whether it’s an idea to free one’s creativity or an idea to set aside a little time for additional self-care, each nugget of advice is gently and persuasively described. One cannot help but be inspired by the author’s sense of enthusiasm and ingenuity! Her…
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Younger Next Year & Thinner This Year, What’s Not to Love?
Laugh-out-loud funny, irreverent, thought-provoking Chris Crowley (and Henry Lodge, MD, and Jennifer Sachek, PhD) will have you snickering your way to a healthier, happier & more youthful you – no matter what your age or stage of life is. Chris, Harry and Jen have my sweetheart and me rethinking the next stage of our life. And with Chris driving the discussion, it’s a hilarious and encouraging experience. The topic is deep – what do we think our last third of our lives will like and exactly how do we want to be living it? Chris definitely got us thinking and even more important, through his boisterous good humor and wily…