Love you, Posh Victoria!

Posh Spice.

Too thin, too posh, too moody.

Stylish woman, working and loving mom.

Is she too lucky?

Does she have too much fun?

Well, live with it. She is.

Love you, Victoria.

xoxo

Mapping and Mentoring with Marney

 

Have you ever just wished someone could hand you a literal map...with all the steps and paths mapped out to get directly to your creative dream? That's exactly what happens in "Mapping and Mentoring with Marney", a dynamic business mentoring experience with Marney Makridakis from ArtellaLand.com. I think this program sounds fascinating and encourage you to take a look! Get info here!

 

 

 

Marney is the epitome of a Coach’s Coach: the ideal mentor who moves us where didn’t think we could go, the ultimate light force of intuition. I am so appreciative of her open, loving, non-judgmental approach and her deep knowledge and expertise as she holds the flame of deep belief for all of us. Thank you for being a true teacher, intuitive guide, fellow traveler and friend.

 

 

Planting, harvesting and your fair share

When there is scarcity, we worry a lot about getting our fair share—what goes to him doesn't go to me. The harvest becomes fraught with danger and competition.

When we worry more about planting, though, sharing the harvest gets a lot less complex.

Plant enough seeds and the scarcity eases. In fact, if you plant enough, you'll never have to think twice about the harvesting.

-Seth Godin

Strategies for Work-Life Balance

 

 

Hello dear friends,

To start the week with our best foot forward, I am sharing here a very interesting article I read on Oprah, about work life and home life.

let us be thankful for having a job to go to and let us pray that those who don't, may find a job to sustain them and their families.

Amen.

(My own comments follow at the end of the article)



You have a work life. You have a home life. And you have, in all probability, forgotten how to keep them separate. Martha Beck discusses the importance of building a barrier between the way you make your living and the way you live.

The time has come to write. I feel this on an almost cellular level. Why? Because I'm sitting in my writing chair, wearing my writing glasses, chewing my writing gum. Now, I could sit in this chair, wear these glasses, and chew this gum while knitting tea cozies, juggling jelly beans, and husking corn (just not at the same time). But I wouldn't. See, I write at home, and I've learned the hard way that unless I strictly divide my writing time from everything else, my work bleeds into my home life. Then I can never relax, because, just like an ax murderer in a horror movie, my work is always lurking.

These days almost all of us work at home to some extent. Maybe you spend evenings brooding over spreadsheets from the office. Maybe you're in the house all day doing the hardest work imaginable: caring for the young, the old, or the ill. Or maybe, like me, you have a job—sort of—but no official physical workplace. All of which is to say that when I talk about "home" versus "work," I mean the activities that replenish your energy versus the ones that drain it. In an age when bleed-through is the new normal, it's more crucial than ever to separate the two. Here are some strategies that help me.

1. Establish a replenishing inner "state of home."

Some people spend years in an office cubicle without ever feeling the energetic involvement of real work; others do brilliant, inspired work without ever leaving their bed. This is because both work and home are first and foremost states of mind. So to begin separating your work life and home life, we'll concentrate on creating a mental "state of home" inside your head.

To do this, focus on memories that feel relaxing, nourishing, replenishing—in a word, homey. Remember baking with your grandmother, or talking with your sister, or snuggling in bed with a loved one (fabulous sex is an excellent way to feel at home, as is cuddling with your beloved collie—just not at the same time).

If you don't have many homey memories, your mental state of home may feel tepid at first. Persist! Remember the most comforting times and places you can: the branches of the tall tree where bullies couldn't reach you, Uncle Joe's bomb shelter, the warmest corner of the prison yard. (Ideally, you're looking for a sense of joyful replenishment, but happy relaxation is nearly as good, pleasant neutrality will do, familiar boredom is better than nothing, and defensible concealment—well, you get the idea.)

Once you come up with three memories that qualify, hold in mind the feelings they bring, while silently repeating, "Home. Home. Home."

2. Establish a productive inner "state of work."

If you're lucky, you do the kind of work that sparks your creativity and makes you want to meet its challenges. For me that work is writing: Although I find it hellishly hard, it's the first thing I turn to when I need to express myself or understand the world. I love its very difficulty.

Most of my clients, however, are work Nazis. They think they should force themselves to do things they loathe. If this is your mental "state of work," it's also the way you'll feel about your job, and it will follow you home—likely in the form of depression or rage. You absolutely must create a mental work state more like what psychologists call flow, the total absorption that comes from doing something that interests you at the upper edge of your ability level.

Even if your current job feels more like imprisonment than flow, you can still create a productive mental work state. Start by remembering any kind of effort that absorbed you enough to make time disappear. If after racking your brain nothing comes to mind, periods of interested problem solving will do nearly as well, and moments of productive effort will suffice in a pinch. Tedious repetition is as low as you want to go here (if your job is so awful that it doesn't yield even an hour of tolerable slog, it's time to hire a life coach). Now focus on the three best work activities you can remember, smoosh them together in your head, and silently repeat, "Work. Work. Work."

3. Use your mental states to create physical spaces.

The next step in keeping your work and home lives healthy and pristine is creating physical environments that support each side. Let's start with your homespace. Find the spot in your current domicile that best matches the feeling of your mental home state—a room, a corner, the box your refrigerator came in. Bring into this space any objects or beings that make it feel even homier. These may include your kids, your parakeet, your softest quilt, and your dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades of Grey (just not at the same time).

Next, use the same strategy to create a workspace, whether you're a full-time parent or a merchant marine. Find a space that—no pun intended—works for you, and bring in the people and things that make you feel productive: a fresh notebook, a team of coworkers, a mule. I myself am motivated by high-quality tools (anything from a fancy-schmancy computer to a hammer), absolute solitude, and of course my writing chair, writing glasses, and writing gum—the combination makes me itch to work. Whatever places, people, and things support your internal work state, gather them!

4. Separate your homespace from your workspace.

Once you've assembled a bunch of homey things in your homiest possible place, and a bunch of worky things in your workiest possible place, separate them like a Puritan chaperone dividing teenagers. Even if your office is 90 miles away from your house, some worky things will inevitably infiltrate your home—your job is to keep them out of your designated homespace. If you work in your house or apartment, you'll need to be extra vigilant. When you're not working, put all work-related things out of sight. Cover them with a sheet, if necessary.

By the same token, don't bring a lot of homey things into your workspace. Doing so will distract and confuse you. There's a reason service dogs mustn't be petted or played with when they're wearing their work vests: They need to be clear that they're on the job. But when the vests come off, service-dog owners must play with their animals in order to keep them from becoming exhausted and depressed. You're the same way: Having clear boundaries will help you work enthusiastically, then truly rest.

5. Actually use your homespace and workspace.

Only one thing now remains: time in the saddle. The more time you spend doing only homey things in your homespace and only worky things in your workspace, the more you'll develop the state-dependent memory that will trigger the associations you want in either place. When you enter your homespace, you'll automatically relax, effortlessly dropping effort and negative office juju. (If the urge to think or talk about work arises, note it, then picture it evaporating like steam.) And when it's time to work, the genuine R&R you've enjoyed will help everything you do feel more like flow.

6. Watch the Zen master in you emerge.

If you don't find this exercise helpful, you're certainly free to keep day-trading while nursing your twins, or stacking paperwork on every surface in your home, including the oven racks. But I think if you experiment with the methods I've described, you'll come to appreciate them. One definition of Zen is simply "doing one thing at a time"—which goes a long way toward explaining why Zen masters look so calm and live so long. I want you to love going to work, and to love being home. Just not at the same time.

Article by Martha Beck and illustration from here.

 

May I add that it helps alot being present, living in the present moment.

If you work, you work. It is no use to think of the chores you left behind. focus on the task on hand.

For me it is also essential to spend some time with objects and actions not related to business, even not related to home and family.

Do something for yourself every day:

Wake up 15 min earlier thatn usual and

read a prayer or psalm,

have a lazy breakfast ,

or make a mood board using the latest magazines,

your kind of thing that nurishes your personal needs.

Most of all,

enjoy Life and

Be Thankful to God

for another beautiful morning that you are blessed to see.

 

You like my pins?

U like my pins?

So glad you do!

There are so many things, so much beauty,

so many colours, peaceful or envigorating to inspire us every moment.

So, keep pinning with me and share all that is beautiful.

What goes around comes around :-)

 

Here are some of your favorite repins from my boards.

Source: happy-turtle-deco.blogspot.com via Irene on Pinterest

{This is from my garden in the old house. }

Source: thecoveteur.com via Irene on Pinterest

 

Source: google.com via Irene on Pinterest

Source: luvinthemommyhood.com via Irene on Pinterest

 

Source: jenny.gr via Irene on Pinterest

 

As for your favorite boards, they are Elegance, Food Glorious Food and In the Garden.

 

 

Leave me a comment and tell me which are your favorites!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's Weekend Ideas

Why keep to one day of red and pink celebrations? The weekend is round the corner. So, let us make some hearty treats for the loves of our lives inspired by The Valentines, at the ease of a weekend.

 

 

1.

Salted Caramel Brownies

Makes 1 8×8 pan of brownies which you can cut into 16 2-inch squares, 25 smaller squares, 32 2×1-inch bites or a mess of hearts from a cookie cutter.

Caramel

1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (or salted, but then ease up on the sea salt)
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt (or 1/8 teaspoon table salt, more to taste)
3 tablespoons heavy cream

Brownie

3 ounces (85 grams) unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
1 stick (4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt or 1/8 teaspoon table salt
2/3 cup (85 grams) all-purpose flour
Make caramel: Set a square of parchment paper over a medium-sized plate. Lightly butter or coat the parchment with a spray oil, just as an added security measure.
In a medium, dry saucepan over medium-high heat, melt your sugar; this will take about 5 minutes, stirring if necessary to break up large chunks. By the time it is all melted, if should be a nice copper color; if not, cook until it is. Remove from heat and stir in butter. It may not incorporate entirely but do your best. Stir in cream and salt and return saucepan to the stove over medium-high heat, bringing it back to a simmer and melted again any sugar that solidified. Cook bubbling caramel for a few minutes more, until it is a shade darker.
Pour out onto parchment-covered plate and transfer plate to your freezer. Freeze until solidified, which can take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes in a decent freezer to 40 minutes in my terrible one.
Meanwhile, or when your caramel is almost firm, make your brownies: Heat oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment, extending it up two sides. Butter the parchment or spray it with a nonstick cooking spray.
In a medium heatproof bowl over gently simmering water, melt chocolate and butter together until only a couple unmelted bits remain. Off the heat, stir until smooth and fully melted. You can also do this in the microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring between each. Whisk in sugar, then eggs, one at a time, then vanilla and salt. Stir in flour with a spoon or flexible spatula.
Assemble brownies: When caramel is firm, remove it from the freezer and chop it into rough 1-inch squares. Gently fold all but a small amount of caramel bits into batter. Scrape batter into prepared pan, spreading until mostly even. Scatter remaining caramel bits on top. Bake in heated oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool thoroughly — a process that can be hastened in the freezer, which will also produce cleaner cuts — and cut into squares or other desired shapes.


Read the fully illustrated post at Smitten Kitchen where you will find a great selection of homemade delicacies.

2.



Valentine's Heart Necklace

 

I'd love a string of hearts in pastels or a cluster of pendant hearts to wear over summer dresses, too.
A beautiful craft that can be adapted for so many occasions.

See the illustrated tutorial in the oh so fun blog of Jillian in Italy.

 

3.

 

Start a Collection

 

 

I loved collecting cards, napkins and stickers as a young girl. Who knew the love of one person for Valentine's cards could be housed one day in a Museum or a Library? New York public Library has a Valentine's card collection from Victorian to the crazy 80s. Read more at Design Sponge.

And start your own collection. Anything goes as long as it pleases the eye, brings a smile to your face and you look forward to diving into it.




 

Weekend::to think about::

Clash of cultures

What motivates us to work? We know from an early age that we have to work as adults, and we find our way into jobs one way or another, some through years of education and some not. How much time do we really spend thinking about it?

Many of us don’t get to know ourselves, or have the opportunity to try out numerous jobs, before we really need to “make a living.” We choose a job, or a field, and we enter an enculturation process either in school or in the workplace. The culture we absorb becomes a motivation itself: We learn a vocabulary, way of thinking, norms, even habits of thinking, often without realizing it or taking time to reflect. Some may relish the process and enjoy having a niche, others may experience a bit of unease, a sense of something missing depending on the fit with the culture.

Some professions, such as medicine or social services, possess a strong culture, one the employee has to embrace to some extent to excel in the field. My father said medical school was like boot camp, a challenging experience in which his own ego and perspective were subordinated to the process of becoming a doctor. He worked so hard for so long, was sometimes belittled, and he became one with his role, demonstrating decisiveness and as much clarity as possible to treat illness and perform surgery in a capable way.

Many of us are unknowingly brainwashed by a worldview, unaware of the underpinnings and influences forming that perspective, not possessing the tools with which to question or examine. For some darn reason, not completely known to me, I have stood on the outside and asked questions. While I had an interest in psychology in college, studying it raised more questions than it answered, so I asked my favorite professor to recommend books on the history of the field, because studying it made me uncomfortable, and I wondered why.

I think we need to stay alert, to ask questions as we learn a field and after we are in it. To develop our own perceptions and to participate in ongoing inquiry with peers and supervisors. But generally we are not encouraged to follow our hunches, to turn inside, to question, or even to dialogue with others in our fields. We instead become absorbed into the work, the money, starting a family, building security for that family and ourselves. But I believe there is a place for curiosity.

I have long conversations with a friend who teaches a contemplative education course at a university and is a sometime psychotherapist herself. She teaches in a scholars’ program populated by pre-med students, future scientists and engineers, future writers. She encourages the students to examine their assumptions, to consider their personal relationship to the subjects they study, to explore the underpinnings and influences on the professions they are considering entering. Some of the students are resistant to her proddings in this class, at least at first. The pre-med student is a bright, busy, focused fellow, or gal, who usually embraces a belief in the medical model, says my friend. She does not ask them to let go of that belief, only to be circumspect, and many find themselves immensely grateful for the process of internal and philosophical inquiry she guides them through. While some see no use for the process, others tell my friend they will go to med school as more sensitive, well-rounded humans.

My friend herself is examining the mental health field, from psychoanalysis to psychopharmacology, as a consumer, professional, and researcher. She has experienced ill effects from medications and explored alternatives from re-attachment to ayurvedic herbs and diets to yoga and dance. You could say she is a renegade academic and psychotherapist.

A person awake to her own emotions, adventurous in her intellectual pursuits, and brave enough to ask questions, is a different kind of professional. Rather than immersing herself in a culture and system of thought, she remains a sensitive individual with an ability to respond to situations from within her self.

The book, The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down, is about the clash of the Hmong people’s needs and beliefs with that of the Western medical system. It is about the damage that can occur when two strong belief systems meet. I was struck by a story in the book about a young Western enthnographer and fan of improvisational theater who is able to appreciate and understand the Hmong peoples’ perspective on illness and their resistance to the imposition of Western ways upon them. He learns about them and their beliefs and is able to encourage them to get immunizations for their pets through staging a theatrical parade.

What made him sensitive to these people, capable of understanding their perspective? Was he less enamored of the Western view he was born into? Was he secure enough in himself to open his mind?

I have been immersed in this very process throughout my life: I studied psychology but wanted to know where it came from, I was interested in medicine but had the mind and heart of an anthropologist. I’m not sure why I am like this. I think it may be feeling close to nature most of my life, through listening to old-time music as a young child and driving through inner-city DC with my dad on his way to work, through reading black authors from off my parents’ bookshelves. I knew there were other ways of thinking about things than mine, other cultures and races, varied spiritual paths.

My role is that of an amateur ethnographer, a student of work cultures. I make my living as a yoga teacher and writer, and I work various part-time jobs along the way. It is a grand adventure, and I am grateful to share it with friends like my university teacher buddy. This is my enduring question: Can we not work from our authentic selves in ways that make sense to us and are healing to the world? We must let the world change us, but sometimes we need to change it.


source

Why little black books instead of phones and computers

“Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings.” That’s from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. It’s a strange way to begin a post about notebooks, but Jobs’ views on the power of a potentially anachronistic practice applies to other seemingly anachronistic practices. I’m a believer in notebooks, though I’m hardly a luddite and use a computer too much.

The notebook has an immediate tactile advantage over phones: they aren’t connected to the Internet. It’s intimate in a way computers aren’t. A notebook has never interrupted me with a screen that says, “Wuz up?” Notebooks are easy to use without thinking. I know where I have everything I’ve written on-the-go over the last eight years: in the same stack. It’s easy to draw on paper. I don’t have to manage files and have yet to delete something important. The only way to “accidentally delete” something is to leave the notebook submerged in water.

A notebook is the written equivalent of a face-to-face meeting. It has no distractions, no pop-up icons, and no software upgrades. For a notebook, fewer features are better and fewer options are more. If you take a notebook out of your pocket to record an idea, you won’t see nude photos of your significant other. You’re going to see the page where you left off. Maybe you’ll see another idea that reminds you of the one you’re working on, and you’ll combine the two in a novel way. If you want to flip back to an earlier page, it’s easy.

The lack of editability is a feature, not a bug, and the notebook is an enigma of stopped time. Similar writing in a computer can function this way but doesn’t for me: the text is too open and too malleable. Which is wonderful in its own way, and that way opens many new possibilities. But those possibilities are different from the notebook’s. It’s become a cliche to argue that the technologies we use affect the thoughts we have and the way we express those thoughts, but despite being cliche the basic power of that observation remains. I have complete confidence that, unless I misplace them, I’ll still be able to read my notebooks in 20 years, regardless of changes in technology.

In Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson says, “Once perfected, communication technologies rarely die out entirely; rather, they shrink to fit particular niches in the global info-structure.” The notebook’s niche is perfect. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Moleskine racks have proliferated in stores at the same time everyone has acquired cell phones, laptops, and now tablets.

In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr says: “The intellectual ethic is the message that a medium or other tool transmits into the minds and culture of its users.” Cell phones subtly change our relationship with time. Notebooks subtly change our relationship with words and drawings. I’m not entirely sure how, and if I were struggling for tenure in industrial design or psychology I might start examining the relationship. For now, it’s enough to feel the relationship. Farhad Manjoo even cites someone who studies these things:

“The research shows that the type of content you produce is different whether you handwrite or type,” says Ken Hinckley, an interface expert at Microsoft Research who’s long studied pen-based electronic devices. “Typing tends to be for complete sentences and thoughts—you go deeper into each line of thought. Handwriting is for short phrases, for jotting ideas. It’s a different mode of thought for most people.” This makes intuitive sense: It’s why people like to brainstorm using whiteboards rather than Word documents.

I like to write in notebooks despite carrying around a smartphone. Some of this might be indicative of the technology I grew up with—would someone familiar with smartphone touchscreens from age seven have sufficiently dexterous fingers to be faster than they would be with paper?—but I think the obvious answer to “handwriting or computer?” is “both, depending.” As I write this sentence, I have a printout of a novel called ASKING ANNA in front of me, covered with blue pen, because editing on the printed page feels different to me than editing on the screen. I write long-form on computers, though. The plural of anecdote is not data. Still, I have to notice that using different mediums appears to improve the final work product (insert joke about low quality here).

There’s also a shallow and yet compelling reason to like notebooks: a disproportionate number of writers, artists, scientists, and thinkers like using them too, and I suspect that even contemporary writers, artists, scientists, and thinkers realize that sometimes silence and not being connected is useful, like quiet and solitude.

In “With the decline of the wristwatch, will time become just another app?”, Matthew Battles says:

 Westerners have long been keenly interested in horology, as David Landes, an economic historian, points out in Revolution in Time, his landmark study of the development of timekeeping technology. It wasn’t the advent of clocks that forced us to fret over the hours; our obsession with time was fully in force when monks first began to say their matins, keeping track of the hours out of strict religious obligation. By the 18th century, secular time had acquired the pressure of routine that would rule its modern mode. Tristram Shandy’s father, waiting interminably for the birth of his son, bemoans the “computations of time” that segment life into “minutes, hours, weeks, and months” and despairs “of clocks (I wish there were not a clock in the kingdom).” Shandy’s father fretted that, by their constant tolling of the hours, clocks would overshadow the personal, innate sense of time—ever flexible, ever dependent upon mood and sociability.

The revolution in electronic technology is wonderful in many ways, but its downsides—distraction, most obviously—are present too. The notebook combats them. Notebooks are an organizing or disorganizing principle: organizing because one keeps one’s thoughts, but disorganizing because one cannot rearrange, tag, and structure thoughts in a notebook as one can on a screen (Devonthink Pro is impossible in the real world, and Scrivener can be done but only with a great deal of friction).

 Once you try a notebook, you may realize that you’re a notebook person. You might realize it without trying. If you’re obsessed with this sort of thing, see Michael Loper / Rands’ Sweet Decay, which is better on validating why a notebook is important than evaluating the notebooks at hand. It was also written in 2008, before Rhodia updated its Webbie.

Like Rands, I’ve never had a sewn binding catastrophically fail. As a result, notebooks without sewn bindings are invisible to me. I find it telling that so many people are willing to write at length about their notebooks and use a nominally obsolete technology.
(...)
EDIT: See also Kevin Devlin’s The Death of Mathematics, which is about the allure of math by hand, rather than by computer; though I don’t endorse what he says, in part because it reminds me so much of Socrates decrying the advent of written over oral culture, I find it stimulating.

read more here


Weekend::to think about::
is a collection of words and images that made me look twice this past week
and I want to think about for awhile.

Feel free to share yours. Leave a comment to let us know.

How to organize and print a year's worth of pictures

Do you have shoe boxes full of photographs? Do you daydream about organizing them in beautiful books with the perfect caption written in calligraphy undrneath?

Digital is even worse. There are thousands of photographs that we are afraid might go missing in cyberspace that we never get around puting into print.

 

Well, the other day i found and I am sharing it here with you, the most perfect, down to earth, understanding tutorial on how to organize your photos step by step.

 

 

Find the full tutorial at

http://www.lilblueboo.com/2012/11/how-to-organize-and-print-years-worth-of-photos.html

Costa Navarino Hotel: I can see LOVE!

 

 

Few miles offshore from Costa Navarino Resort one of the most beautiful hotels built in Greece in recent years, you will find yourselves at a naturally curved romantic islet surrounded by heavenly turquoise blue waters.
One more reason to visit Greece.

 

Nature in Love!

 

Happy Valemtine's Day!

 

"Aerin": Aerin Lauder's delightful new venture

I have used Clinique products all of my life.

I started with the 3-step program when I was 14 and I have grown with it.

 I have enjoyed all of their products, I have loved their travel size editions and their make up is just fantastic.

I didn't move to the Estee Lauder line after 40, although I wore the most perfect pink and creamy lipstick ever by Estee on my wedding day.

I love family businesses , big and small. It means a continuity in quality standards. It also is about trust in purchasing something stylish that will have me covered in every way.

 

 

 

So, I was thrilled to see that Estee's great grand daughter, Aerin, has launched her very own line of cosmetics, and a lovely website with information and pictures on the Lauders' stylish world.

 

 

There is also a line of objets for the home and some brand new accessories, namely slingbacjks, in time for Spring.

 

 

 

My favorite product would have to be the rose hand and body cream,

 

 

 

but I also love Aerin's spring palette.

Delicious.

 

 

I adored watching Ms. Lauder present her venture herself.

 

In the words of her friend Michael Kors, "Aerin continues the legacy of stylish American women like C.Z. Guest and Jackie O., who combine the idea of simplicity and luxury with an eye toward quality and timelessness."

Read more: Aerin Lauder's Closet Confidential - Harper's BAZAAR

Find out more in the Aerin website.

 

I wish to Thank Aerin for letting us save and share her photos. After all, Estee was the first businesswoman who understood and put into use the importance of free samples.
 

Inspired by Pinterest.: Ideas for a perfect winter afternoon

Source: thedeshashow.blogspot.de via Irene on Pinterest

 

Reading a long wanted book

Source: joannagoddard.blogspot.com via Joanna on Pinterest

Drinking something delicious and healthy

 

Source: sundayinbed.tumblr.com via Joanna on Pinterest

Writing to my French bestie.

 

 

Source: google.com via ❀✿ ✿Móni on Pinterest

 

The thrill of a beau
 

Source: Uploaded by user via Rue on Pinterest

Leafing through a fab digital magazine-for free.

Source: agentbauer.com via Uncle on Pinterest

 

Choosing Elegance in all that I do.

 

What's your idea of a perfect Winter afternoon?

Pssst! Pin with me here.

 

Navajo matriarch passes away

I so admire women of substance. women who honour their inside rythm, who are connected with their divine essence and do what they know they have to do.

Although she's a local legend who's been featured in movies, Susie Yazzie has lived a traditional Navajo life for close to 100 years — raising sheep, carding wool, weaving rugs — and her hogan has been a frequent stop on guided tours of Monument Valley for decades.

By Kathy Montgomery
Monument Valley

Susie Yazzie sits before her upright loom on a low stool, regal as a queen on her throne. On this day, the "grandmother of Monument Valley" wears a pink satin skirt, purple velveteen blouse and chunky turquoise jewelry. Her thinning silver hair is tied at the base of her neck in the traditional hourglass shape.

At the sight of visitors, the creases in Susie's age-spotted face deepen into a smile. She exchanges a few words in Navajo with her daughter, Effie. Susie wants to know about the guests Effie has brought. She asks if they've been there before.

Nodding, satisfied, Susie plucks a handful of wool from the fluffy mound near her stool. She cards it, combing the wool until the fibers are clean and orderly. Then she pulls the wool off into a fluffy roll and feeds it onto the tip of a long, wooden spindle. Rubbing the shaft of the spindle against her thigh, Susie works the wool into a spool of thick yarn.

Although she speaks little English, Susie has welcomed a great many visitors. Her hogan has been a frequent stop on guided tours of Monument Valley for decades. She has appeared in John Ford movies, as well as many books, documentaries and magazines, including Arizona Highways. Her image has even graced bags of Frito-Lay's potato chips.

Yet for all her celebrity, Yazzie has lived a traditional Navajo life for close to 100 years — raising sheep, carding wool, weaving rugs — all without the benefit of electricity or running water. She's a medicine woman of sorts, a midwife who delivered two of her own grandchildren, and a hand trembler, adept at the ancient Navajo practice used to diagnose illness or find lost objects.

The oldest girl of eight children, Susie's Navajo name roughly translates to "fair-skinned woman." It was her late husband, Tully, who gave Susie her Anglo name. Though the exact date of her birth is unknown, Susie was born in the spring, sometime around 1917. Her birthday is celebrated on tax day.

She learned to weave as a young girl. Her mother was often sick, so Susie took on most of the family chores. She tended sheep and scaled the surrounding sandstone mesas for rainwater that collected in depressions, carrying it back in a sumac basket lined with piñon pitch. When Susie was perhaps 16, her mother became very ill while pregnant with her last child and had to be taken to the hospital. The family was living in the summer shade house at the time.

When the weather grew cold, Susie's mother had still not come home. Susie never saw her again. But her father returned with a baby brother, then wandered off in his grief, leaving Susie to care for the baby and all the other children.

Susie appealed to trader Harry Goulding for help. By then the man the Navajos called "tall sheep" was coming around regularly selling groceries and other goods from his wagon. He kept an eye on the family, giving Susie condensed milk for the baby and trading rugs she had woven for other necessities. He also started bringing around tourists.

Susie posed for photos for the tourists, and eventually began giving weaving demonstrations. The income helped support the family, but it was Susie's marriage that finally made her life easier. The work her husband found off the reservation supported the family, and when he returned home he brought wagons, mattresses and other luxuries.

When Goulding convinced John Ford to use Monument Valley as a backdrop for Ford's Western films, Susie, Tully and Effie were among the Navajos hired to work as extras. Susie also performed in My Darling Clementine, and all three appeared in Cheyenne Autumn. Colette Waddell, who recorded the stories of the entire Yazzie family for a yet-unpublished book, says Susie was directed to do the things she normally did: mostly to get on a horse and ride around.

At one point, Waddell says, Susie and her husband had trouble cashing their paychecks from the studio and had to travel to Los Angeles. It may have been the only time Susie left the reservation.

"She was not at all impressed," Waddell says. "She called it the hot country. Can you imagine? She lives in Monument Valley and thought Los Angeles was the hot country?"

While she was there, Susie got her name tattooed on her forearm, perhaps so she would remember how to sign her name. That gave her the ability to execute contracts, but she didn't always understand what she was signing, Waddell says.

Like the time a photographer came to the reservation and got Susie to sign away her rights to the photos he took. Her image ended up on bags of Frito-Lay's Santa Fe Ranch chips.

But Waddell believes Susie's real joy has been hosting the tourists she refers to as visitors.

"That's what keeps her going strong," Waddell says. "It's what keeps her alive."

source

Marie-Chantal of Greece: Modern, stylish and savvy

Marie-Chantal of Greece is on Instagram. So glad I can follow a real life princess, a mother of five and a successful entrepreneur. For some beautiful insight into her every day life (yes, she drinks coffee, and yes, she drinks in Emma Bridgewater cup and drives a black mini, how cool is that?) you may also follow her and her work on pinterest.

Read more in the following post by Hello magazine:

The princesses of today are not like those who preceded them. Now modern women of their time, some female royals are increasing their global presence by using social networking sites.

One such princess is Marie-Chantal of Greece, whose frequent Instagram posts are a delight for her fans. And like most users of the photo sharing programme, Marie-Chantal enjoys uploading images of her family, her friends, pets, and celebrations.

  The London-born princess is not the only royal to use modern technology, with Queen Rania of Jordan and Princess Mette-Marit of Norway using accounts such as Twitter to show support for initiatives promoted by their organisations.

She is by far the most prominent at posting personal photographs. Marie-Chantal's online account tells of the fun she enjoys with husband Prince Pavlos and their five children: Maria Olympia, 16, Konstantinos Alexios, 14, Achilleas Andreas 12, Odysseas Kimon, 8 and four-year-old Aristides Stavros.

Aristides features in a large number of the images, often posing with the family's pets or sporting outfits from his mother's clothing label. And to prove they are like any family, Marie-Chantal has even posted a photo of the youngster throwing a tantrum to avoid going to school.

Other events documented by the 44-year-old include skiing holidays, birthdays, national holidays and even a trip to the Olympic Games last summer.

During England's recent snowy weather Marie-Chantal couldn't resist taking a snapshot of her garden, transformed into a winter wonderland, as well as photo of young Aristides with a snowball.

And she may be a princess but Marie-Chantal's photos also prove her sense of humour. In one picture she she can be seen poking her tongue out whilst holding a huge bottle of spicy condiment - Tabasco sauce.


In another image the princess is seen wearign an unflattering pair of glasses and holding a kitchen knife and an onion, with the caption "my onion glasses..."

Family is very important to Marie-Chantal who has two sisters: Pia-Christina and Alexandra-Natasha. Pia-Christina was married to Christopher Getty, whose family who made their name in oil, whilst Alexandra-Natasha married Prince Alexander von Furstenberg in 1995. Although sadly both sisters are now divorced.


 The trio, who are sometimes known as the Miller sisters, were raised across Hong Kong, Switzerland, Paris and New York. When she's not spending time on the social site Marie-Chantal can also be found at work. The princess designs her own range of luxury children's clothing and accessories for a company which bears her name.

Businesswoman Marie-Chantal founded the brand in 2000, the year her third child was born. Always interested in art and design, Marie-Chantel studied art history at New York University, although she left without completing the degree when Pavlos proposed on a Christmas skiing trip to Switzerland.

The wedding took place at St Sophia's church in London drawing in numerous royals from around the world. A week before they attended Marie-Chantal and Pavlos' nuptials, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh hosted a tea party for the couple at Claridge's hotel in Mayfair.

*** See Princess Marie-Chantal's home in London here. ***