Make your own sunshine

Micky and me - why do dogs never look at the camera?
Or is it just my dogs???

 

 

Hello chic friends!

 

The day we took these photos was bright, sunny and warm, as you can see. But today, when I was thinking about this post, it was grey and cold, and soon after I came back from my walk, it started raining lightly. But I was so happy in my mind that it gave me the idea to write about being making your own sunshine, even if it's cloudy outside. It didn't matter to me that the skies were grey and it was chilly, because I felt good in myself and excited about my day's plans.

 

And you might find this extra impressive when you hear that my day's plans were to start my taxes and get them done early. I know! What kind a freak am I, haha. But that was one of the things that was making me feel so good - being ahead of the game.

 

Yes, I love being self-employed as an author, but it does mean all the admin falls on me, not an employer. I have to make sure I put money aside for tax, and get all my paperwork in on time too. Usually I'm pretty good at getting all the information for our accountant together, but last year I wasn't. Last year I left it until only a few months before the deadline, and that few months also included giving my accountant enough time to do her part.

 

It was stressful! So this year I decided I was going to do my taxes as soon as I received the email go-ahead from my accountant, and that came in yesterday. My lofty plan is to have it all wrapped up within a few days and emailed back to her by Easter, which is this weekend!

 

This ambitious plan makes me feel good, and I know I will feel even better once my taxes are in. So 'being ahead' is one way that I make my own sunshine. Nothing feels better than being organised - there are no horrible surprises! I forget sometimes and let things slide, but it always feels better to be on top of things.

 

 

 

Perfection across the bay

 

 

Other ways in which I make my own sunshine?

 

🌞 Thinking of all the goodness around, instead of the scary things in the world.

 

🌞 Watching cheery movies and tv series (we are enjoying Running Point with Kate Hudson on Netflix at the moment).

 

🌞 Reading feelgood books (I just finished We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes and it was so good!)

 

🌞 Getting dressed for the day, putting on a little bit of makeup, and freshly washed and blow-dried hair is the best pick-me-up ever! Plus perfume of course :)

 

🌞 Being a little bit silly, playing with the doggies, and just goofing around in general - it's a real tonic! Gets me out of my head and into my body, which feels so much better than the other way around.

 

 

Please tell me, what do you like to do to lighten up when you feel a bit heavy and stressed? And if you need to borrow some of my ideas, please go right ahead :)

 

Paul and Micky :)

~~

 

 

Beautiful autumn sunrise at our place 🧡💜💗💛

 

Who is ready for a new season (whether it's spring or autumn for you)? It's fun to think about 'new' outfit combinations (shop my closet) and creating a capsule collection.

Also for what goals I might want to focus on in the next three months. I always think a nature season is the perfect length of time to make changes or bring new things in.

~~

 

 

 

Out at the supermarket I saw the loveliest flowers, so happy and colourful!

 

 

I read in a magazine article this weekend that the lady interviewed cited 'wearing colour' as one way that she got dopamine hits for herself and I thought that was so true.

 

 

Wearing happy colours makes me feel good too. And viewing gorgeous flowers does the same.

 

 Enjoy the display! Who can't love bright yellow, hot pink and orange together 💛💖🧡

 

 

~~

 

 

Sweet Micky is going to be 14 in a few months, and he really is such a good advertisement for 'clean living' because he doesn't look a day over 10 😊

He loves going for walks, especially at the beach or in the city, and would walk for miles if you did. He is always reluctant to get back into the car after an outing because it means the walk is over!

He is my brother's dog and came to live with us 2.5 years ago when he moved overseas. Micky has fitted in so well with Daphne and Chloe and is totally now their big brother. And he has such a friendly, relaxed nature; you can see it in his eyes.

He is half Jack Russell Terrier, half Shih Tzu. My brother reckons that makes him a Jack Sh!t 🤣

He really is an ageless boy, so full of happiness and zing.

A funny thing: when he was an only dog he wasn't that food focused. At his place there would always be a bowl of dog biscuits next to his water bowl to graze from.

Now that he lives with two other dogs he has turned into a dog who wants food all the time, and we daren't leave a bowl of biscuits out. Competition! And he is always keen for his breakfast, lunchtime biscuit, and dinner! Not to mention stray pieces of carrot, apple, and broccoli stalk. He's a healthy boy 😍

Are all dogs food-mad? Let me know about yours 😊

Have a happy week!
xx Fiona

 

PS. If you would like an Amazon alternative, all my eBooks and audiobooks are available in my eStore. You can view everything here! 

 

My most recent book!

Handling down times

☕ ☕ ☕ Coffee out and about
(actually I had peppermint tea but it doesn't have the same ring to it 😊)

 
Hello chic friends!

 

I haven't had a lot of mental bandwidth for much lately. It's just how I get at times and I try not to feel bad about it.

I think by now I've gotten to know myself, and it's not that there is anything wrong, I just feel like pulling back. It's like this internal handbrake being on and everything takes 100x times more effort to do.

At times like this I want to read books, be at home, write a little, and be offline. I know I'm so lucky to be able to do so. When I worked full-time in an office I’d just keep life really simple too.

If you can relate, please say. I admire people who are 'linear' and can just do whatever they need to get done. I think it might be part of the creative mind that works differently for those of us who aren't like that.

I've seen a funny picture and it shows A to B and a straight line from... A to B. That is one type of person. And then there is A to B with a giant squiggly unravelly ball of wool leading from A to B. That is so me sometimes!

When I get to be the straight-line A to B person everything is sooooo easy. That’s when I write book after book and post regularly on social media. But at the moment I'm the squiggly ball of wool and have a dozen books started that I’m keen on none of 🤣

Amazingly enough my work looks way better to me when I’m in a more helpful state of mind. When I’m the unravelly ball of wool all my writing looks terrible 🤣

But I am writing each day and working on a book that feels good, so hooray for that.

And I’m up to recording my 21st audiobook, almost there! I think there are about 25 or 26 in total. At least those I can narrate without overthinking things. I just turn up and do some recording. (Find them at my Linktree)

I hope you’re doing good, and if you’re not, I’m right there with you 😊 Let’s all be kind to our squiggly balls of wool that we call our heads, if we’re not feeling it right now.

~~

 

 

🍂🍂🍂
Autumn colours and bright blue skies

This has to be my favourite season and I'm really enjoying my outdoor walks each morning before breakfast. I know there are many other fans of autumn too.

For us in the southern hemisphere, it's perfectly normal to have March/April be the start of autumn.

It's completely foreign for us to have it be the start of the festive Christmas season!

Although I actually do enjoy getting into 'fall vibes' later in the year too, joining in on all the northern hemisphere fun 😊

Whether you are in spring or autumn, I hope it's treating you well 🧡💛

~~

 

 I bought these cute popcorn cups from the dollar store for a movie afternoon with friends at home. How cute are they? Afterwards I handwash them and put them away until next time 😊

 

 

I love little details like this that make life fun!

 

 

 

Wishing you a fab week :)

 

Love Fiona

A harvest day, and what I'm reading

 

 

Last weekend Paul and I attended a harvest day at one of our local wineries called Alpha Domus. We spent the morning picking grapes, and then enjoyed a beautiful lunch with wine. The weather was lovely and it was a very pleasant way to spend a day overall.

 

 

Doesn't this just look like a painting? That sky :)

 

 

I don't think I was as fast as a professional picker, but I did my best and managed not to nick myself this time. This is the third or fourth time we've attended this harvest day, and I admit, I did manage to cut myself the first time. The snips are very sharp! The secret is to have your hand under the bunch of grapes and let the bunch fall into your hand, rather than grip the bunch. The gripping leads to the snipping, lol.

 

 

 

We picked Chardonnay grapes for their top-tier Chardonnay. When you taste the grapes they are so sweet. I always thought that wine grapes weren't as sweet as table grapes but I was wrong. They are lovely!

 

 

 

 

And after our busy morning picking 2.5 tonnes of grapes (I know! It's a lot!) we got to see our grapes being squeezed and tasted the first of the juice (it tastes just like apple juice), and also tasted the wine from the same grapes we picked this time last year.

 

 

 

 

Lunch tables and umbrellas were set out, and it was so nice to sit down. I really felt like we'd done a full day's work (actually a half day's work but that doesn't roll off the tongue so well, haha).

 

 

 

 

Lunch was so delicious. I had lamb paella and the freshest salad with Parmesan and homemade dressing over top. It filled the spot perfectly, paired with a glass of red wine of course!

 

With thanks to our gracious hosts at Alpha Domus, it was a wonderful day :)

 

 

 

 ~~

 

And in reading news, I just finished this book. omg, so so stressful 😂 but so good! It is suspense genre and I've been into these types of books lately. Would recommend if you want to increase your heart rate 🤣

 

 

Two women who want to disappear from their lives cross paths at the airport and end up swapping tickets, passports, phones, luggages... lives.

It's not gory like The Housemaid book but it is definitely 'thrilling' and a good read. It makes you wonder what is behind closed doors in other peoples lives. Not that most people are 'that' different. Most of us are just very normal, living normal lives. Thank goodness!

 

The Flight book is here on my Amazon affiliate link, or I'm sure you can find it at the library like I did!

 

 ~~

 

 

Our hallway just inside the front door,
in my ‘Inspired by Ralph Lauren’ style

 

A little peek into our home...

 

I love a mix of traditional and modern, just like Ralph does. He goes chrome in his modern furniture though, whereas I prefer gold.

Note the table tennis balls for Nina cat corralled under the glass-topped hall table 💛😉🐈‍⬛

She loves to play with them and sometimes gets one out, and other times likes to bat them around within the confines of the table base.

It’s funny to hear her playing with them ☺️

Who is your main style influence if you have one? And what kinds of opposites do you like to mix together?

Wishing you a great week, whatever you are doing. I have writing planned, of course I do! I am working on multiple new books. It's just the way things work out. Eventually one pulls ahead and that's the one I finish next. And of course, keeping up with my audiobook recording. I am up to my twentieth audiobook, phew! It's actually really nice recording them, revisiting the books I've already written :)

My audiobooks are available anywhere you get your audiobooks from, including the library (you can ask for them to order them in), and they are also available in my eStore as an MP3 download.

 

xx Fiona

 

 

 

 

Our 17th Wedding Anniversary

 

Hello chic friends :)

Last Thursday was our 17th wedding anniversary, and I thought it would be fun to share some photos of Paul and I in 2008!

 

When we met almost 22 years ago, I asked the Universe for someone who was ‘like me, but the guy version’. I wanted a calm, steady, happy, easy-going relationship, and the Universe delivered. Right down to us having the same birthday! How’s that for ‘the same’. We met at the pub on a night out, an age-old classic way of meeting someone 😊

 

 

Our wedding was tiny, less than 40 people including us. We had it at an Italian restaurant in their private function venue below ground, and it was dreamy. Candelabras dripping with wax, a giant tiramisu instead of a wedding cake, red velvet drapes, and low lighting.

 

We used to go back to that restaurant – Toto in Auckland city, so lush – for our anniversary each year but it closed down at some stage, and now we don’t even live in Auckland anymore.

 

We both always forget the actual date of our anniversary because it’s such a funny number to remember: 6 March 2008. Is it 06 03 08 or 08 03 06? We always get there though 😊 And I even thought that we were married on a Friday but everyone (my mum and Paul) insisted it was a Thursday. I looked it up and it was a Thursday.

I’m not one to be stuck on remembering dates or days though (thank goodness), just that I’m happy and content. I get to make my own fun and if others want to join in that’s great. Over the years I’ve cultivated the ability to not make feeling good reliant on others.

After all, when you please yourself it seems that others want to please you too. Something that recovering people-pleasers like myself would do well to remember!

~~

 

The grapevines on our road 🍇

 
The past few weeks we've had harvesting machines picking the white wine grapes. It's fun to see the changing seasons of the vineyard as I go for my daily walks, and then the big bins filled with light green or dark red grapes at harvest time.

My husband Paul works for a winery now as a cellar door host, and he sees firsthand the trucks full of grapes pulling up and emptying them into the first tank where they are squeezed gently.

The whole process gives me so much appreciation for winemakers. With fruit such as apples, you 'only' have to grow the fruit.

But if you have a vineyard, growing the fruit is only half the job, then you have to make the wine, then you have to market it amongst the many thousands of wine labels on the store shelves.

Here's cheers to to all the hard working people behind the scenes when we sit down with a glass of wine on a Saturday night! 🍷

Wishing you a fab week :)

xx Fiona

Wine tasting in Hawke's Bay

 

Hello chic friends :)

 

Yesterday was such a beautiful day for wine tasting. It’s the first time we’ve been this summer and it’s almost autumn - oops!

We visited Bostock Wines and tried a selection of local varietals. Our cellar door host Victoria was so knowledgeable and lovely.

 

 

It really felt like we’d been on a little holiday even though we’d been gone only a few hours.

Especially since we had taken a picnic lunch with us and got to eat it in the beautiful surrounds of the winery.

Cellar doors mostly don’t do food, and if they do it might be non-celiac friendly pizzas and platters. And the few that have restaurants you have to book ahead.

This is the second time we’ve brought a picnic lunch out for a local jaunt and it’s so nice. The first time we went to the beach a few months back.

Yesterday we had a chicken and avocado salad, and fresh blueberries with greek yoghurt.

The doggies greeted us like we had been away from home for years, not a couple of hours 😁

It’s nice to be missed! 😍

 

Wishing you a fabulous new week :)

 

xx Fiona 

Summer gardening, and decluttering

 

 

Hello chic friends,

 

I've been enjoying my simple gardening this summer, and just look at this crop of cherry tomatoes!

The thing I love best about growing vegetables such as cos lettuce and cherry tomatoes at home is that you can just pick a few leaves or tomatoes each day for your salad.

It's the ultimate in freshness, and everything is spray-free too.

My mesclun mix used to be eaten by white butterflies and their caterpillars before I could get to it but I found that cos lettuce, maybe being a sturdier leaf, seems to be left alone. Yay!

And of course our perpetual spinach plants keep our breakfast smoothies going, such a bargain for weeks if not months of spinach.

I am a total vegetable garden convert! You don't need a big area at all, and a little investment in time and money really pays off.

This is just my public service announcement for today 🤣

 

 

~~

 

 

I have noticed that my decluttering book is more popular at the moment, and of course, we are into a new year. I get it, because I am feeling it too!

I've been cleaning up niggly areas and hotspots, and I've also come to a 'big' (for me) revelation. And that is, it's okay to want my stuff. I don't have to declutter down to nothing, even though I love the idea of a minimalist home.

I get to do it in my way and have exactly what I want around me. It really was quite a freeing thought!

What I do get to do though, is go through all the many areas in my home and refine them. And if there is anything to donate or throw out in that process, great. If not, also great.

Using things up is one of my favourite ways to declutter. I get to enjoy what I have, and also make use of the money already spent. Reading and donating books, using my lovely body products and fragrances, lighting a candle!

It's great the have the new year’s energy to reinvigorate my desire for a clean, tidy, ‘cozy minimalist’, stylish, elegant home 😊 I keep this vision in mind and it makes even housework seem more pleasant!

xx Fiona

PS. You can find this book on Amazon here or check out my Linktree for other reading options and all my other books.

[My Amazon links are affiliate, which means I may earn a small commission but at no extra cost to you. I appreciate it if you choose to use my links!]

Living a simple life

 

Hello chic friends!

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have much to tell you, because I live *such* a simple and quiet life.

But then I remember how much I enjoyed following blogs way back when they started which were exactly that: home-based, feminine, simple living, and quiet. So maybe I can be that person for someone else who wants to read about ‘nothing’ 😊

I really do love being at home, and living a peaceful and creative life. It’s not always easy to get out of my head though, and that’s what I think trips me up sometimes. I can overthink things, be too hard on myself, and procrastinate terribly.

I think the reason why I want to live in a simple and quiet way is because my mind can feel too busy.

Maybe you feel the same? That everything in life moves so fast and you just want to pause a minute and take a breath?

And it’s not even that my life is fast-paced, it’s just how my mind can get sometimes. To help with this, I have intentionally simplified and stripped away busy-ness over the years. We moved from the city to the country.

And I dream of open spaces, an open schedule, and having just the right amount of possessions to make me feel comfortable and cozy but not overwhelmed with clutter. I love reading about minimalism and trying out tips for myself.

One size doesn’t fit all, phew! We all get to choose the most ideal scenario for ourselves and work towards that.

~~

Micky dog and I have been taking early morning walks, just the two of us, about 6.30am or 7am.

It's so nice out with our mild summer weather, and I've read it's good for you to get some early morning light into your brain through your eyes so we're definitely doing that.

To the end of our road and back is about 40 minutes which I think is the perfect amount of time.

I've gone in and out of various exercise routines over the years, but the one thing I always come back to and that rarely feels like a chore is outdoor walking.

It just feels so good! And you don't need any special equipment other than a comfortable pair of shoes. I wear leggings and a tee-shirt but if I've walked later in the day I'll just wear what I’m wearing – usually jeans and a top.

The thing that makes it more fun for me is to have an audiobook on. I love listening to a good story, or an inspiring non-fiction book.

And Micky loves a good long walk (‘long’ for his little legs). Our other two dogs Daphne and Chloe are NOT fans of the long walk. They said short walks a few times a day are their preference.

[How do I know this? Could it be the constant turning back and looking longingly in the direction of our house every 20-25 steps from Daphne? (I counted). Or Chloe putting the brakes on regularly all the way down the road? She holds down well for a dog who weighs less than 5kg/ 11 lbs. Of course, once we turn back at the end of the road, they are both as speedy as racehorses heading home!]

Wouldn’t you think all dogs love a walk? It seems that 'some' (not looking at anydoggy in particular) would rather go for a walk in the car (they all love the car so much 😊).

If you have doggies, are they keen walkers? Tell me a funny story about yours, please! 😍

 

~~

 

 

✨ Starting the day with beauty and inspiration 🌸

 

☕️ There’s nothing like fresh flowers, a cozy cup of coffee, and the joy of seeing my book, Loving Your Epic Small Life, reminding me to embrace elegance in every moment. 💕

If you’re looking for ways to create a life you adore—full of elegance, simplicity, and meaning—this book is here to inspire you. It’s available on Kindle, paperback, and audiobook here on Amazon.

I’ve also written 20+ other books designed to inspire, encourage, and bring hope - check them all out here on Amazon, or in my eStore for an Amazon alternative.🌷

 

Wishing you a fab start to your bright and shiny new week 😊

xx Fiona

[As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. I appreciate it if you choose to use my links!]