{Lessons} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 30

Today, for the 30th Day in my 30 Chic Days Series I am going to share with you ten things I've learned over the past month.  I have a mixed relationship with 30 Chic Days - on the one hand I love the connection and momentum that gets going when I post daily; I also find I can do more and write more than I think I could have.  On the other hand, posting daily does require a lot - a lot of commitment, a lot of creativity, a lot of energy.

So here's my lessons learned during this, the fourth series of 30 Chic Days.

1. Self-care is important.  Giving yourself time to relax, read, groom, be, is not self-indulgent, it's a necessity.  You will have more to give to your loved ones when you feel filled up yourself.  Having 'white space' in between things to decompress is nice too.
   
2. Drink lots of water - I've been drinking more since reading the comments in yesterday's post because I don't want to get dementia when I'm older!  And I plan to go back to my old habit of drinking a big glass of water before I go to sleep.
   
3. Don't go overboard with the baking.  I gave myself a week's worth of off-and-on headaches from indulging in my desserts (it was the icecream I had with them - dairy and sugar are a lethal mix for me).  Everything in sparse moderation is the key.
   
4. Turn off the electronics.  I've been more in front of my laptop screen this month, however yesterday, when I finished my 'Boudoir Time' post in the afternoon and did not open my laptop after I arrived home from work, I actually practiced what I preached and enjoyed a soothing hour of boudoir time before turning the lights off just after 9pm.  It was just what I needed.
   
5. The comments are my favourite parts of each post.  There is so much collective wisdom and sharing from chic ladies all around the world.  Thank you for contributing!
   
6. As with a previous 30 Chic Days series, when you think you can't do something, you can.  Committing to an action and following through with it is very satisfying, and it builds your 'completion muscle'.  When I quickly ran out of meal and outfits to post about I had the choice to quit early or change what I was posting.  I wanted to be a finisher so I changed the format of my 30 Chic Days posts.
   
7. Enjoy your wins.  I am so thrilled with how popular my new book has been, both with how many ladies have purchased a copy and also the reviews.  I'm not one to go out and buy something big and fancy to celebrate, but every so often I'll just take a moment to say to myself 'well done you'.  And sometimes a win is as simple as being able to tick off your last to-do listing of the day or know that you've honoured yourself by eating in a healthful way the whole day.
   
8. Partake in fun stuff - every day!  I worked a lot the past thirty days, both in my actual job, plus on my blog and writing (which doesn't feel like a job but it's still something I need to get done because I said I would).  But I also had time every day to read something interesting, watch something fun like Gossip Girl (oh my goodness... Chuck Bass, so hot!), and take photos of our cats doing silly things.  I also love that my mum, sister (and sometimes brother too) often start a 'round robin' type email which progressively gets sillier and sillier the longer it is passed back and forth.  The topic starts out as a normal email, but then disintegrates very quickly, often with hilarious results.
   
9. Move your body.  I know this sounds totally boring to say 'exercise', but now that I am in the habit of walking daily, I love it so much and really miss it if I have to miss a day.  Some days I only go out for twenty minutes and some days it's an hour.  In the past thirty days I've missed less than five days total and I can live with that.  I honestly never thought I'd see the day when I looked forward to exercise.
   
10. And finally, be good to yourself!  Even though I'm much, much better about talking nicely to myself than I used to be, I still found I was being mean to myself every so often.  I would sometimes treat myself like a workhorse and give no thanks either!  There's only so often you can put up with that before you start rebelling against yourself.  Now I treat myself just as I would anyone else i.e. nicer.  When we consider what is reasonable by applying it to a loved one, we very quickly come to see that we have way higher standards for ourselves than we would ever expect from someone else.  It's exhausting!  I think that's when I procrastinate, self-sabotage and resist too, so it actually is counter-productive.

Thank you so much for being a part of this series of 30 Chic Days, I hope you had fun too.  I'd love to hear of your takeaway(s), either from one of my posts or the many fabulous comments.

We have to give Margaret P a merit award for 'most comprehensive comments' too.  Step up and take a bow, Margaret!  This series of 30 Chic Days wouldn't have been the same without you.

{Femininity} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 29

One of my favourite ways to feel more feminine is to indulge in ‘boudoir time’.  My version of boudoir time starts between 8pm and 9pm.  If we have dinner early enough and are cleaned up, I retire from television viewing and go up to our bedroom.  I have the lamps on but not the overhead lights; I may have an herbal tea and I spread myself out with all my journals, a book or a soothing magazine such as Victoria.

Part of my boudoir time is taking an extended makeup removal and face wash, perhaps applying a clay mask.  I recently bought a Clarisonic facial brush which I use each morning in the shower, so I don’t use an exfoliant anymore, but I love to apply a clay mask on my t-zone, with coconut oil on my cheeks as a moisturising mask.

While my mask works, I turn on my relaxing spa music and spread myself out over our bed with my journals, a book and maybe a Victoria magazine.  I may have a herbal tea to sip as well, or a glass of water.  I've been journalling more lately.  After about 15-20 minutes I wash my masks off and then change the water in the basin to give a final rinse with clean water and enjoy putting on my serum, night cream and eye cream.  I also apply my lavender body lotion to neck, decolletage, arms, shoulders, wrists and hands.

I pack up all my journals, books and magazines and put them away, then settle into bed with my current book.

There are so many benefits to boudoir time:

• It is far more relaxing and conducive to sleeping well than watching tv or being on the computer
• I won't be tempted to work late
• My eyes won't get scratchy because I'm still on the computer even though I'm really tired
• It feels feminine and like I am a lady of leisure
• It feels meditative which is good because I don't do any other type of meditation
• I can actually feel my muscles relax when I turn on the soothing spa music
• I love my journalling time and have come up with some great insights and ideas
• There is no cost – it’s completely free to do
• I sleep well after this calming wind-down to bed time
• It feels like I take my self-care seriously when I make time to do this
• It is a very enjoyable hour or so
• It feels very feminine and ‘French’ to pamper myself in this way
• I feel like I am living my idealistic dream life when I do this at least a couple of times a week
• Doing this slows down time, it punctuates the week and stops one week sliding into the next

If you’ve read or are reading my new book Thirty Chic Days, you may notice I mention boudoir time a few times.  I’m a fan!  What about you?  Do you do anything similar?  I’d love to hear about any soothing evening rituals you might have.

{Organisation} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 28

Image from Aerin Lauder's Instagram

I love to find effective solutions to keep me on track with my goal of living a simple and beautiful everyday life.  I enjoy a neat, orderly and clean home but I don't want to feel like I can't relax or that I have to spend every spare minute tidying up.

Organising experts such as Peter Walsh and others always talk about keeping horizontal surfaces clear.  Basically, once you have lost control of a horizontal surface, you've lost control of your home.  Okay, that may sound a bit dramatic, but think of the difference it makes if you don't do anything more than clear off all tabletops, kitchen and bathroom counters and the floor, putting away anything that shouldn't be there.  Your home is instantly transformed!

It seems like it would be an easy thing to keep all tabletops, desks, kitchen counter and dressers clear on a daily basis only leaving on them what I want there, and it is.  I don't have to think 'the whole house needs tidying', I only need to tidy off the main surfaces and the whole room looks better.

Our dining table is right inside our front entrance so it's the first thing you see when you arrive home.  It's so nice to have a tidy tabletop with a vase of flowers and our placemats and coasters.  When I don't do this, the table can have on it headphones, iphone cables, magazines and newspapers, items to take to work... it's an endless list.

The same with our coffee table, it looks really nice with my tableaux of a set of trays on top of a decorative cloth, two vintage Penguin books stacked with a metal fleur de lys on top, a candle and my beloved Italian wooden miniature globe.  If I don't clear it each night we will have salt and pepper grinders, bits of salt and pepper scattered all over, crumpled napkins, a nail file, handcream...

My home office desk is the same.  When I come in to write, it's such a pleasure to have only my computer screen and keyboard, the lamp, pen holder and notepaper.  At other times, notebooks and notes can build up, blank cds, iphone or Kindle cables, a tea cup or glass.  I have a drawer for the cables and I always know where to find them (I keep my noise-cancelling headphones in there too), and the notebooks either are stacked neatly if I'm using them or are put where I find them handy.  They actually move around a lot - by my bed for journalling, in my office, in my bag to take to work.

My dresser upstairs with my makeup on top is another area that it's nice to keep clear and move away everything that is 'temporary' (and can end up sitting there for weeks).

There are many benefits to doing this daily, and as I notice items where they shouldn't be:

• Daily tidies means nothing will get out of hand
• It will bring me peace of mind
• It looks nicer
• It will flow into other areas of my life, showing areas I have been tolerating and am choosing not to address
• I will know where to find things
• Nothing will get forgotten or out of date (such as a letter that needs something doing by a certain time)
• I will be showing care and appreciation for my home
• It's a step in the direction of my ideal self
• I am treating my home exactly as I would if it was my dream home in the country
• It's a good habit to cultivate
• It will be nice for my husband as well
• He will probably do the same (it's usually me that leaves stuff lying around though)
• It won't be embarrassing if someone pops around and our dining table is a mess of stuff

Do your surfaces stay clutter-free for long?  Are you constantly fighting a losing battle?  Looking around right now, what can you see that shouldn't be there?  Extra points for the funniest/strangest item!

I'll go first - I can see a toy mouse with the stuffing come out of it near our dining table on the carpet.  I am constantly putting the cat toys back into their basket because our girls love fishing them out and playing with them.  The craziest thing about this mouse toy though, is that I didn't buy it.  One of our cats brought it home one day so they must have stolen it from another cat's house.  I checked with the neighbour closest to us and it wasn't theirs... kleptocat!

{Eating} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 27

Restaurant Cristal Room, Paris

French Girl Portion Sizes

In refining what I eat and working out what does and doesn’t work for me, I’ve discovered that what I always thought of as a decent-sized meal may actually be too big for me.  I have this thing that I love to feel full and don’t like the feeling of being unsatisfied if I don’t have a very big meal. 

When I am handed a plate if I am eating out or being served to at home, my eyes immediately scan it and my involuntary thought is either ‘that’s not much’ or ‘yay, my plate is nice and full’.  Whatever I am handed, whether it’s dinner, a coffee or dessert, if it looks huge I feel really happy.  I can’t help it! 

My meals can be needlessly large.  I sometimes feel stuffed after dinner as I don’t like leaving things on my plate.  I also don’t like waste.  Occasionally I will finish my dinner without eating everything on my plate and save it to have with the next day's lunch salad, but often it’s not an appropriate dinner to save as leftovers, or we already have a fridge-full at work of everything we need for lunches.

A better solution is to serve myself a smaller portion.  I only ever have a small amount of protein, such as one sausage if it’s bangers and mash, or half a chicken breast or one chicken thigh cutlet or one tiny piece of eye fillet steak, but I can cut back on the vegetables a little bit.

In my mind, because the brightly coloured vegetables are ‘free’ on Weight Watchers points and healthy, I have a big pile.  And it’s not the calories but the feeling that bothers me.  They still fill up your stomach too much if you have a lot.

Same with my fresh fruit breakfast.  I have a massive bowl in the mornings and then add yoghurt and nuts, then have a milky coffee.  Yes, it gets me through to lunch, but even if I reduce it by 25% in size I will feel more comfortable physically after breakfast.

And as for my internal momentary disappointment when I see that a plateful of food ‘isn’t very big’ I can embrace that more petite portion as my French girl serving size.

I think this step of addressing portion size comes after I have had some success tweaking my food choices and adding more fresh components.  That way I don’t feel too deprived if I go from large quantities of fun food to small quantities of healthy food all at once.  One step at a time.

I don’t feel like I am not eating much to want to be skinny, but that I am going easy on my body by not asking it to work so hard processing the huge portion I have eaten.  I’ve heard many times that our stomach is the size of our fist, but I choose to forget it conveniently.  When you look at your clenched fist it is not that big! 

And the key to getting through to the next meal, I know, is protein.  So a small meal of carbohydrates will not satisfy, but add protein and it will.  That’s why I have a coffee made entirely with milk in the morning, always have some kind of cooked, lean meat on my salad at lunchtime and meat with dinner.

Years ago when I used to go to the gym, a personal trainer after asking me to write down what I ate over a typical week, said I did not have enough protein in my diet. So I've always been very conscious about including a portion of lean protein in my three meals a day.

How do you think your portion sizes look?  What would your ideal French girl say if she saw what you served yourself up?  It would be funny if we could let other people see into our kitchens and if we could see into theirs, just to see what a 'normal' portion size looks like.  I suppose we already can do that actually - it's called Instagram!

{Video} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 26

We're up to day 26 of my 30 Chic Days Series!  Only a few more days to go now.  Today I'm reading Day 3 - Bathe yourself in mystique from my new book.  It was a chilly day here in Auckland since we're into winter proper now, so I had the fire going.  There's nothing like a woodfire burning when it's cold outside and the cats love it too.  I swear, I only have to crumple a piece of newspaper - I haven't even struck a match yet - and Jessica starts ambling over to plonk herself in front of the woodburner.  She's not silly!

I hope that those of you in the northern hemisphere are keeping cool, because I've heard reports from many chic readers that it is warm where they are!  Connie in Apple Valley, California mentioned it was 104 deg F there.  I had to convert this into a language I understand - 40 deg C - that is hot!  My dad's a big fan of hot weather - really, really hot weather, so he'll be extremely envious of that temperature when it's near freezing here in the mornings.

Today's book excerpt is on the topic of mystique - one of my favourite things to practice.  I'm not perfect at it by any means, but I'm getting better all the time; and that's all we can ask of ourselves I think. I hope you enjoy today's video and I'd love to hear if you find mystique easy to come by.

Until tomorrow, wishing you a lovely rest of your weekend!

{Chic habits} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 25

Sometimes when I’m working on the computer and I want a mental break, I go looking for something to read for five minutes.  I may have already read my handful of favourite blogs. It is inevitably at these times that I end up at Daily Mail UK, New Zealand Herald, People.com, celebrity Instagrams and other such websites.  At best, they are mildly annoying and I wonder why I have killed a few brain cells reading about these people.  At worst, I read the headlines of an upsetting or depressing story that I can’t do anything about and also cannot get out of my mind.

I don’t want to have these places be my go-to when I need a bit of time-out, and that is when I came up with the idea of the place where there are a ton of stories waiting to be read, all chosen with me in mind.  They are focused on my favourite topics and are always uplifting.  Where is that place?  It’s the files on my computer.  I don’t do it as often now and it has to be something really good to save, but I used to save oodles and I mean oodles from blogs and website articles, from the entire piece down to snippets in an Inspiration file.

I have folders for Homemaking, French Chic, the Yahoo group, Managing your Money, Health and Slimness, Simple Living, Beauty, Femininity, Housekeeping, Personal Style, Self-Improvement and Travel.  They are all filled with documents.

And because these are all topics that I value and desire, I feel really happy and content spending time in their company.  Motivated too, as often they spark off an idea that I can’t wait to try.

I made the decision to stop saving so much information a while back when it almost got to be a mini-obsession.  I would often think to myself ‘why am I saving all this stuff, I actually hardly ever read it’.  But I didn’t want to just delete the folders of the stuff I did have.

So now, when I need a five minute breather, I browse my folders just like I used to browse the internet.  I pick a folder and then a document and start reading.  It’s lovely with a cup of tea or coffee.  I can read the article and think ‘well, I’ve read it now, it was ok but it’s not a keeper’ and I can delete the file.  Sometimes I can be one paragraph into a file and see that it’s not me anymore or way too basic and I already do this stuff.  I flick through the rest to confirm that, delete the file and move onto another one.

Here’s the first exciting bit:  the gems really stand out.  These files sparkle and fill me with such delight and joy and I feel the ‘love at first sight’ feeling I felt way back in the beginning when I first discovered the world of French Chic, Anne Barone and this magical and fun new way to look at and live my life.  These are the keepers for now, and I look forward to re-reading in the future.

And the second exciting bit is that by doing this I realised I am decluttering one of the last few places in my home that is untouched – my laptop.  Because my folders were so full, I didn’t often go there.  But now I look forward to a tea break so I can peruse the goldfield that is my hard drive.  It is a great way to see how far I have come, both in the information I have saved, plus items I wrote myself long ago.

Combining decluttering with inspiration, what could be better?

I am also now looking around at other ways I can switch a habit I want to reduce or eliminate with something I want to do more of.  What other things (adding one good, eliminating one bad) can I stick together that achieves both goals?

Habit switching - I like it!  What habit would you like to change, and what could you substitute for it?

{Recipe} 30 Chic Days – The Fourth Series: Day 24

It's recipe time again because I made the yummiest dark chocolate meringues yesterday.  How lovely do they look all marbled?  I can't take credit for the recipe though because I made it from an English Hello magazine.  Their recipe called for a butterscotch chocolate bar that we don't get here, so I used dark chocolate instead.  I like to use what I've already got, although I did have to go and buy icing sugar.

I bought a gourmet meringue once that had a raspberry marble effect and it was amazing (in both looks and taste), so I'm going to try doing that next time.  There are real fruit yoghurt swirl products you can buy (sort of like a runny jam) which I think will do the job well, or you could simmer up frozen berries and sugar instead.

The Hello magazine recipe said the mixture made six merinques and they were giant!  The plate above is a bread and butter plate size.  In the future I plan to make 12 or even 18 meringues with the same quantity of mixture.

I took a photo of the recipe (above).  You should be able to click on it to read the instructions.  In case you can't see it clearly, here's what I did:

Dark chocolate meringues

Preheat oven to 150 deg C or 275 deg F.

Line a baking tray with baking (greaseproof) paper.

Beat three egg whites until they form soft peaks.

Gradually add 150g (5 oz) of icing sugar (also called powdered or confectioner's sugar) while beating until well-mixed and mixture forms stiff peaks.  Mixture should be white and pearly (it's very pretty!)

Melt 100g (3 oz) dark chocolate in the microwave and gently mix chocolate through the egg white and sugar mixture.  You'll want to achieve a marbled effect rather than completely mix it in.

Place spoonfuls onto the baking tray and bake for 50-60 minutes.  I checked mine at 45 minutes because I could already smell a slight scorchedness.  They weren't burnt but they were well-cooked so I'll probably check them at 35-40 next time.  I love it when meringues (or their big sister pavlova) have a crispy shell but are gooey/chewy in the middle.

We had ours with vanilla icecream (which is the perfect accompaniment to any dessert in my book).

I hope you enjoy this recipe if you decide to try it.  I'd never made meringues before and really, they are so easy.  I'm sure they would impress family or guests too, which is obviously the main thing ;)

Wishing you a happy weekend - a long weekend for the US I think!