How to feel younger

Valarie

I love to see ladies (and men) quite a bit older than me who seem youthful and vibrant.  A friend’s mother comes to mind – she’s not that old, probably in her sixties or nearing seventy, and she is always a fun lady to bump into.  She never complains about anything, she talks up everyone she knows and if she doesn’t agree with something it’s said in a jokey and nice way.

Because my husband and I run a shoe store, I have seen her feet, and she has the most misshapen big toes I have ever seen – they actually bend in middle -  yet she laughs about them and says it’s from years of wearing stiletto heels in the 1960s.  If her toes hurt, you’d never know.  They probably wouldn’t dare actually.

This lady and others like her inspire me to age well, to get more positive as I get older and get on with the important job of enjoying life.

A seventy-year-old who is healthy, vibrant and happy will be more attractive than a younger woman with a sour and pinched outlook on life who doesn't take care of herself. Of course you can tell the seventy-year-old is older but that is going to be the case no matter what.  She will still be more attractive than younger Miss Sour and Pinched.

I believe you will be most content if you accept your age, and focus on making the most off your health, looks and happiness with every advancing year.

How much nicer would it be to think of yourself that you get 'better with every year - healthier, happier, more hobbies, friends, books read' rather than 'another year older, look how old I look, don’t get old it’s horrible' and basically counting down until the day you die.  Which sounds more fun to you?

I know there are health issues to face and possible bereavements and other difficulties, however these are not the exclusive preserve of older people; there are many youngsters who face all of these things.  And it seems to be a medical fact that stress can make you ill, so by stressing about all the bad aspects of aging you could be making things worse.  That’s a downward spiral I wouldn’t mind avoiding.

Conversely, focusing on all the good parts of getting older you could be doing yourself (and your loved ones, for they have to live with you) a huge favour.  I can see there are tons of items on the ‘positives of aging’ list, such as:

Getting richer over time, simply because you’ve been earning for longer

Having more wisdom from your experiences

More free time to do what you love – hobbies and activities

Less concern for what others think of you

More likely to do exactly what you want – others can’t talk you into things

You’ve worked out your personal style, what colours suit you

Watching the two Marigold Hotel movies and others of their type always helps me feel more positive about getting older.  I love to see retirees behaving badly – my nana Valarie was a great one for doing exactly what she wanted to.   She wore stylish and elegant clothing right through – no old lady dresses or frumpy weight gain for her.  She thumbed her nose at the authorities and drove her Mini even when she no longer had a license (she didn’t go far, don’t worry) and the hilarious thing about that is that she wore a giant sombrero so they wouldn’t see it was her.  As if a hat like that was going to help her go incognito through the streets of the small town she lived in!

If you are retired, I’d love to hear all the wonderful and fantastic things about being so, and if you are younger, please tell us what you are most looking forward to as you get older.

For me, it’s having more time to sew, knit, read and travel.  Yippee!

An intentional life – and our changes coming up

On my recent interview with Shannon Ables of The Simply Luxurious Life, I mentioned in our conversation that my husband and I were in the process of changing our lifestyle quite radically.  I’ve had a few questions for more details so I thought I’d do a post on our lifestyle changes.

About eighteen months ago my husband and I started talking about where we live and what we do, and the outcome of these talks is that we have decided to leave our city life and move to the small town where I grew up, selling our business and doing something completely different when we shift there.

Currently we live in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand with a population of near 1.4 million people; however I’ve always dreamed about moving to the country or a small town (or both) to live a quiet and simple life.  Luckily my husband shares this desire.

We do actually live a quiet and simple ‘small-town’ life in the city, but I know it will be so much more relaxing to live in a smaller place without traffic congestion issues and with less people overall.  I always love going back ‘home’ when I visit, for the quiet streets, wide-open sky and calming country feel.

Many years ago my dad made a very wise statement when he pointed to a map of somewhere big (I can’t remember where, it was a city like London or New York) and said ‘concentration of people is the problem’ and we still laugh about that because he loves his slow life in the country, but now, I’m just the same!  I know our cats will love it too; it's quite a built-up-cat neighbourhood where we live.

The place where I grew up - Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay - is on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.  It was a pretty sleepy place in the 1970s and 1980s when I was growing up, but in the mid-80s people started planting grape vines after realising the dry climate with hot days and cool nights was ideal for wine production.  Now, Hawke’s Bay is an attractive destination for both visitors and those wanting to escape the 'rat race' permanently (funnily enough I have heard people talk about being ‘Auckland refugees’ or ‘traffic refugees’ who have moved there).

We are both so excited about ‘moving into’ our dream life and it’s only a matter of time now.  We’re ticking things off on our big to-do list and we're planning that within six months we will be there.  It will be quite novel for us to have time off together too, because for the past twelve years we’ve run a seven-day business with mostly just us two as staff.  And we’ve only known each other thirteen years in total!

My husband worked out how many extra days off per year he'd have (adding together weekends, public holidays and paid leave) going into a normal job and it’s more than being self-employed.  We’re very grateful to our business though, and have received many blessings from the experience, in spite of having worked a lot.  As well as earning money, it actually saved us money since we never had time off to browse the shops together or have Sunday brunch out, plus we’ve learned a lot from running a small business.  And there's nothing like working in a shop all day to cure you of shopping for leisure so it's quite good for keeping clutter at bay too.

Just a change of pace and change of scenery will be wonderful.  I’m so grateful to be in a position to not have to get a full-time job; I could work part-time or even work from home with my writing.  That would be my dream.  And because we have a low-cost lifestyle it will be achievable for us.

We’ve had fun looking at real estate online and thinking about what kind of house we’d like to live in and how much land we want.  I feel really grateful that we are able to do this, and really, it’s just a decision.

As I also mentioned to Shannon on our interview, in my mid-forties I now realise I’m in the second half of my life.  Do I want to save all the good stuff for when I’m retired?  Why not enjoy life now?  Sometimes I feel like we keep on doing the same thing because we've always done the same thing.  That's the only reason I can think of to explain why I have been doing the same old thing for almost thirty years now without putting my head up and looking around to see what else there is.

I’ve mentioned Brian Tracy’s ‘zero-based thinking’ before, and that’s what we used to come to the decision we made.  We talked a lot about Would we open a retail business now if we didn't already have one?  Would we live in this city if we were choosing where we wanted to live?  Where would we live if not here? Overseas?  Somewhere else in New Zealand?

We talked about whether we wanted to live overseas, but I think we’ll stay in New Zealand for now.  We both love living here, love how New Zealand is so far away from everything and love being close to our families.  It’s cool to think about all the possibilities though.

What about you?  If you could start over, what would be your ideal scenario?  Would it be where you live and what you are doing right now?  If not, then what?

Using values as a chic tool to shape your life

When I first started becoming more intentional about the life I wanted to lead, I realised it involved lots of questions.  Many, many questions, otherwise how would I know?  One of the very first was:

What do I value?

When I’d wake up on yet another work day and drag myself out of my cosy bed to have a shower, eat breakfast and then run for the bus to work, I’d think how nice it would be if life were different.  If I didn’t have to get up with an alarm clock five days a week.  If time was my own.  I still think about that actually, how nice it would be not to have to leave the house at a certain time each day, but the difference is I look forward to my days now (and I’m working towards not having to go to an external workplace within the next six months).  A key reason I’m really happy with my life is that I’ve intentionally worked on shaping my days to be full of ease and beauty.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t situations; of course, even someone with the most perfect life in the world would still have stuff to deal with most days that they wish would just go away (for me:  filing paperwork, keeping up with boring admin, doing my tax stuff, getting into a good daily routine sometimes, having days when I do not have a handle on my food).

But for the most part I can honestly say that I enjoy (almost) every moment of my life.  And it all started out working out what I value; it was how I decided what belongs in my life and what doesn’t.

One day I sat down and wrote out everything I value and figured out exactly what belongs in my ideal life.  I came up with a list by asking myself 'what do I value in life?'

Simplicity

Serenity

Tranquility

Comfort

Beauty

Luxury

Inspiration

Security

Health

Elegance

Quality

Value

Partnership

Pets

Family

Creativity

Moderation

Honesty

Authenticity

Peace

Having this list is soothing to read through because it focuses my mind on what matters most to me.  If I had to narrow it down more so that I could keep a handful of values top of mind, I’d probably choose a top three from this list.  I started out with one long list of values but then saw that many went together such as Partnership, Family, Pets - they are all relationships that I value.  So I can narrow down the list by grouping like things together.

Simplicity is number one: if I had to choose a single value to live by it would be simplicity.  Health is up there too.  It's amazing how easy it is to eat differently when your health is at risk.  And it is obvious to me now because Health is a value for me.  As much as I like being slimmer, I don't see 'Being Skinny' on my list so it wasn't as much of a motivator as Health obviously is.

Using this list of values as a springboard is a really useful and fun way of reminding yourself what’s important to you.  Have you ever thought about your values?  If you had to pick one or two off the top of your head, what would they be?  I’d love to hear.

Interview with Shannon Ables of The Simply Luxurious Life

New interview

Recently Shannon Ables of The Simply Luxurious Life and I got together on Skype - Shannon from Bend, Oregon, and me from Auckland, New Zealand.  We had such fun - Shannon is the nicest person ever!

We talked a little bit about my new book Thirty Chic Days and all sorts of things related to living a simple and beautiful life.  I am so excited that her podcast with our chat is out now.  You'll probably already be familiar with Shannon's inspiring blog and podcast The Simple Sophisticate, but if you're not, you are in for a treat!

You can listen to (or download) the interview here, and it's also available on iTunes and Stitcher.  I'm sure you will enjoy, as I did, Shannon's generosity of spirit and genuine friendliness (I was a little bit nervous before the interview!)

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New blog

If you have read through my most recent 30 Chic Days series on the blog, you may recall that reader Margaret P received a merit award for 'most comprehensive comments'.  Many of you, including me, suggested (insisted?) that Margaret start a blog to share all her wisdom with us.  Happily, I can announce that she has done just that!

I'd love you to go and have a read and say 'welcome' as Margaret finds her blogging feet at her new 'home' Devon Dreaming.

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That's all for now, I'll see you on Friday for another blog post, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy listening to Shannon and I chat - I so wish we could have met in person!

Feminine beauty at home

I’ve been immersing myself in elegance this week.  Not usually one for cut flowers, I even bought myself two bunches of Erlicheer which are now scenting our living area and ensuite.  I was inspired by Mrs Shockley’s lovely Instagram and blog.  We have a mutual admiration of Aerin Lauder’s sophisticated and elegant décor style and also of Jennifer L. Scott’s beautiful books.

In the past I've walked past flower displays and hardly ever bought them.  They seemed extravagant, not really necessary and even wasteful.  Now I think 'feminine and luxurious'.  I'm going to see how it goes to make this a regular thing; I will get a bonus benefit that I am spending a few dollars on flowers instead of  'treat' foods.  There are no calories in flowers!

Something else I did recently which always makes me feel feminine was to pretty up my makeup area.

I took my makeup tray and tipped everything out, then cleaned the tray and put back my makeup items, cleaning each one as I went.  I use a bottle of perfume as the cleaning agent (one of my least favourites to wear but still pretty to sniff) and a clean knit rag (from worn-out tee-shirts).  I clean the outside of the case and even open up and clean the mirror and all around the eyeshadows or blusher.  They look so new when I've finished.

I simultaneously went through my under-bed storage container too, which is where my makeup overflow is kept as well as travel items and hotel items from our trips.  I don't have much makeup overflow anymore since I don't work at Dior plus I've decluttered all shades that don't work for me.  But I still have multiples of blushers and eyeshadow palettes (about 4-5 of each).  Some are ones I've bought and a few are still Dior.

I swapped out a couple of eyeshadow palettes and kept out two blushes out to use (a cooler pink tone and a warmer rosy tone).  I switched one eyeshadow compact and it seemed brand new to me, both in cleanliness and because I haven't worn it in a while.

After I put back my selected, clean makeup items, I washed all my brushes in the basin with warm water and hand soap, then rinsed them all in clean warm water and laid them out to dry on a towel after squeezing the water from them.  They all dry overnight.

I couldn't wait to put my makeup on the next day with my 'new' makeup and brushes.  Doing this gives me such a feeling of well-being that it definitely deserves a spot on my 'what makes me feel high-frequency' list so that I can build up a reservoir of happiness activities.

Clockwise from top left: A gorgeous scented flower my mum gave me - it comes with a rose perfume spray to refresh it; my makeup tray; jewellery and hair pins/elastic; camellia and fern in our ensuite before I put Erlicheer in there

Plus it's thrifty because I've not bought anything!  When I'm sick of my colours and the containers are all dusty inside and out, nothing seems exciting to use and putting on my makeup in the morning seems a bit of a drag.  The shiny new makeup counters in department stores always seem so enticing, but have you noticed that the girls who work on them are always cleaning and polishing, wiping around lipstick tubes etc?  I see it all the time and when I worked at Dior it was said over and over to the counter girls to clean and polish their counters, displays and products every day.

Since I did this, I have been wiping items as I put them away (a clean tissue works well) and sharpen eye pencils if they need it so they are nice and new for next time.  All my makeup seems so new, and again, this is what makeup counter ladies do daily.  It really takes no more time, and it is such a pleasure to use my makeup, even more so than usual.

I recently bought a Beauty Blender sponge to try (I love it, but it does use more liquid foundation than I’d use with my fingers).  I viewed a couple of YouTube videos to pick up any tips and after one lady had done her foundation she moved onto contouring.  I don’t have any contour products but I kept watching because she was quite engaging.  She had a wind-up contour stick that she was applying to her face and I could see that the black plastic tube it was in had brown contour colour smeared all over it.  It looked gross!  After having just cleaned up all my makeup I wanted to grab a clean rag and clean her contour stick for her.  I was fixated on it!

If you're a bit bored with your makeup, may I suggest a cleaning session to polish everything up?  I promise you it will be like you have all new products when you go to use it the next day.  I love being my own makeup counter manager.  Wouldn't it be great if you could get a mini version of the tester displays they have so you could put your makeup in it on the top of your dresser?