Happy Holiday Weekend

Celebrate Every Day

Wishing you a safe and frolicking holiday weekend filled with family, friends, celebration, and remembrance.  And booze.  Lots of it.

Image sources 1/2/3 is by me; layouts by me

kisses, mrs. V

When Inspiration Strikes

Beauty is Everywhere

When I am working on a project or trying to learn something or just plain twitchy and nervous I have to move.  I need to physically move my body to energize and reengage my mind.  I think more clearly when I am moving.  When studying in college I used to march around my room, like Harold Hill, swinging a stick while singing the seventy sixth billionth genius and species of whichever taxonomic phylum I was trying to memorize that day. I thought this was just a weird character trait of mine but apparently I am a kinetic learner, according to people who know things and measure such things.

Conversely, moving also quiets my mind.  Yesterday I found myself moving around the yard, tidying, pulling weeds, and cleaning the pond.  I HATE pulling weeds mostly because I don’t like bugs and the effort always takes so long.  I didn’t plan to do yard work.  It happened sort of spontaneously.   I had an overwhelming urge to take control over something.  Angrily, I stabbed at those tenacious thistles. But eventually as I allowed my body to sink into the rhythms of digging and pulling, I found a quietude that was soothing.  And once the twitchiness had ebbed a bit, my mind opened to the palette around me.  Inspiration struck.

Texture, contrast, pattern, mood, patina, symmetry, color, movement - all things that I respond to viscerally. Everywhere I turned yesterday I found these in nature.  And each one was more beautiful and moving than the last.  Simple things that awakened my soul.  From beyond the pale of worry and indecision, I found some clarity of purpose.

God’s not so subtle reminder that I need to pull out my paints again.  When uncertainty strikes and the cacophony in my brain becomes too much, I find solace in painting.  And I forget that, ALL THE TIME.  My left sidedness often drowns out the right with its pragmatic Darwinism.  But every now and then in the battle over primacy and survival, the right side exercises her fittest-ness by opening my soul to a Maslow-like sanity-depending basic need to create beauty from beauty.

Most will notice the flower, I notice the colors on the leaves and the reflections of light.
Just like a Vermeer.

And that is just what I plan to do.  Paint something.

All photos by mrs. V

kisses, mrs. V

Mid-Life Career Shifts

Pipe Dreams…

I will let you in on a little secret.  I am going to share one of my dreams with you.  I want to turn my passions into a career.  All this stuff that I wax poetic about - somehow, some way I want to do these things FOR A LIVING.  I want to build a Chez V lifestyle brand of sorts.  Interiors, styling, entertaining, party planning, and product development all wrapped up with a darling little Chez V bow.  At the heart of it is my overwhelming desire to inspire others.

But that is only part of the story.  You see, it is time for me to go back to work.  And it is sort of a milestone year in my life, as by the end of it, I will officially become a ‘woman of a certain age.’  That scares the hell out of me. 

I have been so fortunate to be able to spend these first few years at home with my daughter.  Something my mother could never do.  And that has affected me over the years in different ways.  So it is very important for me to be home with Pieti, for as long as possible.  But now, we really need two incomes.

I could go back to my sweet spot of coaching operational excellence, continuous improvement, and behavioral leadership development.  Or I could follow my gut which is screaming at me to take a leap of faith to pursue my more creative passions.  So many times have I advised to an unfulfilled mentee, ‘You’re never too old or too young to start being the person you have always wanted to be.’  Funny how it is most difficult to follow our own counsel.

If ever there was a time for me to swerve in my career path, this is it.     The game has changed significantly in just the last few years.  Social media has leveled the playing field and people are creating their own roles and jobs doing things they truly love.  I want some of that action.

If I have to spend time away from my daughter, I would much rather be doing something that I REALLY love than just doing something at which I am really good.  mr. V does not think it is possible to make a living doing this sort of stuff.  And he might be right.  But in this one case, I REALLY want him to be wrong.


Have any of you out there taken a mid-life leap of faith?


all photos by me

kisses,  mrs. V