I hope everyone had a wonderful April - I love this time of year - everything is growing like mad and it feels just the right time to start new projects. Here are some of the things I have been loving this month.
Perfume - 'Ortigia - Ambra Nera'
This is a very unusual perfume that I fell in love with and I was kindly bought for mother's day. I just adore how musky, almost earthy the scent is. I use it when I want to be creative. I think choosing a particular perfume for different purposes can be very useful. With time, you are instantly brought into that headspace. When I apply this now I forget about the humdrum tasks or problems, and it quickly takes me to a very personal creative space.
Podcast - 'How I Built This'
This is so inspirational. I have loved hearing about all the different stories about how some of the worlds most incredible entrepreneurs got started. I particularly enjoyed listening to the Kate Spade and Spanx ones but they are all great really. I stumbled across real estate mogul Barbara Cocoran's story (whom I have never heard of) and I really enjoyed that. The most memorable part is where she laughs that she has only ever sold three properties! Yes, incredibly this is true. She realised early on that her talents lay in other areas ( such as a unique approach to recruitment) and passed on the actual sales to her staff. I love this bit, such a reminder that delegation is a really important part of success. It's no badge of honour to do everything ourselves.
Author - D.E. Stevenson
I was introduced to this author through Persephone books who publishes one of D.E. Stevenson's novels , and quickly decided I would be reading more of her work. It is domestic fiction, quite similar to Edith Wharton. I believe she was rather popular at the time, and her books have gradually come back in print. It's early chick lit really I suppose, but some how because it is set in the 40's you can feel a little more cerebral reading it! Anyway, there is nothing I enjoy more that finding a whole swathe of undiscovered work from an author whose writing is cheery, consistent and enjoyable - a gold mine!
Trench - LK Bennet
I treated myself to this gorgeous trench from LK Bennet. I have been looking for one I liked for so long and this fitted all my requirements. Their clothes are so well made and have the little details that other companies seem to be cutting corners on such as a well made lining and good weight to the fabric.
Recipe - Amelia Freer, Asian Chicken Salad
I'm so excited that it's salad time of year again! I can get really fed up planning family meals sometimes, so for lunch which I usually eat alone, I just make a big batch of the same thing on a monday , and have it over and over. Winter I do soup and summer salads. This was a real winner, though there was an awful lot of chopping involved, which got a little annoying. Next time I'll use the food processor.
However, my biggest inspiration this month came from an interesting connection. We are renovating our house and needed to have two carpets fitted. For various reasons, they were of very different quality - an expensive one and a budget one. I was stressing the difference to the fitter between the two carpets. I pointed out that while I wanted him to take great care over the expensive one, I was not quite so worried about the cheaper one. He sat back on his heels, looked at me and said 'I take as much care over an cheap carpet as I do a expensive one'. Well, I felt quite admonished. I saw e was so zen about his carpet fitting, that every carpet mattered. It didn't matter to him that one was of a better quality than the other. He was going to do his very best by that carpet for every job. Needless to say he did an excellent job of both. But his comment kept coming back to me in the following weeks. I became uncomfortably aware that this was not something I did. I tend to take care of things I perceive to have value, but scrimp on things I feel are worth less. I also realised, to my shame, that I occaisionly did this with people too. Putting energy into my interactions with friends, clients or colleagues, but (though I do hope I am polite) not always giving the same care to retail staff, call centre operatives etc. But surely everything deserves our full energy and presence? I resolved that I would follow this man's example and be a good steward of everything that come into my sphere. Perhaps if we could all give care to things and people that our cultural conditioning teaches us to disregard, there would be less conflict in our society.
Thank you for reading and I hope you have found this little round up of things I have been enjoying useful.
Happy April!
Naomi