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| Image: Charles Loyer, Unsplash |
'Subject: Paris lockdown blues & 30 Chic Days to the rescue!
I am living my “dream life” here in Paris with hubby and
2 teen-agers and… CoVid-19! (Talk about
a party-crasher!) Paris is on day 3 of lockdown - and the novelty has
definitely worn off.
Scary, crazy, bizarre - its hard to pick just one word to
describe this turbulent, frightening time. And from the confines of my lovely
and comfortable apartment - safe and sound at a time when so many people are at
risk - it is also lonely and boring.
I’m not a rescue or health worker so I can’t directly
help anyone who is infected. I can keep myself and my family in social
isolation so as to limit the spread of the disease. The biggest task for me is
to keep a positive and upbeat attitude for my loved ones. My children and my
husband don’t need to be hit over the head with the fact that I’m frightened and worried (which
usually comes out as “cranky”!)
Here is where you, Fiona, ride in to the rescue! Happily, I remembered your book, 30 Chic
Days. And guess what? For each day of
this crazy lockdown, I have just decided to take the same “Day” from your book
and try the idea. (I combined Day 1 through 3 for today.) I will start with Day
4 tomorrow on Lockdown Day 4.
So, thank you, Fiona, for your humorous, upbeat writing
style and for self-publishing that book! Who knew that it would be a self-help
tool for managing stress during a pandemic?'
I am so thrilled to hear that one of my books is proving helpful in these stressful times. Julien has a fabulous blog of her own - 'Chic Mind, Chic Life' where you can hear about her and her family's experience of living in Paris and her 'Lockdown Chic' diary. So cool!
Isn't it fascinating and fabulous that we can all talk directly to each other around the world and get an idea of how it is in different places? Just the other night I was emailing with my Russian publisher and she was telling me how it is in Moscow at the moment. I really love this aspect of the Internet.
Let's get onto our Day 3 post now:
Day 3: Inspire Yourself and Dream of Better Days
Something fun I've been doing since I bought an iPad several months ago, is to upload my saved screenshots to Pinterest. There are so many reasons why I love doing this so I'll share them with you:
- You get to declutter your camera roll, restoring extra space to your phone.
- Your images are saved and organized for future reference (I lost a whole lot of inspiration photos off my last laptop when it unexpectedly died).
- You get to revisit inspiration that moved you at an earlier time (and if it doesn't move you now, you can just delete it instead of saving it).
- You can view your images on Pinterest from any device. I might save to Pinterest on my desktop computer or iPad, but then can view something I am trying to remember on my phone when out.
- Over time you see a beautiful pattern of what inspires you most, when all your images are saved in one place.
I still have quite a few screenshots on my phone, and the plan which has been working well is to declutter and save little chunks here and there. You don't need to have all your Pinterest boards available to the public either. When you save some boards as Private you don't need to worry that people will judge your taste and you can save away with gay abandon! Honour your true self!
Are you a Pinterest girl too? Keen to start?
Happy day three and I'll see you tomorrow :)
xx Fiona
You can find me
here too:
What a lovely, inspiring and encouraging 30 day series this is. It comes at a time when your lovely positive outlook is so much appreciated. I am a New Zealander like you, but I know your posts are are a welcome encouragement to those all over the world. Thank you Fiona, Jane x
ReplyDeletePinterest is great. I used it more when I was renovating our apartments--as you say it's perfect for organizing inspirational photos. I also have lots of recipes on it. So much easier than shuffling through a file folder.
ReplyDeleteI love playing on Pinterest. I have boards ranging from vision boards to what should I make for dinner next week, vintage clothing from the 1940s, and one for the Netflix show Hilda. It's one of my favorite places to spend a little downtime.
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