My way of dealing with life from home in these special times.
My way of dealing with life in these special times is keeping up the routines. Starting the day like always- a good breakfast, make the bed, take my shower and get dressed.
Tag: elegance
I used to love paper dolls as a girl
It started with the ones I got that my mother made when she was a girl. And she’s a really good cartoonist. Her paper dolls looked liked movie stars. And they have were dressed accordingly. So good looking! Then I got into the collecting period.I remember the winter holidays at my grandparents. Enjoying quiet afternoons in the sofa with magazines containing paper dolls to cut out. Mostly famous people like Abba members.The paper doll could be glued to a more solid paper for durability. Even mom was a paper doll in the sixties. Not as herself. I think she was a nurse.
6 reasons why I love the Cherry Blossom
6 reasons why I love the Cherry Blossom
Ulrika Bolinder at Kungsträdgården, Stockholm
Who doesn’t around the rose-scented breeze of spring that invigorates the senses and cleanses the mind free of all toxic thoughts and energies?
Cherry Blossom is indeed my most favourite time of the year; it is a time of rebirth and transformation.
As the trees and flower bushes welcome new leaves and petals, we humans can shed away all unhealthy habits and allow the roses of change to grow bold and vibrant.
It is a time of utter and devastating beauty.
Allow me to share some of the reasons why I simply love the Cherry Blossom:
A Time of Rebirth
Spring is a splendid time of rebirth, and Mother Nature is busy beautifying the earth with new shades and themes. It’s a remarkable season for change and transformation. One could go in for a splendid makeover, a new wardrobe, or even a drastically bold hair colour transformation.
A feast for the Senses
The arrival of Cherry Blossoms is indeed a feast for the senses. This invigorating sensory experience is as rewarding for the eyes, as it is for the nose. There’s nothing more splendid than being surrounded by pastel and vibrant pink florals.
Love is in the Air
It most certainly is! Spring has a dramatic flair for romance, and it is the perfect time of the year to plan romantic outdoor dates and unforgettable springtime getaways.
Picnics & Parties
The Japanese tradition of Hanami advocates the celebration of beauty, and it literally means “blossom viewing”. Around the 9th century, Japanese aristocrats introduced the concepts of Hanami parties under beautiful cherry blossom trees. Over the years, this ritual evolved and spread throughout the world. I adore the Cherry Blossom season because it’s a splendid time for outdoor festivities, fun picnics and parties filled with entertainment.
Appreciating Nature
According to Japanese cultures, these pastel pink blossoms are known as ‘Sakura’, and they are symbolic of spring, the season of renewal. I firmly believe that these delicate blooms and their exquisite petals can teach us a great deal about the laws of nature, and the nature of life. Their short-lived existence allows us to appreciate beauty, and then watch it disappear forever.
A Love for All Things PINK
Pink is not just a colour, it is, in fact, a state of mind. I adore watching this romantic and dreamy colour appear everywhere on trees and gardens. Spring is indeed a celebration of the colour pink, and the new dusty pink Mini Jetset Bag is the ultimate accessory to amplify your blossomy glam.
Stay Elegant, folks!
My 4 Role Models and why we need them in our strive for elegance
We should always strive to be our best. That considers some thought.
First, what would be best for me? When do I like myself? What and who makes me be a better version of myself? I like things moving and I don’t like reinventing any wheel so let’s go to the fast track.
The Elegance in Language Creates Elegance in life
The elegance in language creates an elegance in life
Elegance is a set of many things.
When you dress elegant and with style in the morning you have created a great foundation for a day in your elegant life. Style and beauty. Makeup and hair. You have a task list and have executed your morning routine and are ready for the day and the possibilities it has for you.
Ready to conquer the World! Yes: it’s my philosophy of a life surrounding my everyday elegance. But just as you can spill coffee on your new dress and the day can be interrupted with unexpected negative events. We can all work on what we can avoid creating negativity and energy drains.
Language is something that you can Control. Your language. Your language is a result of your thoughts. Your thoughts are based on your attitudes and values.
Language is so much more than just the number of Words.
So language is a result of many things. Language needs to be elegant in order for your life to be elegant. You are what you think. You do what you think and you act upon the set of values you have.
And when things don’t work as good as they could; the values can be adjusted. The values that are adjusted to the better leads to better routines, better outcomes and a better more elegant life. It is a winning spiral.
So the need for rebuilding better values (if they need to), reorganize the set of cultural inheritance that was a part of the system software that came from your upbringing.
Your language needs to be elegant. In order to live an elegant life. The first thing to clean like coffee stains on a dress is profanity. Profane words are basically only in order when you hit yourself on the thumb with a hammer. When you see famous actors being interviewed on television and they use swear words like a teenager I instantly react as they spilled coffee all over their clothes. It’s just a big NoNo.
Elegant language is an attitude toward your surroundings in society.
The elegance in style and in language is part of the same thing.
But elegant language is an attitude toward your surroundings in society. It’s being nice to people. To smooth the description and round your critique into words that will stand the test of time. Elegance in the language is about using fewer adjectives and polarized words. It’s about being diplomatic when you are angry and under stress. It’s about making it possible to solve the crisis by not burning unnecessary bridges. It’s about elegance in life. It’s about style. It is the core of you that Pour out of your mouth. Or in your writing. If you intend to live an elegant life; you need to use your language in an elegant way. And the path to so requires a guideline to the right path of thinking.
You see what you think. You think what you are. The road to elegance is filtered by your language.
The Elegance of Taking One Task at the time.
A path for elegance is having a flow in life that moves you in a seamlessly effortless way forward. Too much to do creates stress. Too little to do also creates stress. The perfect balance is hard to achieve. But is it really?
My Morning Routine with Elegance
My Morning Routine with Elegance
A part of the essense of elegance is planning
The calmness of the morning
I’m a morning person. That does not mean that I talk, listen to the radio, watch tv or anything noisy. That only means that I love going up and start the day. But I’m careful about my start. A part of the essence of elegance is planning without stress.
It is during the morning routine I plan for the day ahead. The key to elegance is to plan for just enough and not too many activities. To avoid stress and to get a great pace of the Day. For the benefit of keeping the level of elegance of mind.
The alarm clock goes off at 06:24 during a normal day. I have a habit never to edit my Alarm Clock list to the sheer Joy of my husband. It’s a long list with many 06:24s to choose from.
The smile on his face and the laughter he gives when he sees my long Alarm Clock list has kept me from deleting anything.
The routine of waking up at the same time has its own benefits. I pull the curtains apart and wonder where this day will take me. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t just follow the day- I plan for it but you can’t plan for every minute. That’s the beauty;-) There is always room for the unexpected.
My cat loves the routine too. She walks with me to the kitchen and shows her will to get fed. She gets her food on the small plate from the Sunday Tableware. Her little corner in the kitchen is also a slight part of the best elegance we can offer her. With her satisfied, I start brewing coffee and set the table for breakfast.
Our cat Maja born in 2007
My husband likes to sleep a little longer so that gives me a peaceful moment to plan the day by myself. I use a pen and post-it stickers in my Dairy, very old school. I am old-fashioned in that sense that I don’t use any digital tool for it. It suits me.
Same thing with the old-fashioned newspaper. I love to open the printed version of the ink made edition. The articles I read make no digital fingerprints.
I can skim the articles and read from different sections. I can explore areas I haven´t been shown interest in earlier and not presented to me by an algorithm.
I love my morning paper. Printed version. Old school.
I like my husband to hand the morning paper to me. So I call him when the kitchen table is set and the Moccamaster Coffee-machine is ready.
He then gets it and joins me at our breakfast table.
Elegance at the Breakfast table is part of a great start of the Day.
Coffee machine
Erik gets his news from the smartphone. Our deal is that he has it on silent mode. The softly played classical music in the background is not to be disturbed.
Morning radio or TV is not to be on. The gentle start of our senses is demanding that no extra noises, no loud news broadcast, and no upbeat music is allowed. The birds outside is always appriciated.
When breakfast is done we have a habit of “holiday mood ”
Erik gets redcurrants from our garden between July until October to garnish the bowls with natural yogurt and müsli that we have for breakfast. A few slices of banana is also a part of the dish.
Erik tidies up the table and he cleans the kitchen without hesitation or a pause. The elegance of not postponing things. As soon as the kitchen is done and the dishes are in the dishwasher we both move back to bed.
This is my dedicated time to social media and correspondence. We read and get inspired. We inspire by posting. Laying in bed. Spending the time as we would after breakfast on a holiday spent in a nice hotel.
The plan for the day is now already set. We discuss issues and spend time together. Once a week I have a personal trainer and twice I play tennis at 08.00.
The other days we leave bed for the second time at 07: 45. The first thing we do together is making the bed. A well-trimmed routine. While I put my clothes from the wardrobe out on our bed, my husband gets first cold water in the shower prior to the warm water. He loves this ice-cold start that makes him totally awake.
Morning feeling
Morning routine bed
When he leaves the bathroom I have already arranged his clothes for the day on our bed. It’s like a small mood board;-) Like the first footman in Downton Abbey, I carefully choose his daily outfit. I make sure the colors fit mine so we match.
He chooses his own cuffs though. He uses cuffs with his shirt every day. Just as Mark Zuckerberg uses his Grey T-shirt or Steve Jobs wore his black polo Erik uses his blue or white French cuff shirts and have a different pair of cuffs every day. It is his small detail of everyday elegance. Same routine. Same style. Different cuffs. His style is very much the same but his Jackets and shoes vary.
When I am done in the bathroom my husband is dressed and has started to work by writing emails and communicate with his software development team in Cairo on Skype.
By 08.30-09.00 we are ready to drive to work.
This is our morning elegance in practice. I normally have a great start this way. I wish you the same!
Skype
The Elegance of Sporting
The joy of sweat. If I’ve done yoga, tennis, been running or any sporty activity it’s been a good day. If possible, I’ll do any of it on a daily base. Because it makes me feel so good. Because no matter what’s going on I’m letting it go the moment I start changing my clothes. It gives me the kick I need as well as the good sleep. I love to sweat. To use my body. My brain craves it. My survival kit definitely includes a tennis rack and a pair of sneakers.