Alison May's Blog, page 6

Honesty Injection

Yesterday in my Facebook group, one of my lovely Living Roomers posted her “Honesty Injection” and it was a little bit of true wonderful. And so today in the spirit of Kathryn, I hereby present the first in a new series of “Honesty Injections” because I want you to know that my life is just like yours – in all it’s messy, crazy, sometimes ugly glory…

The day begins not with birdsong but with high winds whistling down the chimney  and screeching a not so merry tune in the Victorian fireplace in my bedroom. A room with temporary  wibbly-wobbly grey fabric wardrobes and seven boxes of overflowing nonsense scattered about in lieu of the furniture I cannot yet decide upon.

I can’t bring myself to start the day. Three days in to the new term and there is already an element of the groundhog that I can barely tolerate. Downstairs Ste will be mutely making porridge for himself, for life takes most of the day to warm up his voice box, while in the far room down the landing stairs, Finn will be unconscious under a tangle of the duvets, quilts and pillows he insists on pinning himself asleep with, and will when I open the door to kiss him awake, point blank refuse to get out of bed, insisting that he needs five more minutes of the kind that will no doubt turn in to forty five.

I know how he feels, so for the moment I lie listening to the trundle of lorry’s heading towards the motorway on this oh so busy road. When I get out of bed I will have to hunch as I try to get dressed as the blinds I have not yet replaced on the two little windows in this room do not quite reach the windowsill and passers by must so very often be treated to a flash of my chubby thighs. For a reason I cannot fathom I have thrown my all in to getting all the other rooms liveable in this house but have in my wisdom chosen to ignore the very room that could set body and soul at peace.

In the bathroom I huff to myself as I straighten the towels scrunched over the rail and put the toothpaste my family cannot lift off the sink back in to the cabinet. I brush my teeth, worry about my gums and go to wake Finn up. He is, as predicted, flat out asleep, though his room is now always tidy (his need to control his own space I think spinning from the chaos inside his head as he learns to navigates his Sensory Processing Disorder), he is himself a beautiful, rather stinky muddle of ruffled hair and acknowledges me with a teenage grunt as I sing Good Morning and switch on the fairy lights draped across his desk to help him blink his grumpy eyes awake.

Out on the lane, my neighbor’s recycling bin has blown on to the road and spilled McDonald’s wrappers, pizza boxes and wine bottles all over the road, my path and his. Cars are screeching to a halt in front of it and in the end Ste goes out in his pajamas to right it. In the kitchen I wash dishes we left last night after a late supper and feel a bit sick to the stomach when I realize that yet again there is no milk. While having a milkman delivering milk in lovely glass bottles is all fine and dandy, if he doesn’t deliver it until after breakfast it rather defeats the object. I make a cafetiere of black coffee and feel like smacking someone. Mostly because in the night the fence panels the builders have left in the garden have blown everywhere and at any moment the wind could topple the huge metal gates they have propped against the gate and bring the conservatory crashing down upon our heads.

In between filling lunchboxes and setting the domestic machinery ago-go with today’s laundry, I run in and out of the kitchen to the hallway to screech at Finley to get out of bed. Though I would prefer music in the mornings, in the living room, BBC breakfast is starting my day with a litany of misery I deeply resent. Ste is still quiet until outside there is the smash of glass. For the milkman has delivered the milk, plonked it down in front of the step and the darling little postman has knocked it over so that there is glass and milk all over the path. I rush out and refuse his offer of money to fix it, get a dustpan and brush, and have Ste crawl on his hands and knees under the car to fetch half the bottle so I do not run over it and burst my tyres on the way to school.

I refuse Ste’s offer of a sunshine smoothie and a slice of wholemeal because with five minutes to spare Finley has just arrived downstairs with perfectly coiffed hair and a pair of Harley Quinn socks that are definitely not school uniform. I decide that if he wants to get in to trouble at school it is up to him, for I am learning to pick my battles with my new teenager and I know that his teachers disapproval is more effective than mine when he can so very easily charm me with the kind of kiss he presses on my head with the words “little Mummy” though I have never been little in my life.

He ignores the beautifully laid out breakfast table (one wonders why one bothers!), gulps down tea and then I rush him to school for he will not walk since he was run over, with the car screeching all the way as the fan-belt is on its way out. At home I close the door behind me and breathe a sigh of relief that the morning is over and the house is my own long enough to add another three thousand things to my list of things I must do before life will feel perfect. Perfect is something of an ogre. A constant mither on my mind.

In the little laundry room I peel off the mouldy spores growing on the sky blue chipped paint and take a soggy cucumber out of the spare fridge I keep forgetting I own. The door to the outdoor loo has been flung open and the room is full of leaves but I can’t bring myself to go out and fix it because it smells of the many builders who have used it and I am convinced a family of rats live in there though I am assured this is deeply unlikely and I am preposterous.

While I know it would take only moments to scooch around with the steam cleaner to remove the faint prints left by those who will insist on wearing shoes in the house I decide instead to ignore that and the many hand prints on the conservatory doors and opt instead for a cup of mint tea and ten minutes being a bad housekeeper and playing Sim City when I could be improving my life…

And now I am here. In bed. With yet another cup of tea and the mustard yellow floral quilt pulled up high though I am fully dressed in my usual uniform of black. I am cold and I feel weary. But despite the fact that Ste has laid out a rather bizarre arrangement of Nivea products on the top of the little junk shop drawers currently living in the corner of the room as if he was setting up shop himself, I am comfortable here away from the stares of passers by, and from my own need to keep a watch out for those who seem to live by the clock on this lane and do exactly the same things at exactly the same time each day as if I have found myself living in The Truman Show…

I am longing for Summer but while it is blowing a hooley outside I will work here. My laptop propped upon a cushion and my head full of ideas. Later I will prepare a plate of sliced roast beef and my beloved pickled onions and though I know the very thought of pickled onions in bed is outrageous I will bring them back up here regardless.

This then is my reality and I do not mind it at all.     

As Much As You Can Manage

 

What if today was the day you decide to do as much as you can manage? No more, and here’s the rub, no less.

If you are anything like me (please say you are like me – I feel better in a crowd) then this business of housekeeping is a fluctuating matter. One day full throttle. The next nothing at all. And equipping yourself with all the fancy scrubbing brushes and ecologically sound cleaning fluids you can find just doesn’t make a jot of difference to what comes to pass on any given day. Rather it seems to be a matter of the very careful weighing up of hormones, energy levels, mood, kids, and reason to be interested.

Oh yes, let no man or women assert that we are all in the mood for disinfecting the u-bend at any given hour of the day. In fact should this be true then I must insist you find a hobby. Housework exists to support our way of life – not to be our way of life and the minute it becomes obsessive, is the very minute I suggest you have a lie down with a flannel soaked in hot water and rosemary oil so you can take a thorough squint inside your empty soul.

Ahem. I’m clearly feeling feisty today.     

Anyway my point is this: housework has to be done. Surfaces have to be lickably clean. It is awfully nice to have fresh sheets and so much easier if the children aren’t careering around the house naked in search of clean underwear. We have to do it and we do it because unlike some of those we live with, we have a certain amount of home-related pride and we feel better when life is primped and preened.

But some days housework is hard. Some days tipping milk in to our tea seems like an effort so chances are such days are not those we are likely to find ourselves dragging a step-ladder upstairs and tackling the dust bunnies in the eaves. And it on those days I am urging a new “as much as we can manage” attitude to keeping the house spick and span. Even if that means hoovering the living room with your bottom parked firmly on the sofa. Or swiping the shower screen with a squeegee just before you step out to get dry enough to go and swoon in dramatic, melancholic style on the chaise lounge.

If however, doing what we can on the days we don’t feel like is important, then so too is doing as much as we can manage on the days when our hormonal stars are a-lining. The days we feel so fully alive we rather fancy hopping around the shops and buying lots of things we don’t need and dragging the dog around the woods, and meeting everyone we know for coffee and generally wasting entire days busy doing nothing when we could be channeling our energy in to scrubbing, sorting, getting wildly KonMari about the insides of our cupboards or getting ahead on a decorating project.

Oh yes: those days when we have got energy and determination beaming out of the top of our head are just right for really throwing ourselves in to the domestic melee and getting a grip on it, so on the days when we are wearing fat pants, eating chocolate for breakfast and feeling more than ready to launch the next cheeky chappie who tells us to smile, we can feel more than OK about skulking in our bedrooms and losing ourselves in our much loved stack of Georgette Heyer paperbacks with a truffle stolen from our comfort drawer and earplugs jammed firmly in our ears.

This then is doing “as much as we can manage” and it requires us to be totally honest about how we are feeling: to tune in to both our body and mind, assess what we are capable of and act accordingly. You see if BrocanteHome is about anything it is about extreme self-care and we practice that both when we are gentle with ourselves AND when we are disciplined enough to do what we are more than capable of doing.

What can you manage today?

New Year Pages

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A New Year is filled with too much possibility isn’t it? A person could get overwhelmed and find herself wanting to chuck out everything from her make-up bag to her entire way of life. A person you see can get carried away when it would serve her better to allow the New Year to settle in first. To reveal itself later, when Winter Hygge has truly done its job. For wouldn’t it be better to hibernate now and re-invent ourselves later? 

I am such a person. A person who has rushed out to buy herself everything necessary to Bullet Journal and felt the flush of embarrassment when her thirteen year old looked at her sternly and said “Now is not the time for jumping on Instagram bandwagons, Mum, now is the time to blog.”

Oh yes! Blogging. That’s what I was doing. And though I have been doing it for thirteen years I worry that I have quite forgotten how and find myself more willing to deal with the midnight burglars said to be prowling the streets of my locality than turning up for my own, lovely, precious, self-inflicted work.  I am too anxious. Too twitchy to be able to make sense of myself right now. And  anyways I thought I might find myself in a bullet journal. People say they are life-changing. Sensible people say such things! But oh what a rabbit hole of pretty pattern and pointless scribing it could it could be when a person should be blogging…

Anxiety is such a funny old woman. She pokes you with crooked fingers just when you are getting in to your stride. She whispers “Who do you think you are?” just as you are falling asleep and has a way with words that ties your good intentions into troubled knots. She will not be soothed with your endless cups of rose tea. Nor accept a little round of homemade shortbread and agree to keep her mouth shut. Oh no, not her. Not she who laughs at the elaborate baths you take, chin high in restless leg improving salts and stands mocking the dreams pinned to your vision board. Instead she tries to force you to start again. Oh heckity pie yes, there is nothing Anxiety likes better than a clean slate and before you know it she has got you believing that nothing, oh but nothing, not your work, your relationship, your body or any of the thoughts in your head are good enough and thus must be re-invented right here and right now. With no time to recover from the onslaught that was Christmas. No allowances for the kind of weather that really should have you doing nothing other than sipping soup under a cosy quilt. No excuses accepted at all.

Anxiety you see is the New Years best friend. She lurks around all December, allowing you your fun but come January 1st she pounces, stabbing you right there in all the bits you are trying to teach yourself to love. Twisting her dirty fingers into your scabs and telling you there is no time to dither, one simply must GET THINGS SORTED. And by things she means all things. Every thing.  And she will not rest until you have found the perfect planner. Signed up to the diet club. Thrown money on an improving course and chucked every last edible bit of Christmas out of the cupboards. Because she is a mean old bat. The kind of mean old bat who needs dealing with by sending her screeching in to the drowning rain when you simply refuse to do anything other than practice the kind of extreme self-care that January really calls for.

For yes, now is the time to snuggle. And kiss. And read. And binge-watch. Now is the time for good red wine (instead of festive plonk), warm rounds of Camembert  stuffed with garlic and rich chocolate brownies eaten straight from the oven. For starting difficult books and playing Monopoly. It is for baking cakes for kids coming in from the cold and nibbling late night slices of hot, thick buttered toast, just because you can. It is a time for healing from the slings and arrows of family forced upon you during the festivities, for booking holidays and inviting friends over for early suppers. It is a time for soothing your weary soul, mending what has to be mended and surviving evenings when you just can’t get warm.

Just the right time methinks to tell Anxiety to sling her hook. And take her Bullet Journal with her.

Christmas On Gutenberg…

 

I do believe that in the midst of wrapping x-boxes and mobile phones and enduring the kind of raucous comedy that passes for TV entertainment these days, us vintage girls need a little reminder of what Christmas is really about and so today I have made a lovely list of the very best festive stories on Gutenberg, so you can load them one by one on to your Kindle and climb in to bed each evening this week with a little bit of old-fashioned Christmas right there in your hands.

While there are hundreds of Christmas stories on Gutenberg these are the ones I have enjoyed most frequently over the years because they capture both the spirit of Christmas and the spirit of BrocanteHome…

In the Heart of The Christmas Pines

The House With Sixty Closets: A Christmas Story for Young Folks and Old Children

Betty Leicester’s Christmas

The Birds Christmas Carol

On Christmas Day In the Morning

Peace On Earth, Good Will to Dogs

Mr. Kris Kringle

Enjoy m’darlings. Preferably with a hot chocolate spiced with something grown-up.

The Frenzy

 

So a few days ago I wrote about the lull and now I want to talk about the frenzy.

Heaven knows why but Christmas arriving at the weekend thrills me. Christmas on a Sunday seems just right to me. Much better than Christmas on a Tuesday! So this year I do believe we are blessed with festive order and if we play it right we can truly enjoy the week before the holiday arrives, without feeling the kind of demented we only ever experience when we can’t decide whether to ice our stockings or stuff our Christmas cake.

You see it is time. It is time to work yourself in to a complete frenzy and get everything left on your list done. While I usually try to encourage a graceful swan approach to the season (even if those webbed feet are crazed beneath the water), today I am saying, nay, ordering you to go bonkers; to work yourself in to a complete festive frenzy so that you can declare yourself done by Monday morning, and then sit back with a smug smile and truly enjoy the abundant gifts the season has to offer.

Right, so that means there are three days left to do everything. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

I’m talking close family Christmas cards written and gluten-free stuffing shopped for. I mean the kids presents wrapped even if it means staying up until the early hours to get them done. I mean getting to the shops at silly o’clock in order to pick up the last of the gifts on your list, taking that trip to the farm to pick up fresh mistletoe, anything that can be cooked and frozen now for Christmas dinner, cooked and frozen! I am talking about rooting out the Christmas stockings so you don’t find yourself clambering in to the loft on Christmas Eve,and wrapping that gift you bought for yourself so you can pop it under the tree.

(You DID buy YOURSELF a gift didn’t you? NO? Have I taught you nothing at all?? Add it to your to-do list RIGHT NOW and get thee to the loveliest boutique you know post-haste! And for heavens sake stop making me SHOUT in capitals please!).

I am deadly serious about INSISTING that you make a big fat long list of absolutely everything left to do before Christmas and blooming well getting it done over the next seventy-two hours…

You see work until you drop now and from Monday you will have one lovely week to just be. Right there in the bliss of the season. Work until you drop now and you can spend your free time in the week before Christmas enjoying the proper pleasures of the season. You can watch cheesy Christmas films and play board games. You can sit and stare at the pretty lights on the tree and sip at a glass of mulled wine in utter peace. You can read the kids Christmas stories mindfully, wholeheartedly, without wishing they would fall asleep so you can get back to playing hunt the sellotape in the piles of wrapping paper downstairs. You can take yourself to a steamy coffee shop, drink a gingerbread latte and feel calm in the midst of the chaos, and step out late in the evening wrapped in scarves and gloves to walk around the neighborhood feasting on the festive displays of lights and loveliness.

It would be worth it wouldn’t it? Feeling bone-tired for a few days so you can relax those shoulders come Monday and enjoy Christmas the way it is supposed to be enjoyed. It would be worth it because sometimes the after-glow of frenzied activity is a joy all by itself, and feeling smug is something we should all treat ourselves to at least once a year don’t you know?

Ready, steady… go!

The BrocanteHome 2016 Bonanza!

 

Well now I promised you TWELVE deals of Christmas and that is exactly what you are going to get.  We have already had two lovely offers, so I hereby present the BrocanteHome Festive Bonanza: a collection of ten fabulous offers and happy little deals on all the downloads, subscriptions and planners you need to create a life less ordinary, that will run between now and Christmas me darlings…

So whether you are new to living life the BrocanteHome way or a veteran of what it is to live a life abundant with routine, ritual and celebration, I do believe there is something for everyone here…

Shall we jump right in?

 

1. The Room Series

 

2017 is going to be the year of the room on BrocanteHome: starting with a lovely guide to creating a bedroom that will support your dreams and nurture your soul on January 16th 2017.

There will be ten guides in the series, released approximately monthly and designed to help you bring a little of the spirit of BrocanteHome to each and every room in your home…

The Bedroom
The Bathroom
The Living Room
The Dining Room
The Kitchen
The Hallway
The Children’s Room
The Laundry Room
The Home Office
The Guest Room

Written in a similar, though extended format to my lovely Seasonal Series, each of the guides will cost $15.00, but you can sign up to receive them all, as and when they are released, for the lowly sum of $70.00 – less than half price for each and everyone of the downloads!

Want in? Ready to create a home that is truly a sanctuary in 2017? This is the place to start…

Click Here To Buy The Seasonal Series Today!

 

2. The Annual PAY WHAT YOU CAN Event.

 

Here’s the thing: I know what it is to really want to be a part of something but feel unable to budget for something just for me when there is so much else to be budgeted for and so once a year I extend the arm of generosity to all those who want to be a part of BrocanteHome but cannot currently afford it.

I do this in the hope that those who take part do so in the spirit of the offer: that they pay what they can fairly afford for each of the products beyond the two dollar minimum for each of the downloads or planners included on the PAY What You Can Page.

So which of my lovely, inspirational planners are included in the offer? Hop over here to see the Pay What You Can Collection and when you have chosen what you want, simply type the price you want to pay in the box that says $2.00 on the sales page and checkout with Paypal…

Click Here To Pay What You Can Today!



3. Monthly Living Room Membership…

 

The Living Room is my darling little community: a lovely combination of support and inspiration with a members only, oh so lively and welcoming Facebook group, a FREE Heart and Home Planner, 25% off everything in the store and so very much more.

The annual price is $15.00, but if that feels like a stretch right now, then for this month only you can sign up for just $3.00 a month. Oh yes, for less than the price of a cup of coffee you can start to enjoy what it is to live a life less ordinary and make 2017 the year you finally bring routine, ritual and celebration to each and every one of your days…

Click Here To Sign Up For Monthly Living Room Membership Today!



4. A Year of Puttery Treats for Just $0.99!

 

A Year of Puttery Treats is my bestselling book for the Kindle and from Saturday 17th December until January 1st you can grab it for just $0.99 on Amazon.Com.

Written as a book of days, there is one lovely treat for each day of the year making this quite the most perfect guide to living life the BrocanteHome way in 2017. So if you buy only one offer from my lovely Bonanza this is the one to start with…

Click Here to Buy A Year of Puttery Treats for Just $0.99!



5. The Leonie Workbooks

 

You know how much I rave about Leonie Dawson’s workbooks? They are in fact the only planners I am affiliated with all year around on BrocanteHome, and I dedicate many of my December evenings to working through them and dreaming up a better way forward, for myself, my family and my business.

While they only truly work if you are willing to work with them they really are one of the best tools I know for saying goodbye to what’s gone and visualizing your New Year and this year I wanted to encourage you to grab one of both of the workbooks for yourself, by creating an extra-special offer right here on BrocanteHome…

So here’s the deal: simply place an order for one of Leonies life-changing workbooks using my link, then pop an email in to my inbox with your receipt and I will send you a voucher for the FREE product of your choice from my store.

Yep! It’s a two for one deal… get Leonie AND Alison in one lovely package!

Order Leonie's Lovely Workbooks Here...

 

6. The Seasonal Bundle

 

My lovely Seasonal Bundle has been so well received this year and I cannot tell you how very much I have enjoyed putting all four of the downloads together, mostly because they have re-inspired my very own commitment to using ritual to reflect the changes beyond my front door…

All four of the Seasonal downloads are usually available for $30.00 but as my Christmas gift to you, you can grab all four for just $20.00…

Get The Seasonal Bundle For Just $20.00 Here!



7. The Festive Bundle

 

Still in a fluster about Christmas or have you washed your hands of this one and declared that NEXT YEAR you will not endure the same shenanigans trying to create the Christmas of your dreams? Then this bundle me darling is just for you…

Including The Festive House, The Advent Planner, 100 Scrumptious Things To Do Before Christmas, The Christmas Countdown and The Christmas Planner, this is the ultimate Festive Brocante bundle and I am thrilled to be able to offer it to you for just 35.00: a discount of $20.00 off the price of all the downloads together…

Want this one? Click the banner below and your downloads will be winging their way to you before you can pull a cracker!

Order the Christmas Bundle Here!

 

8. The Life Re-Vamp!

 

Just need a tiny little kick start? The Life Re-Vamp is for you:  a short download designed to have you re-think every aspect of your life as we step in to the New Year, the Re-Vamp is a six point plan for changing the one aspect of your life that is compromising all others.

It begins with SAYING GOODBYE to all that is holding you back.

Then making the decision to CHANGE.

It require FOCUS, and an environment that supports your goals, alongside ROUTINES AND RITUALS that will keep you on the right path.

You will be expected to ASK FOR  HELP and QUANTIFY your progress.

And finally you will find a short list of resources at the end of the course to help you on your journey to a more contented New Year…

Usually just $6.00, today you can grab it for just $3.00 and start planning a better way of life in 2017.

Use the Code 2017 to get The Life RE-Vamp for Just $3.00

 

10. And Finally The Salon!

 

 

 

 

Want it ALL?? Everything above, everything in-store and everything I create (including The Room Series!) in 2017? Absolutely, totally ready to change every aspect of your life from trashing your clutter, to finding your muse, creating routines that will transform the way you live, and living seasonally? Need support? Want to be a member of The School of Life coming to BrocanteHome in 2017? You HAVE to join the Salon!

You see if you sign up now you can join for just $110.00 (usually $169.00) for the whole year and BETTER THAN THAT you can lock in that price for the lifetime of your membership – which means that no matter how fast the Salon grows once The School of Life goes live, you will get absolutely everything delivered to your account FREE and will have your very own library jam-packed full of Brocante inspiration, direct access to me whenever you need advice and of course the support of a community of women on exactly the same path…

Ok so to grab your discounted subscription simply head over to the membership page, choose Salon Annual and apply the discount code “Bonanza” when prompted…

I’m so looking forward to welcoming you in to our lovely, rose-sprinkled fold!

Click Here To Join The Salon for Just $110 Today!

 

This is my annual Christmas present to all of you, and each of your purchases goes some way to keeping BrocanteHome online as we enter our fourteenth year together and for that I am so very, very grateful. It truly is a pleasure to have such an incredibly supportive community and I am blessed to call so many of you friends…

But if you do decide to take up one of my offers, please have a little patience: this is a hugely popular offer and it takes time to process each order. While some of the downloads are instant, others have to be manually processed or subscriptions set up so please allow a few days before you contact me – I promise I will not have forgotten you!

Ooh and finally, if by chance your paypal address is different to the address you use to set up your account, or place your order, or indeed if you go by an entirely different name on Facebook when you join the Living Room, then do drop me a line and let me know won’t you? OR else both your downloads or your subscription will be set up with your paypal address and I know this causes some of you a whole lot of muddle!

Please feel free to contact me if you have got any questions and I will be happy to help, and in the meantime have a truly wonderful Brocante Christmas! 

The Lull

 

The turkey is ordered and at least some of the presents are wrapped. The tree is up and dripping with nonsense, and all the films  I want to watch have been marked in yellow highlighter pen in the Radio Times… a ritual from childhood I am not willing to give up, though if the truth be known there is so little time at Christmas to watch anything peacefully, particularly anything that does not please this house full of boys!

But school is not yet finished and the internet has not yet delivered all the gifts I have ordered. I have not iced the Christmas Cake and I am yet to churn out a single mince pie. The weather is mushy. Drizzley and yucky. Not crisp and white as Hollywood insists it should be. For the first time Finn refused to accompany me to the Christingle service and a little drop of sad fell on my Mummy of a Teenager heart, and today I have got a little tummy bug about which you really don’t need the details.

My Christmas isn’t picture perfect. But I feel Christmassy regardless. And Christmassy feelings are most of the battle aren’t they?

(For without them Christmas can feel like the most awful drag and those who harbor draggy feelings in December really aren’t good for our souls and must be banished to festive Coventry without so much as a nod to their inner Grinch).

This then is the lull. The calm before the cinnamon scented storm. It is the moment when much, if not all of Christmas is done and there are only fripperies to be organised and enjoyed. It is the time to notice. To sit by the lights of the tree and experience Christmas. To stop and actually listen to the words of the songs piped in to every store and to savor the first sip of that oh so retro bottle of Babycham. It is time to take flowers to the graveside of those we have lost so we can wish them all the love of the season, and to spend quiet time with those old or ailing and for whom Christmas has become just another day. Time to watch the children’s nativity and to truly treasure every single second of it, (for all too quickly they are too old to play silly shepherds or haphazard fairies), and it is without doubt time to get in as many early nights as possible with a stack of Christmas chick-lit and a flask – yes, a flask!- full of cocoa…

In my own lull, I tend to contemplate and reflect. I spend evenings with my Leonie workbooks and a pink pen, tearing through sentences for my eyes only, trying to make sense of what has happened in the year just gone and fashioning dreams for the year coming, with my fingers crossed and bound for a year better than those in my recent past. Another ritual of my own devising I cannot see myself ever wanting to give up in any given December in my future… for in its own way it shapes my year and though during this year there have been occasions when I have been barely able to breathe, let alone achieve, still I have been ticking off so many of the 100 things on my Leonie list and it continues to astonish me that writing a wish down is often enough to have the universe conspire to deliver it to you…

Tonight, I have got a couple of silly Christmas novels on my bedside, lavender starched pajamas laid out on my cosy yellow eiderdown, and a row of twinkly tealights lined up along the cast iron mantel of the fireplace in my bedroom. It is cold and I am not sure I can face a bath, but I will shower quickly and coat myself in the sandalwood and germanium sleep balm I am currently obsessing over, read through the wonderful descriptions of all your Christmas’s described in the Living Room, and kiss my family goodnight.

I am tired. Tired and Christmassy. Tired and content. This then is the lull.

The Twelve Deals of Christmas – Number Eleven

 

Well now, during 2016 I worked my way through the seasons, creating five lovely new downloads celebrating all the tiny joys particular to Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn and the Festive Season and in the same vein, during 2017 I plan to work my way through each and every room in your house so that by the end of the year you will have a gorgeous library full of interior inspiration the Brocante way…

I am starting with the bedroom on or after January 16th 2017 , for it is here that we are our most essential selves and thus it is here that we must begin to do the work necessary to create an authentic home that reflects who we truly are and who, in all our tomorrows, we hope to be…

So what will be included in each of my Room Series downloads?

* The essence of a life less ordinary in that room.

* An essay capturing all the pleasures of the Brocante way of life in each room

* The ten essential things central to living life the Brocante way in the room concerned.

* How to nurture your soul with a long list of lovely room-specific Brocante puttery treats.

* Housekeeping specifics for each room.

* Using essential oils to create atmosphere with my very own blends.

* A list of decorating do’s and don’ts…

* A book list for further reading…

* And all the quotes and pretty pictures you need to inspire your creativity…

Sound good? I promise it really will be a cornucopia of the kind of inspiration you need to bring together all the strands of living life the Brocante way in to one beautiful, meaningful tapestry…

Ok so here’s the deal: an extra-scrumptious, twelves deals of Christmas kind of deal!

Order The Brocante Bedroom today and you can grab it for half the usual price of $15.00 with the code CHRISTMAS11. (offer ends on the 8th of December 2016)

So for just $7.50 you can kickstart your collection of my BrocanteHome Room Guides and make this the year you really commit to making your house the home you know it could be…

Let’s do this one together: join the Living Room today and get 25% off each and every guide I produce along with support and inspiration from my wonderful community of women seeking a life less ordinary, or join the SALON (there’s an extra special Salon offer for members of my Living Room in the Facebook community at the moment don’t you know?) and get everything in the Brocante store, and everything else I create during the lifetime of your membership ABSOLUTELY FREE…

Won’t you join me in raising a glass of mulled wine to a lovelier way of life? Order The Brocante Bedroom today… 

The Twelve Deals of Christmas Is Back!

 

Heckity Pie yes. It’s Black Friday and though the very idea of trampling over other people to grab a big tele makes me shudder, today right here on BrocanteHome I am joining in the madness because I am feeling that way inclined…

I am kicking off with HALF -PRICE ACCESS to my oh so lovely Living Room. Yep though the Living Room usually costs $15.00 for the year, for this, the first week of Twelve Christmas Deals, you can get full access to our lovely Facebook group, 25% off everything in the Brocante store for the life of your membership, a FREE Heart and Home Planner (worth $15.00 all by itself!) and all of the other benefits of membership listed here for just $7.50!

And the very best part? Buy your Living Room membership today and that price is locked in for always! So even if it shoots up in price over the coming years, you will never pay more than $7.50 for the lifetime of your membership AND very soon you will be able to access all the Living Room benefits of my gorgeous new School of Life as part of that subscription.

Want in? Of course you do! There are now over five hundred members of my lovely Living Room and though not all join in the life-improving, supportive and inspirational chatter over in the Facebook group (Oh but you must! It’s so lovely!), so many write to me daily to tell me that membership of BrocanteHome is helping them to clear a path towards a life less ordinary and I cannot tell you how much that gladdens my heart for it is I suppose my raison d’etre.

Ok so here’s what you need to do to join…

Hop over to this page before Tuesday 29th November and click Living Room Membership.
Apply the discount code “Black Friday” when you are prompted and $7.50 will come off the full price of $15.00 immediately…
Note down your the email address and password you used to sign up because you will need them to access the Living Room resources here on BrocanteHome.
Hop over to our Facebook group page and request an invitation, but please note: if your name on Facebook is different to that you have used to sign up, I will not recognise you, so do please drop me a quick line and I will be able to match your invitation to your subscription.
Once you have received email confirmation of your subscription you can make your way to this page and log in, then have a little look around all the lovely resources here…
You can also check the status of you account on this page at anytime during your subscription.
Should you find that your account says “pending” please allow up to twelve hours for the system to recognize your payment. If thereafter you still cannot access the Living Room do let me know and I will manually access it for you. Some browsers simply do not play nice!

Finally I am away this weekend on a jaunt to a lovely hotel in celebration of my friends fortieth birthday and in the meantime comments and my own inbox have been paused so I don’t miss anything important as I am so very prone to do when life gets in the way!

Have a wonderful weekend and I shall look forward to personally welcoming you into The Living Room upon my return.x 

P.S: If you are an existing member of the Living Room (or indeed join this weekend!) do look out for an extra special Salon Upgrade offer today in the Living Room Facebook group won’t you? It’s just for you…

The Life Audit

 

Here we are again: time to get a grip on my head and my heart by auditing the ins and outs of my world. As always please feel free to steal the graphic and do a life audit of your own, or indeed download the Life Audit PDF (it’s free) and get your pencil out…

Today I am…

Organising the Christmas budget on YNAB. Dressed in about thirty layers of thermals and the kind of slipper socks so thick I rather feel as though my feet have gone numb. Drinking Yogi Moon Cycle tea because it helps. Thoroughly unable to catch the cold that has been lurking around my nostrils for a few days now, threatening to floor me but rather pathetically turning out to be nothing more than a very irritating sniffle. Excited because there is finally grass in my garden. (Yay! Thank-you Builder Men!). Fighting a losing battle with the muddy feet traipsing in an out of my little blue-tiled porch. Receiving parcel after parcel for neighbours who never seem to be home.

Feeling…

Embarrassed after nearly knocking a woman out with a cocktail shaker. Don’t ask. Scattered. Immensely frustrated and positively demented by technical issues here at BrocanteHome. You see I just want to write but writing time is lost to endless admin issues and computer problems and I rather feel like banging my head against a brick wall. When oh when did blogging get so complicated? If I could roll back to five years ago I really think I would. I truly miss offering little snippets of daily inspiration and my work-life balance is so skewhiff I feel exhausted so something has got to give though I do not know what yet. One idea I have been considering though is a move away for printables to simply writing for the Kindle then dear old Amazon could handle the relentless trauma of lost passwords and email inboxes that swallow downloads…

Reading…

Ste laughs because he cannot fathom my method of reading: I usually have at least two books on the go (truth… maybe three. Or four. Or twenty-nine if you count what goes on inside my Kindle.): a novel for snuggling up with and some sort of self-help, life enhancing/thigh-slimming/business orientated affair on the coffee table for browsing during elevenses. Tonight’s novel then is The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery, though I have read it before, because this 1920’s fairy-tale is ultimately so life-affirming and it is Lucy Maud for heavens sake: what’s not to like on a cosy November evening? And my coffee table book is Lisa Sugar’s Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice & Build Your Dream Life because I’m hoping she is a lady who has been in my shoes and cares to share a way through the madness that is online business…

Eating…

Roasted vegetable with halloumi. Or cubes of feta and a splash of balsamic. Roasted vegetables blitzed with a cup full of stock in my Nutribullet for the fastest bowl of soup in the land. Roasted vegetables on a puff pastry base. Umm, yeah: roasted vegetables night after night after night. Roasted at the beginning of the week and stored in an airtight container and used for everything from soups to stews. Oooh and pickled onions. I can’t get enough pickled onions. I’m all sorts of wrong these days. With pickled onion breath.

Planning…

A reversal back to our old routine now Ste’s short dalliance with shift work is at an end and life can go back to normal. A new one-stop dreamy place for my membership groups The Salon and The Living Room. Beavering away behind the scenes to bring it to life as fast as possible. Staying up late with a furrowed brow and the kind of creative inspiration that has got me firing on all cylinders. A weekend away with Kath, Diane and Emma this Saturday to celebrate Emma’s birthday. And gifts for the two “brothers” Finley didn’t have just two years ago – Mark’s son Sam who is so cute he is almost edible, and who will turn two at the beginning of December, and Ste’s son Stevie who will be eleven a few days later and who arrives at my house every second Friday and quickly collapses into Finley inspired giggles that remind me how very blessed we are to be family.

Dreaming of…

A nap. Are you a napper? Oh but you must be! There is nothing quite so wonderful as stealing a geranium scented afternoon nap now is there? Particularly if the house is quiet and you can slip between the sheets for the kind of drowsy, battery-charging slumber one can only really enjoy during the afternoon slump. Pity there is so very much to do today and the chance of a nap is up there with the chance of me re-inventing myself as an Instagram bikini model. Some days dreams will be dreams and simply refuse to become reality, damn them. Speaking of geranium though… I have a new ritual that involves cleansing my face before a much coveted nap and then massaging it with the blend of almond and geranium oil I have come to associate with switching my over-active mind off…

Coveting…

This (swoon) and This and This.

Wishing…

I wasn’t growing a beard. No really. I swear I am growing a beard if seven rather persistent hairs can be considered beardy? Also wishing my bedroom was the sanctuary I need it to be RIGHT NOW -long before in fact I have got to get Ste to understand that cream paint is not just cream paint and there will be a whole lot of dithering before I actually take the plunge and apply paint to the walls. And much more dithering after that as the search continues for suitable wardrobes. For frankly what possessed me to leave my wardrobes with the new owner of my little old house is quite beyond me. I can only surmise it was the hiatus hernia tablets that send me off my head and made me thrust generosity into that young mans face.

Working On…

Everything. No really: EVERYTHING! Ste is working overnight and the plans I had for the evening were cancelled so I am taking the opportunity to print out my Leonie Dawson Life and Biz workbooks, for OH YES the 2017 workbooks are here!!  Did you hear me: the Leonie Dawson Workbooks (and wall-planners, and diaries and to-do lists) are here! Roll on my 2016 Closing Ceremony for heaven knows I am so ready to say goodbye to this year and hello to a new one blessed by certainty and security please…

Celebrating…

Ste’s new job with a meal tomorrow night with our boys at a local Turkish restaurant with great hummus, chosen because they have extensive gluten free options for Finn and a meat heavy menu for Stevie who is close to being the world’s fussiest eater but will eat meat until the cows come home. Oooh and did I mention the hummus? Its the best. 

Grateful For…

So much on this the American day of gratitude. This house – because it makes me smile when I creep down first thing in the morning and it is warm and welcoming. Finn’s understanding that clutter is the enemy and keeping all the plastic nonsense from his childhood will no more tell him who he was than knocking at the house next door and asking the nice strangers there to tell him who he used to be. For the calm of his almost empty bruise colored room now. For hope. And possibility. For a conversation yesterday that made me howl with laughter. And for pizza delivered straight to the door (It’s a lazy Mama night. Don’t tell anyone).

And finally tomorrow I will be…

Packing for my overnight stay with my bestest friends. Working on sending another lovely Brocantehome PDF in to the Salon Library before I have to get my gladrags on. Worrying that my non-existent wardrobe full of gladrags is much depleted since I got over-generous with the recycling bag too…

On my to-do list this month?

* Christmas. There’s just no getting away with it.

*  Watching The Crown on Netflix because rumor has it, it is a little bit wonderful?

*  Finding a pair of slippers that don’t threaten to end my life whenever I come down the stairs.

*  Choosing between a real and an artificial Christmas tree tall enough not to look daft in this high-ceilinged room.

*  And finding a tiny little decoration to hang on it to remember Mum. 

Happy Thanksgiving Housekeepers.x