styled living simply achieved by Jacqueline deMontravel
The idea of putting on your buffalo check cap and chopping down your tree at a Christmas tree farm is a romantic notion that often gets put aside in a busy season. There’s also the reality of hauling the tree home and the constant maintenance of fallen pine needles. This can sour the experience like egg nog well past its expiration date.
During a recent marketing trip I did something a bit reckless. (And I’m not talking about buying eggs without checking for broken shells.) I bought hydroponic strawberries without any knowledge of their nutritional or taste value. It’s hard not to miss hydroponic strawberry’s recent entry to the fruit section. How their rectangular container aptly displays plump berries in a shade of red that’s making tomatoes blush.
Hydroponic strawberries have piqued my curiosity because they are pricey, like organic berries, but look healthier. They don’t have the sad, bruised appearance of the organic variety with their tattered leaves and the occasional patch of cottony fuzz.
Spoiler Alert: the Easter bunny doesn’t exist. For those hosting the holiday dinner — along with creating baskets and stuffing plastic eggs with goodies for a world-class egg hunt — assistance from a folkloric rabbit would certainly be welcomed. Here, no holiday magic is needed with these hacks for a no-cook Easter dinner that’s delicious, festive and easy to do.
Leave it to Trader Joe’s for the reminder to plan a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with their displays devoted to the holiday. You’ll find everything from a pair of strip steaks to heart-shaped macarons. Reluctant singletons may want to avoid going there until Saint Patrick’s Day. This token holiday of love has become controversial. For couples it can become treacle with its chocolate samplers that crimp the winter diet and flammable lingerie. Those who are unattached have the Galentine’s options that involves slabbing on clay masks and drinking way too much carbonated alcohol. Allentine’s Day has become our household policy, which opens up the holiday to not just the one you love but ones you love.
Buy local. Eat the potato skins. Use the mouthguard that wasn’t paid for by your dental insurance. Try not to laugh when your neighbor’s bathrobe flies open as they get the mail. New Year resolutions can be an exhaustive list that outlines shortcomings. And do they even work? It’s a semantics issue.
New Year resolutions may set you up for disappointment but having goals is a healthy practice. For example, ways to eliminate stress by increasing activity, eliminate toxic relationships, and choosing kindness are qualities to live by.
Delivering on healthy goals doesn’t have to be limited to New Year resolutions.
Who’s with me that there can be a lot of effort over a bird that often gets passed over for the sides? Simplify holiday hosting with a few simple shortcuts so you can be a guest at your own gathering. Thanksgiving is a holiday rich in autumn colors, tastes, and intimacy–perfect for small gatherings long on eating and relaxing.
Go easy on yourself this Thanksgiving with simple dishes and creative touches.
Move over Christmas with your blinking lights and inflatable snowmen, outdoor fall porch and decor have never looked better. If there’s a fall elf under Santa’s employment, she’s been doing a great job. What was once a perfunctory walk in our neighborhood has now become a fall spectacle. And it’s not just pumpkins, there are Marvel-sized spiders, scarecrows, wheelbarrows filled with autumn flowers and, of course, pumpkins.
Here’s a fall porch roundup that can be the inspo behind your home’s outdoor design:
Try something different from expected cloth garlands and have one made from balloons in Halloween colors.
Letter writing has countless benefits, including gathering your thoughts and showing care via a handwritten note.
The packing list for sleep away camp is as standard as a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Throw in stationary and stamps and you can hear the cartoon screech happening in your child’s mind. Do they even know how to address an envelope? Where do you get the material to write about? What’s a mail box? And how do you write something without grazing your fingertips across a keyboard? In today’s digital age, letter writing isn’t simply a lost manner that needs to be resuscitated like gifting care baskets to the less fortunate. Letters are testimony to genuine social graces and human connection.
“I definitely believe that letter writing still serves a purpose in the digital age,” says Katherine Kelly, who teaches English at Darien, Connecticut’s Middlesex Middle School. “There is something special about receiving a handwritten note.”
The act of choosing the right stationery and putting your thoughts into a personalized note shows time and care. Letters are more notable in today’s culture when a handwritten note without emojis stands out among the more typical pieces of mail. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with embracing the ease of digital communication,” says Kelly, “but taking the time to write or read a handwritten letter brings me a joy that I don’t always experience with digital messages.”
Similar to reading, writing is a cerebral skill that improves with practice. Its benefits are also transformative. Jason Courtmanche, Director of the Connecticut Writing Project and a professor of English and Education at UConn, oversees the annual Letters About Literature contest in conjunction with the Neag School of Education. Participants read a book, poem, or speech and write a letter to that author (living or dead) about how the text affected them personally.
“I enjoy sponsoring the Letters About Literature program because it honors two of the most important things about literacy—writing to an audience and for a purpose, and reading literature to be transformed,” says Courtmanche.
Kevin Daniele, Middlesex Middle School’s 7th grade Healthy Living teacher, worked with an organization that allows students to write handwritten notes of encouragement to individuals recovering from addiction. Despite the students anonymity for protective measures, the students were able to read through the replies and see the impact they had made on complete strangers from their notes of support.
“I know that my students have really developed a sense of accomplishment and community from writing these letters,” Daniele says. “You can see the lightbulb go off about how their letters made an impact on someone else’s life. That was always the coolest part for me.”
An essay on the Boxer Rebellion this is not. Letter writing is an opportunity to reflect, gather your thoughts, and creatively express yourself in the written form. It’s a way to relive key moments or feelings and share them in a personal way.
Letters also move the spirits. Similar to journal writing, there’s a release of emotions and therapeutic benefits that happen when you put your thoughts to paper.
Kelly suggests beginning the writing process by choosing the right friend or loved one. Consider the dialogue you would have in person with these people — the stories you would you tell and questions you would you ask. Most likely you will be writing more than you would in a text, thus employ conversational devices in your letter. “Make sure to greet the other person, introduce yourself if necessary, and say goodbye when you are finished,” Kelly says.
Aside from thank you notes and condolence letters, any just because occasion shows good manners. Etiquette is essentially an ode to treating others with old-fashioned consideration and respect, and letters are its calling card.
The art of letter writing is a classic form of communication with a myriad of benefits. The writer takes the time to gather his/her own thoughts, eloquently write them down, and the recipient has a treasured keepsake that shows care.
It also honors human connection, Not to mention, it’s great for handwriting practice in this digital age.
As the summer season promotes leisure time, stock up on writing materials, replenish your stamps, and make it a part of your family’s ritual to embark on regular letter writing.
Letters About Literature Contest: https://education.uconn.edu/letters-about-literature-contest/
If you’re looking to fall for Darien, CT, drive to Ring’s End Landing. It begins by turning off of Boston Post Road at Saint Luke’s parish. You take a sloping shot past stately homes until you reach the stone bridge, which is flanked by arguably the most picturesque sound waters on the Gold Coast. Travelers can turn right, left, but to continue straight and you’d have to go through imposing gothic gates with a no trespassing sign made on Old World tile. It looks like the kind of entrance you’d expect to see at a school for wizards. But soon you won’t need magic or an illegal action to continue forward. On May 5th, this private residence, known as Great Island, will be owned by the town.
Mermaids take note, there’s a new hairstyle securing the beauty glitterati’s attention. The reign of long romantic hair with tendrils that move beautifully with water is giving way to a freer style — the French bob. And once you insert the word French before a term, you know it’s got to be chic.
