RERUN WEEK #6: Write with half an eye on the market

The Darknight Academy for witches, wizards, troubled vampires and tragically abused children was just waking up when the screaming started. Secret Agent Sam Glowingly sprang athletically from his bed and immediately reached for his pistol. He had been undercover for three weeks now and this was the first sign of trouble, unless you counted the theft of the Holy Grail the previous week, which he didn’t.

‘McSleet. Wake up,’ he hissed. His grizzled, cynical, alcoholic yet oddly sympathetic Scottish colleague mumbled an unintelligible curse at him and went back to sleep. Fine, thought Glowingly. He would just have to tackle this one alone, with only his gun and his mysterious otherworldly powers to help him. He knew he could do it. He had faced seemingly impossible odds before, like that time his wife had been forced to choose which of their two daughters to donate a kidney to, even though the girls were twins and one of them had accidentally killed their younger brother in a shocking yet poetically haunting accident at the old lake.

30 Chic Days - Day Thirty

Day 30: Put it all together

I thought I would end this series by asking you to choose one or two of your favourite Chic Days, or a chic habit you would like to cultivate to improve, beautify or enjoy life more with, and put it into practice.

Have you ever found you are forever researching and gathering information? And you don't have time to read back through the computer files saved, magazine articles torn and documents printed out? I do this all the time. It wasn't until I started going through what I had gathered, weeding out the rubbish and actually putting into place that I started making headway into my chic life.

I'm not saying I've suddenly turned into Audrey H, Amelie or Carole Bouquet, but a lot of the time I find myself making good decisions towards being a chic and stylish woman. Lots of the things I have written about in 30 Chic Days I already do (or partially/sometimes do and want to do more often). And it's only by dreaming, writing and reading about them that I have brought them into my reality.

By choosing a chic habit like wearing my nice things and using my nice dinnerware, in fact enjoy all the lovely items I already own, I can elevate my day to day life right now. If I decide to moisturise my body every single morning with the beautifully scented body lotions I have in my bathroom cupboard, all it costs me is a little time, and I have a 10 minute pampering session to start my day, and silky soft skin all day.

Focus on one thing and add to it as time goes on. What are you going to add to your daily routine or way of thinking to make your life more chic, starting right now?

Going into this holiday season which can be a bit nutty, my plans are to be very organised both at home and at work, go to bed earlier more often than not, limit drinks to very little (choosing sparkling mineral water) and generally look after myself well. Oh, and read lots or knit while listening to calming music. Delicious.

A chic life is what you make of it.

RERUN WEEK #5: Learn about syllepsis, then refuse to stop employing it

Joe Stockley was in an expensive sports car and deep trouble. This time, he had really let his mouth and his exotic foreign lover run away with him and it was getting beyond a joke and his immediate circle of friends in the form of rumours and speculation.

As he ran a red light, the conversation back in his mind and away from his troubles, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of rising panic and the soft matte finish of his hand-stitched leather steering wheel. Angelica had been absolutely right and his wife for fifteen years, so why was he running scared, these kind of risks and this deadly gauntlet of illicit entanglements?

30 Chic Days - Day Twenty Nine

Day 29: Use your good stuff

If there's nothing else you take from 30 Chic Days please take this: use and wear your favourite everythings. Last year when I was drying myself after a shower I wondered why, when we had beautiful new organic cotton towels which we had received as wedding gifts, was I using a towel that while being 'good enough', I had zigzagged along the edges to halt the fraying.

Immediately that day I sorted through our linen cupboard, downgrading those towels to gym towels and gym towels to cleaning towels. Now we have a lovely selection of thick, fluffy towels in shades of white, cream and chocolate, and it didn't cost a cent as we already owned them.

With clothing, I periodically downgrade going out/to work clothes to home loungewear, and beyond that it is given to a thrift store if it's still in good nick and I just don't like (or fit) it, or cut up into rags for cleaning if a little threadbare. That means I only wear my favourite, newest and nicest clothing.

One thing I never hoard are beautiful soaps. Everyone I know knows that I love good soap, and I often receive it as a gift. Additionally I always scan a sale table at the chemist or places like L'Occitane, and check out markets with handmade soaps. And of course I always stick the last tiny piece to the new bar. I don't like to waste lovely soaps.

Also, I use all my good dishes and glasses. Last year in my decluttering fit, I got rid of my clunky everyday dinner set and used my two good ones (plain white, and white with a dark-Greek-blue inch-wide rim) which I alternate and inter-change. I also enjoy using our Krosno expensive wine glasses. I put them in the dishwasher too.


The soap pictured top and above is a gift from Adrienne from The Rich Life (on a budget). Adrienne is one of the most thoughtful, kind-hearted and generous personages in the blogosphere. She posted me from California to New Zealand a gift package which included a bag of Vanilla Cookie flavoured dog treats for rescued poodle Atlas, and some 40th birthday goodies for myself.


Unfortunately our border security confiscated Atlas' American dog treats. He can't really argue with biosecurity though; he respects what they do, but it's a shame they didn't get here.

What did arrive safely here was a divinely scented Sonoma Lavender soap, a gauzy bag filled with lavender, beautiful boutique chocolate and the piece de resistance, purchased-in-Paris '40 and sexy' sign in French. It now graces our fridge. Adrienne bought it for herself, and once she turned 41 took it down and it has been tucked away for a year or two. How lovely that she thought to pass it along. I vow to do the same when I leave 40 for the lush pastures of 41.


The dark chocolate, oh my goodness. It was amazing (and I hope I don't use that word lightly). It was just the ticket with a cup of steaming tea of an evening.


Below is Atlas keenly opening the parcel at work. He's a handy little dog with a Stanley knife.



Merci beaucoup Adrienne!

End of the Year To-Dos

Believe it or not, it's the end of the year again. Christmas is only four short weeks away, and I honestly can't believe it. The time has flown by, and as I look back I can see a lot of opportunities seized and a lot of opportunities missed. And it's important to recognize and understand both, so as not to lose one and to be on the lookout for the other.

As the name of this post implies, we've got some end of the year starting a law firm to-do's. There are two that I am thinking of, neither one of which I've done yet, but both of which I'll be doing very soon. They are goal setting and reviewing and revising the business plan. Let's talk a little bit about both.

Goal Setting

At the end of the year last year I set some law firm goals. And, sadly, but truthfully, I hadn't really looked at them when I set them until now. What's the point of setting goals if you aren't going to check them and work toward them, right? Here's a recap of my goals for this year:

1. Gross $100,000. I actually have reached this goal I think (though I don't know for sure - something that will be fixed in 2011).

2. Pay down half of my current debt. I wish I could say I'd done that, but I'm not even close. That's a personal goal rather than a professional goal, but still, not reached.

3. Travel with my wife. Again, more personal than professional, and I again, not really met. We went to Cabo for a wedding, but that's about it. I could do much much better in this department.

4. Play some golf. I played a fair amount of golf this year. I'd love to play much more. Nuff said about that I think.

5. Begin saving money to buy a house. Not done at all. Don't have any excuses except the money just isn't there for this. I'm pouring most of it into paying down debt. When that's gone, the house saving gets much easier (and grows much faster).

6. Strictly adhere to my internet marketing plan. I don't remember what the plan was exactly, but I'd say I did it. I'm number one for several of my targeted keywords, and continue to work on that every day. That is one of the things that's contributed to my success.

7. Give one talk a month to people about how to deal with cops. I think I gave three of these this year, and not month to month. We'll talk about this when we talk about my goals for 2011.

8. Track and tweak my marketing efforts to get the best ROI. Can't say that I've done this very well. For quite some time I got caught up in the day to day of the firm - that means a lot of busy work and not much else.

9. Work every day to become the best DUI attorney there is, which includes 5 trials. I'm not going to reach my goal of 5 trials. I'm not even going to get close. But that isn't for lack of trying. Each time I thought a case was going to go to trial something happened and it ended up resolving. I know I'll have at least two trials in January though, so that should get me off to a good start.

10. Set up a tracking system to make sure I'm tracking these goals. I've already confessed to not doing this.

As you can see, I met some, and I didn't meet others. But I think all in all I'm moving in the right direction, and that's the point, right?

Actually, that isn't the point at all. The point isn't to set goals so you might meet them. To "try hard" but not lose any sleep if you fall short. The point is to meet or exceed your goals. I need to do better.

I'm not going to tell you my goals for next year yet. Honestly, I haven't come up with them. But I can tell you that my goals are going to look dramatically different than they do here in this post. Part of what makes goals so hard to attain is often you only describe the big picture, end result. For example, I want to lose 40 pounds. Okay, great. That sounds wonderful to say, and is a great goal. But just saying it isn't enough. You need to have more details if you want to succeed. Maybe you break it down like one hour in the gym a day and no McDonald's french fries. Whatever it is, unless you break it down you have little hope of achieving success. So I'm going to break it down for me.

Revising the Business Plan

When I started my firm almost exactly a year and a half ago I wrote a business plan, and I think it was one of the best things I did. Not only did it make me think about what I was going to do before I did it, but it helped give me direction and make choices when they needed to be made. And I haven't done anything with it since.

So, I need to revise it. I guess now it would be more aptly described as a strategic plan or something like that, but at the heart of it it's a business plan for a business that's already up and running. This will help me with the goal setting described above, because it's natural design will force me to map out where the business goes in the future. But it will also make me plan long term, something we should all do.

Don't worry, I'll let you know what I've done with that too. But remember, all this stuff about me won't always apply to you. I just tell you what I'm doing so you can see an example of how it's been done. Hopefully you take away from it what you like, leave the rest behind, and avoid some of the same mistakes I've made.

Hope you all had a happy turkey day, and I'll talk to you again on Friday. I think we're going to talk about my laziness and affinity for television - in other words, how to deal with the things that steal our time.

Guest Post at Une Vie Chic

Recently Kalee at Une Vie Chic invited me to write a guest post for her food month. Kalee is doing a fantastic job at showing how good cooking at home is, and I particularly like her lists of kitchen essentials. She's anti-most-gadgets like I am.

Have a look at her entire month of November while you're there.

Thank you Kalee for asking me to be part of your food month!

RERUN WEEK #4: Find the bone mote

As he sat discomfortably on the chase lounge, Dan realised he was the centre of attraction. Something was a rye. He had a feeling that in this particular click, he was to be the scrapegoat. Had it been wreckless to come into this den of thiefs? If the worse came to the worse and the yolk of responsibility rested on his shoulders, wherefore would he turn for assistants?

When he had set out on this long sojourn, he’d known it would be risqué, but no one had appraised him of just how risqué, or even eluded to it. Even if they had, he would have been suspect of them having an anterior motive. But that was a mute point now. These viscous criminals would test his medal irregardless of weather he wanted them too – he just had to keep his moral up in the mean times.