Hello dear readers. After writing and posting every day for two months {+ then some with a little time off in Italy — thanks for staying with me! the support has been amazing, and starting a blog is scary!}, I’ve been taking a bit of a step back to contemplate where I really want this little site of mine to go. I know I want to continue talking about the core idea I cherish most — creating a beautiful life withe ones you love, no matter where you are. That for me brings together entertaining with our very dearest friends {new ones here and those that visit us from the States}, decorating for our home to be both a retreat and energizing, traveling to explore this wonderful world of ours and of course, adding bits of everyday glamour.

So bear with me as I’m bouncing some ideas around. I believe the very best things continue to evolve while staying relevant, and also true to their foundation. In the interim, I want to share this thought-provoking piece from the New York Times this weekend. It’s about the moral bucket list, and resonated with me so strongly. The discussion of the professional and personal resume, and becoming satisfied with moral mediocrity. It’s all too easy to be caught up in the external achievements — and I’m so guilty of it, and especially of always wanting to have it all. From the need to excel in high school to the demands in college to racing up the corporate ladder, somehow the self-awareness we need to be good, for ourselves and others, not our achievements, gets buried. Self-reflection here is key, and the conscious decision to do better than you did the day before.

My favorite part, as it often seems, is of course from the second to last paragraph: “But eventually, at moments of rare joy, career ambitions pause, the ego rests, the stumbler looks out at a picnic or dinner or a valley and is overwhelmed by a feeling of limitless gratitude, and an acceptance of the fact that life has treated her much better than she deserves.”

Much better. x.