Month: February 2012

Enriching Minds Want To Know

At the beginning of the year, I decided to create a year long theme vs making resolutions that I was bound to break by month’s end. It seems a theme is easier to use as rails for evaluating interest. Resolutions are hard and fast.

My theme for 2012 is Enrichment. 

Having just cleared my plate of most everything that has kept me “busy” for the last few years (Boards, moving, renovating, Bat Mitzvah planning and school participation), I find myself with the freedom to choose what’s next.  I need to refuel. Ya know, fill up the old gas tank. It has been running for miles and desperately needs fresh oil and some detailing. It’s been a long road.

I don’t want to do just anything. I want to MindFULLY add in activities. However, being MindFULL about “next” takes time and it can’t come being isolated in the house during cold winter days.

Or can it?

Lucky for me there are many sources for inspiration. Today I am listing two (and one I look forward to) and as the weeks go on, will share more.

1.  TED. Ted is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. There are videos galore with amazing people and topics to educate and delight. A video a day, helps keep inertia away! www.ted.com

2. Pinterest. Here is a site where I can spend hours just looking at ideas. Pinterest is a virtual worldwide bulletin board. You go on and set up your own boards (categories) and then scour (follow) the boards of others and “repin” what you find onto your own boards. I have home, food, party ideas, fashion , great sayings, books and music on mine. And I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. www.pinterest.com

3. Coming Soon: MIT classes, for FREE, on line!

Wow. Classes at MIT, for FREE? Its not just a school for engineering types. There are so many wonderful departments (art, psychology the world famous Media Lab). Who knew? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/12/21/m-i-t-game-changer-free-online-education-for-all/

If you know of other sites that delight and inspire, please share! Afterall, how can we MindFULLY fill our minds with new ideas if we keep on doing what we’ve always done?

What sites do you like for MindFULL Enrichment? Let us know!

MindFULL Attitude

This year of heading toward 50 has many of my friends chatting about growing old with style and grace. I’m definitely struggling. Too old to wear my Bean loafers anymore, I wistfully admire those of my friends who make it look effortless.

Last week, in the parking lot of Target, I saw the most stylish and beautiful older woman (I’ll bet she was 75). Silver Salon hair, big Dionne Von Furstenberg glasses, a short black and white hounds tooth skirt, black tights, small heeled loafers and a red wool swing coat.

I wanna look like THATwhen I grow up.

And if she wasn’t a sign enough, I came home to the link below from my friend, Colette. It’s a long trailer for an upcoming documentary about stylish New York older ladies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWKTfqivbRQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

All this talk about growing old with style and grace has made me think about my Bobie (Yiddish for grandmother). Til her very end, at 96, she always “got dressed” and added her pearls and red lipstick. She was a real fashion plate. I think of her often and laugh out loud with the ladies in the film. I love them! Their attitudes and color delight my senses.

Maybe it’s really not about what you wear, but how you put it together and carry yourself. Perhaps if I had a pair of those fabulous Diane VF glasses, then the real, underlying concern of my eye bags, wouldn’t matter and I could focus on what was really important.

Afterall, didn’t Coco say it’s all in the accessories, any way?

How do you go about developing a MindFULL style? Let us know?