Archive for category: Elegant Living

My husband picked up a copy of Victoria Classics Gardens of Bliss for me! I was so happy and grateful that he did. It had a lot of information in it about flowers which of course is my favorite thing.

One article that caught my eye was the two page spread about caring for roses. It is so great that I knew I needed to share this on the blog.

* Choose sturdy, proven rose varieties. You’ll find plenty of versatile and resilient shrubs appropriate for your climate, as well as for the conditions in your garden.

* When adding a rosebush to your garden, give it plenty of room to grow and reach mature size.

* Plant roses where they will receive at least six hours of direct sunlight daily. All-day sun is best.

* Dig a planting hole twice as wide and just as deep as the nursery pot or root mass of your new plant.

* Roses thrive in enriched soil. Improve soil before or after planting with several shovelfuls of composted manure worked into the area around the plant.

* Feed plants monthly with rose fertilizer during the growing season. Stop feeding by late summer to avoid promoting tender new growth that could be damaged by freezing weather.

Photo by Ksenia French on Unsplash

It is so hard sometimes dealing with liars, trouble makers, and down right rude people. I pray constantly for discernment and I am pretty good at “reading” people. There are some situations that I will not put myself into because I can tell if someone is not going to like me.

And that is okay. Not everyone is going to like me. But we must learn how to deal with these individuals. I was reading an article from Real Simple.com called “5 Tricks to Reading People”.
This article gave wonderful hints on what to pay attention to and how to deal with it.

As a waiter, I always watch to see if, and how, customers’ demeanors change when they talk to me as opposed to the person they’re eating with. If they’re engaged and personable with the people at the table but then don’t look me in the eye or say “please” and “thank you,” I think that reveals a lot. I’ve heard of people taking job candidates to restaurants to see how they interact with the servers because it’s a good indicator of how they will treat their coworkers. It’s also telling for me to see how people react to bad news. When I say we’re out of a dish or the food is going to take longer than normal, do they let it roll off their backs? Or do they ask how that could possibly happen and say it’s unacceptable? In most cases—in restaurants and in life—there is a reasonable explanation. When people get upset, it tells me that they sweat the small stuff.
—Darron Cardosa is a blogger and the author of The Bitchy Waiter. He lives in New York City.

photo credit Clay Banks

Watch for “Actually.…”

There are telltale words that show a person is the type who likes to bait you into an argument—

especially online. If someone starts a comment with “Actually,” he is trying to correct you. 

Or ending a comment with “Right?” He wants you to engage. 

Another common indicator is chiming in with an anecdote to shut you down. 

For example, you write, “X percent of baby boys don’t get this vaccine.” 

And he writes, “My brother got that. You’re wrong.” OK, you have a personal story that 

you think negates all other information. What I tell people, especially female writers I work with,

is that when a person comes back more than once with an “actually” or a “Right?” 

or an anecdote, that person is trying to cause trouble.

—Annemarie Dooling is the head of growth and audience correspondence at Vocativ.com, 

a news website. She lives in New York City.

Have Them Tell a Story Twice.

With all of our electronic communication these days—and even more so with dating apps—

everyone has the chance to fabricate. Maybe they tell one person one thing and another person 

something else, just to get what they want out of situations. I’m newly single for the first time 

in seven years, and one of the things I look for is consistency when someone tells me a story. 

I’ll say, “Hey, remember that story you told me? What happened at the end?” 

Getting the same response—or not—says something about his honesty.
—Jessie Kay is the founder of the Real Matchmaker. She lives in Los Angeles.

Listen for a Straight Answer.

How directly someone speaks to you can be a big indicator of how forthright she is overall. 

This is something we look for when we’re working with witnesses but also when we’re looking 

at jurors. When someone immediately answers the question, we usually feel she is being honest with us. 

When someone talks and talks in a roundabout way, giving 15 explanations for what she’s about to say, 

and then gives you the answer at the very end, she might be telling the truth, or she might be wrestling with it. 

It hurts your credibility if you’re not immediately direct.
—Leslie Ellis, Ph.D., is a jury consultant at DecisionQuest, a national litigation consulting firm. 

She lives in Washington, D.C.

Ask if They’ve Broken a Bone.

This is strictly observational; there’s no data out there on this. But I have seven children, and 

I’ve noticed a definite bimodal distribution when it comes to broken bones. 

Three of them have had multiple broken bones—arms, shoulders, whatever. 

Four of them have never broken a bone. The ones that break bones tend to be more aggressive and daring. They’re also risk-takers, which can be a good thing. 

The others are more cautious and deliberate. It’s the same with my grandchildren.

 I have one who will jump off a couch and assume Grandpa will catch her. 

Her brother will climb up and down the stairs of the slide until he finally goes down slowly.
—Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., is the author of The Intuitive Parent and a professor of hearing 

and speech sciences and psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. 

He lives in Nashville.

Photo by Evelina Friman on Unsplash

(original article see here)

We are in an age where sharing everything has become the norm and keeping things private has become weird. It is so easy to get caught up in sharing too many details about one’s life.

I wrote a small blog post about this last year, see here. I try to make sure I practice this on a daily basis. Learning to find the balance between sharing your life and keeping things private is very hard sometimes.

We as women can have a tenancy to want to share and discuss everything with our girlfriends, co-workers, and family members. I have had my “oops I should have not said that” moments. I hate that! But since I am getting older I am learning to pause in between my thoughts before I speak.

There are some things that should be left unsaid. I had someone recently tell me that I didn’t post as much on Facebook anymore. I was very happy to hear that. For the most part I post photos or statuses that inspire. When I joined Facebook in 2011 I was venting things and emotions that I should have kept to myself but as I can see I am learning.

I read this recently from Jennifer L. Scott’s book about “the Air of Mystery”. She said, “Poise resides in the space between our thoughts. If we pause, we are less likely to say something that is not in our best interest. We will not engage in a “Twitter feud” because we will have paused and assessed. Your secrets will stay safe. We must remember that poise is in the pause. Pausing when agitated. Pausing when excited. Pausing before saying something that isn’t wise to say.

I could not have said it better myself. I am going to make an extra effort in keeping an air of mystery. Because there is beauty in mystery.