With great effort and patience, the life you have imagined as well as thoughtfully curated will begin to become your reality. In fact, it will often be so gradual, it will take a particular moment that spotlights all that is going well in your life, all that is as you had in the past hoped life would become, for you to realize how it truly is coming all together. 

 

Henry David Thoreau was right in this case that we will "meet with a success unexpected in common hours". It has been my experience that the success we seek, and it will be unique for each us, doesn't arrive at a grand soirée we have planned, a grand event in which we anticipate something extraordinary happening. No, it happens, often in our everydays, and it happens when we pay attention to all that has begun to build, accumulate and come together to create what we had once only dreamed about. 

 

As I share in this week's Wednesday post regarding 13 Things That Have Made Me Smile This Month, I think this holiday season has been my favorite so far in quite a few years. But to an onlooker, it wouldn't look all that extraordinary. Only to each of us that are living our lives thoughtfully will know if indeed our dreams our coming together, and the dream might simply be peace or peace of mind, or finally understanding what true contentment is and reveling in it each and everyday day. But that is what living a life of quality and reaching our full potential is all about - our understanding and not the external applause that may come with the good life we have gradually cultivated. 

 

Speaking of everyday moments to savor, a significant portion of my new book Living The Simply Luxurious Life is dedicated to Making Our Everydays Extraordinary, and after last Thursday's guest appearance on Tucson's AM radio station to talk about living simply luxuriously, I was invited to return as a guest on, KVOI, this next Thursday evening (12/20) to talk about just this topic as well as the holidays and finding the balance in our entertaining and enjoyment of this special time of year. If you would like to hear my conversation with host and James Beard winning founder of the Food & Wine Radio Network Jennifer English, tune in at 4:30 pm (Pacific) at this link to listen live (1030 KVOI AM, The Voice) no matter where you live in the world. 

 

In this week's newsletter, there is a bit of holiday cheer being shared, from an extra This & That Holiday post, a glimpse at my holiday tree (Oscar makes a cameo!), an English Holiday Decor Inspiration post, and a simple French seafood dish that is now going to be my holiday meal inspiration for special occasions. And of course, there is even more to enjoy, as well as the last new episode of the podcast for 2018 (be sure to see what the next three Mondays on the podcast will be about when you tune in to the end of this week's episode). But now on to the newsletter! 

 

Wishing you a lovely holiday weekend, and until next week, I'll see you on the blog!