Never do your eye make up without cotton buds to hand. Always have them in your bathroom and your make up bag. Wherever there is eye liner / mascara there should also be cotton buds.
Lust fades. Chemistry remains.
Serve the sauce on the side. Everyone has a different idea re food ratios.
Say what you need to say.
Take the wins where you find them. Big or small celebrate them, always.
Re driving safely: better to be ten minutes late on earth than be decades early to heaven.1
Neglect friendship for romance at your peril.
Empathy is not only earned through suffering. It can be learned. And it is every individual’s most powerful tool.
No name-droppers. No star f*ckers.2
The phrase “I got through it” is redundant. Obviously you did, or you wouldn’t be sitting here telling me about it.
Don’t fear being alone. You are never more free than when you are alone. You are never alone forever. Embrace and enjoy it while you can.
Grow flowers.
Grow food.
The mascara you use is much less important than the eyelash curler you use.
“Hi my love, just checking in. How are you doing today?” It only takes a second. Check in.
Cultivate a good radar for phoneys and then avoid phoneys at all costs.
Learn the difference between an open question and a closed question, and then learn to use them. When you don’t know what to say, ask an open question. Unless you’re cross-examining someone, then obviously don’t.
The happiest people are those who can find - and delight in - the joy in small things.
Go to the funeral.
“Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from” - Nora Ephron
You’re often better off hiring an enthusiastic youngster than an old hack. Seniority isn’t everything.
Life is too short to hold a grudge.
Let go of self-consciousness and take photographs. Photograph the mundane as well as the magnificent. Coffee with a friend, birthday dinners, trips to the playground, you in a bikini, you in your PJs. In the future you’ll be so glad you did.
Understanding is often the antidote to fear.
Don’t go looking for vindication in the court system. That isn’t what it is for and you won’t find it there.
Nothing is black and white. Everything is nuanced.
Make a to do list. Check and update it in the morning and before bed.
Do whatever you can to make your internal voice a kinder and more gentle one.
Plant as many tulips as you can afford.
Offer to help whenever you can. Being generous with your time is just as good as (if not better than) being generous with money.
“Man plans, and God laughs” - Yiddish proverb
If you think you don’t need therapy, you need therapy the most.
Delight in the seasons.
Hobbies are not only for retirees and the underemployed. Hobbies are life-giving. Everyone should have at least one.
In an age of excruciating, expensive, excessive, all-consuming vanity, be ugly.
Your ‘legacy’ isn’t a thing, it’s a feeling. Live life so that when you die people think of you and smile.
It is more important to master sincerity than sarcasm.
via Lizzie’s dad
From the late, great Milk & Honey House Rules https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/regarding-milk-honey-house-rules-or-sasha-petraske-finishing-school-patrons
I would add, the right person to spend the rest of your life, should enjoy your company, and be proud of how you look when you really aren’t!
Happy Birthday, Lucy. Hope it's filled with lovely flowers for you. Have just been thinking tulips and enjoying your 1000 tulip bulb pics. Just fabulous.