Crossroads
Hello Friends!
Just a few weeks ago, The France Dance turned 6 months old! lt’s difficult to believe it’s been that long since I hit ‘publish’ on the Amazon self-publishing portal. For this first time author navigating an unknown field on her own, it was an exhilerating if scary moment. Note to self: Doing hard things is awesome!
This past summer with my boys at home, I really didn’t have time to work on any of the novels swimming around my head, because for me to write, I need complete and uninterrupted silence. That just doesn’t happen when hungry teenagers are stomping around, needing a ride, needing money, needing a snack, needing to be woken up, needing a reminder, needing, needing, needing…, so for fun, I dusted off my blog writing skills and resurrected The Art of Living Beautifully. For those of you who don’t know, I published The Art of Living Beautifully blog from 2014-2020—which was synonymous with the magazine I published during the same time period. If curious for a look down memory lane, below are digital copies of some of my magazines. Just click an image to view the magazine.
The Art of Living Beautifully was and is still meant to inspire women to build a beautiful life and personal culture inclusive of the elements of life that promote joy, peace, wellness, contentedness, and richness in our days. For me, this looks like enjoying the process of creating flavors in my kitchen with whole foods, nourishing the people I love the most, hopefully at a scarred wooden table well-seasoned with laughter and conversations from the past. It’s designing a home that welcomes my family and friends into a colorful and warm embrace, allowing all of us to breathe easily and inspire our best mindsets through layered heirlooms and delightful art. The Art of Living Beautifully is having fun with fashion and styling our clothes in such a way that represents our personalities while providing confidence to face the world. It’s adopting pastimes and rituals that feed my soul like gardening, reading, and two-way prayer.
These elements are significant because yes, they literally weave together a beautiful and full tapestry of life, but they also help me to feel the most like me. God created each of us unique with a specific path to utilize our gifts, and my path is bright, exciting, media based though personal in engagement, full of unknown tasks that I’ll have to figure out, European in style and sensability, flavorful, colorful, and on a mission for peace. I believe my path is destined toward communication with women. I believe my path has additional novels along the way. Most importantly, I want my path to be completely reliant on the Lord’s direction to ensure I’m engaging in His will and not my own.
The Art of Living Beautifully is my personal ethos; its framework is based on lessons learned in the book of Genesis, something I call The Eden Factor. Everything I create, whether novels or blog posts or any future endeavors are manifestations of this thought process.
Now, after 6 months of promoting my novel and about 4 months of reviving The Art of Living Beautifully blog, I find myself at a crossroads, a bit uncertain of the path I should focus. If you don’t mind doing me a 5 minute favor, I would so appreciate you filling out this little questionaire. It will help me better understand what you get from my emails, blog posts, and books and will show me what you’re looking forward to the most.
Thank you, friends.
