The Blog

My 2ooth Blog Post: Milestones That Puncuate

10/22/2014 By Nancy Borg With 8 comments

get-attachment_optIt’s hard to believe that after 4 years of catching thoughts on bedside note pads, endless hours of crafting posts and late night edits, have all somehow culminated into a prideful compilation of 200 published articles to date.  When I noticed this draft entry, it felt somewhat like a milestone.

No secret that I love writing, I always have.  It’s a great platform to share my personal insights, my life’s perspective, and my professional expertise all in one place. It started out as a daily diary of a move and then morphed into a weekly blog.  These blogs are very special and personal to me because they are written in my voice.  I am not a professional writer nor do I claim to be an accomplished author, but my blogs tell a story, nonetheless. Even more precious, they serve as an accurate timeline tracing my journey since I first launched my business.

The greatest part is that The Blog accurately reflects where I was at the time I was crafting its very content.  It was always about what mattered to me then and what inspired me.  Funny that I am so very critical of myself, because when I look back to the beginning, I often cringe at my style of writing. There are early posts that I could certainly edit differently now, but I wouldn’t change a thing.  It was who I was. Then.

Milestones punctuate our life’s journey.  The happy birthdays and celebratory anniversaries are annual reminders to check in with ourselves. In a way, a cause to pause.  Reflect.  If we self-actualize , it will almost always help us grow, or change who we are as a person in some significant way.

It’s nice to have checkpoints that nudge you to evaluate where you are, how you’ve changed, and prompt you to ask where you’re going.  I wonder if you have any.

I’ve changed in the past 4 years.  I would have hoped to.  Perhaps more seasoned (professionally); more self-actualized (as a person); ever-evolving, but still me. Older, wiser, and yes…better.

I want to thank you dear reader, for visiting, commenting, and your continued follow.  Know that my content comes from an authentic place, as I draw from my own personal and professional experiences.  It is with great pleasure that I will continue to share with you my organizing expertise, along with my heart.

I invite you to keep stopping by The Blog as I cross over this milestone and onto the next. 🙂

 

 

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The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

12/10/2013 By Nancy Borg With 5 comments

IMG_2012_optThe falling snow changed my plans today. My schedule went out the window with the very first snowflake. So it looks like I’m in for the day. But as I sit in front of the fireplace, I’m realizing that mother nature has just bestowed me the “gift of time.” How great is that?  I’m in pajamas, watching the snow gently fall, and although not leaving the house, there is an endless list of productive things I can do.  Where to begin?

Time is a luxury for sure, and how we use it, only clarifies our priorities.  For me, my passion is writing and so my first inclination is to craft this blog.  I’ll catch up on reading, e-mails, tele classes, and maybe if I’m lucky, I can even take a nap (but probably not, lol)

Weather is impactful.  When it interrupts our day, we are forced to stop, or at least pause.  For all of us who incurred the snow today, there was one thing we all had in common.  We were forced to slow down.

In the peak of a work week and holiday bustle, this is not an easy task. But apart from being a nuisance, perhaps this shift in focus was a good thing.  It might have caused you to slow down your busy pace.  Maybe you needed to.

In some form or another, we all paid attention to time.   If you anticipated the inclement weather, you were more apt to adjust your schedule accordingly with an earlier exit strategy this morning.  Leaving yourself adequate wiggle room was an option to consider, or time spent cancelling and re-scheduling appointments.

We always plan with good intentions but so many times, things happen out of our control to disrupt them.  We adjust and move on, and sometimes take away a lesson learned.  My favorite expression, “Man plans and G-d laughs,”  is so apropos.  It always wakes me up.

So today, I’m enjoying this unexpected gift of time.  Every very now and then, it’s nice to indulge in “self” time. How about you? What kind of adjustments did you make today?  Did you stop, pause, or slow down?

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Fine Dining: Art Imitating Life

06/21/2012 By Nancy Borg With no comments yet

Eating a leisurely Italian meal is one of my favorite pleasures.  Understanding how Italians eat is a great model for living a more relaxed life.   Europeans in general have got the right idea as evident in their daily lifestyle.  They pace their entire day just like they dine.  Whether it is an afternoon siesta, or La Pausa at lunchtime, it’s a common practice to instigate a break midday.  Everything shuts down between 1 and 3.  Novel to American, normal to Europeans.  I never understood why this custom of pause has not been adopted into American culture.

Fine dining is not only a wonderful gastronomic experience, it is indeed a well orchestrated art. There is an apparent rhythm and flow that allows you savor every flavor.  No rushing, just leisure dining.  Italians take their food very seriously and so eating in a traditional restaurant can easily stretch over a 2 hour period.  The meal is structured into a scheduled 5 courses.

Antipasto: The appetizer that comes before the main meal.  Just enough to activate the palate. ( I like to think about it like a jump start to get those juices flowing).

Primo:  First course (pasta, soup, or risotto)

Secondo: Main dish (meat, fish, poultry)

Contorno:  Side dishes (vegetable, potato, or salad)

Intermezzo: Not an actual course, it’s a palette cleanser. Often a refreshing sorbet to neutralize the palette. I like to think about this like another pause.  Time to take a break, breathe, and cleanse.

Dolce:  Dessert.  End the meal with something sweet and delectable.

Even after that, (especially in Italy), you will not be offered the check (il conto) until you request one. Instead, they will continue to offer a variety of digestivo (after dinner drinks) or cafe, and allow you to just relax and digest.

Try to think about your day in this regard. Model your day after a fine 5- course meal.  Remember to take breaks between courses. Can you break down your day in sections? Can you slow down long enough to acknowledge that you’ve changed gears?

Ideally, it would be great to incorporate a healthy pace into your entire life, but for now, just try to implement some intentional pauses into one single day.

Have you made time for an Intermezzo today? If not, I hope you ended your day on a sweet note! 🙂

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