Shannon Ables

Preparing for a French Summer | The Simply Luxurious Life | ~Longchamp Le Pliage 55mm Gradient Square Sunglasses~ Stripe Shirtdress~ ~Sézane low Ilda espadrilles~ ~Heidi Wynne Mini French Market Tote~ ~Ellery Alphabet gold-plated necklace (all letters available)~ THE OUTFIT:

In the first home I owned, a townhouse in Portland, I would extend the pub table and squeeze in four chairs as best as I could, and at my beloved Normandy-style home in Pendleton, I found an oak table in pieces and with the expertise of my father who put it back together, dined on a beautiful square table that could tightly squeeze six, but could not bear much weight due to its fragility (view this table below). As I shared this past fall, I simply placed another small table next to my kitchenette table, threw tablecloths on top, and all was perfectly well prepared for a dinner of six. Needless to say, having had the opportunity to work at this table, I became more than certain that indeed, it was a round pedestal dining room table I would wait until I found to welcome into my home. But at least now I have a dining room table, and future dinner parties can comfortably seat 8 people, 10 in a pinch, as it stretches to 70+ inches in length.

Tan France of Queer Eye fame, the show’s sartorial guide for each of the individuals spotlighted and made over per episode, has brought to the world’s attention the French Tuck. No joke, while you may have been incorporating this simple front tuck as I have for decades, especially in the late eighties and nineties, with the premiere of the second season last year (the third season premiered earlier this spring on Netflix), Google searches for the term soared. Wherever the name orginated, while it has been a practice by some for decades, with all of the street style photography shared on the web and social media in the past eight years or so, Alt quite regularly is seen with the tail of her shirts untucked and a brief bit of the front tucked into her denim jeans seemingly effortlessly, but Tan has been French tucking for 15 years. Sweaters too can be French tucked, as seen in some of the images in today’s post, and if you watch Madam Secretary, Téa Leoni’s character regularly tucks in the front of her silk blouse and leaves the back out which is covered by her jackets for professional meetings, then looks far more comfortable when she is working with her staff, sans jacket.

However, if excellence is a choice to improve in a particular craft, become an expert in a particular field, then it we need to learn the second secret to living a life of quality: Knowing what to ignore in our lives, what to let go of, in other words, is crucial as we seek the time to do well the tasks that we have placed high on our priority list. What we gain when we ignore activities, pursuits, goals, ways of life that are not on our priority list: • more time to dedicate to what we love, but also to just be • more energy to give when we do give to what we love and are dedicated to • liberation from having to “keep up” with others who may be doing what society nudges or pushes us to do It can be tempting in our world to be a Jack of all trades, and perhaps that is a skill someone wishes to master, but the ability to dive deeply into a particular skill, professional, passion, or pursue a particular goal until it is attained and while doing so let go of other pursuits, is an approach that will often render much appreciated results. While being a well-rounded person is a very good idea, we can do that without being excellent at everything, and in so doing, become excellent in an area or field that allows us to shine so that that contentment can diffuse over every area of our lives and enable us to be more fully present, letting go of that critical voice that may hound us for not being “excellent” at everything.