This is a real eye opener

As you can tell I copied the pic from Amazon.com. I came back to blogging in hopes of finally finding myself. Pinterest started the whole thing. I had choices of lots of different styles to pin. Both in clothing and in home decor. I found myself drawn to the Bohemian look. I've always said I wanted to be a hippie. I've always loved Ali McGraw, Joan Baez, Nicole Richie, and other women who go their own way.

But the more I thought about it, I found that while for a day I can wear boho fashions and lots of jewelry, I could never live with a house full of patterns, colors, and textures. That started when I found myself drawn to a white quilt. My bedroom needs a lot of tlc. I put the white things in there with beige, light aqua, gold, and some black. TV, lamps, etc. I have Asian accessories. I have light woods. It is calm, serene, relaxing. And I love it. It's also nice that the quilt is washable. Love that. Anyway. Much as I love my boho, I don't choose to cover my home in it. So the style issue came up again.

I found out why the issue was a problem for me. At first when I considered all the things in the book pictured here, I believed that simple bohemian was, in fact, an oxymoron. Bohemian isn't simple. It just isn't. But I went through the book(a print version) and learned more about myself and what I want than I have in any other self-help book ever. I'm generally not a fan of them. Self-help books seem to want to deal with the inside life. That of the mind and heart. This one talks about coming at life from another angle. From the choices we make about what to include in our wardrobe and home. I read the chapters, descriptions, and looked at the photos many times before coming to the conclusion that my style is simple bohemian. The bohemian part of me is not just about clothing. It's about my total refusal to run with a pack. It's about the times I have tried to fit into someone else's idea of what is appropriate. And failed. It's about the fact that sometimes I may be shallow. I love visuals. I tend to put a lot of importance on visuals. I mean color, art, nature, etc. I haven 't let go of the deeper meaning of things but I am reinforced by visuals. Calmed by them.

I've been talking about the boho part but according to the book, life is about an 80%/20% split. My boho is my 20 percent. It's the icing on my cake. It's the avenue to joy. And the other part is simple. Simple. Simple. That word does mean a lot. Simple often means the bottom line. It means not messing life up with trivial things. It means pragmatism. If it works, why mess with it. It means not overthinking. It means I need to stick with what works for me. During our lives, some of us learn from the opinions of others that we can't trust our own minds to decide what we should do. We may think we aren't capable of knowing what is right. I think that is the worst sort of BS. If I don't know what to do, I ask for an opinion. Otherwise, I take the simple way. The way of least difficulty. I have a conscience which will tell me right away if I am wrong. If not, my grown children will. But as an older person, I am really enjoying this. Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte wrote this book. I bought it in the mood to learn about fashion. And I learned about life too. I will always be grateful to them.