This One Is Personal...

It’s my birthday weekend.

As an aside, this is what 54 looks like on me. No make-up on yet, and early in the morning! I don’t pole dance like Jennifer Lopez and you wouldn’t want to watch me perform at the Super Bowl halftime show (ha!). I do some basic weights and lots of walking. I appreciate and love all the variations and choices of other women for them. Personally, I choose not to colour my hair or use botox. I like to be on Team Natural and my favourite add-ons are perfume and fun rings.

(You do you! Love it! I’ll do me! Love it!) I find all women’s choices inspiring and intriguing.

But the real point of my photo is this: I am at a cross roads. This is my year to make a simple decision.

Do I go all in and back myself, or not?

Advance with what I love, or retreat?

Can you relate to this? It would be so easy — so natural — to slow down now and live in my world of what has always been.

• To stay settled into the same career and same routines.

• To drift into next year.

• To believe it’s too hard to create something new.

• To stop learning.

But we have so much life left. We do! Look back at the last five years, from 2015 until now, and think about all you’ve done in those 1,825 days.

In the next five years, we will get 43,800 hours.

Is it time for all of us to get a whole lot louder, and take up more space?

Yes, I have a million voices arguing in my head about my lack of expertise, my imperfect work, my faults (many), my blind spots (also many). Do you have those voices, too?

But I have new things I want to do.

Next weekend I’m going to share a surprise — something new I’ve been working on. I’m really hoping for your support.

I wish you were here to chat about it, and we could all encourage each other to step out into our Great Unknowns.

So there you have it: happy birthday to me.

This year, I’m giving myself the gift of backing myself and being my own best friend. I hope you will, too.

Let’s love our age (together),

Catherine x

PS.

• Beautiful flowers from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law! Pearl necklace from my dear friend and blog reader, Jen. Lovely cake from my stylish friend, Jules. Thank you all for spoiling me rotten this year. I loved every second.

• A reader asked for my gluten free, no bake brownie recipe. These are so delicious. Cut into tiny squares and enjoy a small sweet treat!

Be Fun To Live With

Well, here’s a big question for us all.

Ready?

It’s confronting.

We lose sight of this so easily. Every single day, we have the choice to approach our worlds with joy, and often we’re lost in our worries.

This week, heading out to wine and cheese on a friend’s deck overlooking the Aussie bush at dusk, it would have been just as easy NOT to be fun. Instead, another friend suggested we wear our pink wigs to the door.

Such a tiny thing, and it brought so much laughter.

It makes me wonder this: why do we default into little lives? Why — when it takes hardly any planning, and very little money and almost no extra effort — do we forget to be FUN?

It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten that fun is an option. But there it is, waiting for us to get creative.

Fun transforms us into better versions of ourselves. Oh, yes, there will be teens rolling their eyes and maybe grumbling, but it’s a risk worth taking.

Being fun is not just ‘having fun.’ There’s a difference.

It’s Friday in Australia. The weekend is calling to us all. Can we be more fun to live with today?

Let’s live in joy…and love our age.

Catherine x

PS. Celebrities, pole dancing, comparison, being fifty, authenticity, building businesses and more — I had a fun conversation with Merilyn on her podcast, Lead Your Day. You can listen here!

You Are Not The Problem

Today, join me in a small shift in thinking.

So simple.

There is a problem. Yes?

You may have contributed. You may have even started it. The responsibility may be yours.

Regardless — this is true:

We get this mixed up all the time.

The person becomes the problem.

It’s not true.

The problem is the problem — and it’s best to start there.

You are an imperfect, loveable human — like everyone else. Most of the time, most of us are doing the best we can. So enjoy this day for everything it has to offer.

Separate people from problems.

Let’s love our age and live beautifully.

Catherine x

So Much Depends Upon a Yellow Raincoat

Hey, it’s RAINING in Sydney!

This is such great news. We need rain so badly, and also this: it gives me a chance to wear my yellow raincoat.

Do you have one piece of clothing that makes everyone happy?

For me, it’s my yellow jacket. I guarantee you that when I wear it, perfectly respectable business people rushing around the city will stop and smile at me. Everyone says hello.

Happens every time.

There’s something about certain pieces of clothing that we love. This yellow raincoat is from Ann Taylor and it’s probably 20 years old. But every time I put it on — instant happiness for me and everyone I meet! These are the items to keep and cherish and wear over and over.

Clothes communicate so much. Sometimes they’re for us, and sometimes they’re for others. (Remember, mums…putting on a pretty dress and having your kids say the loveliest things?)

We can dress any way we like, of course, but I think this: dressing well can be a gift for other people.

Today on my way to the office, I plan to make everyone smile.

Love, Catherine x

ps. And for you, here’s the original William Carlos William poem: