Finding My Rhythm

Courtesy of Shabby Blogs

It's Thursday already, and I've spent my entire week working on pressing projects that, although integral to my blog, leave nothing much for me to say about our queen. Don't panic, though. I definitely have something to say.

My husband is on sabbatical for the next couple of months. He's leaning into rest and making some shifts in priorities. Since I enjoy him the most when he's at peace and rest, I'm looking forward to it. It will be exciting to see what life will be like to truly live in our flow together.

I'm also pressing into rest, though mine will be a working sabbatical. Every day I set aside time to write, research, and devour anything I can find about successful internet marketing. Currently I'm dining on 31 Days to Finding Your Blogging Mojo, by Bryan Allain. His witty humor and daily Mojo Exercises are responsible for the changes you've been seeing here and on my other blog, Brightness of Your Dawn. I am determined to take my work to the next level in the next couple of months.

Courtesy of Cutest Blog on the Block

You are officially invited to join me on this journey toward honing my craft. The first and most obvious change is the makeover I've given Vintage Betrothal. I was up until 1:30 am Tuesday, searching and agonizing to find the perfect background for our exploration of queens, jewelry, and transformation.

I was going for feminine, vintage, romantic, rich, and classy. Sadly, I was unable find all of these at Cutest Blog on the Block, so I turned to Shabby Blogs. Both offer top-quality, totally free blog backgrounds and other blog enhancement features. Very cool!

Another recent change I've made is removing Google ads completely. When you come to my blog, I want you to feel welcome, taken care of, encouraged, and nurtured. Just as I would hate for you to encounter pushy sales people in my office or living room, I don't want them bugging you while you're here. I will continue to include the beauties in the sidebars with links to my brother's business, Weston Jewelry. They are a hallmark of Vintage Betrothal. Not to mention that his bling is the best bling for the best prices. One last change for this week, six paragraphs. No more, no less.

Until next time...

Peace & Joy,
Angela

What Have I Been Doing All Week?

Hello everyone! Instead of writing about the transformation of queens today, I decided to write about the transformation of space...my new home to be exact. My dear friend has come over nearly every day this past week to help me organize, arrange, and decorate our new home. I should actually change that to say that I am helping her organize, arrange, and decorate. When you see the photos, I want you to know that this is all her genius, not mine!

It has been so fun and so exhausting for both of us. After mastering our bedroom and living room, we decided a few days of rest were in order. We will, however, be back at it tomorrow. Though I'm glad for the physical rest, I'm eager to get working on the rest of the house.

Some of you know that my family of four has lived in a one-bedroom, 750-square-foot home for the past four years. We recently upgraded to a three-bedroom, umpteen-square-foot home, and I am in happy home heaven. Here are some photos to show you where all my energy has been going this week. I'm sure, like me, you will be amazed at what a difference a little time and organization plus a lot more space can make in the quality of a life!

We started in the bedroom. Here's what it looked like the first few days:

And here's what it looks like now!

It's a little bit hard to tell in the pictures, but the bed is now at an angle, and we have this sitting area in the corner for my hubby to have his quiet time. I am happy to see the coffee coaster and the books on the floor near his chair, knowing that he is enjoying his new private space.

Moving into the the living room, here are the before pics:
 

Here are the in-process photos:

And here is the grand finale:

I know, seriously! My friend is amazing. Thank you, my friend!

Stay tuned next week for the kids' room and my office.

~Angela

Revisiting "Parallel Lives"

Metamorphosis
Photo Credit: Insects(dot)org

I must say that I’m amazed at the parallels I’m finding between Queen Victoria’s life and my own. I have been knee-deep in research about her formative years, and as I’ve read about the circumstances surrounding her conception, the death of her father when she was an infant, and the machinations and manipulations she was subjected to by her own mother, my emotions have run the gamut of anger, empathy, pity, and sorrow.

Reading farther into her life, I have found myself swinging between paragraphs filled with understanding and paragraphs filled with disenchantment at her sometimes childish behavior. I've been surprised sometimes at my own sharpness in some of the things I wrote.

Freedom
Photo Credit: Unresolved Abandonment

Since I don’t believe in coincidence, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Victoria appears to have had a severe and sometimes debilitating case of codependency. Her life was vastly different from mine, yet there is a silver cord of similarity running between the lines of her life that I cannot help but recognize as my very own struggle with depression, self-pity, and codependency.

Though she is lauded as one of the most prominent figures in world history, I can see that despite the popular perspective of greatness, she actually died a shell of a woman. She did not fully live her life, and that is not how I want my story to end. I will try so very carefully to address these issues with love and compassion, but there will be times when I know I won’t be able to be as gentle as I would like to be.

Faberge Egg
Photo Credit: Weston Jewelry

It is vital that you and I go farther than she did in her life. We may not find ourselves queen of an empire, but we owe it to our children and those who look up to us to push past the bitterness and resentments in our life and learn what it means to live life to the fullest. It is my job to push and prod and poke at the weak spots in her life to ferret out every last nugget we can learn from her.

Research Credits:
1. The World of Royalty
2. Joyce Gidel

Revisiting "Piety or Peace?" (parts one and two)

Chaos
Photo courtesy of Spokane Community College

Excerpt from original post (part one):

Queen Sophia Charlotte had what I consider to be a serious character flaw, and if I’m not careful this discussion about my shift in priorities could leave you thinking that I’m prone to the same serious flaw. In fact, the truth is that I am, and you very likely are, too. I hope that by bringing this issue into the light we will diminish its power and see a clear path to take in detour toward true freedom....

Sophia Charlotte with Her Children
Photo courtesy of NCGenWeb

Lest I become guilty of the very thing I’m highlighting, I must say that I am so very grateful my radius of people for which to set an example is far smaller than hers was. In case you aren’t tracking with me here, the character flaw I’m speaking of is critical judgment based on a high moral standard. To put it into modern language, she looked down her nose at others who did not think or act the same as she did. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have been struggling with a bit of writer’s block approaching this post. I think I’m beginning to understand a bit more why....

Sophia with Child
Photo courtesy of Forgotten Founders Exhibit

So the source of my writer’s block is this duel between judgment and affability, stinginess and generosity, public and personal life. Hmmm…and here we find our link to the “perfection disease” I posted about on Monday. 

Tiara and Combs
Photo courtesy of Jane Austen World

Truthfully, I sincerely wish we had more women in high position making domestic duties fashionable. Though it has become more fashionable to be a mother, most of us stay-at-home moms still search for our identities in what we do instead of who we are. Herein lies the problem with the mother of a nation, or any such role model, setting such high standards. I will not repeat the article I posted before, but I draw attention to the disease of perfection here. None of us are perfect and by setting any kind of standard of perfection without allowing for grace and mercy for ourselves as well as for others, we set ourselves up for living for other peoples’ approval, ever striving for more and better, looking down on others for what we think is going on in their lives, and looking down on ourselves because we will always offend ourselves if we are offended by others....

Balance
Photo courtesy of Motivate Thyself

(part two, originally published 10/06/10)

Today, I know that my tiara is sparkling firmly upon my head not because of what I have or haven’t done, but because I’m happy to be me doing what I’m doing right here and now. Instead of bracing himself for my hasty exit, my husband smiles when he walks in the door because he knows I’m going to be happy to see him because I missed him and not because I’m eager for him to take over with the kids so I can escape. My kids are happy, and they fill the air with far more joyful noises and dancing than angry words and fighting. I no longer find myself counting down the minutes so I can leave them and do something for myself....

Despite its negative overtones, I think this is the most important lesson I’ve learned from Sophia in these past couple of months. It is clear that she was firmly grounded in her life as a mother and a wife. She did not look to her public life or image to make her happy. Certainly she took her public role seriously, but she drew her strength from being with her husband and family. I want to take this lesson of drawing my strength from serving my family first, but without the excessive piety, judgment, and stinginess that marked her life. By putting first things first, I’m certain I will be free to be myself everywhere I am, thereby transferring this joy and strength to others far more effectively than when I was serving others as a means of escape.

Revisiting "Has Anyone Seen My Tiara?"

Excerpt from original post:
This weekend I lost my tiara. It seems like it all started when my best girls and I decided to do a yard sale this past Saturday. We spent all of last week sorting and compiling our stuff. With oodles of things and three very busy ladies, we pulled it together by the skin of our teeth. We broke many yard sale rules, and needless to say we made very little money....

As though that weren't enough, I further complicated my weekend by starting a new job. I have to admit that this was the worst possible weekend for me to tackle this very flexible, could-have-waited-until-next-weekend job. I have enjoyed it thoroughly, but I have learned another valuable lesson. Even though I can do a lot in one weekend, it's not wise for me to do so much....

A true queen envisions her day and makes a plan. She recruits the help she needs and makes sure that she doesn't overbook her calendar. A true queen knows in her heart that she sets an example for those around her. Sure, she could be super woman and do it all herself, but she wouldn't want those around her to feel like they had to succumb to the pressure and stress that being super woman entails. I want to be a true queen, so I am determined to learn from my mistakes rather than beat myself up over them.

So the topic of today's blog is not a queen of old, but the lessons I've learned this week about overbooking and overworking yourself and how to recover without laying in bed for a week. Even though I have momentarily lost sight of my tiara and I very much did trade my ball gown in for armor this week, I have learned some very important lessons about being a queen. Here is what I've learned from my weekend:

1. Stick to your plan.

2. Know your limits.

3. Conserve energy.

4. Put first things first.

I am very grateful that I'm seeing the sparkle of my tiara once again, and I'm making lemonade out of the lemons of my weekend. I'm enjoying hearing my children play and sing, and I'm about to go make them dinner. Before I do, though, I wanted to highlight the photos in my blog this week. This is part of my new job. Once a month I will be making several of these collages with inventory from my brother's website and from Polyvore's database. Besides some amazing moments with my kids, working on these collages was the highlight of a very stressful week. Creativity really is an outlet for stress. How blessed I am that it has become such a large part of the working segment of my life.