Do your goals and BIG dreams scare you??

Dream BIG!  Dream big, SCARY goals....  Close your eyes and picture that goal that's been side-lined for too long - how much does it scare you?  A lot?  Good, now we're getting somewhere.


Don't you find that old comfort zone familiar but just more than a little.... how can I put it?.... beige??  Yes edging out of it is scary but basked in technicolour.  So, what are you doing about it??


I'm trying to practise what I'm preaching and I know it's tough.  On a recent workshop I shared a few of my big, scary goals with someone and just the simplest act of saying them out loud spurred me into action (and her encouraging emails to check how I'm doing are the momentum!!).  So I want to be that catalyst for you.


Dream BIG
Say your dream out loud to someone
Do a little something every day to step away from the beige and into the sparkle!


Image: One

Full disclosure: more truths about my disappearance...

As well as nurturing a growing tummy, I've also been exercising the old grey matter over the past 6 weeks and I'm now fully certified as an NLP practitioner and Creating Your Future coach.  You want that in plain English?  I'm now fully-qualified and have the skills to achieve that goal I talked about here and here - I can help people to "discover their unique sparkle and live their best life".


And so now what?  It's time to take a leap and put it into practice.  I'm busy planning and designing my own personal take on what I've learned and how I can use it to help people to live their potential.  For now, all I'll share is it's pretty personal to me - I shared with you all my low point and I'm using it as my inspiration.  Watch this space...

Image: pinterest

Straight from the heart

The very reason I started this blog in the first place was so that I had a space of my own, a reflective little hub, a creative outlet to share my own, personal pursuit to find my unique sparkle and live my best life.  It began as something that I enjoyed from the very heart of me, not another item on my weighty to-do list, and so I made myself a promise - if ever I didn't feel the desire to come to this spot and share, if ever it felt like a chore, I simply wouldn't blog.  And so I've not even logged-on to my baby BasilBe since the New Year - well, the 16th January to be precise about it.  As fate would have it, as soon as I'd shared my goals and aspirations for the year, my usual go-get-'em was sapped!


The truth is I've been lacking the energy big-time.  And the focus.  It turns out I was a little overwhelmed with all that was going on at the beginning of the year.  You know, little things like house-hunting ..... and finding out that I'm going to be a mummy!  Yes, I can hand-on-heart say I was more than a little distracted.....


So I'm back and shouting it from the rooftops!  Now I look back, at 14 weeks pregnant with an ever-growing bump, and I can see that part of me was a little anxious about the whole thing too.  Not the being pregnant (though I've felt better!), but the responsibility upon my body to grow this little thing.  Anxious about sharing the news when everything has felt so fragile.  I've yearned to be a mum for as long as I can remember and I just wanted to keep this secret to ourselves and concentrate my energy on doing right by this precious little being.  I'm all kinds of emotions - deliriously happy (I had a little 'happy dance' as I was waiting for the kettle to boil this morning!!), daunted, hopeful .... it changes every day!


The simplest way I can put it into words is that it feels right, this, being a mummy feels like it's my best life.  So please forgive the absence .... I've been busy trying to hold down my dinner!


Image: I'll Know It When I See It via Etsy

{Take action} A fresh pair of eyes

It's funny how people notice your little idiosynchrocies and quirks.  I've mentioned before that instead of writing new year's resolutions, I create a new year moodboard - it's become a little ritual.  In fact, I've already started curating pictures from blogs and tearing photos from magazines, as my 2012 vision board comes to life.  And so, while this little creative pursuit of mine has become second nature to me, I wasn't aware how aware my family and friends were of it - how 'me' they saw it.  So much so, that it was mentioned in the speeches at our wedding and the board above created by my little sister to mark the occasion.

I love it.  It's my most treasured one yet...

{Take action} Are you brave enough to go solo?

How do I put this? Hmmmm?  I don't like people looking at me.  Or more specifically, I'm not that good with attention.  I'm more than happy for someone else to take the limelight and I'll be content to be the one cheering on from the sidelines. 

I'm a tough cookie where it counts but sometimes the simplest things can unnerve me - like eating in a restaurant alone.  I've had to do it in the past when I've been working away from home and not been inspired by the safety-net of the room service menu, but I'd take a book or a magazine with me to lose myself in at the table.  Yes, the prop was essential in portraying the independent woman identity but, even with this, I'd self-consciously sit there and eating would be a functional (and fast!) exercise.

But last night was a mini-breakthrough.... A table for one for just little old me. No book, no magazine and I even restrained myself from absorbing myself in my iphone.  This might not sound like much for you well-travelled women but it was a personal milestone.  To sit back, leisurely enjoy my scrumptious dinner and take in everything that was going on around me - the couples indulging in a quiet sunday meal for two, the big, boisterious family gathering at the next table, and the girlfriends chatting away at the bar - I was perfectly content and just a smidgen self-conscious.  This is major progress.....

Friday digest: links to linger over this weekend....

My round-up of un-related things that have caught my eye this week....  Have a happy weekend x

One: It's November, it's officially hot chocolate season...

Two: Time for an impractical dresser to get practical with these 'Joan of Arctic' boots found by the gorgeous Dilly Dallas

Three: What's your tech set-up? Design Sponge's round-up has me gadget-crazy

Four: Jewellery lust at Pink Wallpaper

Five: Please may I have a library like this?

Six Is it too early to start contemplating my Christmas wish-list?  A little blue box, perhaps?Seven For the love of stripes.  I adore this original art found at Aphro Chic

{Inspiration} Not one qualification but living the life!! How?

I can't say I fit in with the cool crowd at school.  I tried too hard to be able to carry off the required 'school is for geeks' attitude.  Neither did I set the sports teams on fire.  And, while I did well at school, I certainly wasn't the straight A student either.  This meant I was inconspicuous somewhere in the middle.

I must admit I never even considered doing anything but working hard and "applying myself" at school.  I was a good girl.  So I never quite understood the kids in my year that adopted the laissez-faire attitude with one eye on the end of the school year, the freedom that beckoned (that scared the bejeesus out of me) at the end of it all.  In short, it was drummed in to me that exam results, education, qualifications were the be all and end all.  And I've never questioned that.

Then I read Chris Guillebeau's frank and bare-all admission that he holds not a single qualification to his name and I was forced to open my mind.  What, not one?  And he's achieved so much?  I was in sudden admiration.

As I pack to spend a weekend at a coaching course, I had to stop and question why I was doing it.  This time it is for a big, fat selfish reason - I want to.  But I can't honestly say other 'qualifications', for what they're worth, have been motivated by the same reason.  For the most part, I think a qualification, a bit of paper, has been for everyone else BUT me.  To prove something to everyone else.  "Look, I can do this.  This bit of paper says so!"

And so I am in full admiration of Chris Guillebeau.  It must take a serious amount of guts to NOT take the easy option and conform.  He took the leap and trusted he would fly!  In his case, around the world...... Not a bad life for a school drop-out eh!

Image: Quint Buchholz

{Inspiration} @DKNY PR GIRL

If you're a Tweeter you're sure to have heard of one of its most prolific, tell-it-how-it-is and, until recently, enigmatic personalities: DKNY PR girl.  After two years of brand-building tweets, and with an army of 350,000+ followers, @dkny this week revealed her true identity.  

While the fashion and Twitter world seems to be all a-flutter at this revelation, it has been one of DKNY PR Girl's (or should I say Aliza's) most recent tumblr posts that has got my attention.  In it Aliza's talks of her pathway to today: of a Neurobiology and Physiology student that eventually made her name as SVP of Global Communications for Donna Karan. 

I devour stories of people finding their passion, be it a single-minded desire from childhood, an epiphany or a slow awakening, I want to hear how people discovered their 'thing'.  Often, though, it seems on reading these that it leads to a life-changing, 'throw in your cards' scenario that I find it difficult to relate to.  It's not that I'm lacking gumption, far from it - it's just that the rational, good girl in me suggests that life isn't always as rosy as that.  I'm a girl with responsibilities so this maverick behaviour is a little far-flung for me.

What I loved and admired about Aliza's story is the realism, the sheer hard work and determination, and the gutsiness she clealry has in (very bravely) deciding that the medical world wasn't for her ... and believing something in the fashion and magazine world was.  Without a clear direction, but with a boat-load of intuitive sense and a keen-ness, she (along with a side serving of luck) found her footing in the publishing and fashion world.  It's funny how Lady Luck intervenes at the right point though isn't it?!

I know DKNY PR Girl is heralded as a role model for wannabe PR girls but I'm not one of them (been there, done that) - for me, she's the poster girl for gutsiness, going after what you want and then working some elbow grease in making a success of it. 

In the spirit of Aliza, grab a large coffee, sit back and enjoy her story here.

My talented family #1: An exquisite wedding cake

This week I'm sharing a few special moments from our wedding - particularly special as I'm showcasing the wonderful talents of some pretty fantastic people.

First up is our wedding cake made by my mum.  It's difficult to find the words.  It really was a breathtaking work of beauty and a true reflection of all the time, energy and love she threw into the mixing bowl.  Mum 'got' the look of the wedding from the off and came up with this wonderfully elegant design which included intricate, decoupage-like flowers on the top and bottom tiers, art deco-style trim and, of course, a little sparkle.  Oh, and those flowers on the top - they're not real flowers.  They're hand-crafted sugar icing roses.  So, to our super-talented mum we say thank you from the bottom of our full hearts.

 I love that she snook our sparkly initials into the design...

 Mum's intricate handiwork...

 Cutting the cake.  It felt like a crime!

People were wow-ed that these beautiful roses were handmade

And here she is, my mum.

"Hide not your talents.  They for use were made.  What's a sundial in the shade?"

- Benjamin Franklin -

{Dare to dream} Believe

Isn't it funny how sometimes you see exactly the right thing, at exactly the time you need to see it most. The picture above is the inside of a card given to me by my parents for passing my first 'swimming endeavour'.  And, believe me, it was quite a journey to get there!  I was petrified of swimming - there were tears at bedtime the night before, sudden tummy aches and nausea on swimming lesson day and if, by force, I'd made it to the poolside I would spend the entire swimming lesson clung to the edge in terror.  At some point I must have let go and faced my fear because here I am, the one in the middle wearing a fearful expression, completing my long-awaited endeavour.  (The lady with the baby on her knee is mum, in a very fetching tracksuit, cheering me on!)

Although this card is 25 years old, it surfaced over the weekend and the inscription is so relevant to me at the moment.  Dad's unique handwriting reads:

"Dear Emma. Please keep this and remember at any time in your life when you 'think' that you can't, look at this and 'know' that you did.  And can."

Photo: Courtesy of Pappa B!