It’s Time to Celebrate!

Happy Birthday Elaine! Photo credit: Ansley Nguyen

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you Elaine! You are by far one of the most fabulous women I know, and I hope that your day is just as glamorous as you are! You are loved by so many and we love to see you succeed!

You have worked so hard to get where you are today, so take time to celebrate YOU! You truly deserve to take a break and just relax!

Remember that you are loved by so many! We all wish you the best on your very special day!

-Ansley

Living the Authentic Life

With every new year come new resolutions, many of which will fall by the wayside and be forgotten or given up on. So this year, I am setting a personal goal to wake up every morning and live an inspired, authentic life. But with advertisements overloading our brain with “authenticity” that is completely counterfeit, we must define it for ourselves.

Learn to breathe. Photo credit: unknown

Showing authenticity as a person is to show a genuine concern for others and to do right by them. Authentic is quality over quantity. It is being real with yourself and doing what makes you happy, not what is expected of you. Now, I’m not saying quit your day job and go completely off the grid, but it’s never too late to start completing that bucket list. Face your fears. Travel. Learn to take a deep breath and let everything go (even if only for a few seconds).

Learn to paint. Photo credit: Kathy Yu

While in High Point, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet some wonderful, genuine women. Meeting them showed me the importance of real  people in life, and how faux friends are as bad as a pair of pleather pants– they do nothing for you and leave others thinking, “Oh, honey no.”

Here’s to 2012. Here’s to having real friends. Here’s to the authentic life. Here’s to living.

Face your fear. Photo credit: Democratic Underground