How men could learn from Mr Darcy

Enjoying a free evening I have been with the Bennets and Darcys again and come to think about the whole men and women thing again. What it is what we like in men and how dating most of the time starts and affects us - with a lot of pride, false apprehensions and thus, confusing ways of communication, like Jane Austen tells us since the early 19th century.

Mr Darcy - this more than 200 year old guy is probably one of the most prominent men in history, without even having blood running through his veins and a proper heart beat. It was Miss Austen who created this prototype of a perfect man, fiancée and husband which should last over centuries. What is it we associate with Mr Darcy and the love story between him and Miss Bennet? What makes us wanting for a similar story?

Is it the misapprehension between them which makes it a bad and difficult start? Is it the stoney road of their relationship which leads us to have hope in ours and believing in the one we have in mind? Their romantic happy ending? Probably all. 

Besides their love story and happy ending of their relationship it is more we see in the story than just their getting to know each other, and finding each other, eventually.

I believe it is his qualities, his depicted character, what makes us melt each time.

Is it in his manners, his manliness, his eloquence ? Or is it his openness which makes us wanting the same with the one we have chosen?

Every time I dive into the story - whether it is the book or the movie, I always catch myself thinking about how perfect he is and that my own love story should take a positive turn like theirs. 

In his popularity I seriously wonder why not more men are learning, copying, adapting and live - not fake - these small  things, make it a way of life and enjoy the Darcy effect?

In fact, we ladies do not need that much. Really. Just a little bit of everything Darcy: A bit of good manners, some accomplishments, eloquence, telling about how they feel and being charming and committed. And Pemberly. 

Ok, joking.

Seriously, I'd swear that the Darcy effect works and proves to be true, and we shall have more happy couples soon!

What do you think about the Darcy effect? Do you appreciate men with rather traditional values? 

Right. Enough of it. 

If love life would just be that easy we'd all be there.

Top 10 Tips against Autumn Blues

It is cold and dark outside, the streets are empty and being all alone here makes me feel that the time is right to sum up some top 10 tips before this grumpy guy called autumn blues is coming around the corner. 

This year he can bugger off immediately, I find :-)

Here we go:

1) Make drinking all kinds of chai lattes a daily habit. 

2) Go out and shop a nice anti-autumn blues outfit.I always get inspiration via pinterest.

3) Make sure you always have an umbrella with you. There is nothing more nasty than being cold AND wet.

4)I know this one is a killer. But in the end it kills the autumn blues for sure: Jump into your running shoes and do it. 

5)Take your dog (or neighbors'- he will love it)  and go out for long walks in the nature and have a look on this years decay. Look at the colours. Isn't it gorgeous?

6) Take a long hot bath. And make sure you have a chilled bottle of bubbles ready for after! Cheers!

7)Buy a nice dress and go out. There is little more vitalizing than being among other people, dance the night away and have a glass. Or two.

8) Plan things. Go to places. Inspiration is just waiting for you!

9) Make dates. Have Rendez-vous. Invite friends. Organize a dinner party. However. Get together! And laugh as much as you can!

10)Clean out your room, flat or house. Get rid of things you don't need. Don't love. Or have twice. There are friends who might need exactly this thing. There is charity - someone somewhere out there will surely benefit from our social moment today and wears our old shirt. And a smile! Ah, and there is the bin! :-) A sweep through the place brings a whole lot of new energy into it and will change your mood directly - promised! Bonus: Your place is cleaned up as well. 

Oh. And there is maybe one more option what to do to try and kill the autumn blues. And this is

10b) throw yourself completely in it. Watch Bridget Jones' diary, the holiday, love actually, BBC Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility right after another, laugh, cry, eat as much Ben & Jerry's and chocolate as you find and have yourself hungover from those bottles of wine that you are fed up with autumn blues anyways and start working out and party just volunteerly the next day! :D

Anything to add at this point? I am pretty sure I am missing out a lot of things.

Have a lovely week!

Svenja
xx

On reading...

Lately I did not have much time to read. Work, a puppy and other obligations lead to the fact that the time I had in between was too short to sit down and actually read (I mean read and really be there and pay attention and enough dedication to the classics). It was here 10 minutes and there a 30 min slot, but mostly I cannot find enough relaxation to look forward to and be drawn to that very book I am reading right now. Mostly it is the kitchen calling "clean the dishes" or the laundry even louder "iron me" or the phone is ringing or or or...

Anyways, times have been busy lately and soon I will hopefully be able to sit and read a bit more: From tomorrow I will be at hopefully sunny funny Tenerife (Canary islands) to only relax, lay in the sun, spend time reading, take a swim in the pool, enjoy cold cocktails and ice creams or complain about how warm it is (ha ha -- joking). 

For me reading is a feeling of balance and quietness. If I have the time and the patience to read, my fantasy is placing myself into the scenery and the scenes and enable me to observe the plot from very close. I have friends, enemies and feel the emotions of the characters. I am drawn away of the real world and explore another world for a moment. 

If I do not have a real balanced feeling and too distracted from other things, I cannot really enjoy my read (a little bit similar to the feeling when reading obligatory texts for uni just before the lecture, to at least have the feeling and can say, well, I have read it. But. Not. Really. In Fact.) And that is what I had mostly during the last couple of weeks. 

My started books are surrounding me: Persuasion (some of you might roll your eyes, how is it possible that she is putting Jane Austen's work out of hand...), The adventures of Tom Sawyer and one contemporary novel. I also picked up a few books which I still had stored at my parents place: Great Expectations (very tempting!!), the last of the Mohicans (not on my list though, but I could add it and read it once more), Middlemarch (I am not - NOT taking it to Tenerife, I am on holiday) and Jane Eyre... One of my favorites - forever! Therefore, enough food for Tenerife, I would say :-).

My allowed baggage weight of 20 kilos will be filled (or shall I say killed??) by books - hahahaha. 

I am already looking forward for this particular feeling of having the luxury to have no obligations at all (besides getting a small sun tan - I know, I am so girly) and indulge in my book!

To really feel entirely holidayish I always need an out of office reply in my emails. This time I am thinking of something special....

Like this one:

The person you are looking for is not available. Please try again later ! (Of course including this wonderful picture) Or: Your email will not be read or forwarded. I am busy with seriously important things and will get back to you after I finished Middlemarch! Or: Life is too short to not read - I will get back to you asap!!!

OK, maybe not.
But it would be so -- refreshing?

Any other suggestions?

Love,
Svenja

Lovely Easter weekend

This year I really took Easter as a time to relax and enjoy the wickedness of doing (almost) nothing - the next business trips are already waiting ahead: Frankfurt aM and Munich. After that a fun holiday is awaiting us at my home area in Northern Germany, close to the Scandinavian border. We will be spending some nice couple of days "at home" to visit my parents, my grandparents, friends and attend the communion of my cousin in Hamburg.

Therefore a lot of things coming up and to look forward to...

Meanwhile in Holland it has been quiet around these days and the cold weather has made me feel comfortable to stay inside the house. Nevertheless, we have been a little active and went to celebrate the 6th birthday of my niece on Saturday and went to have an Easter dinner at the house of my darling's parents on Easter Sunday.

Strangely enough I almost spend the whole weekend having terrible hiccups. One time I even had to sneeze at the same time when I had to hick. Strange.

The rest of the days I have been snuggling up on the sofa to read Twelfth Night (almost finished, yahoo), Persuasion and a little less demanding stuff, the new Vogue.

This is my Easter weekend in pictures:

Happy Easter: The pink ribbon stayed on for approximately 57 seconds: Enough time to shoot two or three pictures, the the fourth picture was already too late....

I received such lovely cards! And chocolate Lind Easter eggs. And flowers =)

And I am such a shopping victim: This time the Vogue has been presented gift wrapped in a lovely white (I love white) carton box. I could not resist!

The birthday party of my niece - not without Josie: With flying ears on the trampoline...

Happy Easter Everyone!

How was your Easter weekend? Did anyone of you had any exciting plans or went to exciting places?

Love,

Svenja

PS: This lovely rose card was designed and hand made by my dear auntie Anja over at littlehomeforallseasons. Please have a look over there for more inspiration!

For the quiet hours..

Something about Darcy...

When re-reading Pride & Prejudice I again felt stunned by the character of Mr Darcy. His way of doing things, and reacting on things, his way of expressing himself are somewhat special and - how shall I describe it- even more than agreeable and adorable (by the way, the guy is almost 200 years old). Jane Austens novel has turned into a classic and the script has been used to several TV and movie adaptions. The 1995 BBC mini series is perhaps the best known and most successful one and made the character of Marc Darcy world famous. This time he was embodied by Colin Firth, who later also "served" as Darcy in the adaption of Helen Fieldings Bridget Jones' Diary (1996) which has been based on Austens work and transformed into turn of the century time. OK, here the village gossiping was not only exchanged by the local (single) girls, but with metropolitan gays and mothers who are next to trying to match make their daughters also cheating on their husbands. All in all a by the way worth-watching episode of a modern Miss Bennet and a modern Darcy, which supports even more the myth of the role of the latter - for past times, now and ever as the Mr Right, the one, the perfect man. I wonder if there might be something about Darcy, maybe a Darcy - Effect? Which are the qualities we all want our man to have?

First of all there is something about Darcy which makes him appear out of reach, polite but not exactly friendly or warm, spreading confidence, but in fact he can be turned into a caring person who is later on admitting his pure feelings towards her with all his affection.

Next, Darcy is also a little bit, but not too much heroish. He is reacting well - far beyond our imagination, without showing off, shouting out loud or expecting rewards for it (Elizabeth's sister runs off and gets lost, big problem for the Bennet family, but utterly elegant solved by Darcy. Of course). We love heroes - don't we? But we also do not want a superman, who is walking around with his cape all the time.

And. Of course. We want to know what we are up to, don't we? I mean this "will he like me?" Or " will he not" thing is maybe nice for some time - but at a certain moment, we also want to know it. And what is more beautiful than receiving an honest commitment? How much less stress are we having then? I do not want to know how many minutes, seconds, hours or even days I have been stressing out myself on those stupid questions, and I bet, that I am not the only one.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Mr Darcy

When I read this I always find once more that sincerity is a well-deserved characteristic of the Darcy-Effect. Is it not?

Also it should be mentioned that we, women would like to be considered as equal. That means that a decent conversation should be possible and not be reduced on today's dinner or the weather. Darcy just delivers the utmost perfect example for that.

And last, and now I have to come back on the indeed quite fairy taley element in this, Marc Darcy also is a man not only of taste, decency and manners, but also of fortune. Which of course is not decisive for us to base a decision upon (man might be think it is like that, but mostly they are mistaken.) but if there is an estate like Pemberly, we would certainly not deny to move in with our Mr Darcy to live happily ever after.

I am sure there must be something about Darcy and believe in the Darcy effect. Maybe with some more Darcy's in the world- equipped with the capability to produce and send handwritten (love)letters, some sincerity (and ok, maybe it also needs some courage then -- hey, but that could count for the hero-category ;-) ), decency and manners, we could bring back a little bit of real romanticism into our lives and make it a bit more beautiful....

No explanation needed, we trust.

Letters & hats

There is nothing but a good costume movie. It seems almost every time to be true. To be swept away by long past times where the worries are so abstract from the fears and worries we have today and where the clothes and the language are showing an impressing height of sophistication. The cosy little world to dive into was so clear, everyone knew his or her place and about their challenges. The romantic depiction of love suits in so perfectly that the fact that real and true love was almost not achievable due to arranged marriages and financial force is completely forgotten by the first appearance of a handsome face, beautiful word or perfect (anti)hero.
The most absolute example has - of course been given- by the BBC and its production of Pride & Prejudice with starring Colin Firth. He turned the search for Mr Right into a modern fairy tale and made Mr Darcy be the embodiment of the utmost perfect match for a woman in the 21st century. Darcy will probably stay this "ideal" until we all forgot the password of our facebook and other social network sites and get a real life again where "real" rendezvous are back in fashion and we stop denying somebody because we might meet someone better / richer / more handsome in the place we will fly in tomorrow, as business travel brings us there...Until then we continue watching all adaptions of Jane Austen's movies, and try to believe that courtship is going to re-appear.
Also those with caped heroes are capturing my attention. if it comes to costume movies and a touch of romanticism: D'Artagnon & and the Musketeers, Robin Hood and Zorro are falling into this category- where the crown, a love or a country needs to be protected from the immanent evil. Highly enjoyable as this leads men to figure out similarities of the hero's character with themselves and women to kind of passively experience "real" protection which in today's emancipation almost never exists anymore. Win-win situation, and both-men and women can enjoy the movie.
Another utterly delightful TV entertainment is the series "Downton Abbey". The setting is an old venerable almost-castle inherited from generation to generation by the male heirs of the Grantham dynasty. With it comes the rest of the aristocratic family and the house servants who more or less stick to loyalty towards their Lordships. Aristocratic arrogance as well as true generosity towards their personnel can be seen, orchestrated by some more or less interesting scandals and love stories, surrounded by the beauty of clothing and all items in and around the almost-castle bring a complete joy to one's evening in the sense of television entertainment (given, you have all episodes of the season to watch in a row ;-))

Next to the actual plot there are other things which are triggering my attention: I am always surprised about the importance of "real" letters in former times, as they were almost the only means of communication over distance. They would have been impressed about the speed, quality and quantity gossip has reached today: While being able to keep up the speed, quality and quantity of gossip in their village they would perhaps not been much behind, as spending their major amount of time a day with it (next to being occupied with accomplishments like drawing, playing the piano forte or studying French or German) was a woman's daily routine. But how fast we are informed now about someone getting married or being in some place (thanks to Facebook status notifications) would truly surprise them. And we would be - I dare to say- be surprised by a handwritten letter. To look at a fine handwriting is expressing so much thought - let alone the time which it must have consumed as it needs to be brought to the post office is quite touching and cannot be compared with 3 and a half lines in an email which has been written in 1 and a half minutes...
Another thing which amazes me is that everyone is always wearing a hat. I find that the hat has deserved a revival. It embodies true elegance with both, men and women and is actually an accessory which I find really underrated. I do not know at this moment if the purpose of a hat was to a) complete an outfit, b)had the task to cover up one's untidy hair c)is there to protect the hair from untidiness through the weather or d) is to be there to protect against colder temperatures. But I assume it would at least serve one of those points very well today as well. I t would be such a pity if the profession of a hat-maker would further disappear and only serve the ladies at the races or the theaters.

With writing and of course receiving "real" letters and wearing hats from time to time we can maybe bring back a little of the romantic touch from older times. People will possibly inquire about those hats and start to spend "real" time which each other. One can even think of the return of "real" courtship and "real" rendezvous....

The pursuit of happiness

A large income is the major source of happiness. Many people would immediatly hold against it saying that it is not money which makes us happy, and that the source of happiness is - of course - more to find in friendships, relationships, own state of mind etc. But what if monetary wealth actually might be THE source of happyness? Could it not be that a human being is (only?) able to express himself to the fullest by having enough monetary means available to do everything he likes, experience everything he wants or needs to experience in order to be happy or surround himself by things he feels good or comfortable with?
The reason why I am thinking about this is because I was exactly doing it. I caught myself figuring out and making a list of items I further need for example to decorate the house (to feel even more at homish), or for the office (to be able to work more efficiently), which clothes I still need in my closet (to be prepared for the occasion of a walk in the snow or a chic reception, or to just have the 32th pair of pumps) or how I can reach to get more fit and lose some weight (in order to feel more comfortable with myself). In the end I realized it is all - not one- but all about money. Sad. Was my first thought. But I am not satisfied with an answer that quickley. I started googleing and found some rather interisting aspects:
Janes Austen already said in her novel Mansfield Park that "A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of". Jane Austen lived some 200 years ago, but it sounds already good that I do not have to find myself alone having selfish money-thoughts (OK, besides all greedy or money minded persons of course who have no sense for being social).
Also I found a rather interesting paper about "The science of getting rich", which you can find here, if you like.

OK, I have to acknowledge that this is something from a hundred years ago. Also pretty out of date it seems.
But there are other people who picked up the same string of thought with their books which became famous around the world I found out: They wrote a book called "the Secret". They claim that "Everything is possible. Nothing is impossible". Should that also involve monetary aspects of life?

I am wondering now - am I now trapped in a New Age-way of thinking or should I actually allow myself to strive to get rich in order to be able to be in a pursuit of happiness?