Living a Beautiful Life – who doesn’t want to embrace beauty in their lives and create a beautiful way to live?

Alexandra Stoddard’s book Living a Beautiful Life is an old fashioned book that embraces this concept. She is sort of dated back to the 1990s, but when I pick up this book — again and again there are kernels of beauty that are easy to bring to our own lives. Basically, the 500 suggestions in this book are about bringing joy and beauty to our everyday.

This book has always sat on my bookshelf, as have so many others she has written. They all are written in an easily accessible manner, weaving the interpersonal with the design tips, the musings on partners, time, parenting, and more. Life seems to slow down when I pull these books to read. These are not the types of books to read from end to end, but rather as something to peruse for inspiration on any given day.

What makes your life beautiful? Can you find it in your everyday? Do you infuse your days with things that bring you pleasure? It doesn’t have to be anything big or extraordinary. It can simply be a favorite flower to look upon and care for, a beautiful piece of chocolate, a bubbly salt bath, writing a postcard to a friend far away, planting a vegetable garden, even picking weeds. Whatever you do in a day, engage it with beauty.

Although it feels like Stoddard’s day has almost past, I think there is a place for looking to the old ways of being happy, feeling beautiful, and taking time in the world to create joy that never goes out of style. I recommend her books to you and hope today — and always — you are living a beautiful life.