The Most Interesting Woman Award

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Meet the most interesting woman.  This is Iris Apfel, and she is my hero.  I first came across a picture of her by chance, and I thought, whoever that crazy old bat is, I love her.  When I found a second picture of her, I determined that she wasn't just a random lady and I needed to learn more.

Iris Apfel was born in Queens, New York, and studied art at NYU and the University of Wisconsin (woot!) before spending a life long career in interior design, fashion, and living life as a style icon.  There are three things that I like most about Ms. Apfel which lend to a good life lesson:

1. Her best accessory is confidence.  She clearly appears confident and comfortable in her own skin, and it is so very refreshing.  Every photo of her shows joy and personality that is all her own.
2. Style trumps fashion.  Fashion is based on labels and lines of clothing that designers make up.  Style is something personal and an expression of personality and originality.  Ms. Apfel has more style than the City of New York.
3. Bold is better.  Bright colors, mixed prints, five stacked bracelets and a monkey statue in your apartment is clearly the way to go.

I hope that as I age, I can fall into even half of her personal style, because it says so much about her.  She clearly is a lady with worldly experiences and fabulous stories to tell.  I can't wait to be a brightly colored, mixed prints biddy wearing my body weight in jewelry and living surrounded by a stylish collection of conversation pieces.  It's good to have goals.

Read more:
Iris Apfel's Apartment Proves That More is Really More
Iris Apfel - Wikipedia

Fall in Wisconsin can teach us a hell of a lesson

Forget summer with all of the bugs and the sunburn.  The best part about Wisconsin is the fall.  And yes, the winters are often pretty unfortunate, but there would be no fall if the world wasn't preparing for winter so that makes it worth it.

There are so many great things about fall (ref: post about caramel apples), but as we were walking outside today for an unseasonably warm and perfect fall day, it occurred to me why I like the colorful trees so much.  The obvious reason why everyone likes the fall colors is it is beautiful to watch the green trees turn into an array of bright colors.  The even better part of that story, is that those are the trees' true colors.

The real story, is that the trees are stuck being green all of the time but during fall, their authentic true colors come out.  And we all love to see their real and unique color patterns.  What a nice lesson for our own loves taught in nature.  It is a poetic reminder about how much better we can be when we settle into our own true selves, being authentic and comfortable with our colors.

Until next year, when the trees all turn into conformist assholes wearing green next spring.  I'm just kidding - without the summer of green, the colors of fall would lose their allure.  Without dark, we wouldn't appreciate the light.

How leaves show their true colors - a science lesson