Life’s a Beautiful Journey
Allowing Old Dreams to Fall Quiet
100 Happy Things
Then and Now
How to Become a Morning Person
54 Ways to
Spoil Ourselves What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
S TA MP IN G T O N & C O M PAN Y JUN/JUL/AUG 2016 • DISPLAY UNTIL 08/31/16
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“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,
‘I will try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher
founder
&
creative director Kellene Giloff publisher@stampington.com
editor-in-chief & director of publishing Christen Hammons directorofpublishing@stampington.com senior managing editor Amber Demien associate editors Jana Holstein Natalie Way Danielle Mohler Devon Warren Brianne Martin assistant editor Gracy Wilkins
how to contact us Bella Grace™ 22992 Mill Creek, Suite B, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 U.S. Toll-Free 1-877-STAMPER (1-877-782-6737) Phone: (949) 380-7318 Fax: (949) 380-9355 www.bellagracemagazine.com customer service For customer service and subscription inquiries, please call U.S. toll-free (877) 782-6737, fax (949) 380-9355, or email retail@stampington.com, or visit our website at www.stampington.com. editorial Please see the submission guidelines on our website at stampington.com. Brief email inquiries are welcome at bellagrace@stampington.com, or write to the editor at the address above. No phone calls, please.
newsstand consultant Susan Harold art director Mykaela Riehle art manager Elaine Mello senior graphic designer Erika Ferguson graphic designer & marketing design assistant Meghan Horan graphic designers Kaitlin Mendoza Erin Solis junior graphic designer Sara Wilkins director of photography Johanna Love photographer Jessica Wolfe general manager Jonathan Giloff operations manager Cheryl Kui customer service manager Alondra Marin marketing manager Jordan Burnier public relations specialist & copywriter Heather Taylor marketing assistant & copywriter Sarah Donawerth marketing graphic designer Nadine Alvillar
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Product names referred to in this issue are trademarks or registered trademarks of particular companies. The names are used in editorial fashion only to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention to infringe on the trademarks. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Copyright 2016 Stampington & Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ISSUE 8
Dear Friends, S
ummer is quickly approaching and I couldn’t be more excited. Despite the often-grueling heat, it’s my absolute favorite season. This time of year always brings back the fondest of memories from my childhood and it gives me so much to look forward to. Why do I love summer as much as I do? It’s the calm I feel when I curl up on the couch at night to read a book with the windows and doors wide open. The comfort I feel wearing nothing but flowing dresses and light fabrics. The joy of cooking dinner on the grill every night. Eating veggies grown in our garden. Driving with the windows down and blasting the happiest of music. Sitting outside and talking under the glow of twinkle lights. For me, summer is the time of year where everything slows down and life seems a bit simpler. A couple years ago my husband and I visited the gorgeous island of Kauai for our honeymoon. We spent two weeks there doing almost nothing other than relaxing outdoors by the pool or on the beach. We were hardly ever indoors, opting to have our coffee and eat our meals outside on the lanai. By the end of our trip we asked ourselves why we didn’t spend as much time outside at home. When we returned home we made a promise to each other that our summers would be spent outdoors as much as possible. For the most part we’ve kept our promise. We have our meals in the backyard and linger there long after the food is gone. We fill up a kiddie pool nearly every weekend and spend the days relaxing in there with a cold drink or book in hand. (We even encourage our friends to bring their own pools over to soak in.) We might not be children anymore, with months off to enjoy summer, but making a little extra effort to slow life down during those months really helps to savor the free time we do have. It’s so temping to over-schedule summer weekends and evenings. Trust me, I try to do it all the time. This summer, I encourage you to slow life down a bit. Turn off the TV, pour yourself an ice-cold glass of tea with lemon, slather on
some sunscreen, and head outdoors. Read a book, play freeze tag with your kids, draw on the sidewalk with some chalk, or do absolutely nothing at all. The choice is yours. To slowing down and savoring summer,
Christen Hammons Editor-in-Chief
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Table of Contents
06
Praise for Bella Grace
08
Hello There, Friend by Beth Lehman
20 5 Things About Relationships I Learned From My Dog by Femke Tewari 22
Worksheet: To Me From Me
24 Paddle, Rinse, Repeat: Sunset Sessions on the Water by Debbie Schaefer 28
Instagram Spotlight: Nina Hurum
32 From the Woman in Me to the Woman in you by Debbie Lippi 42
25 Ways To Take Yourself on a Date by Our Readers
48
How to Become a Morning Person by Paige Leigh Reist
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100 Happy Things by Kelly Bentley
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Instagram Spotlight: Lisa Redwillow
60 Summer Love: 20 Creative Ways to get Your Groove on by Nikki Gardner
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Finding the Blessings Behind the Messes by Jennifer DeVille Catalano
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20-Step Recipe for Self-Love: A Bed Day by Kimberly Wilson
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On Dreaming by Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald
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58 Songs That Never Fail to Make Us Happy by Our Readers
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The Green Room by Heather Murray
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4 Ways to Kick-Up Your Coffee by Paige Leigh Reist
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What I Wish Someone Had Told Me by Leon Biss
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22 Reasons to Celebrate Summer by Jennifer DeVille Catalano
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Instagram Spotlight: Donna Hopkins
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Worksheet: 30 Things To Do This Summer
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Knitting Lessons by Kylie Howell
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A Wisp of a Season by Dawn Suzette Smith
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Late Morning Early Summer by D Smith Kaich Jones
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54 Ways to Spoil Ourselves by Our Readers
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The Yellow Bowl by Darlene Maciuba-Koppel
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A Sensible Soul by Michelle Mach
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Allowing Old Dreams To Fall Quiet by Rita Herrmann
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Worksheet: The Best of Me
134 Living With Intention: The Transformation Practices of Mary Anne Radmacher by Christine Mason Miller 142 10 Ways to Make Every Morning a Daily Miracle by Emily Mariani 144
Worksheet: Summer Reading List
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Submission Guidelines
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Prepping for Print
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Photo Credits BELLAGRACEMAGAZINE.COM
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Jovo Jovanovic
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This exercise of writing down 100 things that make me happy made me smile because I came up with something very similar myself about 20 years ago when I was a teenager. I called it my Happiness List and it was so fun to write. After reading Issue 6 of Bella Grace, I dug out my old high school scrapbook and found my happiness list. Before digging out my old list, I made a current one. Looking at the two of them, it seems that the woman I am now is not so very different from the girl I was then.
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SUMMER 2016
Alex Jones
Words by Kelly Bentley
THEN
1 playing my bass 2 my room 3 pinwheels 4 dandelions 5 friendship 6 rainbows 7 going to concerts at X-Ray Cafe and La Luna 8 ginkgo trees 9 wishing on pennies, stars, and dandelion fluff 10 photo booths 11 strawberries 12 yoga 13 my family and pets 14 snow 15 the picture of me and my brother on our swing set 16 being with my friends 17 dew on grass 18 street performers 19 long skirts 20 blowing bubbles 21 wispy clouds 22 spider webs with dew on them 23 sitting under my favorite tree at the park 24 full moons 25 listening to A’s band practice 26 graveyards 27 when the sun’s rays shine down through the clouds 28 decorating my locker 29 waterfalls 30 when the sun hits certain kinds of sidewalks and they’re all sparkly 31 the little café across from the library where that rad guy works and they play Beatles’ songs
32 writing and receiving happy letters 33 lying on the grass and looking at the clouds 34 climbing my grandparents’ tree and picking cherries 35 walking through piles of leaves 36 petting cats 37 ice cream 38 the very first snowflakes 39 walking barefoot 40 sitting on J’s roof 41 looking in tide pools 42 bleeding heart flowers 43 being hugged 44 records 45 turning my Walkman up really loud 46 the wooden shutters on M’s windows 47 little silver earrings 48 wishing wells 49 picnics 50 finding cat whiskers 51 toasted cheese and tomato soup 52 dark black nail polish 53 bookstores 54 poetry 55 people who have nice senses of humor 56 walking along the waterfront 57 the apple tasting at Portland Nursery 58 finding something I’ve lost 59 long car rides 60 singing along to tapes 61 when J calls me 62 when my friends are happy 63 peaches 64 picking raspberries 65 good memories 66 tea parties 67 love » BELLAGRACEMAGAZINE.COM
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SUMMER 2016
Nikki Lake
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Words by Kimberly Wilson Photograph by Lia Leslie
Every few months I toss aside my to-dos and crawl under the covers declaring it a “Bed day.” It’s my form of waving a white flag. A bed day is anything from a few hours to an entire day spent in bed with no agenda. Poet Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” I believe bed day to be the ultimate form of self-preservation. 72
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Here’s what you need to make the perfect bed day 1. Soft linens 2. Multiple pillows 3. A deep desire to slow down 4. A chunk of time 5. Layers of comfy clothing 6. A mason jar filled with water and a slice of cucumber 7. A closed door 8. A journal 9. An assortment of pens 10. A thermos filled with hot tea 11. A pile of books 12. Candles 13. Twinkle lights 14. An eye pillow 15. Earplugs 16. Linen spray 17. Lip balm 18. Savory snacks (raw almonds, kale chips, roasted rosemary chickpeas, hummus and veggies, chia pudding) 19. A furry friend (optional) 20. Lavender oil to dab on your temples Begin the experience with a luxurious soak in the tub. Add a splash of sweet almond oil and a few drops of lavender essential oil. Top with a face or hair mask, then saunter into your bedroom to exhale. You deserve it. And your soul will thank you. Deeply.
Kimberly Wilson is a writer, creative entrepreneur, and artist currently obsessed with pigs, glitter, and all things French. She is the author of numerous books. Find her online at kimberlywilson.com.
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The full moon rose in the eastern sky, and I sat on my patio with a glass of wine and a heart full of anger. Youthful
expectations I long held as my only possible destination never included the probability of arriving someplace unrecognizable. My life bore no resemblance to the one I imagined for myself 20 years before, yet the path of my life brought me to this moment, crying at the moon and pleading for a sign. My lifelong desire to live in a vibrant city, with cafes and museums as close as friends, was a dream unmet. Instead, my home for the last two decades was a small town in the Ozark Mountains where the highlight of the year was a festival dedicated to crawfish. The unfulfilled plan to be a veteran international traveler was sadly illustrated by the expired passport stuffed under a stack of papers on my desk. And love? A broken promise was sealed with divorce papers in a lock box and one toothbrush in the bathroom.
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SUMMER 2016
Sierra Pruitt
Words by Rita Herrmann
Year after year I held onto dreams of city life, travel, a partner, and numerous others. Each year I turned the page on another calendar with a promise that this year each would be achieved. I sat in the moonlight feeling utterly defeated as yet another year passed with unaccomplished dreams. I laughed, “What if it’s never any different than this?” The words surprised me, like they were spoken by another voice. I sat up straight in my chair and said the words again. “What if it’s never any different?” Upon the second utterance, the question seemed oddly comfortable. I repeated it again and again, each time less shocked by the words. A well-spring of thoughts bubbled from a place in me I never previously considered. The idea that these long-held dreams may never happen forced me to see my life from an alternate angle. If I simply scratched these items off the list, what would happen? In slow contemplation, I weighed the meaning of my existence if I never achieved any of them. Would my life be wasted? Would my life have no purpose? Will I have been a failure? I sat quietly, slowly feeling myself unfurl at the re-examination of each goal, and felt a gentle push of clarity. I walked to the stack of travel articles clipped from years of magazines and tossed them in the trash bin. I deleted the online real estate search saved in my Web browser for trendy houses in faraway cities where I hoped to relocate. I stopped reviewing all new men in my life as potential partners. Each goal I held so tightly was crossed off my list as if it were finished, and I began the transition of no longer forcing myself into a predefined box of self-constructed expectations. Admittedly, with a significant lifelong process marked as complete, the subsequent void was deafening. If I did not think about travel or devise plans to move to a city, what would I do with my time? How would I use my mental energy if not for that? I questioned my actions from the moonlit night and seriously considered retrieving the magazines from the trash and scraping off the coffee grounds. I refrained when
I realized my life had to be more than collecting articles and planning my escape from crawfish town with the elusive Mr. Right. » BELLAGRACEMAGAZINE.COM
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