Kate Kelly Design/A La Recherche is dedicated to the pursuit of finding inspiration in everything and of helping people find their happy. Normally the focus here is on interiors and shopping and other pretty and life-improving things, but I thought I'd take a little break from the visually stimulating today and instead share two articles that I found totally inspiring and that I hope I can internalize and call upon whenever I find myself mentally wavering in the happy category.

I'll call these lists a life-improving thing.

The following articles were published in Forbes in November (leave it to me not to find them until now) and are simply magical. They are about "mental strength" -- and "mental strength," to me, is happiness. It's freedom from unnecessary worry, from self doubt, from letting a "bully" type of person get to you (and somehow, no matter how old we are, this can unfortunately happen to us). It's the freedom to be in control of how we react and how we feel. The freedom to be the most positive version of ourselves.

The first is a list of 13 things that "mentally strong" people "avoid," and can be found here. The second is a list of "powerful exercises" that you can do to improve your "mental strength." It can be found here.

Happy mind-over-matter!
KK

Happy New Year! Wishing you all peace, love, happiness and a dash of whimsy this year!

I recently happened upon a super fun peace sign hand sculpture that I hope will find its way to my home in the coming weeks. It just perfectly captures what I hope 2014 will bring: peace, whimsy, and strength... and happiness.

Matt and I were discussing New Year's resolutions yesterday, and I said that one of mine was simply to be happy. "Happy? Is that a resolution?" he asked. "Absolutely!" I said. Happiness, at least to some extent, is a choice and can at times require a great deal of resolve to obtain/maintain. The old adage "fake it 'til you make it" comes to mind here, and the payoff once you "make it" is enormous and enormously worth it. If that's not a resolution, I don't know what is. The universe can have a pretty sick sense of humor at times (and at others, a delightful one), and it's up to us to decide how to handle it. 2013 was a year of some pretty phenomenal ups and some pretty brutal downs, but even now, as I close in on month ten of a debilitating foot injury and finish up week three of a painful surgery recovery, I feel an extreme sense of gratitude for the hand that was dealt to me this year. I'll never know how it happened, or why, but I like to think there was a reason and that the experience will make me a stronger and more compassionate person (even though it is easy to feel pretty worthless and woe-is-me in my current state). Who knows? A girl can dream.

So how did I find that fun little hand? On a whim of course, which is my favorite way to find things. I'll take you on a little tour of my search (a window into my meandering, "creative" (i.e. mildly ADD) mind), because I stumbled upon some great blogs along the way! During a delightfully aimless Google search for gold side tables yesterday (I am planning out a reno of our living room - inspiration board coming soon!), I happened upon a fun blog entry on gold/brass and marble color combos (one of my favorite combos) on a fabulous blog called The Covetable. This led me to The Covetable's "Apartment Envy" section (OMG, what fun!), which featured the apartment of Amelia Canham Eaton, who co-founded the blog The CHICago Life (also a fab blog). In Amelia's apartment tour, I saw this image and thought the peace hand was just super fun:

Then I saw this image and knew I'd found a kindred spirit - she has my pig bookends!!

I separately had been looking at the Jayson Home website (a Lincoln Park based home décor store that I wish existed in New York) where a brass peace sign captured my attention. Could it be the same thing? I thought when I saw the hand in Amelia's Chicago home. I do believe it is! At $168 plus shipping though, it's not the steal of a deal that my $29 pig bookends were and thus not something I can just purchase on a whim. I did a bit more digging to see if this happy hand was sold elsewhere, and I think I've found the same one (or an excellent replica) at Zinc Door for $137 plus free shipping. Same dimensions and similar coloring (unclear whether the coloring is in fact different or the photography is causing the difference):

So, what can this funny little hand represent? Many things! For me, it will be my adaptation (plus an addition) of the "10 to Zen" that has been cheesily circling about Pinterest recently. In other words, the pursuit of happiness.

What are your New Year's resolutions??

Happy New Year! And peace, man!
KK