Moving on and counting down

It's been a long week. Sad events at home, sad events around the world. I am always grateful that I get to go to work and come home safe to the people I love the most. I've been even more conscious of that feeling of gratitude following the siege in Sydney. The two people who tragically lost their lives will be so missed by their loved ones and I know they will struggle through this Christmas. I wish in some small way I could help, but that is an inherent part of the tragedy: we get to continue and they stay frozen in time.

So after a few sleepless nights/waking early, I gave up and went running one morning and watched the sun rise.  It's enough, I decided, to still be here. That's how we honour those who leave us through no fault of their own. We make a conscious choice to continue living as we wish they could.

After such profound and deep thoughts, I retreated to my safe haven - the kitchen. When all else fails, when the world outside makes no sense to me and I feel like a complete underprepared amateur in it, I cook. There's something really comforting about the predictability of ingredients, a recipe and the outcome.  If you can make nothing else in your world work, you can heat fruit and sugar and make jam awesomeness happen like so:

It's the final three days before Christmas and I have an absolute mountain of work to clear.  Next year is going to be big, strategically, for my company and I want to start a little ahead of the game.  It's hard to maintain your focus though when there's gorgeous weather outside, delicious food to be made and a festive glass or two to be raised in celebration. I am going to make it to Christmas Eve, but it's going to require a lot of willpower :)

In anticipation of a busy day, I chose a peplum top over my trusty navy skinny jeans:

Top: Pierre Balmain
Jeans: Country Road
Heels: Bally
Bag: Chloe

It's a slightly unusual work outfit for me - peplums are so tricky.  They can be devastatingly flattering, but proportion is critical.  I quite like this one as it's exaggerated enough to catch the eye but it's also classic, the colour and lack of embellishment keep it contained.  In many ways, it's the perfect outfit for someone who has built the seniority to set her own rules for the office.

In some ways, it's tempting to dismiss clothing and fashion as utterly trivial following events of such magnitude.  I don't see it that way though.  Irrespective of what happens to you, whatever tragedies and grief and injustice you experience in your life, you still, after a time, will have to get up one morning and rinse your face and put clothes on. Undoubtedly, you will choose clothes that help you feel that you can face the world again. Clothes that remind you of yourself. Or perhaps clothes that are nothing like who you were because you can't be that person again. Whatever happens, life continues inevitably.

I hope everyone out there chooses an outfit for today that feels like good armour against the world :) xo