Family Matters

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

—Alex Haley

As I write this, my family is visiting from Ireland. We just got back from visiting my husband’s family in North Carolina, and I am planning a trip home to Ireland in February to be with family. This time of year, it’s all about family, and sometimes, in the midst of changing sheets, cleaning bathrooms, planning 14-hour drives, and, of course, finding someone to watch the cat, we wonder if it’s all worth it and won’t it be nice when everything gets back to normal?

Of course it’s worth it! We get so used to our routines and just trying to keep everything going on a daily basis that we worry about changes, upsets to our schedule, and packing and unpacking suitcases… or at least I do. I worry about my baby daughter getting out of her routine, about stuff everywhere, about not getting my blog written, and about not being able to check my email! Does any of this matter? No. But family matters. Family matters a whole lot. They are our foundation. They are where we came from and, ultimately, at least in my case, they are the ones who accept us home no matter what happens.

Living in America, I miss my family terribly. I would love to be able to hop in a car and see them for a day. I miss out on the family events, the big moments and the little ones. Of course there’s Skype, and phone calls and email, even Facebook. But nothing makes up for the physical presence of family. Nothing means as much as that tight hug at the airport when my brother says, “Hi, Sis.” Nothing matters like someone saying, “So how are you?” and really meaning it, or saying in response, “Oh, I’m fine” and knowing that more can be said later.

Not living close to family means devoting big chunks of time to being with family, and, to a control freak like me, sometimes we get bogged down in the details and forget what we are doing… spending time with family. What could be more important than that? Yes, there’s change, and long drives, and never-ending trips to the Jewel because we never seem to have any milk. But seeing the six pairs of snow boots lined up at the door, dripping wet, or my 21-month old daughter laughing hilariously at her two older cousins doing just about anything, or seeing my brother relax with a book in front of the fire, then I remember… then I remember how precious these moments are, how much I truly love these people, and how all too soon we will be going back to the airport.

This New Year I intend to cherish my family – and all the chaos that goes along with them!

Be inspired! Stay connected!

Be inspired in your gift giving this year

I know its been a tough year, so make your gifts go further this holiday by giving something unique and meaningful and at the same time supporting local business and artisans.

Many of you have asked where you can get NUADA products this year.  Well, we haven’t gone away altogether.  Great gifts from Wild Goose Studio, Ethel Kelly Oghams and Solvar jewelry are available at www.nuada.com.

If you don’t like shopping online, NUADA is still at the Andersonville Galleria, 5247 N Clark St, with all your favorites, including new Avoca scarves.  But we will only be there through the end of January, so hurry!

NUADA is showcasing John Rocha jewelry at Art de Triumph, 2936 N Clark St, home to the stunning work of Nancie King Mertz, a prolific and award-winning Chicago artist.  Check out her gallery where you can find arty Chicago calendars, coasters and ornaments starting at $15.  But while there, take time to gaze at her original oil paintings.  You’re in for a treat!

Those of you who have visited us at the Andersonville Galleria will know that over seventy local artisans are featured, making it the perfect place for all you harried last-minute shoppers.  With prices ranging from $5 to $500, you will be inspired!

My favorites:

1. A Thing of Beauty
   Some of you may remember Deana Rose jewelry from my Southport store. Deana is a Chicago artist creating jewelry that is at once eye-catching and elegant and together with Nuada jewelry, is the only jewelry I wear.  She has an amazing ability to combine the rich, vibrant colors of semi-precious stones to create wondrous effects.  Prices range from $15 to $200.  Her jewelry is available at the Andersonville Galleria and online at www.deanarose.com.
   
2. Quirky and Functional
   If there’s one thing I love to give, its functional art.  What could be better than giving something you can both use and enjoy?  Denise Riesen prints her own unique and quirky collage photography on tumbled marble coasters.  With themes ranging from local Chicago scenes to wine and sports, and at only $38 a set, this is a must buy.  Her coasters and her wonderful photography can be viewed at www.riesenphotography.com and at the Andersonville Galleria.
   
3. Boys! Boys! Boys!
   What can you get for that teenager in your life, or for your much-cooler-than-you brother-in-law?  Novem studios, available at the Andersonville Galleria, was recently featured in the New York Times Travel section for their whimsical and clever T-shirts.  With most at only $15 to $30 dollars you can’t go wrong.

Wishing you a warm and wonderful holiday season.  Be inspired and stay connected!

Nollaig shona agus faoi mhaise daoibh!

Concern

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

–Herman Melville

In my last post, I wrote about gratitude and about knowing when enough is enough, but also that there are those who simply do not have enough. In a year that has been tough for so many, it is still amazing how much we have to be grateful for, and it seems so appropriate that now, more than ever, we count our blessings and give back.

This is the second year that I will be co-chairing a silent auction event at the Ireland Network Ball, which will be held this coming February. The theme of our auction this year is “giving back.” We want to give back to our community, both local and global. The Ireland Network is an organization of Irish-born professionals living and working in Chicago. As Irish professionals living abroad, we have benefited from access to education, support and opportunity, but know that many others are not so lucky. The proceeds from this year’s event will benefit the Chicago Irish Immigrant Support Center (local) and Concern Worldwide (global).

The Chicago Irish Immigrant Support Center is a nonprofit organization serving the needs of Irish immigrants, old and young, in the United States. This organization has worked tirelessly to help the Irish, in good times and bad.

Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organization dedicated to reducing suffering and ending extreme poverty wherever it exists. As many of you who attended fundraising events at Nuada know, Concern Worldwide is an organization that is close to my heart, and I am very happy to still be in a position to support them, even though I no longer have the store. Concern was founded in Ireland in March 1968 in the home of Kay and John O’Loughlin Kennedy. Africa Concern, as it was then known, launched an appeal for the famine in Biafra with the slogan “Send One Ship.” They did, just five months later, and then went on to work in more than fifty countries, helping people achieve major and long-lasting improvements in their lives.

I want to use my blog today to make you aware of, and ask you to share my own concern for, those who need our help at home and abroad. If you think you might be able to support our silent auction, either by attending the Ireland Network Ball on February 20 or by donating an item to the silent auction, I would be so grateful. I am already so grateful for you and all that you already do to give back. If you think you might be interested in attending the ball, which, by the way, is a real fun event, open to everyone, and a great way to spend an otherwise dreary February evening, please let me know. If you can think of a clever or even not-so-clever item to donate to the silent auction, just email me at orla@nuada.com or respond to this post.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for my holiday gift guide!

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...   It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

—Melodie Beatty

I had never heard that quote before last week, and last week I heard it twice, on two separate days and under totally different circumstances.  I decided that somebody out there wants me to hear this.   Have you ever had that experience where you hear a new concept or idea, and suddenly you keep hearing it everywhere?   I guess that when we open our mind to new possibilities, the possibilities come flooding in, or when we hear something that resonates with us, the world colludes to reinforce that concept for us, to remind us of what is important.

Of course the timing of this is perfect, with Thanksgiving fast approaching.  Gratitude, giving thanks, that’s what this wonderful holiday is about, right?  As I am sure you know, Thanksgiving is not an Irish holiday, but upon moving here I gladly embraced the much-needed vacation days in November, and it fast became my favorite holiday of the year.  For me it’s about family.   Family, however you define it, coming together without gifts, without fuss... well, apart from the annual power struggle between my mother-in-law and my husband over control of the small kitchen in our house, the wrestling with a 22-pound turkey, and, inevitably, the forgetting to take the oyster dressing out of the oven until after dinner.   I am sure my mother-in-law will interject here to remind me that all I ever have to do is mash the potatoes, but that is the beauty of convincing people you can’t cook and, being Irish, all you really know about is potatoes!

But family quirks and quarrels aside, Thanksgiving truly is a beautiful holiday, marking the beginning of the season, often taking place in perfect fall weather, and providing a time to rest, and simply be together, before all the craziness begins.   This is a time to give thanks.  No matter what the past year held for you, and we know it's been trying, the beauty of this life is that you will always find something to be grateful for, if you look for it.  And choosing to be grateful — and it is a choice — can change everything.  As Melodie Beatty says, “It turns what we have into enough”.  How powerful is that?  The moment when we know we have enough!

As we all know, not everyone has enough, and that will be the subject of my next post, but for now, take some time to remember what you have to be grateful for.  Try for just one day to find something to be grateful for in everything that happens, and I mean everything, the good and the bad.  Try it and let me know how it feels.

By the way, all joking aside, I am extremely grateful for my in-laws.   I am lucky to have the most supportive, loving, and appreciative in-laws in the world, and I look forward to telling them that, next Thursday, after I’ve mashed the potatoes!

A Thing of Beauty

If anyone asks me where to go in Ireland, I have to say Connemara. Connemara is without a doubt the most beautiful place in the world. When we were kids, our family used to go on “Sunday spins” (i.e. a Sunday drive) throughout the summer. Living in Westport, we found plenty of places for our Sunday spin: the wildness of Achill Island, the unspoiled woods of Tourmakeady, and, some days even the big city, Galway! But I always asked to go to Connemara. We would follow the route winding around Kylemore Abbey, by Killary Harbour, and through the tiny village of Leenane (of “The Quiet Man” fame). At that time of year, purple rhododendrons lined the road, beckoning to us that there was more beauty to come. We always found that beauty in Clifden. Clifden is a market town, set between the Atlantic Ocean and preserved bog lands. Driving into the town, the Twelve Ben Mountains rise up, surrounding the town as if to both announce and protect this, the most beautiful place on earth.


Whenever I hear the word “picturesque,” I think of Clifden. My brothers soon tired of the Sunday spins, but I never did. I still drive to Clifden with my parents whenever I am home. I recently learned that this was also my grandfather’s favorite place, and there is something comforting in knowing that – to think that he used to drive this route too! I wonder what he saw, what he felt. Did he love the drive through the rugged, sometimes barren landscape, giving rise to purple and green hills? Or did he prefer the beauty and stillness of Killary Harbour, surrounded in mists of gray? I’ll never know because I didn’t get the chance to ask him before he died. But I can picture my grandfather standing at the harbor’s edge, staring at the beauty stretched out before him, and sometimes, when I need to, I can close my eyes and go stand there beside him. Together we breathe in that sense of peace, that sense of utter contentment that I know he must have felt too, that sense of pure happiness that can only come from holding your grandfather’s hand, standing together in silence, surrounded by the wonder of the most beautiful place on earth.

Happiness is found along the way, not at the end of the road

In June of this year I embarked on a journey to find something new.  I knew I had to close Nuada, the small retail business I loved.  The time had come, and I knew this would be tough.

When I started on this journey, I had no idea what was next.  I knew I needed to work, earn money, and pay the bills, and I wanted to do it as quickly as possible.  I was also finding it very hard to let Nuada go, but I didn’t know why.

A few months earlier, a friend recommended that I go to CTC, the Career Transitions Center of Chicago.  I thought it would be a good starting point, and I really wanted to take action.  I desperately wanted to move on.  At the first orientation meeting, Laura, the CTC Director of Programming, after listening to my particular story said to me, “You know, someone once told me that nothing is a waste, that everything leading up to this point was meant to happen.”  She also said to me, “You’re tired,” and I almost burst into tears.  Up to that point I was trying to pretend Nuada was over and that I was fine.  I wasn’t.  Holding onto Nuada and the sense of failure that came with closing it had so drained me that while I desperately wanted to move on, I didn’t know how--and I was tired.

For me, and I suspect for many others, opening my business was a manifestation of who I was and who I wanted to be.  I could be creative, which I never could in my previous jobs.  I could be interactive, meeting new people, introducing artists to customers, getting involved in community groups.  I could be strategic, making plans, searching for new products, holding events.  I loved it.  But now it was gone.

When we have a setback, lose a job, or “fail” in a business, the inclination is to reprimand ourselves, ask what we did wrong.  What we don’t do, or at least what I didn’t, is ask what I did right.  All I saw was something I needed to fix, a “failed” business and a lack of income and I needed to fix it fast.

I now know that there was nothing to fix.  Nuada wasn’t the goal; it was part of the journey.  It was an invaluable experience, one that has opened up all kinds of new and exciting opportunities, but closing Nuada was also part of the experience, and the part that has allowed me to move on.  Through taking the time to learn more about me, my strengths, and what I love to do, I have opened up my life to a whole new set of possibilities, but I could not have discovered those possibilities if I had not closed Nuada.

But it wasn’t easy.  I couldn’t move on from Nuada until I first acknowledged how much it had meant and how I really felt about losing it.  Be gentle with yourself.  When you lose something in your life, big or small, allow some time to grieve.  But remember that it’s all part of the journey, the good and the bad.  Each point on the journey serves a purpose.  Nothing is a waste.