tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17902908873094966512024-03-13T13:40:40.784-07:00Wings Unfolding one woman's journey to creating a better lifeAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-47731214829368141382013-04-21T13:07:00.001-07:002013-04-21T13:07:59.014-07:00Moving Forwards<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was trying to remember a quote today, something about however slowly you are going, you are always one step ahead of those who aren't trying. I could look it up on google, but then I'll get sucked into clicking on more links and more links and find myself horribly distracted and end up on Pinterest or something.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm struggling at the moment, if I'm honest. Loitering just the right side of depression and I'm very aware of the fact, which is a good thing. I've had a childfree weekend, which has been needed, but it's also been one where I haven't seen anybody either. Those weekends are pretty rare these days, usually somebody will pop in for a cup of tea, even if it's just an hour during the whole weekend, it's enough to stop me feeling totally alone in this life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I feel like I am not moving forwards with anything, like days and days go by and it's just all about survival. Surviving the nightmare that is my son's Tourettes and his continuing meltdown. Surviving, just, financially, praying that I don't have to move out, praying that the washing machine doesn't go wrong, or the car doesn't break down, or the gas bill doesn't go up yet again, praying for strength and motivation to believe in myself when there just isn't anyone else to turn to when I so desperately need someone to tell me that it's all going to work out and be ok. Wanting so badly to find a way out of this hole and find a safe place to stop for a while and catch my breath.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I did come across this quote just now, while I was quickly flicking through a book on inspiration:-</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div align="center">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split into two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. (Jacob Riis)</span></em></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">The more times I read it, the more it seems fitting today somehow. Like the Universe just telling me to trust and have faith that everything is under control, and it will all fall into place one day soon.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've been slowly working on the diet and exercise stuff. It's a bit hit and miss at the moment. My boy's shouting and his own inner torment is sapping all my strength and eating away at my soul, and I'm reaching for comfort food despite knowing that it's now more than ever I need proper nutrition. I've restocked the fridge with smoothie stuff, ready to start afresh tomorrow, and done tons of research looking for fun recipes for new smoothies and salad dressings. Have even joined a zumba class with my daughter - a strain on the finances, but it gets us both out of the house for some rare and precious mother/daughter time, even just for 45 minutes.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">The ear plugs arrived. It's been a childfree weekend, so no opportunity to try them yet. Hopefully they'll help a little, though it won't stop me fretting about the neighbours, nor stop me wanting to hug my little boy tight and make it all better for him. The really rubbish thing about this disorder is that I can't get close to him most of the time - his body is rigid and soaked in sweat and lashing out. It's quite awful. </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I guess I am still moving forwards, a tiny bit each day. I happened upon the blog of Shane Burcaw a couple of days ago too. A young man in a wheel chair who has a muscle wasting disease. He started to write a blog called 'Laughing at my Nightmare' <a href="http://laughingatmynightmare.1000notes.com/">http://laughingatmynightmare.1000notes.com/</a>. It's funny and heartbreaking and so inspirational and makes me feel very humbled to be complaining about my lot.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Right. Enough feeling sorry for myself. Imagine what his parents are going through on a daily basis? </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I can do this. Just one day at a time.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-66302686689203170122013-04-17T13:14:00.000-07:002013-04-17T13:14:54.395-07:00Tough days<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's been a tough few weeks. I always get into a bit of a funk in the school holidays. I love them, of course, but I find it really difficult to motivate myself when the structure and routine of a normal working week are not present. Add on a much-calmer-but-glued-to-the Xbox teenage boy and a daughter at work most of the time, and serious lack-of-adult-conversation funk sets in. Add on relentlessly arguing siblings when they are in the same house together for even a minute, and I'm verging on insanity.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">In the midst of all that, we got an appointment, at long last, to see the Tourettes specialist. It was good and bad. Finally we have an Official Diagnosis, and finally CAMHS are now sitting up and taking notice, and our next appointment to discuss treatment is in 2 weeks! All good. Not so good is the fact that the Swedish doctor was a little forthright in her approach. In the space of ten minutes she had told Milo that he has Tourettes Syndrome and that there is no cure, she would be ringing the school the next day to involve them in treatment strategies, and she was enrolling him in Group Therapy from September (not sure how that can possibly help 6 months on from now...but still...)</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Cue one major meltdown for one very troubled small boy. His worst fear, just the worst thing he could possibly have imagined, was the school finding out and treating him like a 'freak'. I did, in fact, tell the school nearly a year ago, but I hid that from Milo. They were brilliant in also hiding from him the fact that they knew, but monitored him from a distance. Next major fear was group therapy. None of us are the 'group' kind. We're introverted and shy and not particularly comfortable around lots of people. My daughter and I are pretty independent and happy in our own company - we'll go anywhere and do anything by ourselves - dance classes, trips, evening classes...but the whole social thing...hmm....we do it if we have to, but will escape it if we can. For Milo...the very idea of it ...well, he'd rather chop his arm off. Top it all with having to face the fact that he has a disorder for which there is no cure...wow....that's a helluva lot to take on board in one go.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I just hope this doctor knows what she is doing, because for six days now, my poor son has been in a meltdown, even the Xbox isn't working on keeping him calm. His tics have trebled in volume and frequency to the point where I can go out of my garden gate and to the other side of the car park and still hear him as clear as day. I'm feeling bad for the neighbours - we have paper thin walls, and if I press my ear to them , I can hear their conversations. They must be almost as stressed as we are, and I'm dreading the doorbell ringing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've ordered us some ear plugs today. I don't know what else to do right now. I know he can't help it, I know that, but the urge to scream is overwhelming. I'm trying to stay in control and keep calm, and keep telling myself that this will pass, but I want to curl up in a ball and howl - the stress of the noise, the heartwrenching sight of his contorted little body, his poor little broken heart.....it's too much right now. Am just praying for the strength to get us all through it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">On a positive note, I've made a smoothie for breakfast four days in a row now. No other dietary changes yet, I don't think I can cope this week with going back to work aswell. A childfree weekend on its way though, hopefully chance to restore some balance to my troubled soul.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-72709285325557259432013-04-03T13:11:00.000-07:002013-04-03T13:11:47.516-07:00Holidays<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's the Easter holidays, which for me started a week early after I hurt my back at school. I'm loving the break from work, the long lay-ins, the freedom to come and go as I wish, but must confess to feeling a little bit lonely at times.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My daughter is working a lot during the holidays, which is absolutely brilliant. It stops her getting bored, puts some money in her pocket and above all, keeps her and Milo from arguing constantly.... but I am missing her a bit. Milo has bought himself a pre-owned X-Box - something I've always been adamant I would never let him have, fearing he would turn into a zombie child, or worse, it would make his tics even more violent. I have to say, that generally, it feels like a heaven-sent gift. He is occupied and happy, happy, happy to be able to connect with his friends without having to wait for them to be allowed out. He does get a bit overexcited when he plays some of the games, and then we have some major tic sessions, but overall, particularly when he is hooked up to the microphone, he is much calmer. I was dreading these holidays, if I'm honest, but so far, they have been quite wonderful. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">On the downside, I am craving some adult contact and conversation, and finding that my oomph is starting to wane a bit with regards to Getting My Life Sorted. The fact that it is still so bitterly cold here, snowing again tonight, means that the new smoothie diet is taking a while to catch hold - I've shivered my way through them for four mornings (not consecutive), but my perfectionist self has been thrown by 'life' getting in the way again. One morning I had an early osteopath appointment in the next town, so shunned the smoothie as I didn't want to be desperate for the loo while he was manipulating my back! Today, my ex hubby decided he didn't want to drop Milo off to me, so I got a last minute text from him asking me to collect from his workshop...like...now. He does that, my ex, still likes to control my life, despite the fact we have been divorced for ten years.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Anyway. The point is, that I could have made healthier choices...made the smoothie for lunch or a late breakfast on those days, instead of reaching for the cocopops and tea...but I didn't. The healthy choices haven't yet become a habit, but I'm not beating myself up about it. Friday is shopping day, and I have a childfree weekend where I can kick start my motivation again. It is the holidays after all, and there is no routine and it's far too flipping cold to do anything except huddle indoors or cosy up in a coffee shop.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I picked up a magazine in Sainsburys yesterday. There was a double page spread featuring my dream house. I haven't written a blog post about my dream house yet....I think about it all the time, and obviously it changes as I come across things that I love etc. This house I saw yesterday though is as close as I've ever found. There is the small matter of the price - £875,000 - but apparently the Universe doesn't worry about limiting details like that, so I bought a lottery ticket tonight and have been planning my vegetable garden.... </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-27139945859531405572013-03-29T03:06:00.000-07:002013-03-29T03:06:00.790-07:00Healthy start<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Made my first smoothie this morning for nearly a year.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Kiwi, frozen berries, sprouting seeds (broccoli, radish, mung beans, lentils, chick peas, alfalfa), a handful of spinach leaves, 2 baby tomatoes, half a banana, a few almonds, some chia seeds, some flaxseed, half a tablespoon of spirulina powder, a splash of almond milk, a dash of algave syrup and some coconut water.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Healthy or what!!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I was a bit dubious about the spirulina - a nutrient dense blue-green algae, a superfood apparently. The most beautiful deep green colour, with the most amazingly strong smell of seaweed. Wasn't really looking forward to the taste of it, but as it happens, I couldn't taste it at all.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Whizzed it all up in the blender and drank. Delicious. But freezing when it feels like minus forty three outside, so am drinking hot water now to warm up.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My insides feel like they are buzzing. It's a good feeling.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">It's a start!! Yippee.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-71675802335095151112013-03-26T10:04:00.000-07:002013-03-26T10:04:03.918-07:00On a roll<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm on a roll today. The good thing about taking baby steps is it leaves you wanting to take more, instead of feeling totally overwhelmed by a whole massive lifeplan.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've been thinking about skincare. I've always been a bit against putting chemicals on my skin ever since I read that 60% of what you put on gets absorbed into your blood stream. That can't be a good thing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I don't wear make-up either. Another weird thing about me. If I am going out somewhere, then I'll put on some eyeliner and a bit of mascara, and I have been known to splodge some concealer on a particularly bad spot. Otherwise nothing. I absolutely hate the feel of any sort of foundation or powder on my skin. It feels clogged and as if it is covering up the real me. I'm sure I would look a thousand times more beautiful with a full face of make-up, but hey, it's the way I am.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I do have blemish-prone skin though which I keep in check with a blackhead clearing cleanser, a scrub that I use every morning, and a mild facial wash to follow. I never moisturise - hate the feel, and again, I don't like the thought of my skin absorbing all those chemicals.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm also very lazy when it comes to beauty regimes (for lazy, read 'too shattered to care most of the time). My job as a teaching assistant means I have my hands in water and paint a lot, so nice nails and soft skin are a bit of a fantasy for me, and I tend not to bother with my hands overly much. Which has a knock-on effect of me not wanting to wear nail varnish or jewellery, because I don't want to draw attention to my manky hands.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">As for my feet....horses' hooves extraordinaire! I have been blessed with very small, dainty feet, but after 3 years travelling Australia mostly in bare feet (it's an Australian thing!) they never recovered. In fairness, I don't try very hard with them either. I have several foot files, but I think an industrial sander would be more suited to the job! </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Very occasionally I will make a big effort and make my own body scrub - olive oil, sea salt and lavender oil. It works wonders and leaves skin delectably soft, but these days I am pooped by the time bathtime comes around, my son is generally shrieking in the next room, and I just can't be bothered to scrub the bath tub out every night.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Lazy lazy lazy. Must try harder.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Anyway. I have been wanting to replace my skincare regime with something more natural, so have been researching organic and natural skincare companies. I love Neal's Yard Remedies, but oh so pricey for me at the moment, so I dug out this book which I have had for years...</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QNXtF2Dd6Z6ADnyypDcf-jhqKrl5rAM-rVVW5P2xcdV4f1FMV3WZqAn-Eeg46uXpsTCGijTBFq0V6N4OhyWuOPx6cjYpcTj4eMKt62mWSjqhmRQg9bJHiBNfJpZL2BM0N9axqGqJ2dY/s1600/006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QNXtF2Dd6Z6ADnyypDcf-jhqKrl5rAM-rVVW5P2xcdV4f1FMV3WZqAn-Eeg46uXpsTCGijTBFq0V6N4OhyWuOPx6cjYpcTj4eMKt62mWSjqhmRQg9bJHiBNfJpZL2BM0N9axqGqJ2dY/s320/006.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Liz Earle's skincare range can be found in the more classy department stores. I tried it for a while a few years ago. It's nice, but still contains too many chemicals for me to feel comfortable with. This book gives recipes for homemade cleansers etc, using everyday ingredients, so I might give it a go. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> I bought some organic, chemical free tea-tree soap today which I'm going to try with a soft flannel to replace my chemical-rich facial wash and separate scrub. The soap cost £1.56, compared with nearly £10 for the wash and the cleanser. If it works, then I've saved all that money aswell!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I found a recipe on Pinterest for clearing blackheads too - a little honey drizzled onto half a lemon, rubbed onto the face, left for a few minutes, then rinsed off. Apparently the results are visible immediately. In Liz Earle's book, she has a similar recipe - just honey smoothed onto the face and massaged in with a little hot water....must be some truth in it then! Sounds like a therapeutic exercise for bathtime! Will monitor the results after I've bought some organic honey!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So that leaves moisturising. I'm sure I should be doing something about that at my age. A few months ago I bought some organic rose-oil serum, which I used a couple of times after my bath. I wasn't convinced that it didn't clog my skin, and it felt a bit stingy, but hey, I only used it twice, so not a fair test really. Must give that another go and see if it makes me look ten years younger in a few months!</span><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-62356529565822480082013-03-26T06:06:00.003-07:002013-03-26T06:06:40.469-07:00Baby Steps<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. </span></h3>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Beverley Sills)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am a perfectionist, an all-or-nothing girl. Sometimes it's a great thing, one of my best qualities. Sometimes it's one of my worst. When it comes to diet and exercise, being a perfectionist is definitely a pain in the bum.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm the sort of girl who will plan a perfect diet and exercise regime then quit the minute I veer from that track, and follow it with weeks of Not Going Near Anything Healthy because what's the point when I haven't planned it perfectly or psyched myself up for a start date - usually because there is something potentially dangerous looming, i.e a school holiday (cue lots of coffee shop outings and lunches out with the kids and my friends), a birthday, Easter, Christmas, washing my hair.....you name it, there is always an EXCUSE! That's all it is, an excuse. For what? That's the bit that is puzzling me right now. An excuse for what? For not achieving the body of my dreams, which in turn will improve my confidence, my self-belief, my motivation to keep on making positive changes in my life....and all the domino effects of the goodness that can only come from all that.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm sure I'm not the only woman who follows this pattern. Or am I far weirder than I thought!</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Well guess what Mrs Perfectionist? That's life. There is never a perfect time or a perfect set of circumstances. Time to ditch that very self-limiting belief, right now. This blog is all about recognising my own personal sabotage traps and breaking through them, however ridiculous they seem and however vulnerable I feel when I commit them to paper.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">If now is not the time to act, when will it be. (Hillel)</span></em></strong></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So, bearing that in mind, I'm going to change one thing at a time. Slowly stock up the cupboards with all the necessary ingredients of recipes for meals, change one meal at a time, wait for it to become second nature, then start work on the next and the next.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My biggest downfall is coffee. I love being in coffee shops and drinking coffee. I rarely, if ever, drink it at home, I don't even think about drinking it at home, especially now that we don't have friends round because of the Tourettes. It's purely the coffee shop experience that I love, the smell, the warmth, the sounds and the taste of real barista coffee. It's costing me a fortune every month to indulge in that particular vice, even though it's only 2 or 3 times a week. If I cut that right down, and maybe even stopped it for a while, then I could use that money to buy healthier food. There's a thought.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So I've been shopping today, sod the minus bank balance. Sometimes you just have to make an investment. I've bought some store cupboard ingredients, ready to start making changes.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguThLoNooRXcrF9CQZjEnOX7WWkIby25_3DHO7G1BnFzqQQe0kMn_vEV60_EfkLu-IL48KQMSz-FiDUVplfZAbNBJxhLVWeOnQnr4pCjiSE_vi1-7iMixm5v7HijMMeMOCFc8zgmCOHJs/s1600/005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguThLoNooRXcrF9CQZjEnOX7WWkIby25_3DHO7G1BnFzqQQe0kMn_vEV60_EfkLu-IL48KQMSz-FiDUVplfZAbNBJxhLVWeOnQnr4pCjiSE_vi1-7iMixm5v7HijMMeMOCFc8zgmCOHJs/s320/005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Some sprouting seeds (I do have a sprouter and will start to grow my own again), quinoa, green tea, almond milk, raw tahini (for salad dressings when I get around to it), seeds, nuts and spirulina powder for smoothies.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My first meal to change is going to be breakfast. Currently a pint of water followed by whatever kids' cereal is in the cupboard, and tea. Not brilliant.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">After I read Kris Carr's book last year, I started making smoothies for breakfast, which I loved. Real proper smoothies with berries and green vegetables (cucumber, sprouting seeds, spinach, parsley), grapes, kiwi and all manner of nuts and seeds, diluted with coconut water, and a dash of agave syrup. It looks like mud when you whizz it all up, but tastes delicious.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The perfectionist in me stopped when Tesco stopped stocking coconut water. It's pretty damned expensive anyway, but I used to top it up with normal water. If you buy it in the health food shop, it's nearly £2 dearer. Outrageous. I tried just using normal water, but they didn't taste quite the same, a bit too, well, muddy really. Then winter set in, berries became too expensive and poor quality to buy, I replaced them with frozen ones, but it takes an iron will to down a very cold smoothie in the middle of a British winter. I tried making them with mango aswell, but without the sweetness of the berries, the taste isn't so nice.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, out went the smoothies and in came the junk.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Time to get back on the smoothies. My local smaller Tesco still stocks coconut water (a Kris Carr smoothie ingredient), and I bought some almond milk to try as a substitute. Full of nutrition, no mid-morning sugar crash, and they feel so <em>clean </em>when you drink them. Now that I'm off work for 2 weeks, there's no excuse for the excuses (<em>no time to make before work, it's winter, it's cold....well, ok, it IS still flipping freezing, but it has to change pretty soon right?) </em>If I get into the habit of making them for 2 weeks, then it should be fairly straightforward to carry that on when I go back to work...maybe get up 10 minutes earlier?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My fail-safe fall-back plan:- <em>it's just breakfast at the moment. It's the Easter holidays. That gives my perfectionist self the get-out clause to drink coffee with friends, have lunch out with the kids. And if I run out of smoothie ingredients or time? No excuse....just eat some fruit and take some nuts and seeds to eat in the car. No excuse to chuck it all in and give up. No excuse at all.</em></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's all in the planning. Just got to make sure I have all the right things to hand so there is no excuse for eating Coco Pops instead.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Tomorrow I will go to the supermarket and buy all the fresh ingredients.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Baby steps.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="background-color: #4c1130;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-53807707107486412162013-03-24T13:48:00.000-07:002013-03-24T13:48:37.578-07:00A blessing in disguise<span style="background-color: #f4cccc; color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, my back is still nasty thanks to a rather irritating cough that is keeping me awake and not doing my poor spine any favours, so I am taking the week off work. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc; color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f4cccc; color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">(Absolutely no idea why the background text colour is a random lilac, oh well!)</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">It means I have three days before the onslaught of the Easter holidays to kickstart my plans - very excited! I spent most of yesterday asleep, full of cold and achey and not wanting to move around too much, but today I've felt a little better. I did spring clean the lounge however, despite the dodgy back, very slowly, but it feels good in here now, and I'm inspired to do the whole house over the holidays.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've also been doing a lot of diet research and reading. I bought this book last year, which I have been re-reading today.....</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TpMjxda1q6IDeTXsGKS-Vbu8Sbfeu0ytSbatLOWCb3mPYAkwElP0uJJI3dwXxgea0Frjqd50dnkUEK1XL7VvUnuxjzlfqhMuo9SbWFCrNemI1K9UpufxEOoVzsGCxcSqnSowN__S1mk/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TpMjxda1q6IDeTXsGKS-Vbu8Sbfeu0ytSbatLOWCb3mPYAkwElP0uJJI3dwXxgea0Frjqd50dnkUEK1XL7VvUnuxjzlfqhMuo9SbWFCrNemI1K9UpufxEOoVzsGCxcSqnSowN__S1mk/s320/001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's by Kris Carr, a cancer survivor, whose enthusiasm for real food is infectious. Having been an advocate of a vegetarian raw food diet for many years (see a previous post and pic of my healthier self!), Kris's book caught my eye after I read an article about her on facebook. I love her whole concept. Some of it is a little impractical for me right now - overly costly, and I don't yet have a juicer, and some of the ingredients are not readily available in a run-down town in the UK, but it's something to aspire to, a direction to head in, a path to follow.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I also watched a movie called 'Hungry for Change' (</span><a href="http://www.hungryforchange.tv/free-screening"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">www.hungryforchange.tv/free-screening</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">). It's quite long, but well worth the time, as it highlights the shocking state of the western diet and food industry as a whole. I also watched this last year. You'd think I would have got my act together by now, having so much information at my fingertips...</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Seriously, have a look at that video guys, it's on a free screening for the next few days - it's a wake-up call.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So...3 days off...in between school runs. A gift in disguise. I have pen and paper beside me, jotting down a list of ingredients I need to stock up on. I'm also stuffing my rather large easter egg, but it's got to go...can't have that hanging around while I'm trying to re-create my wholefood lifestyle. Have also been trawling through Pinterest (who ISN'T addicted to that?) and re-pinning recipes that fall in line with the kind of healthy eating I want to get back to.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tomorrow I am going to begin spring cleaning my kitchen cupboards, ditching the junk and making room for the new.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A bad back is indeed a blessing in disguise, and I'm feeling very inspired and motivated.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-62444675475873212942013-03-22T12:53:00.003-07:002013-03-22T12:53:38.945-07:00A minor set-back of a week<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, it's been a while since I had chance to even blog, let alone take some concrete action towards making things happen.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">It was a tricky weekend. My son had arranged to go BMX-ing with a couple of his friends for both afternoons, and my daughter was working, so I was looking forward to some bonus 'me' time. Sadly the weather had other ideas and it chucked down all weekend, meaning that both friends cancelled (BMX ramps too wet, and apparently teenage boys don't go out in the rain anymore!), leaving my boy fed-up and bored - a lethal combination for Tourettes.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I took him into town and ended up spending a fortune on lunch out to lessen the time we were both stuck indoors at home. He still shrieks outside, but it's diluted and less frequent, and the thought of bumping into Someone That We Know, or, horror of horrors a Teacher From His School, serves as a very adequate mind distraction for a while. However, there's a limit to how long you can drag a 13yr old boy around a few shops in a small town, so I forked out on a couple of cheap dvd's for him and we trundled home. It was a very stressful evening, relentless, and a long, long time before he slept that night.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">After crying myself to sleep in despair, I decided that Sunday I would just take him out, whatever. He happily pootles along on his bike while I walk, hopping up and down kerbs and speeding off, speeding back again - he ends up covering twice the distance I do. When my daughter went off to work, we went. It was freezing and raining, but we just walked and cycled. For miles. We stopped for coffee on the way, and we picked up a few bits at the supermarket, but in the end, we were out for 4 hours. Result. He was way better in the evening and was even asleep by 10pm. Boy, was I aching the next day!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">And then a bit of a set-back. By Wednesday I was feeling decidedly manky - no voice, and a throat that felt like knives slicing it. To cap it all, the special needs child I look after on a Wednesday decided to go into full kick-off mode and I spent all day trying to restrain him from alternately killing other children, and escaping the building. Result? I trashed my back and have spent the last 2 days in agony. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I have a back problem at the best of times having wrecked it in a car accident when I was 19 and travelling Australia. Curiously it can cope with any amount of physical sport, dancing, karate, you name it, but if it twists a certain way, all hell breaks loose and I can barely move. I can go months with no problem, then one day I'll reach for the shower gel and bang, instant agony which then costs a fortune to fix.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So, feeling a bit sorry for myself today. The voice has returned slightly, bringing with it a streaming cold, a visit to the osteopath hasn't afforded much relief, another round of that on Wednesday (my poor overdraft), and the housework has gone to pot! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Oh well. Let me spill the gratitude and be positive. I'm thankful to at least have access to an overdraft, and therefore the money to pay to get my back fixed. Feeling ill has re-iterated the fact that I need to sort out the diet pronto, and find ways of managing the stress. It's all good, all another prod in the back to propel me along. I'm also smiling hugely after finding a bunch of flowers and a massive Lindor easter egg on my doorstep when I returned home - a gift from my lovely friend to cheer me up!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I also logged into this blog this morning to see where I left it, and found a truly lovely comment from Debs Beschler. Thank you Debs, can't tell you how uplifting that was this morning!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Please dear Universe, please can the cold and the rain go away now, and please can we have some sunshine for the 2 weeks' holiday over Easter, so I can get my boy outside.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I quite enjoyed our 4 hour walk to be honest, felt good to get some proper exercise.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm going to rest up this weekend, not moving too well anyway, and shift this cold, catch up on some sleep, make some more plans. I have 2 weeks off from the end of next week, I'm really really going to use that time to clean up my diet - plan it, buy it, tweak it, find recipes, etc. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">That's my action goal for the next 3 weeks.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-7166125092389997472013-03-13T14:07:00.000-07:002013-03-13T14:07:19.594-07:00Getting cross with myself<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, I have a childfree evening and had planned to sit down and make some serious headway into creating a healthy eating/exercise schedule. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Has that happened?</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">No. Instead I've made porridge for tea, again, got some stuff ready to take to a friend tomorrow, dipped in and out of facebook, checked my bank balance, read some blogs, looked at facebook again.....and now it's 8.30pm.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Achieved? Nothing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I have notebooks and diaries everywhere listing 'the perfect diet and exercise schedule', all with start dates for probably every month over the last 3 years. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Not sure what the blockage is on this one, when I know 100% that feeling better about how I look, being able to get back into all my old clothes and regaining my health and fitness, will restore a massive amount of my confidence and self-belief.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Yes money is an issue. It's cheaper to have a bowl of porridge for tea than it is to prepare a lovely, fresh, wholesome salad with homemade juice on the side. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Yes the weather is cold, and salad isn't doing it for me right now. Yes I am tired and lethargic (undoubtedly the result of a shoddy diet).</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">But are they the real issues here? Can't figure out the psychology when I am so passionate about 'real' food. It's like a form of self-sabotage. I don't get it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So then I asked myself the question - 'if money wasn't an issue, would I be eating differently?' I'd like to think that yes I would. I'd have a breadmaker and a juicer and one of those Vitamix blenders that I so covet. I could buy organic vegetables from farmer's markets and the local wholefood shop. I could belong to a box scheme and have organic fish and produce delivered to my door....</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Hmm. Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly gives you more choices.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Hence frustration and crossness with myself tonight. For being defeatist and disillusioned as much as anything. Does a baby take its first steps, fall down then give up? No it doesn't. It tries harder.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Come on woman...get it together.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Two quotes are springing to mind tonight:-</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div align="center">
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. </span></em></strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">(Theodore Roosevelt)</span></em></strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em></strong> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">and this other one:-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><strong><em>Courage isn't always a roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying "I will try again tomorrow"</em></strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><strong><em>(Mary Anne Radmacher) </em></strong></span></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-22851397464053832242013-03-12T14:14:00.001-07:002013-03-12T14:14:09.924-07:00Expanding<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We had an unexpected snow day today. I live on the south coast of England and we rarely have much snow to bother with - one or two days a year as a rule - but today was a good one. A bitter, bitter wind had caused the snow to drift in places, which left my little boy almost knee deep in it at times!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Jpk0JtDJgKkBtm-pu5B76HL1m6pRNm7SRg14T2QOG-prxK7ZH_QHjUYMKKSR6MVy3rDZ3eT8XWc7OXupA_ZIIHGgP4Dv6p4bOu5FDMHwZ-Q7dFChG0Imkxpr3Lifa3c7ocy4y-EqoNg/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Jpk0JtDJgKkBtm-pu5B76HL1m6pRNm7SRg14T2QOG-prxK7ZH_QHjUYMKKSR6MVy3rDZ3eT8XWc7OXupA_ZIIHGgP4Dv6p4bOu5FDMHwZ-Q7dFChG0Imkxpr3Lifa3c7ocy4y-EqoNg/s320/004.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It certainly accelerated the housework plan along for this week, which is going well so far, leaving me a completely free evening.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><strong><em> The next major change to my life is diet, exercise and self-care. </em></strong> She exhales loudly.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">A bit of background history first.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">When I was in my teens, my diet was appalling. I mean appalling. I used to eat sugary cereal for breakfast, followed by a cup of weak and milky tea (I loved the way my mum made my tea, and I still drink it like that today, except I prefer it with soya milk). Sharon and I used to stop at the shop on the long walk to school and buy as many sweets and crisps as we had money for. I never used to take lunch, instead I'd stop at the shop on the way home from school and buy a pasty or a sausage roll because I was so hungry. At the time, we took in students for extra income, so our dinners were often something with chips - cheap and easy for my mum to cook up and the food of choice for the young Europeans.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Unsurprisingly I had a dreadful complexion. I was always really skinny, - flat-chested and ribs-sticking-out kind of skinny - so I wasn't too worried about gaining weight, but I was terribly self-conscious about my skin. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I began to do lots of research and became very interested in nutrition. When I left home, I turned into a bit of a health freak, and diet and fitness became a passion of mine. I ate wholefoods, mostly organic bought from local farms, dipped in and out of vegetarianism, avoided chemicals as best I could, juiced, and drank pints of water. I also did karate, played football for a local club, trained at the gym and ran miles.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHJz3hS5WYJYpmHYI5HuaAhCIvINqnFg0rhqKCe7N5Qu5Tv_Go0doREVJak5oK7Y38MJ0u5vBThIWb2IxUjAabEzypfnjsd2JpxwFwbCg4v5kXryzvkso2Kh78jMkbooKB1DQ9uOGCsY/s1600/010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHJz3hS5WYJYpmHYI5HuaAhCIvINqnFg0rhqKCe7N5Qu5Tv_Go0doREVJak5oK7Y38MJ0u5vBThIWb2IxUjAabEzypfnjsd2JpxwFwbCg4v5kXryzvkso2Kh78jMkbooKB1DQ9uOGCsY/s320/010.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This was me when I had just met my husband-to-be. I was 26, looked 16, fit, toned, healthy, not an ounce of fat on me!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My babies came along over the next 5 years. After the first one I gave up the karate and the football, but kept up the running and squashed in a fitness video here and there, and all was well. After the second, I was running a business, running a big house and garden, bringing up 2 kids and becoming increasingly unhappy with my husband who liked to come home from work, wait for his dinner and slob in front of the TV all night. Exercise went out the window and whilst I still ate pretty healthily and organically, I was allowing fast food and desserts to creep in on a regular basis. By the time I left him, I was a size 12 - almost three dress sizes bigger than my average weight, and I had cellulite for the first time in my life!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">From then on in, I've struggled with my eating habits. I've been divorced for ten years now, eight of those I've lived on my own, and financially I can't afford to eat the food I am so passionate about, which depresses me a lot. I feel really strongly, I mean REALLY strongly about the state of the food in this country. It's shocking what you can discover about the processed food industry when you start researching it, and it saddens me that most food we eat isn't 'real'. Even organic fruit and vegetables - whilst there are strict guidelines which govern how these foods are grown, there are none in place for their storage, which means they are stored along with other veg in big vats of slime for anything up to a year. Don't even get me started on milk - the average child in their child years, consumes six wheelbarrowfuls of sugar just in milk alone...why?...why do we need to have sugar in milk? And now, because the government are so concerned about childhood obesity, they plan to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners. It's what I have read, but it's frightening.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">In the nine years I have worked in a school, the number of children coming through with special needs and disorders has increased dramatically to when I first started. I honestly believe it has everything to do with what they are being fed - mine included, I hold my hands up and admit that my children eat a diet I am ashamed of.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">But the honest truth is, I don't earn enough to be able to eat organic wholefoods anymore. I try and make healthy choices, but so much of what we eat is covered in chemicals and processed in some way. If only the government would subsidise organic farming and health foods instead of funding millions to the NHS to treat our sick nation....</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I feel so PASSIONATELY about this.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Anyway. Andrew felt the same way I did about all of this, which was refreshing for a man. Where he lives in Brighton there are beautiful fresh and organic wholefood shops - hundreds of baskets of all different kinds of fruit and veg, lovely freshly prepared dahls and other dishes, shelf upon shelf of organic everything. Heaven. I used to love shopping for our weekends there. (We did eat an enormous amount of Green and Black's Organic Chocolate though....and Booja Booja truffles...ohhhh). </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I had regained my size 6/8 figure very soon after meeting him, sharing the cost and reverting back to a more healthy lifestyle. We used to walk for miles and miles aswell and I had been dancing Modern Jive several times a week for three years by then, so I was very toned again. After he left so suddenly, I was so broken, I just couldn't eat. I used to feel physically sick all the time. I lost a ton of weight really quickly, then came down with meningitis, which just about finished me off. My weight plummeted to under 7 stone and the doctor told me to do whatever it took to get the weight back again.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So for the last 3 years I have basically sat on my bum and eaten junk. Partly out of fear of being so ill again. Partly comfort eating. Partly lack of money to buy the food I really want to eat and severe disillusionment with the state of the food I can afford. Partly because I'm too exhausted to prepare separate meals for all three of us (my son likes most healthy food, but my daughter would rather chop off her arms than eat fruit and veg). My body is a mess really. I weigh nearly 9 stone, which isn't overweight at all, but it's all cellulite. I'm still bony and flat-chested up top, but my bum is way too big, I have a muffin top and nasty, dimpled thighs. My skin is horribly dry, I get huge spots, my hair is brittle and frizzy and I have shadows round my eyes. I haven't danced for four years now, and the only exercise I get is walking round the block with my son to get him out of the house. None of it is good at all, I have no confidence and I feel unattractive. And for the first time in my life I look my age!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">It has to change.</span></em></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em></strong><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I have to find a way to turn all of this around. I have always wanted to grow my own vegetables, for as long as I can remember. I know it's hard work and plants get eaten and succumb to diseases etc, but I feel so passionately about it. I have moved so many times that I can't put down roots in a garden and the cost of setting up a plant pot garden is just money I don't have to spare.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I will find a way. Gradually. Baby steps. One step at a time.</span></em></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em></strong><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I refuse to buy into the belief that once you get to a certain age you can't fix it, that all the cellulite and the untoned muscles are just all part of ageing. I'm not prepared to accept that at all, and I'm determined to find a way to claw back my holistic lifestyle.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So this is my commitment to myself:</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I will make slow, steady, permanent changes to my diet and lifestyle week by week, until I am once again living in accordance with my holistic principles.</span></em></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em></strong><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Ultimately this means:</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Changing from processed foods to fresh meals, even if I can't manage organic right now.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Scheduling regular exercise into my life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Going back</span><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"> to dancing (my love)</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Swapping chemical skincare products for natural, organic ones.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Buying a juicer and a breadmaker.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Growing as much of my own food as I can.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Taking care of my body, i.e. dealing with the horses' hooves that are meant to be feet, looking after my nails, exfoliating and moisturising my skin, getting my hair professionally coloured.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Each week I am going to make a change, commit to it here on this blog, and stick to it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Please Universe, may I win the lottery.....</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<strong><u><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><em></em></span></u></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHFeyUKdZxWPyFnsxCEuZ_nEbrQctycxrEHIPeiFYPUPLM54thl6cEU28RsQzrzbgqvx0mCMFbieMSfm4vD_lQO-wFCf73mZxCdIC4CePqvgdDqFQwx50zGzoYObPjfCzFurHGOkCvhjQ/s1600/010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-84951033645426646312013-03-10T11:27:00.000-07:002013-03-10T11:27:26.740-07:00First steps<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It starts with a dream. Add faith and it becomes a belief. Add action and it becomes a part of life. Add perseverance and it becomes a goal in sight. Add patience and time, and it ends with a dream come true. (Doe Zantamata)</span></span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, it is now 4.30pm. It has taken all day to get this house in order. I've changed the sheets, hoovered the whole house, washed most of the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, done several loads of washing and ironing, made soup, stole a truffle from my daughter's drawer (oops, that's not going to end well), and generally seized control of an escalating mess. Admittedly a friend popped in for half an hour and I've done a bit of blog hopping, but still....a WHOLE day basically doing housework. I've not even been outside. No wonder I am under-achieving. Has to change.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">This is my first step, with immediate effect. </span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<strong><em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I am going to fit all of the housework into my main working week, ie Monday to Friday.</span></em></strong></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Aside from the washing and kitchen chores which are ongoing on a daily basis, everything else will have to fit into that time slot, leaving the weekends free for quality time with the kids, and quality time for me when the kids aren't here. That should end the frustrating time-wasting at the weekend when I feel I should be cleaning, but I really want to be doing something more meaningful, and ultimately several hours are wasted drinking tea and looking at nonsense on the internet.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">However. I am a perfectionist and I actually like the feeling that comes from knowing the whole house is clean all at the same time. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to my comfort zone to do little bits each day, and then to not worry about it at all at the weekend. But that's a good thing. Challenging the comfort zones of my existing life is what this blog is all about. Identifying outdated patterns that no longer serve and which are holding me back and replacing them with ones that are going to propel me towards my dream.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I just took a moment whilst I was eating my soup (leek and potato with tons of black pepper), to reflect on that pattern of spending most of the weekend cleaning, wondering why that came about. Two reasons mainly, aside from being too busy in the week.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">First: When Andrew and I were together, I used to spend my whole childfree weekend living with him in Brighton. I used to go Friday night and come back Monday morning, to minimise the void I felt when the children weren't here. When he left, those weekends were interminable. Hours and hours of emptiness when I was too broken even to go and sit in a cafe by myself. So I cleaned. The whole house, top to bottom, every childfree weekend. It gave me a feeling of control when nothing else made sense.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Well, that pattern can be thrown out the window now. I am at peace with being alone and whilst I still miss the kids, I need the silence to recharge otherwise I wouldn't cope with the Tourettes.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Second: I rented this house from a friend who I met at sailing school. We got on really well, she met the man of her dreams and was in the process of moving away with him, hence she offered me this house at a very cheap rent. It's a 3-storey, terraced town house built around 6 years ago. I jumped at the chance - it was far more spacious than the little house we were currently renting, closer to schools and work, and she said I could have it for as long as I wanted. After moving 8 times in 8 years, it was a relief to think we could stay put for a while. She left lots of things here for me, mirrors, the odd bit of furniture, tools, bath rugs etc, and a few things of her own in the loft. Every now and then she would come over to visit us and take a few things of hers from the loft. Then she began to come over when I wasn't here and take a few things - always hers, but the bath rug would disappear, the loft ladders went, then some tools, her post (which I used to forward to her), and so forth.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">It freaked me out a bit. She never took anything of mine, but it was still disconcerting to come home and find things missing. Once she even left the backdoor unlocked. Then she started taking extra rent out of my account without telling me. Anyway, the upshot is that we fell out over the rent thing and haven't really spoken since. As landlords should, she continued to text and ask if she could come and get some stuff, but then she would come when I wasn't here. I began to feel uncomfortable and panicking about the house being a mess when she came, worried that she might use that as an excuse to chuck us out. So I made sure the house was spotless after the weekends, hence the weekend cleaning thing.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I can't really change things at the moment, but I'm going to let go of that fear of the house being untidy if she comes in. It is holding me back to spend the weekend cleaning, and I'm all about reclaiming my life back now. </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'll review this first step next weekend to see how well it has worked out.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </h3>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-30974162722104151522013-03-10T03:14:00.000-07:002013-03-10T03:14:00.023-07:00Procrastination again<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm torn this morning, between wanting to slob with my computer and make a few plans in accordance with the blueprint of my new life, and the dreaded housework.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">The pattern of my life is such. When my children are here, I don't clean much. Partly out of some earth-mother tendencies and guilt that I should be spending quality time with them (which usually translates to the odd word here and there to my daughter whilst she is facebooking/texting/twittering/scrolling pinterest/watching TV, and nagging my son all evening about homework). And partly because the Tourettes thing drains every ounce of my energy and if I can survive to the falling asleep stage without having a nervous breakdown, then it has been a successful evening.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">That means that the cleaning gets left to the times when the kids are at their dad's (Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after 6pm, and every other weekend). Being that on those two free evenings I am exhausted from the day job controlling dysfunctional 7 year olds, the cleaning doesn't get done then either. Mostly I make toast, eat crisps, let the cats in and out a thousand times, do the ironing and get lost on the internet looking at motivational quotes and other people's art.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Which leaves these childfree weekends. On Saturdays I like to have a stroll along the seafront, and park myself in the corner of one of my favourite cafes (I have several, depending on what day and time it is) with a bucket of coffee and the paper. It's another form of procrastination, of course, avoiding the real issue of what I should be doing, which is making plans, and more importantly, getting off my backside and taking some action towards improving my life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">And so to Sundays. Now I have a whole house to clean, three floors, three bathrooms, four bedrooms and a separate loo. The frustration sets in. Stupid woman, why don't you pace yourself through the week, clean a bit every day (I do, in fairness, clean the loos more than once a fortnight, and do the washing every day), then you would have a whole weekend to do more meaningful things. Like sit in cafes and read the paper.....or perhaps have a new and improved life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So, that is this morning's thought. One of the first things to address when I come to make my plans. Now...onwards with the cleaning. At least it's good thinking time.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-19059137089799080292013-03-09T14:22:00.001-08:002013-03-09T14:22:17.588-08:00Dreaming BIG<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult. (Madame Du Deffand)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Why is it when you crave chocolate, nothing else will do? Having removed most of the sugar content in our house in an effort to 'do something positive' whilst waiting for the Tourettes appointment, I now find myself opening and shutting the fridge a zillion times looking for chocolate. I have hidden some chocolate rolls in a cupboard for my daughter, but they are the jammie ones, and I don't really like those. The goodie drawer is now full of nuts and three packets of quavers, but I'm not in a quaver mood. Annoyingly, I know my daughter has a half-eaten packet of Thorntons Cocoa Dusted Truffles in her dressing table drawer. To die for. Only available to buy at Christmas it would seem (I have searched online, and everywhere is out of stock...even Amazon!) I bulk bought several packets at Christmas and shared them with my daughter, but sadly I bulk ate mine, while she practised restraint. And I know she will have counted them, so no chance of sneaking one. I have done so in the past and owned up, believing, you know, honesty is the best policy and all that (and knowing she would have counted them...) I still don't think she has forgiven me!</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So my dream life. I still don't quite know how I should be writing it down. Anything to do with the Law of Attraction states that you need to write dreams as if you are already living them, so maybe I'll use that as a kind of outline and then go into more detail around the planning part.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><em>I'm living in my dream house (dear Universe, please see additional blog posts for specific details) that I have paid for myself. I can easily afford to maintain it, pay the bills and have the money to decorate it how I want. It is a colourful house, full of love and laughter, and the oven works.</em></span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"><em> My son has grown out of his Tourettes and spends most of his time in the great outdoors, riding his bike and doing things that boys should be doing. He and his sister now get on great, and our family life is peaceful and full of joy. My daughter and I spend many happy hours creating together, watching trashy reality TV and sobbing over impossibly romantic movies. She has a wonderful boyfriend who treats her beautifully and he feels like part of the family. (If this life takes a while to manifest, then perhaps said boyfriend is now her husband and grandchildren are imminent).</em></span></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I am a successful photographer and an artist, making a steady and pretty decent income doing the things I love to do. I spend my days capturing beautiful moments for people to treasure, and creating art that inspires (with some dozing in my hammock and a bit of shopping).</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"> I have a greenhouse and a vegetable plot and chickens (and a gardener who looks like the guy off the Diet Coke ad), and I can afford to buy organic food instead of the Value stuff. I can even afford to have friends round for dinner. </span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I own my car and I can fill the tank right to the top with petrol and do as many miles as I want to.</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">At last I can afford to buy clothes...and jewellery...and shoes, and I can wear things that reflect me, not my overdraft. I shop at Fat Face and White Stuff and Joe Browns and go to Oxfam only to find quirky boho things for my house and to make art with. </span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"> I get my hair coloured professionally at the hairdresser's instead of messily in my bathroom and have a massage once a week. I can afford to belong to a gym and choose to do all the classes or not to go at all if I don't want to. </span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My cellulite has all gone, I am fit and toned, have pretty nails, and my feet don't look like horses' hooves. In fact, I'm not at all embarrassed by them.</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I have returned to dancing several nights a week, and am taking private tango and ballroom lessons (I have a dance studio in my house). I've got some very pretty dresses and some very sparkly shoes, and my daughter and I go on dance holidays all over the world (particularly to Argentina to tango with those smouldering latin types).</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My friends and I spend happy hours having lunch in vintage cafes, or curled up on squodgy sofas in coffee shops, discussing plans and ideas and life in general (and the guy in the Diet Coke ad).</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My cats don't eat caterpillars and then vomit them over the rug in the lounge, nor do they miss the litter tray and poo on the floor.</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm guessing that I really ought to insert 'find my true soulmate and live happily ever after' in here somewhere, but I'm a little disillusioned with men at the moment. If a grown-up, honest, committed man (taller than me, slim, plays chess, doesn't mind paranoid women with trust issues), falls helplessly in love with me whilst I am creating all of the above, I'll happily insert.</span></em></div>
<div align="left">
<em><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span></em> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So there it is. The life of my dreams. It probably doesn't sound overly 'big' in terms of dreams, I mean, I don't want a mansion or a boat or seven Gucci handbags or anything, but to me, right now, it feels huge.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Now I have to figure out a way of making that dream come true.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-16520224761050780672013-03-08T13:27:00.000-08:002013-03-08T13:27:48.143-08:00Procrastination<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130;">Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. (Walter Anderson)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I've been putting off starting this post all evening. I am a terrible (or should that read 'brilliant') procrastinator. I've changed the kids' beds, done the ironing, done a load of washing, pfaffed around on facebook, read some blogs, wandered aimlessly between rooms....</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Not that I don't want to give a voice to my dreams, commit them to paper or begin them, I do, I truly do, I'm just not sure where to begin, or how to write it all down. Should I describe my life as it is in the future, as if everything I hope for has already come true? Should I break down each area of my life, detail it as it is now, then describe how I want it to be? </span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">The good thing about writing this blog is that it really focuses the mind. I've never been good at keeping diaries, I can write for England when I get going (though having children has fuzzed up my brain somewhat), and writing it all down in a diary not only takes up too much time, but also too much paper. Plus, I can plan and set goals and write lists till domesday, (and I do so, year after year) but for some reason, when they're hidden away in a diary, I don't have any sort of oomph to make it all happen. As far as I know, no-one is reading this blog (except, perhaps, my best friend), but the thought that it is out there, for anyone to see, somehow makes everything real. This promise that I made to myself back on Day 1, now feels like I have shouted it to the world from the rooftops, and if I don't fully commit to this, then I am seriously letting myself down. It's like having someone nagging at me constantly, nudging me forward, a voice in my head that won't let up. I like it, this accountability. It's good.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've just done some more wandering, made some porridge (porridge? It's 8.30pm for goodness sake!). More procrastination. There's a fear looming here, isn't there? That's what this is all about. Think. Think. What am I so afraid of?</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">The gap between where I am now, to where I want to be, seems huge, insurmountable almost. What if I write all my dreams down and I can't do it? What if I just can't make any of them happen? What if I'm dreaming TOO big? What if I'm no good at the things I really want to do, the things that have been mulling around my head for years and years? What if the person I think I am inside has been hidden away too long, lost amongst all those years of trying to fit in, and now just completely incongruous to this life I have created? I'm scared, if I'm honest.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you want something very badly, you can achieve it. It may take patience, very hard work, a real struggle and a long time; but it can be done. That much faith is a prerequisite of any undertaking. (Margo Jones)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well. As I see it, there are two choices here. I can settle and wait for life to happen...or I can go for it. Push through the fear, have faith...BELIEVE... Do I still want to be in the same place this time next year? </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">No. I can be better than this.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-25004261219389555212013-03-05T13:12:00.000-08:002013-03-05T13:12:44.395-08:00Hectic-ness<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130;">The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore not to find out who you are, seek to determine who you want to be. (Neale Donald Walsch)</span></h3>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I love quotes. Always have. They inspire me.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Today I am grateful for a pocket of respite in a week that has been trying. A moment of calm from my son, almost 24 hours without a shriek. Though his other tics are still rife, it's the shrieking that is the most debilitating, a noise that drives all capability of thought and anything other than basic functioning, out of the window, it's so draining. He was asleep by 11pm last night, a vast improvement, meaning we were all feeling a lightness of step this morning.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I am still waiting for Camhs to refer me to the consultant. I was promised a call today that never came, so I rang them. Out on a home visit, doesn't work Wednesdays and a promise I will be called back on Thursday. How difficult can it be just to make an appointment? Just write my name in the diary next to a date. That's all I want. Five weeks ago, the diary was already fully booked until April, heavens only knows the waiting time now. </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Just hold on.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I am forever searching for solutions to this. I read last year that many of the symptoms of Tourettes are caused by allergies, so I went on a bit of a crusade, keeping a food diary, eliminating certain food groups...I just couldn't find a pattern, so I kind of gave up on that one. However, Milo's worst night this week (violent convulsions and ear-splitting shrieking, sniffing, grunting, constantly) was after he had had hot chocolate before going to bed. Out of desperation, I banned all treats from his diet over the weekend, filled up the 'goodie drawer' with nuts, replaced tea and biscuits with tea and hot cross buns, and made sure his blood-sugar levels were kept charged with carbohydrates. He was markedly calmer on Sunday, and Monday was shriek-free. Tourettes tics have a tendency to wax and wane in severity, sometimes changing completely in character overnight, so this repite may just be a coincidence (though we haven't had a 'wane' now since the middle of November). I also discovered that Milo takes his dinner money and buys chocolate from the vending machine at school instead of something substantial from the canteen. Seriously schools, why? Why spend a fortune promoting healthy eating and then install a vending machine in the school? Teenagers aren't responsible enough to make the right food choices. Good grief. I made Milo promise to buy a baguette, and he did on Monday (finished it in the car on the way home!) - and Monday was shriek-free! How wonderful if the sugar thing turns out to be a contributing factor. I shall pursue it.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Work has been hectic too. More teaching schemes to be introduced, more paperwork to complete, less and less time teaching the kids. I've spent less than half an hour with the children in my class in 2 days, instead having to prepare resources and do planning for a new maths scheme which involves half an hour of extra maths tuition and an hour of unnecessary preparation and endless record keeping for each lesson. Bah.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"> I got to thinking about the quote in this post. I do want to create a new life for myself, yes, that's true, but I also want to re-discover the spirit of the person I was in my twenties, wracked with insecurity, but bold and fearless in my endeavours, driven, optimistic, an achiever of anything I set out to be. I was selfish and self-absorbed then, not particularly mindful of people's feelings, leaving a trail of devastation behind me in my search for affection and security. Those parts of me I've left behind, I've learnt a lot and grown up since then. The free-spiritedness, the bold, the fearless, the driven and the optimistic twenties me, I want to rediscover, and add to the grown-up me who is aware, compassionate, loyal and inspired, albeit lacking an enormous amount of confidence, and weighed down by financial restrictions and fear.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So, now comes the real work. First I have to give a voice to the vision of the life I want to create for myself, being specific about the details. Then I have to dissect every area of my current life, identify what is and what isn't in line with my vision, and then I have to start making real plans to change things. I have to make real goals and take baby steps towards them always moving forward, always holding my vision clear, and commit, commit, commit to making this happen, until one day I wake up and find myself right there, in the middle of my dream.</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-12038983273095807532013-03-02T07:20:00.000-08:002013-03-02T07:20:32.811-08:00Holding on<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It's been a bit of a week really. The Tourettes has been an ordeal to say the least, coming at full pelt with no respite and lasting long into the night before my little man can finally fall asleep. We're all a little stressed and sleep deprived, and my daughter has come down with a heavy cold which isn't helping her tolerance levels.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Our only hope for help is Camhs - the child and adolescent mental health service. It took me 4 months to get a referral from my GP who basically wasn't that interested, and then our first consultation was a little wishy-washy - (so my dear, how would you like to spend our time this morning?) Um hello...I have a shrieking child. I can't fix him, otherwise I wouldn't be here....I was hoping you'd tell ME how we were going to spend our time this morning. Anyway, she promised to refer us to a swedish doctor who apparently is the bees' knees with regards to Tourettes. She tried to arrange an appointment on her computer, but actually couldn't work the computer. I eventually showed her how to email me a presentation she thought I would be interested in, and I left, satisfied that she would send me a transcript of our meeting and a subsequent referral appointment.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Fast forward 2 weeks and still no communication. I rang her and she said I needed to fill out a questionnaire over 7 days, grading Milo's symptoms before she could make me an appointment. Fizzing with frustration, I managed to stop myself screaming at her "why did you not give me this questionnaire 2 weeks ago when I was in your office?'. Anyway, I kept my cool and assured her I would duly fill in the form. It took 6 days to arrive, a faint, crookedly photocopied piece of nonsense - the information on which I had already sent her prior to our appointment. I completed it and returned it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Five days later, still no communication, so I rang again. This time she is on holiday for a week, back next Tuesday, and no, no-one else can fix me up with an appointment, but a message will be left on her desk to call me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I understand that there are funding issues here, and that all this jumping through hoops is a ploy to weed out those people who are really serious about needing treatment, and those who can live with it. I've lived with it for years and now it's unbearable for all of us. I feel at breaking point. Sleep deprivation does that to you, as any new mother will tell you.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So my mantra today is 'just hold on'. This too shall pass. After the storm comes the sunshine.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My dreams are still swirling around my head, I won't let go of the hope.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-51035396708292911632013-02-26T12:31:00.001-08:002013-02-27T09:36:49.251-08:00Gratitude<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some. (Dickens)</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'd forgotten how exhausting the first few days back into a new school term are. Was planning on writing a bit on this blog every day, to keep the momentum going and to stay focussed, but after a difficult evening with my son (super-stressed and shriek-crazy after returning to school after a week off), ...it just didn't happen. I'm tired again tonight, so words aren't flowing as I would wish.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I wanted to write about gratitude before I start outlining the dreams that have been swirling around my head for as long as I can remember.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So often we complain about our lot, whether out loud or subconsciously in the thoughts we have, when honestly, if we stop and take a moment, there are so many blessings to be found in our lives. Everyone is always grateful for presents they receive, an act of kindess or as a response to being served in a restaurant or a shop for example, but it is so easy to take for granted those every day blessings tied up in the mundane.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">After Andrew left I nearly drove myself insane re-living our whole relationship in my head, going over every conversation, re-reading every text, searching for answers to endless questions. Immersed in shock and pain and constantly analysing, I knew I had to stop before my life totally fell apart. Among the hundreds of books I was reading to distract myself, was one by Eckhart Tolle entitled 'The Power of Now' all about living life in the present moment and the happiness that brings. It provided solutions for dragging your thoughts back into the here and now when they spiral out of control into negativity. It worked wonders for me. Everytime I started analysing and re-playing conversations, I would speak out loud about what I was doing at that moment...'I'm just putting toothpaste on my toothbrush and now I am going to brush my teeth'....I'm driving along, changing into third gear now, I can feel the chill of the steering wheel in my hands, the sky is blue, oh look, there's a bird, hello bird, how are you today'.....etc... You feel like a complete dork, but it honestly works. At first I could only manage a couple of minutes before the questioning would start up again, but with perseverance, I soon managed to drown out the majority of the negative thoughts with positive out-loud chatter. I started to feel much better.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Soon after that I began reading 'The Magic' by Rhonda Byrne. Already a fan of 'The Secret' and 'The Power' by the same author, ( about manifesting the life you desire by changing your thoughts), I devoured 'The Magic', which is all about gratitude, and I can honestly say it changed my life. The book encourages the reader to start each day by writing down ten things to be thankful for, and ending each day by recognising all the good that happened in that day, and then finding the best thing out of all the goods.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I couldn't really find the time to write such a list every day, but I made a conscious effort to mentally say thank you for ten things every morning....thank you for my alarm going off so I am not late for work...thank you for the joy of hot water to have a shower...thank you for central heating so my house is cosy...thank you for my health...thank you for my beautiful children...and so on. It was an extension of dragging my mind chatter into the here and now, and I started to practice it every time I began to descend into negativity. It worked wonders. Soon I was applying it to everything I could think of and turning negatives into positives...thank you for the blue sky and the birds....thank you for my job, I am so grateful to have one when so many are unemployed...thank you for the money to feed us all every week (instead of ' why does the grocery shop cost so much?')...thank you for taking my man away from me because if that hadn't have happened, I wouldn't have been able to spend 3 undivided years with my children and have the bond that we now have....thank you for the gas bill because without it we wouldn't have warmth and hot dinners...and so on, you get the idea.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Very very soon, I started to feel real happiness creeping over me. I actually started to feel real joy for everything in my life. I've slipped a bit now on the constant deliberate finding gratitude, but I still start each morning with a big thank you for a new day, hot water, legs that work etc etc, and I always always end each day with a big thank you for all that is good in my life. It honestly has changed my whole outlook.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So, before I start concentrating on the dream life I want to manifest, I want to express my gratitude for everything I have already. For my beautiful, healthy children who bring me untold joy, for my own healthy body which stays healthy despite the rubbish I feed it, for the money I have that enables us to live in a warm house and buy enough food, for the car that transports us safely every day, for my precious friends, for the job I have that allows me to be there for my children, for my two cats who never fail to shower me with love, even when I get annoyed and push them away, for the gift of an intelligent and enquiring mind, for the drive and desire to improve myself and make the world a better place.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I am truly grateful.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-33361001341392241162013-02-24T11:02:00.002-08:002013-02-24T11:02:41.678-08:00Planning to fly<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them. (Walt Disney)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I'm posting a lot this weekend, and writing screeds. It comes from having thought a lot about this for several weeks and then having a week off work and now a childfree weekend. I am meant to be cleaning the house after a week of neglecting it, but hey. I wanted to get to a starting point from which to begin - to recognise what holds me back and to identify my dreams. From there, I can take baby steps, day by day, always focussing, always holding my vision clear.</span></div>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;"></span> </h3>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;">Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. (Goethe)</span></h3>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I want to put some photos in and add some stuff down the sides of this blog aswell. How difficult can that be to figure out? Hmm.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;"></span> </h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;">Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. (Henry Thoreau)</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A well-used quote but how many of us actually pursue our dreams confidently? How often do we get swept away in the tide of life for years and years until we lose sight of all that we wanted to be? How many of us have a real, definite idea of what we want, and a real, definite plan of how to achieve it? How many of us are just settling, conforming to a mainstream life of uninspiring jobs, hectic schedules, once a year (maybe) holidays, shoddy diets, sporadic exercise, snatched moments of quality family time.....tired, stressed, burnt-out, disillusioned, passionless, trying to fit into normal, societal expectations.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I don't want to be normal.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I've never really fitted in anywhere to be honest, never had that sense of belonging, always felt like an outsider looking in. It stems from those early days I guess - of being from a single parent family when it wasn't really that common...of wearing last year's shabby hand -me- downs when everyone in my class had the latest fashions and seemingly endless money to spend on clothes, make-up and perfume...of not really having that safe place at home where it was ok to make mistakes, to try things out, find my niche. I was just always a little bit weird, a little non-conformist, a risk-taker, a big dreamer.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Well, I am a little bit weird, and I'm ok with that. I'm not bothered about fitting in any more. What matters to me are the people who have stood by me for years, through thick and thin, and giving my children a solid, loving foundation upon which to build their own dreams. I've had so much loss and been crushed to pieces by people who have expected me to conform to their ideals. I'm taking a year to re-discover the person that I am inside, weirdness and all, and pursue my dreams. I'm ready to fly.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-33486431509405807162013-02-24T07:25:00.000-08:002013-02-26T10:50:10.643-08:00My starting place<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so. (Belva Davies)</span></h3>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My starting place. The platform on which I am standing from where I plan to learn to fly. It feels a little wobbly and not at all like a very safe place to begin. But begin I am going to.</span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">After Andrew left I fell to pieces. I carried on being a mum and going to work, as you do, but inside I was a mess. I cried for months and months. It felt like a bereavement. This man, the one I had been searching for my whole life, the one who day by day talked about the things we would do, the places we would go, the house we would share, his vision of us growing old together, the one who promised he would never let me fall. Gone. Without a backwards glance. No warning, just gone. A text the next day saying he would leave a parcel of my things outside my door. An email, a couple of perfunctory texts hoping I was ok, a delivery of a couple of books which he hoped would explain his dream (The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Jonathon Livingstone Seagull). It was a massive shock. My weight plummeted, I got meningitis, I started having panic attacks. It was as much as I could do to haul myself out of bed every day. </span></div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Three years on and I'm in a much better place. I recovered the weight slowly and not terribly healthily (more about my diet soon!) The panic gradually stopped, I read a million books, accepted that he needed to go and find his truth, and found peace with being alone. What I still don't understand is how love can just be switched off and that person cast aside overnight, as if their presence never had any meaning at all. My grandad did it to me twice, his own granddaughter, years and years of love just tossed away each time my choice of direction didn't please him. And then Andrew. It scares me so much and I wonder how I will ever trust love again or indeed, if I will ever find a man strong enough to deal with my fear of waking up in the morning and finding everything is meaningless. Anyway, that doesn't concern me right now.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">What else is on my starting platform with me?</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My family. All gone now. Auntie died of cancer when I was 13. My mum died of cancer when I was 27. My grandad died 5 years ago of various illnesses and old age. My stepdad remarried a year after mum died and skipped off up north with his new family without telling me (after 13 years being my dad). My mum's brother stopped talking to me (after 28 years of being a really close uncle) when my daughter was born, apparently because he sent me a card and I never rang to say thank you. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I'm starting to see now why I have a paranoic fear of love disappearing overnight and my presence meaning nothing in people's lives!</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">What's left is...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My two beautiful children. A daughter aged 16 called Tamsin. A beautiful, smart, sassy and confident redhead, so comfortable in her own skin it never ceases to amaze me, this jibbering heap of insecurities that I am! A son aged 13 called Milo. A crazy ball of energy, spontaneous, impatient and very loving. He has Tourettes Syndrome*</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">* A note about Tourettes Syndrome. The documentaries on TV about Tourettes are hilarious. Great entertainment. Living with it is not. Only 10% of sufferers have coprolalia and copropraxia (obscene words and gestures), and most documentaries don't make you aware of the host of other symptoms that don't make such great viewing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My son has had Tourettes since he was 6 years old. It started fairly mildly with a few minor tics and some funny noises and gradually worsened until, currently, his symptoms are relentless. He manages to suppress the worst of his tics at school, but the minute he gets in the car to come home he blows like a pressure cooker. He shrieks at such a pitch and with such an intensity it pierces your eardrums and shatters every nerve in your body. This he can do 50 times a minute and it doesn't stop until he falls asleep, exhausted, late into the night. All this accompanied by muscular tics which leave his little body convulsing and rigid, and various other loud noises.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">He also has frequent fits of rage, part of the syndrome, where he will explode over the slightest thing, lashing out, generally at his sister, followed by periods of remorse and self-loathing. His self-esteem is non-existent, and he needs constant attention and reassurance to feel accepted. He knows the impact this has on his family and that upsets him greatly.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Normal family life is very difficult. Watching television is an ordeal, as is trying to have a conversation. He will provoke his sister as soon as I leave the room, and most of my time is spent mediating and trying to prevent an explosion of anger. It is heartbreaking to lay in bed at night listening to him, wanting to scoop him up and make it all better, but knowing my presence will make him even more stressed and worsen the symptoms. It is draining and exhausting for a parent and even more so for a sibling. Thanks to Emma from <a href="http://www.tourettes-action.org.uk/">www.tourettes-action.org.uk</a> for her words of advice and comfort in the kitchen at a support meeting.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My friends. A handful of seven precious people. Sharon. My best friend for over 35 years. We met when my mum moved us down here and were inseparable for years until my quest for love and affection sent me into the arms of boys, and our lives took us in different directions. We could be so mean to each other when we argued, but oh...the belly laughs we had that still make me laugh out loud now. We drifted apart for a while but kept in touch always. I've never told her how much she means to me and how much I treasure our friendship. She was and is, the most amazing friend anyone could have and she put up with me throughout my selfish, self-absorbed years. How much I wish we lived nearer to each other. I love that girl. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My other friends, Brenda, Anna, Helen, Cliff, Kevin, Yung...met over the years through work and college and clubs. Treasures of kindness and support who have seen me through my darkest hours. Love them all.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Two cats. Romeo, a black and white lazy ball of fluff. He reminds me of Dylan out of The Magic Roundabout, a laid-back hippie cat. He's vacant, chilled, paranoid and a complete numpty. Poppy, his sister, sleek, black, the brains of the duo. She is an 'in-your-face' cat, demanding and needy. She became a little bit deranged after we sold all her kittens in the space of 2 days, which is fair enough. I guess I would be a little bit deranged too if somebody sold my babies!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">A job as a teaching assistant which fits round bringing up the children perfectly, but leaves a lot to be desired both financially and in terms of fulfillment.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My home. A rented house which is cheap and modern and spacious and in a perfect location for college, school and my job. It is owned by a flakey lady who gets caught shoplifting and never pays her bills, so the bailiffs are frequently knocking on my door trying to take my furniture (which is mine and not hers!) It freaks me out and keeps me awake at night and I never answer the telephone, but I'm not financially in a position to move right now.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">An overdraft and a credit card debt, a car loan, a bank loan and a bit of government support to top up my ridiculously low wage. I hate not being in control of my own money. I am so grateful to the government, of course, but they do crazy things. Like tell you you have been underpaid for a year, spend a year giving you more money, then tell you they have overpaid you and want it all back. Like immediately. Despite the fact that nothing in my life changed. And treat you like something the cat dragged in when you ring and ask for a payment plan. Out of my control. I hate the stigma. I hate being in debt. Those words from my grandad and the other ghost keep haunting me..sponger...parasite...liability. I feel intense discomfort receiving gifts, having somebody pay for me, even being invited to a friend's for dinner, because right now I haven't the money to reciprocate, and those words....always present. </span><br />
<br />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-59629988487348564912013-02-23T14:20:00.000-08:002013-02-23T14:20:07.726-08:00More ghosts<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My last post was really long, so I apologise to anyone who reads it. It feels good to spill the stuff that has haunted me for years, and to recognise that the overwhelming fear I have of only being lovable and loved when I am being what people want me to be, still affects every part of my life. It is, by far, the biggest barrier to me becoming all that I want to become, and I can't tell you how much I want to be free of that.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I don't really understand why my mum was so cruel to me. Things improved when I left home at 17 and travelled for a few years. She told me that the day I left, she sat on my bed and cried for hours. That breaks my heart. If I'd known she felt like that about me, I probably would never have gone away. We were never really that close even after that until she got sick - to be honest, I think I shut her out a lot, too scared to hope that we could be like a proper mother and daughter and too hurt by her cruelty when I was younger. I understand that her childhood was sad and she probably didn't know how to love, but when my first baby was born, all I ever wanted to do was show her how loved and wanted she was. I have never, ever felt the need to repeat family history. I'm appalled by it. I get that life was a struggle for her, as a single mum now myself, I really get how hard it is, but I will never understand how any parent can hurt their child, however many demons they may be secretly fighting.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I have forgiven her, of course, but I feel robbed of that unconditional love that every child deserves. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My second ghost I need to lay to rest. A few years ago I got into a relationship with a man which was wrong on every level. I won't go into detail, there's just too much wrongness to even bother. I stuck it out for over a year, believing that I could make it work, but one night when I questioned our future, he said 'you have 2 kids and no money, where can this relationship honestly go? You are a liability'.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I can't begin to describe how worthless his words made me feel. How worthless his words still make me feel on a daily basis. I ended the relationship after that. Of course.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Shortly afterwards I met the love of my life. A man who felt like home before we'd even started dating. My true soulmate who spent a year and a half telling me I was his soulmate, taking great care on a daily basis to show me that I was special and loved and safe and I never need worry again. We had our whole future planned. I started to feel a tiny bit secure, that I actually was worth loving. One night he told me that he needed to travel the world and he couldn't wait. Ten minutes later he walked out of my life and I never saw him again. He sent me a long email a week later to say that to travel the world had always been his dream. He promised me I was the love of his life, his true soulmate and that one day he would come back for me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">That was 3 years ago.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">So. My three ghosts. Ghosts that have left me feeling pretty awful about myself. It has taken me 3 years of intense soul searching to realise that security and worthiness are an inside job, and only I have the key. It feels quite terrifying and I'm not quite sure where to start, but I'm determined to.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-50278479318796087672013-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:002013-02-23T12:20:00.538-08:00A Messy Head<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My head is all over the place, a jumble of thoughts and emotions wanting to spill out of me so I can let them all go and find a place of calm. I've been thinking about writing this blog for a few weeks now, about becoming so frustrated with my life and its restrictions, and the restrictions I impose upon myself, that the desire to find a way to fly free is overwhelming. What started as a whisper is gathering momentum and turning into a shout so loud I can't think about anything else. I found this quote yesterday:-</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<div align="center">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Georgia;">Nobody wants to change until the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Nido Qubein</span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">This feels so true right now. Don't get me wrong, my life isn't bad at all, and I am truly grateful for the abundance of good in it. It's just that so much of it isn't me. It doesn't reflect who I really am. I am carrying around so many ghosts that I want to lay to rest and so many fears that I want to walk through. I can't remember the last time I laughed a deep belly laugh or bubbled over with excitement, or did something wildly spontaneous, or talked nineteen to the dozen because there was just so much to say, without a cloud of worry and fear. I feel heavy, like my spirit is crushed, like I am wading through rivers of treacle just trying to hang on and keep everything together. And I don't want to feel like that anymore. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">And so the ghosts. The ghosts of my childhood which have haunted me throughout my adult life. I'd like to think I am fairly intelligent, and heaven knows I have read so many books and spent so many hours trying to figure it all out. I know all about living in the 'now' and not dwelling on the past and not giving energy to thought patterns that I don't want to keep showing up in my life. The truth is, a bad childhood scars deeply and it isn't always as simple as it seems to let it all go, however much of the theory is amassed.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I grew up an only child, the result of my mum's affair with a married man, and my mum came from a long history of family abuse (physical, not sexual). She and her brother were beaten, their dad and his siblings were beaten, and I believe even the generation before that were beaten. I never knew my dad but I know he was the love of my mum's life. From the little information I know about him, he was a successful business man, tied to his wife financially and unable to commit fully to my mum. She waited ten years for him, then moved us away. She married my stepdad when I was 14, but I know she never really got over her one true love.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Mum wasn't an affectionate person. She carried a lot of bitterness from her childhood (the abuse, and her own mother had walked out when she was just 7) and having a baby out of wedlock in the 60's was frowned upon. She never really talked much about it, but she said she was disowned for a while by my grandad and his sister (who had moved in years before to bring up the children). The struggle to bring me up on her own turned her into a hard, cold woman and she could be quite cruel to me. I was often beaten. I don't really remember any affection from her at all except after she had beaten me. I try and I try, but I just can't remember ever feeling loved or safe or wanted. The overwhelming memory I have of my early years is always feeling like I was a burden, a nuisance, of my mum being tangibly annoyed by me being around in school holidays or being off sick. I tried really hard to be everything I thought she wanted me to be, but I just never seemed to get there. As soon as I could, I turned to boys, seeking the love and affection that I so craved throughout my childhood.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">My grandad and auntie though, I adored. I don't know when they patched things up with my mum, but I always remember happy times with them. I used to sit on my grandad's lap and he would tickle me and I would play with the wrinkly skin on his hands. I loved seeing them. My aunt was very victorian, very prim and proper and quite disapproving of young children, but I always felt loved by her. Until one day that all changed. I chose to travel instead of going to university as was expected of me. Overnight my aunt stopped talking to me and my grandad wrote me a letter telling me I was a sponger and a parasite, despite the fact that I had three jobs whilst I saved for my airfare, and I worked pretty much the whole time I was travelling. Their reaction shattered me. It seemed to me that I was only loved and accepted by my family when I was saying or doing the right things. Every time I tried to express myself as the real me, I was rejected. It hurt and the insecurity amplified within me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I eventually stopped travelling and got a 'proper job'. Grandad and auntie mellowed. I went through a ton of relationships, always moving on, searching, still trying to find security. I met the man who would become my husband, and three months into our relationship my mum was diagnosed with cancer. We married eight weeks before she died and I remember being crouched down on the floor in my wedding dress, sobbing, because in my heart, I knew the man I was about to marry wasn't 'the one'.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">Mum died when I was 27. We became really close in the eight months I nursed her. We didn't talk about anything deep and meaningful, but for the first time ever we did mother/daughter things - as much as we could while she was hospitalised. I painted her nails, we did jigsaws, we laughed and chatted about superficial stuff. It was a terrible terrible time, infused with moments of pure beauty and I thank god for those eight months when I truly felt my mum loved me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I stayed in my marriage for 8 years and had 2 beautiful children. It wasn't bad by any means, but there was no connection, no passion, we were more like brother and sister. That's another story. When I eventually found the strength and courage to leave, my grandad once again disowned me. He wanted a relationship with my husband and children, but not me. This time it not only hurt, it devastated me. In my mind, here was proof again that I was only loved when I was saying and doing the right thing. All the insecurities inside me came flooding to the surface. For 5 years I wrote to him begging and pleading for him to see me. His standard answer was 'he didn't beat you, so you had no right to leave him'. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;">I forced him to see me eventually, when he was very very sick. The first few times were awful, he did nothing but spit venom at me, but I persevered. When he was a couple of weeks away from death I was sat by his bedside, playing with the wrinkly skin on his hand, when he turned to me and said 'you haven't done that since you were a little girl. You've taught me what love really is.'</span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1790290887309496651.post-64344340605840123012013-02-22T12:52:00.000-08:002013-02-23T01:59:25.278-08:00TODAY IS DAY ONE<h3 align="center">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">YOUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES DON'T DETERMINE WHERE YOU CAN GO; THEY MERELY DETERMINE WHERE YOU START. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Nido Qubein</span></span></h3>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is my first blog post. I'm a little bit computer illiterate and have to confess that the whole technical side of writing a blog has me baffled. My 16yr old daughter set this up for me so far. As I evolve, I'm hoping my expertise will too, and I can make this visual layout a little more interesting!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I've been thinking a lot recently about truth and fulfillment. The soulful and spiritual kind. It dawned on me that over the years, through work and marriage and divorce and motherhood and loss and a broken heart, I have compromised so much of myself that I hardly know who I am anymore. The life I am living reflects very little of who I am on the inside, and that feels pretty scary.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then I got to wondering how many of us are actually being true to our souls on a daily basis. How many of us are trapped inside the lives we are living? Stuck in jobs that just about pay the bills but don't fulfil us? Living for the weekends. Days full of 'musts' and 'shoulds' and just snatched moments of the stuff that really makes us feel alive? When I sounded this out to my friends, it seems that whilst we are all generally happy in the grand scheme of things, a trickle of unrest is whispering...is this it?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I've made a decision. I want to live the life of my dreams as I have created it, with intention and purpose. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to see how much is possible when I fully commit to living my truth, to creating the life I desire as opposed to reacting to whatever life throws at me. I want to see if this quote is true:-</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #c27ba0; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The moment one definitely commits oneself - then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur that would never have otherwise occurred. Goethe</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This isn't about becoming rich and famous or having the best of everything materialistically. It's about starting from a place that feels restricted, frustrating and a little bit hopeless and journeying towards a life of truth and fulfilment and freedom. A life that, right now, feels a little bit like an impossible dream.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I want to document my entire journey for a year from where I am now (and I'll write about that gradually) to where I end up, having identified the life I really want, made real plans, overcome real fears and taken real steps towards making it all happen. I want this blog to be real and raw and totally honest - (I have issues and dark places, just like everyone), even if that leaves me wide open and vulnerable. I have no idea how many people will read this, nor am I really so bothered. This is about my promise to myself, my committment to being the best me I can possibly be, holding myself accountable by putting myself out there..... but a tiny bit of me hopes that along the way I can be an inspiration for other souls who are feeling a little bit lost too.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So...a deep breath.....today is Day One....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Verdana;"><strong> </strong></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09553877108930607375noreply@blogger.com0