back to work

So today felt like the first day back at work.  Honestly I need a few days to clear the crap out of my office that had accumulated over Christmas.  My 'work room' had become the Christmas prep room (not entirely finished as I was mainly in bed with the Flu from 23rd-28th) and then we had house guests and gave them the master bedroom  - which meant that all the surface stuff that generally no one sees - got displaced to my much smaller work room.  And then the trip to see my family got tucked in at the end of the holidays - rescheduled due to my virus.  So instead of few days post New Year to sort it all out............Ah it was a veritable junk room this morning.  Its SO MUCH better now.  Though it still feels like a way to go before I am really ready for the new year.  But many minor tasks have been completed.  I can see the floor - and its been hoovered.  I can see my desk and I can sit my chair at it.  Definitely getting there.  But not there yet.  Sigh.  More to sort.  My art materials likewise have been in and out and off to do workshops and back, involved in some home made Christmas gift making and then not tidied away properly - all mixed up in different bags and all that.  But that is tomorrows task....  And I have applied for new debit and credit cards which will mean that all our tranactions will finally be coming out of the one bank which is no longer Barclays.  I will be able to get access to all of the figures and know exactly what money is going where.  We have childcare sorted for next week, an appointment set up with Bub's teacher and several playdates sorted.  My hotel accommodation is booked for my upcoming work and I have paid the first installment for the coaching course I am going on.  I have also had a long coaching session with my colleague Al who is skill swapping with me.  I now have a whole host of new avenues to consider but also renewed enthusiasm for a couple of my projects this year.  Bring it on.

Parenting is not easy today

Today my gorgeous son had a whole thing going that managed to make me totally lose my rag.  He was refusing to go upstairs and get his swimming things because he was scared.  However he would be fine apparently if I let him use his Nintendo as he climbed the stairs.  He was afraid of the window.  He would also be fine if I went up with him.  It escalated to a war of wills as I initially started off on the I will help him overcome his small fear and I will tell him I believe he can do this thing and insist that he does it.  Ah.  How wrong I was.  And how desperately he clung to the belief that he was truly afraid of the window.  Even though somehow the Nintendo would help him.  Or I could.  And I did lose my patience with him.  I took him upstairs to send him to his room where upon he was able without fear to collect his swimming things from his drawer.  I had to go into another room to calm down.  What was THAT all about!?  He is not at all afraid of the window anymore.  Did I do the right thing, the wrong thing.  I tried so hard to stay consistent.  And didn't.  He seems OK now.  But he managed to work himself into a right frenzy of "I CAN'T!!!!" with wailing and weeping and shaking involved.  Sorry Bub.  I love you, but that threw me completely.  Apparently a friend says her 8 year old can also freak out about going upstairs alone sometimes.  Its not as if it is very far - our house is a tiny cottage.  Sigh.  I wonder what if anything he has learned about overcoming fears.....

I did at least realise that gosh - our own fears - are so often pure figments of our imagination that we feed and believe in so sincerely.  Recently I saw a photo on facebook that someone had taken of me sometime when I was about 21.  ah - if only I had known I was so beautiful then.  There I was all perfect skin and dewy eyed - but looking off kilter, a little sad, a little uncertain.  I know I did not feel beautiful.  I know that I was very unsure of myself.   And I often I still am  unsure of myself. Feeling that same feeling....afraid...  - but why?  what of? Seems to me that these fears are fabricated beliefs.  They are the "Scary Windows" my son was so very intent on believing - so powerful and believeable that he was totally stalled and unable to act.  And yet, a whole bunch of nonsense - created to stop us doing something or other  - that if we just breathed deeply and did  - those fears would evaporate immediately.  

Lesson:  Just do it anyway.  Its all fabrications.  Just scary windows.  not real.  not lasting.  Feel more Sure of that and of yourself. 

Panto

Its a totally British thing.  Pantomine.  Ludicrous and brilliant and awful and wonderful.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  Thank you Peter Pan at Eastbourne.  Its a bit like going back to childhood.  You kind of know what to expect, its got songs and bad jokes and you get to shout and cheer and boo the baddies.  ace.

So am off to Suffolk tomorrow for our second Christmas.  Really looking forward to spending time with the folks. 

a wish list for 2016

 I don't write resolutions.  I write a wish list.  I figure if I just write down things I wish would happen then at the end of the year I can look through and see which of my wishes came true.  I know that much of the time it will have been me that made them happen.  But I have been doing this for a while now and sometimes I get some really cool wishes come true.  LIke the time I got the "someone pays for me to go to Ibiza on holiday" one.  That happened.  Out of the blue.  I am going to put that down again....

This Year 2016 I WISH

Bub is happy & healthy
The guinea pigs are happy and healthy
We all have good health
An end to war in Syria
A family trip to Iceland
I pass my coaching exam
a great 50th birthday party or 5
for confidence and to be highly valued
a Holiday to France (in the hot sun!)
The art retreat I organise is really succesful and brilliant
Work goes really well with Lucy
Get Stuff Done club prospers
We get our loft room done without any hitches or glitches
We get a new kitchen and its fab
I win a big prize on the premium bonds
We are in credit and manage our budget really easily and well so that we have resreves set aside for known and expected expenses
We get the house painted pink!
We get a new door and its beautiful
Someone gives me a campervan
Summer weather is good and kind when we go camping
I get lots of great interesting work and am really well paid for it
Hub gets lots of really great interesting work and he is really well paid for it
I get to go on lots of art retreats and yoga retreats
I sell a big painting
I sell lots of paintings
I host a regular art journaling session and do one day introductory sessions that are really popular
I feel really in FLOW and that I am moving forward and that things are moving & progressing
People (really great people) seek me out and ask me to work with them - I do & its FAB
I seek out really great people to work with me, they do and its fab
I figure out how to make the Art Journaling / How to be A StARTist really work.
I get an artists studio.  Its beautiful.  I love it.  I paint in it lots.
I get a new iphone.  I win it somehow!
We work it so that we dont have to go to supermarkets for food any more  - in a good way.
Someone pays for me to go on the Prague Art retreat with Orly et al.
Pedicures are part of my life
I do yoga everyday and at least one class a week.
for something magical to happen that is so good and yet so unexpected it feels like proper magic
We somehow get enough money to move into a bigger and better home for free
The noisy neighbours at no 23 move out.  Oh and when they do I buy their house and gut it and do it up really nicely and we rent it out as a holiday let
I get a van with a bed and a cooker and a woodburning stove a bit like that woman at DCE
I go to Croatia and have a fabulous trip
Oh! yes the art retreat in Italy is brilliant!!
Me and Bub go to Italy and its an ace holiday
Bub gets really passionately into stuff  - like drawing and music maybe
Hub takes up Yoga
Christmas is brilliant - no one is ill and everyone gets what they want and has an ace time.
We go to live performances often and see some amazing art
Film club lives again
I get paid £16,000 in one month
Magical stuff happens
I love my work and my work loves me
Magic money comes my way
I do stuff I really enjoy doing and I don't have to work to earn money
A great 50th Barbeque trip  is had by all
We go to Chestnutt Cottage for a week's holiday
WE get a piano
Our Kitchen extension thing happens and I get a big table
Life feels good, purposeful and interesting

Planning for NYE

So am getting there, healthwise.  Still feeling dizzy and peaky though.  Got through the day on near normal energy but had to have a nap at 7pm ish.  Really needed that.  Being sick is pants.

On other news we are getting Guinea Pigs for Bub.  Well he is 8 now and loves animals.  Am rather a fan of Guinea Pigs to be honest  - they were my first pets too.  I am concerned about them though - being warm enough.  They don't have winter coats because they have been born and bred and lived indoors.  Hope they are OK.  There really isn't anywhere away from drafts in our garden.  I bought a huge tarp to cover their hutch to help keep them warm.

And we actually have a plan for NYE.  Some friends are coming to visit from London.  They are into cooking and so already we have a feast... in fact we just have to do the lamb and buy nice bread.  They are bring snacks and starters and dips and wine.....  I am going to make a Jamie Oliver recipe of lamb roasted with aubergines and onions with a tomato sauce.  Or something like it anyway. 

Wish I felt 100%.  This has to be my most wine free Christmas ever!

And then its kind of all go till Bub goes back to school.  We have a trip to Easbourne to go to the Panto then up to Suffolk to see my folks and do Christmas there....

Getting my Energies Back

Thank GOD I am feeling better.... not totally, still a bit dizzy and needing the occasional sit down (lie down) to regroup.  But definitely feeling more able to DO THINGS.  I hate being ill.   Luckily I am not ill often.

So, here this blog is and always was a little bit of a tracker.  And its that time of year to do the reflection stuff and the looking forward stuff and goal setting and all of that.

I am definitely going to give the Whole 30 a punt quite soon for example.  So I will track that progress here and share how I get on.

The whole working lots, then Christmas - then SICKNESS - thing has made the house feel out of control and I need to tidy up.  Especially in my teeny tiny workroom.

I need to  do a sale of paintings as I have too many and I want to paint more.  I really ought to sort out the bookshelves too.

I have a lot to do.  Feels like too much! haha! So I need to do a review of it all and work out what to do when and what can really wait.  The clear up part of it can't wait.

We will be back on the whole tracking of the budget thing in January as that part of Christmas went into some kind of orbit financially.  Though I do admit I got some very nice gifts! I kind of like being like that  -splurging extravagantly then spending a while afterwards tightening the belt.

Before I do the Whole 30 thing I am going to be spending most of January doing the "finishing off things I started" stuff.  Which will involve eating a lot of the stuff I have lying around - rice mainly - I don't eat it much and for some reason I have lots of packets of it.  Things like that.

Ah well, you know me, just thinking on my fingers.  Type and think.... no strategy here...  Laters! am off to tidy!

Sick for Christmas, Health Kick for New Year?

So  - I have been really sick this Christmas.  I still am.  I am feeling  a bit better.  Hence I am writing this..... also it has to be said that since this morning I have not been able to utter a word.  I lie.  I have been able to breathe a few words out.  But even that hurts so there have been few.  And I feel starved of the ability to communicate.  I started writing a really long response to someone who asked how I was feeling on facebook and I realised it was because I hadnt been able to talk all day.  It reminded me of when I came back to the UK after my first foreign exchange and it was just so easy to chat, I chatted with everyone who would listen! no more having to really concentrate to say and understand simple things....

Today has been like me writing notes, my family not being able to read my writing, or needing glasses before not being able to read my writing.... sigh.  I mainly just used sign language or just didnt say anything. 

I have a sore throat.  A very very sore throat.  I really thought I would be better in a day.  But I really have been ill.  And missed a lot of what I was looking forward to this Christmas.  It wasn't totally bad.  I opened gifts I ate Christmas lunch.  I watched Dr Who and Strictly Christmas special.  But no socialising and lots of naps because my energy tanks after a wee while. 

 So here I am blogging again.  And also, its that end of the old year start of the new one.  And I have been thinking.  One of the things I am going to do is "get good at making speeches" - I found myself, in my head, advising someone I am working with to do this,  and realised that perhaps I should listen to that advice myself.  I have some opportunities to talk about my Creative Processes and how that can relate to being more creative in general... and that is going to be my start point.  Secondly I like a bit of a health challenge.  Last year i gave up sugar for 8 weeks - that book "I quit sugar" did it for me.  A friend was doing it and I felt I wanted to try it.  Also at the time, my husband was prediabetic and doing nothing about it and I felt helpless.  I figured I could see how hard it was, or just do something instead of wishing he would (hasten to add that he has now changed his eating habits immensely and credit to him) but primarily it was this mission I had for myself about "building strength" I felt it would build a kind of strength of mind.  Actually since then - no one in our house really eats sugar any more.  And its actually really easy.  SO this year, I am thinking of this Whole30 thing.  Its just 30 days.  And you can't eat a lot of things.  Like no sugar (easy!) no grains, no legumes, no alcohol, no dairy.... am assuming no cafeine, no additives.... so its pretty full on.  But I have met one person who tried it and loved it.  And one person in real life is enough to make me at least want to try it.  I do have a nutribullet now.... and it would be a challenge.  Am a little daunted.  At the same time quite keen.  What do you think? I'd love to have some Whole30 buddies...