a time to laugh…

I shall repeat what I always say… ”We’re all different”… and one of the aspects of that is this : what I think is funny may not even make you smile!
My children regularly come to me crying with laughter about something, and I just can’t feel it 😛 I’ll smile, shake my head, and say, ”nope”.

We all need regular smiling and chuckling time. It really is good for the soul.
I love the laughter that bubbles from deep inside me, and actually ends up giving me a stomach ache.
And you’d be the one shaking your head when you saw me, because you probably wouldn’t find it that funny.
(But you’d end up laughing till you cry… AT ME 😛 /with me 😉 )

This morning, I really needed to smile.

So off I went to my ‘Facebook funnies’ folder on my phone. I decided to share just a few (gosh, who knew I had so many!) with you…

HOPEFULLY there is at least one in here that will make you smile… or even chuckle, as an added bonus 😉

I hope you all have something this weekend that brings you happiness, and a reason to smile and laugh! ❤

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Brain Train

I know there are healthier ways to get my brain going in the morning, but there’s nothing like those first three cups of coffee in the morning for me 😉

A few mornings ago, as I was dreamily drinking my first cup, my thoughts began to take shape. I am sure someone somewhere has shared something similar in the past, so I am not taking full credit for what I am about to say – I can’t declare it an ‘original thought by Meg’, because it’s entirely possible that it’s stored somewhere in my self conscious :

Instant coffee and filter (brewed) coffee both serve the same purpose (in a way) because they both have caffeine in them. But they don’t share the same amount, and instant coffee generally tends to contain half the amount of brewed coffee.
So, if there is nothing other than instant to drink, you’ll still wake your brain up and experience some form of energy boost…. but apparently it won’t be AS good.
Instant coffee has already been through a process, and all you have to do is add water.
Filter coffee requires some time while it goes through the process to make it drinkable.

It got me thinking….

There are days where I run on instant – do what I have to do, don’t challenge or feed my mind and spirit – basically just get through the day. An autopilot rush of sorts – safety being the only thing I intentionally accomplish in my comings and goings and runnings around.
But there are days (more often than not, thank goodness) where I run on a ‘brewed brain’. I intentionally seek small ways to feed my mind and spirit throughout the day.

At the end of all these days, no matter which course of action I have taken, I am tired. The difference comes in my level of content and sense of accomplishment.
And, to a large degree, how I feel about myself.
On ‘instant’ days, I seem to be more inclined to get into bed feeling frustrated and irritable and disappointed in myself. I feel like I have let myself down and wasted a day – while still being aware that some days are more difficult than most, and as l close my eyes there is a determination to ‘do better tomorrow’.
On ‘brewed’ days, there are no thoughts at all at bedtime! Ha ha! I simply close my eyes, with a smile on my face, and drift off feeling like I am the most accomplished person in the world (and I am not, I can assure you 😛 )

But this analogy has a twist!

In an effort to be a little less hard of myself (which is proving itself to be rather difficult at times 😛 ) I have realised that on the instant days, I need to first stop and consider why my day was like that to begin with! Doing that has brought me to this conclusion :
Sometimes running on instant goes beyond what I can control. It is based on schedules that need to be kept due to my responsibilities and therefore there simply isn’t initial time to brew. My mind then flitters to the memories of small things throughout the day: small things that I acknowledged thanks about, or small things that I may have done even in auto pilot mode… and it suddenly dawned on me!

I say it a lot : it’s the little things that count! We all know that little things can equate to something huge!
And when I stopped myself from thinking I had wasted the day in my ‘instant’ mind, and truly unpacked what that day had contained by recalling the little things, the ‘brewed’ smile filled my soul!

There was also the acknowledgement and appreciation for this small fact : the more we do things intentionally, the more we ‘train our brain’ to be able to do them, even when we are not aware that we are! 

Happiness is! 😉 

And now I need to go and have that third cup of coffee 😉 Thank you for reading ❤

Pressure to Perform

This happens to me pretty much every morning. Most of my days are usually quite productive though, but I never seem to get through ALL I would like to accomplish on any particular day. Some say that this is because I set ridiculous expectations of myself when it comes to ‘things I need to do’. I like to say that when it comes to what I do each day, I like to make every day a Norman Vincent Peale day! Every morning, with my first big, beautiful cup of coffee, I think about what I’d like to achieve. And although I accept the realities, I still list those many tasks. I shoot for the moon, and then every night I smile contentedly because I know I have at least landed among the stars! (Yes, my house has a roof and no, I don’t live in the sky 😛 )

Admittedly, a lot of these beautiful early morning coffee goals for the day end with me feeling something like this :

This is partly because of all the running I do. No, not running as in exercise. I don’t run. I don’t even jog. So if you ever see me running, you should run too, because that means something is chasing me.

(I don’t know who originally came up with that quote, but according to the hyperlink it was Kristen Proby. It seems it was used in her book, and the name of the character who said it? Meg! Although that Meg is described as a sexy rocker chick 😛 but having the same name still makes it mighty coincidental 😉 )

By running, I actually mean driving around in my car for what I count as too many hours in my day, playing Mom’s Taxi. There’s the school run, and then there’s the extra curricular activities run. During the extra run, I usually end up hanging around in my car for a couple of hours. I live about 20 minutes away from where her activity takes place, but fuel (like everything else) is very expensive, and I don’t see the sense of driving back and forth in such a small time frame. My daughter is a dancer – she has been chosen three years in a row now to represent our country at World Champs. So I guess I’m a dance mom (just nothing like what you see on that show!) The joke in our studio is that we all ‘live in our cars’.
(We have a non-existent public transport system, and the little of it that exists is far too dangerous to even consider.)
So from the list, I usually select things that I can do from the discomfort of my car.

The reason I am telling you all of this (other than the fact that these were a collection of Facebook pictures I had liked and saved, and discovered and was amused at how they all kind of fit together?)…..

These days there seems to be a lot of pressure to perform. Whether it’s as complex as achieving some greatness and stature in our careers, or as simple as being a ‘better, closer to perfect’ parent, the stresses that come from this overwhelming pressure can be detrimental to our health.
The sad thing is that it is not only society or other individuals that put this pressure on us. We have a tendency to do it all by ourselves, to ourselves.
We push ourselves into overachiever mode, in an attempt to do more and be more. For me personally, this is related to the fact that I am often told I can’t, I won’t, I don’t.
And so there is this itch inside me that often causes an ‘overdrive’ scratch…. the results are usually less than desirable, and I wind up in a place that is nowhere near the achievement goal I had set out for myself.
I don’t go into overdrive as often as I used to, thank goodness.

I have learnt that my brain has limitations and that sleep is necessary. I can never be effective if I am dead on my feet.
I have learnt that it is sometimes necessary to take a step back when I am feeling stressed. To breathe deeply and think carefully. And use the energy that stress can create in a positive way – controlling the stress instead of allowing it to control me.
I have learnt that having a to-do list and planning ahead in certain circumstances does not make me a nerd, or detract from my spontaneity. Instead it prepares me and creates a better environment in which to perform.
I have learnt that sometimes acknowledging the small wins can open doors to greater things.
My biggest obstacle, I know, is to ask for help. When there is pressure to perform, the best thing you can do for yourself, is to ask for help (even if it’s just with menial tasks). For some silly reason (perhaps because I have always been the carer and helper, and it feels weird to ‘have the shoe on the other foot’) I struggle to reach out and ask others for any form of help. I really need to work on that!

I always end my night like this though, no matter how the day behind me unfolded….

Are there any of these that you struggle with?

 

One Lovely Blog Award

The rules are as follows :

# Each nominee must thank the person who nominated them and link their blog in the post.

# They must include the rules and add the blog award badge as an image. 

# Must add 7 facts about them.

# Then nominate 15 people! 

A big thank you to the lovely SFR for this nomination. I really do appreciate it, and hope that my 7 random facts below do justice to the award.

7 Random Facts About Me

1. My first car was eight years older than me – I’m not joking. She was a beautiful gold Ford Cortina, named Goldilocks, of course! I also got my first, and only, speeding fine in her. The traffic cop commented to me that he didn’t know she could still make it to that speed. I, in my youthful innocence (19 years-old at the time), replied, “Oh, she can go much faster.” He laughed along with me when I clapped my hand over my mouth after realizing what I had just said, and I took my ticket, and went on my merry way.
2. I have never been afraid of heights – I still don’t think I am, since I absolutely love being in a ‘flying bird’ and staring out the window. But I recall immense fear, and the feeling that I was going to fall, when I walked along a very narrow path in the rock face of a cliff, to see the view pictured below. No hand rail, and the path was only about two feet wide. So yes, I was scared, as I leaned as close to the cliff as possible to reach the cave at the top.
3. I have a problem with feet – and not in a foot fetish kind of way. I just don’t like mine. I am still not really sure why, because they’re quite delicate and I have fairly pretty toes. But I prefer to keep them covered, and when I am wearing summer sandals and I notice someone looking at my feet, I feel like I am going to curl up into a ball and die right there. Most of the time, I am walking around in socks. And if I am in socks (or on the very rare occasion, barefoot) I have a tendency to walk on tip toes.
4. I love the rain, and sometimes when I am out in it, I’ll even do a little hop and skip across a parking lot, while singing, “I’m singing in the rain….what a glorious feeling, I’m happy again!” ….much to my children’s embarrassment.
   (Yes, you may not want to take me anywhere on a rainy day!)
5. My two drinks of choice? Coffee, and water. Yes, water. I drink too much of both. And yes, there is such a thing as too much water…water retention and all that stuff, you know. A normal water drinking day for me runs at about 0.79 gallons (3 liters). Add to that about 8 cups of coffee, and it’s no wonder my belly constantly sounds like the sea!
6. One of my favorite smells is vanilla. I love it! My kids get nervous when I bake – which I like to do quite often. If they have a friend over, they avoid the kitchen at all costs. They just know that in between batches and baking time, Mom will be sniffing that bottle of vanilla extract like there’s no tomorrow. I have vanilla room spray, vanilla body lotion, vanilla body wash, vanilla hand soap etc. I suppose it is safe to say that I smell a bit like vanilla too then.
7. I have never seen snow in ‘real life’ – so yes, I have never made a snowman, or had a snowball fight, or had the pleasure of making a snow angel. Neither have my children.
   I have also never tasted eggnog.
   Both of the above, for me, are ‘American things’ (I am aware they happen in other countries too though – but it’s a me/America thing)
   We DO get snow in my country, just not really near me – and when it is ‘near me’, it’s always at a time when work and school prevent a trip to see it. And it doesn’t cover the earth like a blanket. The US in winter is a big part of my bucket list.

 

(I can’t take credit for any of the above pics, as they were all selected via Google Images)

I nominate the following people (but please, no pressure to participate, promise!) :

And please check out their blogs if you’re still reading this.

Saving Without Scrimping

Random Catastrophe

Bibliophile

Read Between the Lyme

Mother of Necessity

Just Call Me Elm or Something

A Thomas Point of View

t0bec0nsidered

The Scruffy Guy

SincerelyReine

The Bee Sneeze

mylifeinmywords

Yes…I know…there aren’t 15, and I apologize for that. I also apologize if I left you out. Exclusion is not a part of this, and I really didn’t mean to!

EDIT : If you read this post, and your name is not on the list, then please consider yourself nominated. Unfortunately, my brilliance only kicks in after a good few cups of Java – so now no one has to feel left out.

Happy blogging, everyone!

*Please don’t forget to head over to Endever Publishing Studios on Facebook and cast your vote in the short story competition. You can only vote once, for one story. My story (I’d appreciate your vote) is Contestant 1, “Shoebox Sanity” – if you scroll down the page there, you’ll see it. To vote for it, you need to ‘like’ that particular shared post.

While you are there, please also like the Endever page – there is another writing contest coming up that you may be interested in. You can also follow them here on WordPress and keep an eye on what they are up to – I am sure you won’t be disappointed. Thank you.*

Let’s Do This!

I saw the above picture in one of my moments of mindless Facebook browsing, and the Nike slogan popped into my head, “Just Do It”!

Suddenly my curious mind realised that I have no clue as to the origin of that slogan. Curiosity killed the cat – grateful I am human, or I would have needed more than nine lives – and I was surprised to find that the slogan is based on a death. Well, sort of, anyway.

Apparently the guy who came up with the slogan remembered something from a case back in 1977. A man was sentenced to death after robbing and killing two other men. As they led the condemned man to face the firing squad, he was apparently heard uttering, “Let’s do this”.

The words were altered, although the meaning is pretty much the same, to “Just do it”.

I feel unprepared for a situation I find myself in. In fact, lately, I am facing a lot of things that make me feel like I am the Queen of The Unready. (It’s great to fantasize about being a Queen of my own kingdom and all that, but the other feelings that go with the title are not so great.)

I find myself procrastinating, questioning and hesitating when the tasks before me actually need to be done. I find myself whining to my dog about how unfair life is, and all the reasons why I just don’t want to do the things I have to do – and detailing all the reasons I am so Unready.

And sometimes I think my dog understands.

This morning, with a mammoth task before me, I stood in the kitchen and sipped my coffee, complaining yet again out loud about why I didn’t ‘want to’. And in trots dog. And I mean ‘trots’, because he had a prize in his mouth, and he tends to display show-horse behaviour when he’s bragging about prizes. The prize? A page from a magazine he’d been tearing up. The page? On one side, an ad for Nike.

Yes, Dog…… Just Do It. And so I did! Ah yes, the little things that inspire the mind to accomplish the great tasks. The furniture has all been moved around, and I can cross that off the list. Only another ten things to go – and there are no more magazines lying around for inspiration. I guess I’ll have another cup of coffee 😉

Hello World!

In the world of blogging, your first blog post could make or break you. (Or so I have read.)  The pressure is on! Of course, amidst this pressure, there were other important events taking place.

The dog has been stung by a bee, again. According to ‘legend’, a bee in your house indicates that you’ll be getting a visitor – oh hell, I hope there isn’t company coming. My dining room table is bending under all the clean, folded and ironed washing from yesterday – To-do list activated : put away the clean clothes ‘sometime’ this morning.

The glass jar of coffee in the cupboard has been attacked by the Coffee Critters and is now empty. When I have finished this cup, a trip to the store is in order – To-do list paused, shopping list in my head begins.

A quick glance down confirms that I have yet to get dressed – switch lists – priority on to-do list. I doubt the other shoppers will appreciate my fluffy purple pyjama’s as much as I do.

My preteen is hungry. Again. Breakfast was an hour ago. How much food can one little body consume? And how come the body is still so small after all that food?

Without further ado, I bid farewell to you – I need to beat the other human (teenager) to the bathroom if I’m going to shower and get out to refill my coffee jar!

Hello World, indeed!