Wednesday 13 October 2010

Do you ever not feel like it? And by it, I mean anything? This week in particular I've found with each day my mo-jo has ebbed a little bit more and I now feel totally lacking in any motivation whatsoever.

I was full of the joys of...umm...autumn last week. I was enjoying getting the house sorted, had a few projects underway and was generally fairly bouyant. I was certainly much more tolerant of the children who this week I'm struggling with. Maybe it's the turning weather, or that I'm now two weeks into an 11 week stint of single-mum-som, or the teething 7 month old. I just feel so tired.

Blimey, I sound so fed up, even I'm fed up of how fed up I am, how's that for irony! haha!

So, here is my challenge, my one woman self motivated for the unmotivated challenge. I have written the to do list (it's oh-so-long) and I'm am getting stuck into it every lack lustre step of the way and I hope that with the spotless house, entertained children, kitchen full of groceries and projects completed I might find my mo-jo and feel like actually getting up in the morning instead of spending the day counting down till I can feasibly crawl back into bed. We'll see!

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Are you listening?

Every Tuesday afternoon I go to a Healthy Families learning session. I don't really need to go, but they have a free creche and it's an hour and a half of time to myself and I get a hot cup of tea and a natter with a lovely bunch of ladies.

Yesterday we were discussing stress (I scored so high on their little test there wasn't a bracket for me - which is alarming, but y'know, I won't stress about it, ha!) personalities, despression etc, and where to go for help. It was a very insightful lesson and made me think a lot about I percieve myself, and how others do. I know I'm loud, and quite brash at times, and I'm ashamed to say that I'm one of lifes interrupters, not because I'm rude and think what I have to say is more important, but because I'm excited to say it. I've recently noticed this in myself and I'm trying to sit back and listen more. So it was rather apt that at the end of the session we were given this poem.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving advice
You have not done what I ask

When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way
You are trampling on my feelings

When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problems
You have failed me, strange as that may seem
Listen! All I asked was that you listen, not talk or do - just hear me
Adive is cheap; ten cents will get you both
Dear Abbey and Billy Graham in some newspaper
All I can do for myself; I'm not helpless
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless
When you do something for me that I can
And need to do for myself,
You contribute to my fear and weakness

But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel
No matter how irrational
Then I quit trying to concince you and can get about the business
of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling

And when that's clear, the answers are obvious
And I don't need advice
Irrational feelings make sense
when we understand what's behind them

Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes for some people
Because God is mute, 
And he doesn't give advice or try to fix things
"They" just listen and let you work it out for yourself

So, please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk
Wait a minute for you turn
And I'll listen to you


I don't know who it's by, so can't reference it, but it's rather profound and already today which helping out a friend I've had this poem in the back of my mind and I just listened and let her talk. I hope it helped.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

When the mind is willing, and the body is not

In fact, the mind is barely willing too.

It's a question of conditioning really. I need to get back into the swing of things. I am itching to get stuck into the quilt for BabyF, but come 8pm when I've done all I need to do with the kids, and all I want to do with the house, there just isn't enough juice left for me to do anything but mellow out on the sofa! Hopefully next week.

However, I can still make progress with the granny square cushion for MissM, only a few more to go and it's quite nice to take myself off to bed and hook myself to sleep (I don't get much done before sleep takes hold admittedly).

And that is exactly where I'm off to now.

Saturday 2 October 2010

Blogging: An Education

So, I am now a member of British Mummy Bloggers. Why didn't I find that place a couple of months ago at the beginning of my blogging journey? I would have found my feet so much quicker. I'm so far just trawling through the discussions trying to soak up as many tips as possible. I still very much trying to get to grips with all this, on the face on it, it seems I'm doing ok, but then I'll read something about blog hopping for example and think "whaaaaaaaaat?"!!

This blog, for me, serves as a memory. I'm not keen on just burting out the ins and outs of my day, but I try to find something of interest that I could write about. In the most part, my life can be pretty mundane, and certainly not photo worthy. But right now, it's a place to put the great moments of the day for the people that can't be here to share it with me, so do I include everything, what if there are too many great moments, do I still stick to the 'story'? Ack!

I know I've got a long way to go, I'm new to the community (and what a lovely community it is) so I'm just learning at the front of the class hoping that I'll get it eventually and people will like it.

We shall see.