Word for 2014

So what was your word to describe the year. What was your 2014 in one word?

What were you?

What thing happened to define the year?

What did you do that made it a special year?

Any purchases that were memorable?

Any relationships change?

Job change? House move?

So all these things have been churning round my head these last few days and I am trying to summarize my year in one word. 

I think I will go for "brave"

Brave because I spoke my mind more. Brave because I told the (often brutal) truth more. 

Brave because I asserted myself more. 

Brave because I took some risks at work more and tried different techniques. 

Brave because I allowed myself to be confident. 

Yes brave it is. It could be assertive, honest or courageous. But it's brave. 

What's yours?

Addicted

By some accounts, the average professional spends as many as 13 hours checking e-mail each week — almost twice the time time we spend reading. Or relaxing. Or socializing, even.

I think I fall into that category. In fact I may spend even more time than that!

It was only a few days ago, I confessed to my husband that over the past few weeks, I have become addicted to my smart phone. I am not playing candy crush or minecraft, I am organizing things, checking flights, texting friends, ordering a book on amazon and clearly reading and replying to work emails. As far as I can see being relatively efficient and productive. Yet................I can't put the thing down for more than an hour.

I read recently about a two-week experiment, where the researchers found that checking e-mail less at work makes people feel less stressed … and that feeling less-stressed correlates with a whole lot of other good things, including productivity, sleep quality — even the feeling that life has meaning.

To come to these conclusions, the researchers put together a pretty simple experiment. For one week, they asked a group of 124 e-mail-users to keep their inboxes open the whole workday and check them as often as they could. Then, for the second week, they told their subjects to keep their inboxes closed, turn off e-mail notifications on their phones, and only check e-mail three times during their work hours. During both weeks, the researchers sent participants daily questionnaires about things like how much work they got done, how they slept, and how stressed or nervous they felt.

Overwhelmingly, people answered the same way: When they checked their e-mail all the time, they felt stressed. And when they only checked it three times a day, their stress levels decreased.

Mmmmmm do I feel a new years resolution in the making?

Check email less. Put the phone down for multiple hours at a time.

Am I really addicted or just a heavy user?

Am I just productive and exaggerating the impact?

Anyone else in this quandry?

Coincidence - I think not

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

Someone told me this recently and was so passionate about the statement that it really stuck with me. They gave examples of seeming coincidences and explanations that suggested that they were not. The more I listened the more I started to get what they were saying.

I threw in examples of things that I felt were complete coinincidences and they would argue that the two things were connected. It was defendable.

It was funny to rethink my belief and I began to buy it.

Since then, I have increasingly started to believe that there are indeed no coincidences. If it feels like it is, then the dots just haven’t been connected.

Take yesterday for example, I was looking at my night desk and realised all three objects on the surface, where given to me by the same friend. I was so taken aback by this observation that I took a photo and sent it over, saying "Look at this, thinking of you!".

The message I got back was, "I am not suprised, that's because its my birthday!! How weird is that??? I really did not know that today was his birthday. Or did I somehow?

Did I somewhere have that piece of information in my brain database and when I saw the items, my inner brain waves made the link? Or was it really a coincidence?

Does this kind of thing happen to you?

So is a seeming coincidence, just a lack of connecting the dots?

Are there at times, paths that cross, always for reasons that are much more important than we think?

Basically do we call something a coincidence, just because we don't understand it?

Mmmmmmmmm thats my pondering for the day.

Thoughts anyone?

 

 

 

Assumptions and headscarves!

I received an email from a friend this week.

I hadn't seen her for a while and we have been trying to catch up but somehow not managed.
That said we bumped into each other last Saturday at the local pantomine! Oh yes we did (sorry couldnt resist!) and had a quick chat.

Then a few days later I received a note. One of the lines buried in the text said this:

"Have been meaning to touch base with you over last few days. I wanted to say hi and check in on how you are doing. Didn't know you'd been sick but am guessing you have been."

I replied quickly mentioning that I had had a tummy bug, but all was good now.

A few moments later, after sending it off, I suddenly realised that I had misunderstood the message. She would not have known about my tummy bug. So what was she referrring to? Had I looked ill? Pale? Dark eyes?

I then realised it would have been my headscarf. You see I had only met this friend during the week, after work etc, she had probably never seen me with my headscarf on!

I went on to join the dots. She was assuming that I had been undergoing chemotherapy and as a consequence lost my hair and was now donning a head scarf! Oh! The light bulb went on!

We had never talked about my hairloss nor had I mentioned I had alopecia!

I then quickly sent her another message asking her more about her first message.

And yes she had joined the dots up wrong, and I had missed the link!

So another alopecia moment.  And this one was actually a gross misunderstanding. I am glad I had the hindsight to see what I had missed and also I am glad she had the courage to not ignore my different appearance.

Assumptions and headscarves eh!

So the morale of the story, think more about a message that seems a little odd and secondly have the courage to ask when someone looks different.

 

 

Christmas tree

Today I went out and got our Christmas tree. I have to admit I was rather excited. I do like a bit of Christmas  tradition and seasonal cheer.

We are a little late this year due to the fireplace being replaced and causing a chaos in the living room, not to mention a shed load of dust. But I still feel we are early enough!

That said, today was the day, and my daughter and I went and picked a glorious one. Nice and tall and beautifully green.  It was a lovely day and loading it into the car and then putting it up at home was a breeze.

It did remind me of the Christmas tree we bought a few years ago in Montreal.

Like many people, we drove out to Quinn's farm, where following a ride on a tractor, you were let loose on their land to roam through the rows and rows of trees to pick your own. You would then chop it down yourself (or get a rather handsome young man to do it for you) and it would be brought back for you ready to put into your car back at the farm.

Sounds easy enough.

The first year we did this, I have to admit that we didn't really think about it. We just took it home and put it up in the living room. Just like we did today.

However there is a slight difference in the process.

The tree was standing in the field. A snowy field. And the tree was full of snow. When we got home we put it straight up and began decorating. What we missed, which sounds so obvious now, was the fact that although the snow had melted, the tree was soaking wet.

Over night, the tree decided to leak all over our living room floor. The floor was drowned.

Canadians were quick to point out that you always leave your tree in the garage for 24 hours before bringing into the house.

Well today that experience was very different, it was sunny and warm.  I did miss the snow and the Canadian winter, but hey my tree looked great within a few hours and the floor is still dry!

Being British

I am very proud of my roots. I am very much a Brit. My humour and my way of viewing the world has been massively shaped by where I was born and where I grew up.

When I read this, I did have a chuckle. It did resonate.

"Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture & watch American shows on a Japanese TV.  And the most British thing of all?  To be suspicious of anything foreign."

Just a light post to lighten the load this time of year!

Wreaths and womanhood

Last Friday night, I became a woman!

Intrigued?

Well it's a silly story really, but it does make me laugh.

A friend and I received a flyer at a recent farmers market for a "Ladies night" at the local church hall. Like with most flyers, I kindly accepted it, glanced at it, smiled and stuffed it into my coat pocket. My friend however, got all excited and said let's go. Really?

The flyer explained that it would be a night where Christmas wreathes and the like were to be created together with a group of women, and the highlight,would be a florist present to guide and help out.
The complication, you had to bring all your own material.

Well my friend was so up for it, I just agreed to come along, well why not, Friday nights are usually just for TV and sofa snoozing.

So off we went. The lovely ladies were so welcoming. Surprisingly we did not bring the age average down at all, as we had joked about. There were many mothers and daughters present, which was really very lovely.

The shop before hand most definitely was a highlight too, we really did not know what to buy, but as it worked out, we did a pretty good job, although we ended up being a bit short of fir tree branches.

As I was twisting the fir tree round my ring whilst wrapping the wire around, I realized  I was now a real woman, I was doing things my mother in law, will be so proud of! At the age of 42, I had now entered womanhood.


Here is the magnificient object...........

Mine is the one with the wonky candle :-)

So do you do anything that you define as womanly?

Have you been along to the church hall recently and joined in a random community event?

Fun night had by all!

Bah humbug or Merry reindeer?

I do love this time of year, the lights, the excitement, the count down and the planning. It is always accompanied with a dose of adrenalin as to how everything will get done before the year pulls to a close.

Whatever planning I seem to do, it is always a mad busy month with a big dash at the end to get everything done.

One of my favourite parts is picking out gifts for family and friends. I really enjoy thinking about who I wish to buy for and musing over what would they like. I then enjoy perusing the possibilities, often by internet these days, and looking at the different toys and books and thinking through if the ideas match the person.

This is only fun if there is enough time, doing any such shopping under pressure is just never fun. However doing it too early loses its appeal to me to. So in fact this week is the optimum week for finalising my gifts, to ensure they get shipped to arrive on time.

I realise this is not an enjoyable time for many people, the run up to Christmas is often associated with memories and traditions that can be plain hard and emotional. But somehow they seem to put on a brave face as the rest of the world is just so merry.

In our house, we have pantomimes, Christmas markets, christmas gift exchange dinners and work parties to enjoy this month, and that in between the roof renovations, the living room overhaul, the new bed being delivered and the christmas food planning for the family coming to stay! Oh and at work all the end year processes including doing and writing over 10 year end reviews. I get exhausted just writing it all down!

So how ready are you for the year end?

What are the top three things you still want to do?

How do you cope with this time of the year, if all you can muster is Bah Humbug? Anything you want to ask us Merry reindeers to stop annoying you with?

How are you feeling right now?

Take a breath, grab a few quite minutes and think about this, it might be your only chance to do it in the next few weeks