Archive for June, 2007
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Look at people who are very happy with life, or who have achieved certain things in life. One common feeling almost all of them share is self-belief.
If you believe that you are something, you may be right. If you believe you are not something, however, you are definitely right. When you think you can, you may be right. When you think you can’t, you’re right!
Once you start convincing yourself that you are destined to fail, once you start making excuses for yourself, your body automatically tunes itself to your mindset, and it will prove you right - you will fail! And then, conveniently, you go, "I knew it!" This routine, however, actually makes us unhappy and unsatisfied.
To the one who lacks self-belief, rejection spells failure, and a one-time failure spells permanent failure. To the one with self-belief, however, that is only a challenge. And he meets it.
Belief is an important prerequisite to success and happiness. And the first person who must believe in you is… you! When you do, soon, others will start believing in you too.
I believe in YOU!!!
(This piece is courtesy of JaneBond who writes on MySpace. The articles are lovely pieces she either finds, re-writes, or writes herself.)
Posted in A Little Thought | No Comments »
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
My mother found an old poetry book from our childhood. It has some really great poems in and I found this one, which was so lovely and simple and because it was about cakes even better!
I did try and search google for details of the author, Isabell Hempseed but couldn’t find anything.
RUFTY AND TUFTY
Rufty and Tufty were two little elves
Who lived in a hollow oak tree
They did all the cooking and cleaning themselves
And often asked friends in to tea.
Rufty wore blue, and Tufty wore red,
And each had a hat with a feather,
Their best Sunday shoes they kept under the bed -
They were made of magic green leather.
Rufty was clever and kept the accounts,
But Tufty preferred to do cooking.
He could make a fine cake without weighing amounts -
And eat it when no one was looking!
Isabell Hempseed
What a nice easy way to live!
Posted in General | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Now I love my sister, there’s no denying that. But you know, you really can go off people when you’re busy doing all the usual mundane jobs when you get a text like this . . .
"Hey sitting in Monaco sipping champagne overlooking the port with very very big boats eating pizza . . . what you doing?"
For the flippant amongst us (not me of course) you could say "I didn’t know boats ate pizza", but that is childish.
If this wasn’t bad enough a day or two later I received this text.
"Sitting in bed with cuppa waiting to have croissants and then day on the lilo at the beach close to a bar . . . what u doing?"
Wait, it gets better. The next one read . .
"Sunning on lounge on beach drinking a ’sex on the beach’ cocktail after having full body massage on beach waiting for my grilled sea bass served on the beach at a table under umbrella on the French Riviera . . what you doing?"
And finally . .
"One last brag b4i leave 4 Greece . . . On the lilo on the beach with the cocktail cooking in the sun",
followed shortly after by
"Last night at Nice dining at Casino Palais de la Mediterranee all jolly and full of food"
Yeah, right thanks I’ll carry on with the ironing and cleaning then shall I?
Posted in General | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
A friend’s daughter who is 3 years old was taken out for the day by her Grandma.
The little girl had asked to go to McDonalds, but had fallen asleep over the lunch time. When she woke up later on she asked if they were going to McDonalds, to which Grandma, who didn’t want to upset her said "oh they were closed darling, they’re decorating", which was obviously a little white lie.
This appeased the little girl and all was fine.
The next day Grandma decided to make up for the day before and took her granddaughter to McDonalds for lunch. As they queued to get their food, the little girl looked around her, turned to her Grandma and whispered "they haven’t done much decorating have they Grandma?"
Posted in Emma's Dilemmas | No Comments »
Sunday, June 24th, 2007
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Check out This Week
Bubbles - By our writer for A Parallel Universe
Smile & Eradicate the Ifs - By our guest writer for A Little Thought
Duh - By our writer for Emma’s Dilemmas
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I had another session of physiotherapy last week on my back. The whole session lasted no more than 15 minutes.
My physio is being kind. She said if she did any more than 5 - 10 minutes I would feel worse than when I went in. I had heard this about physiotherapy so was rather pleased about her decision.
I’m not sure how long I will be seeing her for but it looks like weekly appointments for the time being, which I am happy about.
I dragged the family out for a walk today even though it was rainy. I say dragged because when I mentioned wellies, coats and a walk in the woods no one wanted to go. I ploughed on regardless, made some sandwiches and ignored all the cries of noooohhhhh!
Even my husband didn’t really want to go, but he was doing it for me.
Guess what - the children enjoyed their walk. We have some lakes not too far away and we decided to walk around the outside towards the woods (Okay I decided.) We must have covered about 3 miles and it made it even better as one of the roads we ended up on led to a sweet shop. Always good for a distraction.
We were only out for about 2 hours, but for me it was precious family time. You see I’ve been spoiled by my own parents and nearly every weekend we were out somewhere or other.
My dad also used to play cricket so we went to all the matches which was great fun. Our home ground was great for playing around and so too were the away matches at lovely little venues all around the countryside.
I have very happy memories of childhood and I hanker after those times and want my own children to have those kind of good thoughts when they look back. It will probably be, "do you remember when mom used to drag us out at the weekends and we didn’t want to go?".
Still I am unfazed by their apparent lack of excitement, as I know they usually enjoy it when we come home!!
My daughter, at one point, asked to be carried through the woods, which I duly did. Because I had told 
her to wear wellies due to the mud, she kept asking me "where’s the mud?".
When we finally came upon it, she shouted "put me down" and promptly jumped in the first lot of mud, squealing with delight! Peppa Pig has a lot to answer for (in case you don’t know Peppa loves jumping in muddy puddles. If you click on the link, when you get to the site, then click on one of the flags, you’ll see what I mean).
The fresh air (although some parts by the water really ponged) must have done us all good and I hope to have a better nights sleep tonight for it. Well the children have all gone off okay.
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Sunday, June 24th, 2007
I’ve spent the last month in a haze of parental guilt and dealing with family crises. I am trying to juggle work and study with home and family and not doing so well, so this week I had an appointment with a family therapist. She helped with the guilt issues but thought I should make more ‘me time’. Good in theory, difficult in practice.
Especially when S has a new pastime of emptying any bottle of liquid he can lay his hands on. The toxic stuff…cleaning fluids and medicines…are all safely locked away, but over the last weeks he has been emptying shampoo, shower gel and skin care into his bath each night with abandon. Not to mention drinks and sauces over the kitchen floor.
Still, it saves me having to spring clean the bathroom shelf, I guess!
Posted in A Parallel Universe | No Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
If you have never heard of Allan Pease before, let me fill you in. What Allan and his wife Barbara don’t know about body language and communicating is not worth the paper it’s written on.
I first came across Allan through a company I used to work for where we used his body language video in the training sessions we ran. The ones we watched were quite 70’s in style but the message was and is the same.
It was a very funny video (even though now it probably wouldn’t be politically correct!) but with all the right messages.
They have sold over 20 million copies of their books in 50 different languages, so that has to tell you what a fan base they have, all those people can’t be wrong. Plus they do videos and audio. Take a look at their website and see for yourself by clicking the following link - peaseinternational.com
PEOPLE SKILLS FOR LIFE
Learn from the Body Language Masters! Simple, smart strategies designed to help you achieve success.
The network marketing business gives ordinary people the opportunity to build an extraordinary business. So with the right skills, motivation and a strong desire to succeed, you can accomplish anything.
Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
I must get to the computer more often. Although in fairness I have been attacking the accounts this week.
I didn’t mention in last week’s blog that, as a family, we went out for a meal to celebrate my sister’s birthday. This is something we haven’t done for years due to her not living in the same country as us! She doesn’t like celebrating birthdays as she’s always felt disappointed by them, which to me seems such a shame and something that I hadn’t realised.
Her friend, who is also over here at the moment, joined us for the meal, which made for a very warm, comfortable and lovely evening.
We decorated the table with balloons, presents and posters and then much to my sisters embarassment (not ours of course) the staff bought out a cake and sang Happy Birthday to her.
She did look daggers at me but I think secretly she enjoyed it (and to be honest I didn’t much care as it was about all of us celebrating her birthday - am I a mean sister or what?).
We left them all at the end of the evening with, for me, a tear in my eye. My sister and her daughter plus her friend and son were all going off to Europe for a mini holiday.
It was as we were leaving that I realised that the last time I had seen my sister’s friend had been 19 years ago and yet it felt as though I’d only seen her last week.
It was quite a smack in the face to think that so many years had passed and it left me feeling quite emotional.
It must have been that kind of week really.
I had a text from one of my very good friends reminding me that it had been six weeks since we’d seen each other. Although we send little emails and she’s never far from my thoughts I was staggered. We immediately rectified that and she came over Thursday night for a hug and chat.
We sat talking for nearly 4 hours!
And finally on the catching up front. We heard from an old family friend that we haven’t seen for well over 10 years. We normally send Christmas cards (mom and I) but he always gave excuses for not coming to see us.
He used to be best friends with my dad and another chap Ken. They were the Three Musketeers. Sadly my dad passed away 13 years ago and Ken not long after. I think that the reason for him not coming to see us that we may have been a painful reminder for him.
Anyway I did no more that contacted his wife and invited them to come over in a couple of weeks time. This means that he can see the whole family including my sister and her daughter. I am pleased to say that she was delighted to receive the invitation and I’m really excited by it.
It will be interesting to see what their reaction will be when they see my eldest son, as he has similar looks to my own dad.
So all in all a good week on the social front.
Posted in General | 5 Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
The world is very much a mirror. When you smile at someone, which is more likely - the person smiles back, or the person frowns or scowls at you?
Conversely, when you pull a long face at someone, what’s the likelihood that the person is going to smile at you instead?
When you smile, you make others smile, you make others happy, and in the process, you make yourself happy.
When you smile often, people like being around you and being with you. The overall feeling is that of warmth, closeness, and happiness.
You may not realize it, but when you smile, you are actually subconsciously telling yourself to be happy, that you are happy.
So, smile often. It’s contagious!
(This piece is courtesy of JaneBond who writes on MySpace. The articles are lovely pieces she either finds, re-writes, or writes herself.)
Posted in A Little Thought | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
We could spend hours thinking how every single little decision we made, or action we took, has affected how our lives are today.
It is fruitless and potentially counterproductive. Counterproductive, because, we become so caught up with wondering about what’s past, we lose sight of the present and the future. Think about the present and your future, what to improve and how to improve it. That makes a lot more sense.
The intriguing thing about life is, it is so dynamic and full of infinite possibilities, that we can never really know how one thing in the past would have affected the present
Sometimes, we assume that, with the benefit of hindsight, if we can change one thing in the past for the better, our lives today would be so much better. That’s not necessarily true. We have no idea how things would have panned out if we have taken that path.
Life is like a huge maze with infinite twists and turns. One little change in the past would mean we had taken a different route, and it would be extremely unlikely we would end up where we are today. Yes, it could have turned out better. Or it could be the same. Or it could have turned out much worse!
Perhaps you wished you had worked out in the gym when you were younger, so that you would be stronger today. But perhaps you might have injured yourself, and you now have to live with chronic joint pains every single day. Or you might have spent less time on your books, gotten worse grades, never gone to college, never gotten the good job you have now, and never met your wonderful wife while on the way to work one day.
The possibilities are endless. Quit wasting time wondering. You’ll never know.
(This piece is courtesy of JaneBond who writes on MySpace. The articles are lovely pieces she either finds, re-writes, or writes herself.)
Posted in A Little Thought | No Comments »