Category: happiness

One of those days …

Please excise any serious typos  – there, I made one already, excuse came out as excise – I am injured. Not seriously. Hardly at all in fact, just enough to make typing a hit and miss affair. This morning has been one of those mornings when a couple of things happened to knock the day slightly off kilter and then you’re waiting for the other thing to happen. You know… disasters come in threes and all that. Although mine are more mishap than disaster, but still…

First thing happened when I was barely awake. Actually, no, that’t not right. First thing happened while I was still snuggled under the duvet. I missed the snow! I’ve been waiting all winter and the first real smattering we have comes down before I’ve opened my eyes and by the time I’ve stirred, it’s gone.

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(This is from 15th January for illustrative purposes. It lasted all of 5 minutes as did last night’s –  apparently).

I thought back to last weekend when my two-year-old grand-daughter, who has never experienced snow but is obssessed with it, had a long, forthright argument with me during a heavy hailstorm. She was entranced, kneeling up at the window eyes alight with amazement, mouthing ‘It’s snowing, look it’s snowing!’ in such a small voice overcome by the wonder of it all. We all tried to tell her they were hailstones, but she held firm and fast to her fantasy, and we finally agreed, yes, it was snowing.

Disappointed, I got up and went to the bathroom. We had a West Wing marathon last night and as I came out I was still drowsily thinking about it all when I was brought up short by a searing pain as I trapped my finger in the door and caught it on the edge of the catch. After all the usual squeezing of said finger while hopping around shouting and receiving no help – as always when disaster strikes, everyone has headed for the hills and you realise you’re on your own – I looked down and saw blood dripping down the bannister, pouring from my nail bed as my finger throbbed. Those cartoon disasters came to mind where a character gets hit on the head or hand and a huge lump forms and throbs in lurid colours.  It was a tiny cut, but you’d have thought that at the very least my nail and fingertip were missing, what with all the pain and blood.

Please note: there really should be an image here of my injured finger, but I spared you the sight of it. (You wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway without floodlights and magnifying glass! – ed.)

I made it to the kitchen and thrust my finger under the cold water in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. It carried on. I couldn’t get to the plasters in the cupboard without leaving a trail of blood the likes of which you only see in episodes of CSI! I grabbed a clean tea towel and held it around the finger but every time I tried to release it, the blood gushed. Honestly, it was the tiniest cut, you’d need a magnifying glass to see it. (Told you! – ed.)

Finally, my husband returned from his cycle ride and managed to get a plaster onto the finger. Crisis over. I listened to his usual recounting of where he went, how many miles, how fast, who he saw, punctures etc etc (well, listening might be overstating it a bit), as I got my morning juice out of the fridge and a straw from the cupboard. Intending to seem fascinated, I turned to ask him a question and…

I caught the straw with my sleeve, the jar went over and before my husband had even managed to remove his helmet and cycling shoes, he was on his knees dealing with the second disaster: sticky orange liquid was oozing across the kitchen counter, down the cupboards and fridge, soaking into the hanging tea towels, the leg of my jeans, the tops of my trainers and across the floor!

And then:

There were no ripe bananas for my breakfast smoothie! Now I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is so insignificant as not to be worthy of a mention. But in the context of my morning, this really is a disaster. They were green as green could be. So I decided to use avocado and just put things together and see how it turned out. I had some coconut milk that needed using up, a kiwi fruit, some romaine lettuce. A little wheatgrass powder. I imagined a vibrant green smoothie. But I couldn’t leave well alone and I added blueberries and açaì powder. I got khaki! And it was so thick I could have taken a knife and fork to it! But it tasted a lot better than it looks, really it did. Recipe here.

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So that was my morning. My husband fared a little better, he is back cycling after a 9 month lay-off following an accident and a broken arm that needed some metalwork. But he posted a birthday card to his cousin and then realised he’d forgotten to put the stamp on. Then of course he had to start washing floors and cupboards and jeans when he arrived home.

But I think the worst disaster is still to come.

The final episode of West Wing. Nooooooo!

Ps But the sun is shining!

Copyright: Chris McGowan

A Quiet Saturday Doing Nothing Much – until…!

It began early. Too early! My husband decided that as there was a load of logs being delivered at any time today as well as the possibility of a family visit, he’d better get up at the crack of dawn to make the juices, light the fire, have breakfast and get to the shops as soon as they opened. No matter how ‘quiet’ he tries to be, I always wake up and this is never a happy start to our day: I don’t react well to being woken up, whatever the hour. I need time, lots of it, to come to, review my dreams, make an inventory of my aches and pains,  work out what day it is – always a tricky conundrum during school holidays because I don’t have the school children or school traffic to at least give me a clue as to whether it’s a weekday or a weekend. I don’t usually manage much sleep –  Morpheus and I are mere passing acquaintances – so when I do slip into slumber I like it to last as long as possible.

So his getting up even earlier than usual is not an auspicious start – the usually full-throated blackbird hasn’t even warmed up his vocal chords yet!  I want to stay supine for as long as possible, in order to gather my strength and my wits ready for the possible onslaught, I mean visit, of my lovely grandsons who usually like to invent some kind of medieval torture to inflict on their doting grandma – their favourite ‘game’ at the moment is Demon Dentists! They seem to have grown out of spies and pirates. We have a playroom full of cardboard instruments of torture designed by them over the years (see Creativity is Contagious), usually after a visit to the local ruined castle and of course used only on yours truly – I don’t know how Grandad always manages to get away with it!

We haven’t seen them since Valentine’s Day and I was looking forward to the annual Easter Egg frenzy, I mean well-organised, leisurely garden hunt (I swear they only love me for my chocolate 😉). So was Grandad, you’ve never met someone with as sweet a tooth and being well-brought up, they usually take pity on him and donate a small portion of their Easter booty.

But at 8.22 our daughter rang. This couldn’t be good news. It wasn’t – or it was, depending on how you looked at it! She couldn’t get the boys moving – the youngest (not that young) wanted to travel in his pyjamas!  The oldest didn’t thnk it was worth travelling all that way just for a couple of hours. She would try again during the week.

Ok. So I’m up but not dressed, I’m still in ‘coming to’ mode, when my husband gives me this news. I was off the hook, my sentence to torture has been commuted, but I am disappointed, though I understand. They’ve had a busy couple of weeks. The oldest had performed in a play, they both had violin exams, they just want to chill. But I’m up now. I sip my hot water as I look out on a damp, dark sky that looks leaden with rain, and groan. No sun then. I should have stayed in bed.

Nevertheless, I gird up my spirits (?!) and decide to go in the shower, wash my hair and see what the day has to offer by way of compensation. I love a scalding hot shower! It eases some of the kinks in my muscles and I love the total privacy of it, no interruptions, no extraneous noise, just quiet contemplation and a cocoon of hot, relaxing water. I let it cascade over me and muse about the new day ahead.

I go back to bed! I can’t face drying my hair, it can do what it likes, I don’t care. Bed is warm. Bed is quiet. Bed doesn’t require any effort. Bed doesn’t make me look at dark clouds. I can close my eyes and shut everything out. Just for a few minutes.

An hour later, I get up – again – and in passing the mirror I realise I made a huge mistake. My hair is standing on end! I mean literally standing on end.

Throughout the following hours, I don’t know what to do with myself. I was all geared up for chatting and playing. The house had been cleaned and tidied,  I had even discovered my husband cleaning the big kitchen window – wow, everything was so sharp, so clear, I had begun to think I was developing cataracts! – raw chocolate eggs had been made…

The day needed recalibrating but I didn’t know how to do it.  I write a post, I watch a recorded episode of NCIS, I contemplate the woodburner – a  very calming ‘activity’, I highly recommend it – I watch my husband going back and forth, back and forth with a wheelbarrow full of logs. I watch the rain and feel sorry for the people fighting with umbrellas in the wind and am grateful that I am inside contemplating the woodburner!

I would have watched the cycling Tour of Catalunya, but we prefer to watch the recording so we can fast forward the ads and the boring bits and besides, my husband was otherwise engaged with a log store.

At one stage my daughter texts me to say her oldest has just come downstairs and asked if it was too late to go to Grandmas! We’re now looking to Tuesday.

And so we arrive at dinner-time – pasta since you ask – and our evening date with a  boxed set of The West Wing.

Except, well…

My husband goes to the utility room to fetch something from the freezer and…

A flood happened. Not the freezer, the drain under the sink. Silt and water flow along the vinyl and he gets everything out from the cupboard, shines a torch, dons rubber gloves and begins digging out the silt. A tremendously heavy downpour had coincided with him emptying the bath and this was the result.

Except that turns out to be only the half of it. I look over to the door leading into the small extension we use as a playroom/craftroom and groan. When we open the door, we discover the flooded drain is just the apéritif: the flow of silt-sodden water has found its way into the playroom and the carpet is sodden. I groan again. And again. My husband is right royally fed up. It’s getting late, dinner is half-prepared, he’s been stacking logs most of the day, he’s tired and hungry and this is what he faced.

And do you know what bugged us most? Last autumn, we decided we would raise the floor in the playroom, it’s taken us years to get around to it. For some reason the previous owners had added the extension but it was a step down from the rooms it led off. So finally, we decided to bite the bullet and raise the floor as well as some other minor alterations. We decide we’ll do it in February this year.

Only we didn’t. If we had, it would have created a small step up from the utility room and the flood would have been stemmed before it reached the playroom!

The best laid plans and all that.

The next couple of hours are spent cutting out carpet and clearing up.

I put photos of the flood on Instagram to show the family. I half-seriously asked ‘What to do now?’ My son wrote back, ‘put a couple of convector heaters in there.’

Oops.

I’m not sure how to relay this to my husband. He has just come in, in short sleeves, cold and damp from dragging a sodden carpet out to the garage, which is all the way around the side of the house and up at the top of the drive. He is exhausted and hungry. He has locked up and is standing at the stove, ready to start over with dinner. He opens the pasta. The packet splits in two and the contents hit the floor.

The heaters are in the garage.

Copyright: Chris McGowan

“a life to which I feel myself a stranger.” -Swiss Long Rider Ella Maillart

A welcome update from Marc on his Long Saunter South through Central and South America, where he raised money and awareness for children in orphanages and special needs schools, and news of Red, his faithful steed!

vaquero's avatarThe Long Saunter South

Several months ago I returned home, to my loving family whom have been there with me every step of this journey. Still, months later it does not feel real. Taking in what happened and feeling out of place in my home town. It can be hard to process the changes that occur, not only within but the advances in the “civilised world” wifi, fingerprint recognition, smart phones, faster connections and no, I am not on snapchat. A lot can change in four years. Life seemed a lot more simple out on the road ….. however, I am not missing the chicken soup.

Lotus-Root-Rice-Bean-and-Chicken-Feet-Soup

Red, my horse, I am reliably informed is doing well, I wake every morning thinking of him, sometimes still disorientated enough that I jump up shouting his name, looking for him. He is safe and healthy with the wonderful family I got to spend time with in Ecuador…

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Creativity is Contagious – Pass It On!*

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Thank you, timelesswheel for nominating me for this award, I am a little taken aback as I am a blogging novice and I feel I am still serving my apprenticeship! It did, however, inspire me to write a post on creativity and health:

Creativity is a basic human instinct, a need. We all need to express ourselves and if we repress this instinct or we are not given the physical or emotional space to do so, we can become withdrawn, resentful, introverted, insular, develop disease or depression, become frustrated and even angry, often hurting those close to us.

If we are not creative how do we progress as a society?

Being creative doesn’t mean you have to be an artistic or writing genius or require other people’s approval for your efforts. Doodling is being creative! Making a meal is being creative. Constructing medieval weapons or a castle out of cardboard for your grandchildren is being creative!

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One blogger, scribbleartie, makes lovely whimsical images out of ink blots and soap bubbles, she is still working on her technique and loves having fun experimenting. She also takes everday items that have been discarded and turns them into works of art.

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My son-in-law gets great pleasure from stacking logs and has recently studied Norwegian methods of creating different shapes out of these stacks from a book he was given for Christmas.

My husband, who was never interested in food, cooking or nutrition, now spends Sunday mornings communing with bread dough.

I like to make cards and paint rocks, you can read how to in these posts: Monday Meditation: Mindfulness and Rock Painting & How To Paint Christmas Card (or any) Rocks & Taking A Break

My first efforts were nothing to write home about at all, but as with anything, the more you do it, the better you get. The benefits to your wellbeing of mindfulness, of being completely in the moment, having fun through being creative, are many and varied, from increased self-esteem to a strengthened immune system and improved mental health.

Watch a child unihibitedly splashing paint on a large sheet of paper: she doesn’t ask what colour she should use or what shape she should make, she doesn’t feel she has to keep within the margins or hold her brush a certain way – heck, she doesn’t always even use a brush, her fingers and toes will do!

Go on, free your mind, let it wander where it will, pick up a pen and write a silly story or poem for your children, or even a letter the old-fashioned way; or grab a pencil and sketch the cat or the dog – it can be a cartoon or as surreal as you like; find a pair of scissors, some images or card and some glue; grow some plants or vegetables; look at the clouds or the embers in the fire and see what shapes are developing, what thoughts and images do they conjure up? Arrange some garden flowers or twigs in a vase. Pick up your camera, go for a walk. Build a bike from recycled parts. Meditate, find your inner creator.

Take a leaf out of timelesswheel’s book, she had no idea why she wanted to write a blog or what she wanted to say. She just started writing and is still finding her voice and her creative eye in her photographs. And we are enjoying watching her do it.

Give it a try. Express yourself. You will be so much happier and healthier for it.😊

Now *I* have to get creative and come up with 5 things about myself:

  1. I have pens, pencils, paper, scissors, glue in every room I or visiting children use
  2. When I can’t sleep, I create new recipes for juices, smoothies or raw treats
  3. I love watching children playing, talking to themselves and being completely focused on what they are doing or being
  4. At school, I was no good at art, sewing or knitting nor did I ever have a cookery lesson, yet these became my main pastimes in adult life.
  5. I think maybe I should buy shares in Caran d’Ache! Their watercolour pencils are so soft and have such depth of colour, I can predict a growth in their future sales!

Here is my list of recommendations for creative blogs that I hope will inspire:

Thethomastimes – encouraging children to be creative

Watching the Daisies

BrewNSpew

http://spiritualfoodie.org

http://katyhadalittlefarm.com

Storyville

http://susanrushton.net – beautiful photography

About

*Albert Einstein

 Copyright: Chris McGowan

Versatile Blogger Award!

Thank you to the kind scribbleartie for nominating my blog for this award! Her blog is all about crafting trash into treasure and she does some lovely delicate and whimsical ink blot paintings too, have a look!

In accepting this award, I am tasked with listing 7 things about myself and nominating other bloggers whom I judge write with integrity and on a variety of topics.

So, the hard part, 7 things about myself:

  1. After being vegetarian for 39 years and after a few attempts during that time, I became vegan a year ago.
  2. I once worked at Woolworths, mostly on the cosmetics counter, but sliced my finger on the bacon slicer when standing in for someone else. (And people wonder why I’m vegan!)
  3. I gained a First Class Honours Degree with The Open University in my early 40s. An amazing ‘University of the Air’ founded by the Labour Government of Harold Wilson in the 1960s.
  4. My husband and I spent our first date looking for my contact lens!
  5. I once saw Paul McCartney and Wings for 50p when they turned up unannounced at uni and asked if they could play their first songs. They played their single ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ several times. It was banned by the BBC.
  6. My dad’s first car was a black Morris Minor 1000. I have no idea how we got 2 adults, 4 kids and a dog in it!
  7.  Our first car was a green Morris Minor 1000 and our current car is also a green Morris Minor 1000 but not the same one, we had a blue one in-between!

Now to the blogs I recommend:

Pioneering the Simple Life is the most inspiring blog I’ve read. Posts and tips about living sustainably, about their experiences in Nepal and building an underground network of individuals to provide and transport vital supplies to villagers following the devastating earthquake there.

Organic Guinea Pig blogs about physical and mental health, providing recipes and lifestyle advice as well as having a Pet Therapy business working in schools, pyschiatric units, care homes and so on.

From Pyrenees to Pennines is a lovely gentle blog of posts and photos about the English countryside (and weather!), historic places to visit – including continental towns – as well as musings on geneaology and other everyday topics.

Itching for Hitching I have never been caravanning nor ever had a desire to do so, too claustrophobic for me, but this Australian blog makes me smile every time I read it.

Mandy’s Running Blog illustrates that life doesn’t have to start slowing down once you reach 50! Far from taking things easy, Mandy has become an ultra runner mainly up the hills of Vancouver, Canada!

Natural Juice Junkie Neil Martin writes a very informative but acessible blog on all things to do with health, nutrition, juicing, motivation, lifestyle coaching.

The Vegan Family blog recipes and beautiful photos from the woods in Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Our Green Nation is a group of individuals who pool their expertise to help empower us to make decisions on health and lifestyle with informative, factual posts on education, environment, food regulations, the role of Big Pharma and Agriculture, sustainable living, recipes etc., plus posts on mindfulness, thought for the day and so on. A great read. I learn something every day.

Cooking Without Limits has wonderfully simple vegan recipes, try her Raw Vegan Cheesecake all done in the blender.

That’s as many as I can manage. Apologies to other bloggers that I follow, I have tried to include blogs you may not already be aware of.

Copyright: Chris McGowan

Finding the Happiness Inside

This morning, my husband is as happy as Larry. His old friend is back and he is beaming from ear to ear. After a difficult 6 months during which his friend has been away having some extensive work done, the smile is back on his face and he is looking forward to having new adventures together now the old dear is looking and moving like new. The old friend? His Morris Minor, of course!

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1963 Morris Minor 1000

It is his pride and joy. It is just back from the workshop and after spending a long time taking photos from every angle, he went off to sweep the garage before putting it to bed! My daughter remarked, ‘He’ll be wanting a blanket for it next!’ They have spent many hours together, stopped by the side of the road changing spark plugs or coils, come pouring rain, blizzards or sun.

For my husband, having the Morris Minor back has relieved a little of the stress of not being able to get back on his bike while recovering from an accident.

Finding what lights up your happiness gene is so important to your health. We all need something that is ours, that we schedule time for, that we can lose ourself in and that just for a while helps us distance ourselves from the the stresses of work and family problems, from the pain of illness or disability, from the worries of the world in general.

For me, it’s making cards or colouring whilst listening to music or an audiobook, or even just watching the birds in the garden on a sunny or snowy day.

My son loves going cycling for miles, in any weather, testing himself on the steepest of hills, he also loves creating a mess in the kitchen 😉, while my daughter loses herself in large sewing and knitting projects or walking the hills with her labrador pup.

What is your passion? What lifts your spirit, re-energises you or helps you regain perspective when it all gets a bit too much?

A long time ago, in the dark depths of serious health problems, I didn’t know how to lift myself from the mental mire of trying to cope with it all without any outlet.

Two things happened.

A little girl came into our lives and I discovered ‘Simple Abundance’ by Sarah Ban Breathnach, a book that is now dog-eared from over-use.

The little girl had 2 loves in her life, Barbie and The Spice Girls (‘but not Victoria!’). So we created a scrapbook of pictures that we cut out and glued of everything to do with these topics: photos, clothes, shoes, concerts, anything. I loved it. Those moments were precious.  I still have the scrapbook.

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It had been so long since I had done anything remotely creative or crafty. 

My son and daughter were the artists in the family, and although I had spent a lot of time with them on various art or craft projects when young, I never felt able to do so once they reached teenage years a) because I was rubbish by comparison b) I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to compete or detract from their efforts. I would spend a lot of time selecting and buying art materials for them, wishing I could buy some for myself, but not believing I had the right or the ability.

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Then I read ‘Simple Abundance.’ (Don’t let the subtitle put you off). Among the many encouragements and suggestions for women to express themselves creatively – to go on ‘creative excursions’ – was starting an Illustrated Discovery Journal.

The idea is to buy an artist’s sketch book with a hard cover in a design that appealed and collect images, samples, articles, poems, travel pictures, anything that resonates with you, and gradually it would build up into something that would show you where your interests lie, what makes you happy, what makes your heart sing, and show you the direction you would like to take in terms of hobbies or career.

These two events showed me how much I liked using scissors and glue, colour and card. Coincidentally, this little girl gave me a large box of assorted pens – gel pens, metallic pens – for my birthday. I realised there was no reason on this earth why I shouldn’t or couldn’t begin using them.

I didn’t have to create a masterpiece. I didn’t have to do fine art. I could just mess about and see what happened. I could just do it for it’s own sake.

And so I did.

Now all my family and close friends receive hand-made cards at Christmas and birthdays whenever possible.

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They are very kind in their comments. I know my efforts are very hit and miss, but people seem to like that I took the time and created a one-off card especially for them.

There are lots of adult colouring books around now. They are often described as Mindfulness colouring books. They help you focus on something creative that you can lose yourself in, that relaxes your brain and eases tensions in your body.

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Psychotherapists don’t usually like them being described as therapy, since the patterns and pictures are already formed – although some do have partial drawings that allow you to complete them as you wish – but they do allow that they can be therapeutic, which is different.

Or perhaps getting your hands dirty is more your thing, stripping down bikes or engines, or whittling bits of wood from fallen trees. My neighbour is keen on wood-turning. 

Fortunately for me, my daughter-in-law likes tinkering around with blogs and websites!

But you don’t even actually have to do anything. You can simply meditate. Observe. My son-in-law, for example, loves observing clouds and weather patterns.

This time of year when there isn’t a lot of warmth or sun is an excellent time to discover the happiness inside you. Give it a go and see what you like, what makes you feel proud, what lights a spark. Try singing, it doesn’t have to be anything formal. Or pick up that book you’ve always meant to read.

No-one else needs to know what you’re doing until you feel ready. But never feel you don’t deserve to try, or to spend time on yourself. Everyone needs to replenish their caring tanks, relax the overworked parts of their brain, stretch out the kinks in their muscles or just enjoy the feeling of complete abandon, of laughing out loud.

After all, if all of you is used up on everything and everyone else, there will be nothing left. And you deserve to be cared for, too.

Ps Love you, Megan Monster! 😉 💕

 Copyright: Chris McGowan