Last call for February Month O' Lurvve!

Happy Monday Joy, Love & Work-ers!

I hope you had simply SPLENDID weekends :-)

Wooo Hoooo - we made it! My adventure in the blogosphere has lasted an entire month - now admittedly February is the shortest month but frankly who's counting! - and I have to say I think I'm a little addicted but in a good way!

I started blogging to help develop the discipline of writing. Currently I occasionally write for my Church newsletter and sometimes for work, but I've had a creeping sense for a while that I have at least one and probably more books 'brewing' within me and the only thing stopping them emerge is that haven't developed any discipline around writing.

Discipline has always been something I have struggled with. Every profile or assessment I've ever taken indicates that I have never met a discipline that I really liked or wanted to embrace as my own. My patterns of thinking tend to flit from one thing to another, I'm always reading at least four or five books at once and I tend to leave many U.F.O's - Un-Finished-Objects in my wake.

But I really admire discipline.

The benefits that accrue from diligently working at something are evident for all to see; the brilliance of virtuoso performers, athletes, craftspeople and others who have spent many years in disciplined practice, execution and learning are simply amazing to behold. And discipline contains within it so much freedom - the freedom to improvise, the freedom to make breakthroughs, the freedom to innovate and invent.  Those freedoms are often only available to the few willing to have paid the price of entry through their previous years of discipline.

Even though I'm still a 'baby-blogger' my first month of 'disciplined' blogging has taught me a few things already:
1. You have to blog about your passions otherwise your posts will quickly evaporate
2. The best posts seem to come straight from the heart
3. Write down post ideas as they catch you, or they'll be lost forever
4. Planning too far ahead has its disadvantages, I discovered this when I designated February 'Month O' Lurvve' I thought I would have twenty eight days worth of fabulous love related posts, but as life would have it other stuff happened along the way and my 'Month O' Lurvve' was soon overtaken by different blog-worthy events.

So today is the last day of February and the last call for 'February Month O' Love'....going, going, gone!

See y'all in March!

Sunday Rest

Sunday Rest

"For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, 
just as God did from his."
Hebrews 4:10

and recreation

"The true purpose of recreation should be not merely to amuse, 

not merely to afford pleasure, not merely to 'kill time,' 

but to increase our fitness, enhance our usefulness, spur achievement.

Any form of recreation that impairs either our physical or metal
efficiency does not recreate.

Real recreation quickens aspiration."

Bertie Charles Forbes

Wordle-e-hee-hoo!

Happy Saturday Chaps

This week's wordle (above left) is VERY unusual - just like the week!

Have a GREAT weekend y'all

When I grow up...

...I want to be a _____________(fill in the blank)

Can you remember what your 'blank' was?

Wednesday was 'professional day' at the pre-school attended by some of my favorite little peanuts. The Very Lovely Little Miss Sunshine was transformed into a the smallest 'Bou-rister equipped with antlers, an apron and 'magic drink choosing armband!' I mean honestly, does it get any cuter than this?

 

 

I hear Professional Day is a big deal at pre-school and as well it should be! All of that unbridled enthusiasm to 'be all you can be' and 'everything you ever wanted' is an intoxicating and heady mix for pre-schoolers and their parents alike.

So where do all the 'blanks' and all that enthusiasm go?

For me my 'blanks' changed over time, when I was little I wanted to be a police woman (my next door neighbor was a policeman) then I wanted to be a flight attendant (no idea) and then a fashion designer which actually stayed with me for most of my teenage years resulting in a few years at the London College of Fashion which firmly established my career path as...a hotelier & organizational development specialist - yep, that's exactly how it happened!

I'm always curious to hear the stories of how people got to where they are today, and whether it was intentional or happened more circuitously as was the case with me. But even more interesting to me is how they feel about where they are today, do they love it, hate it or are somewhere in between; and if they are in a place other than 'loving it' what's gotta give for change to happen?

Call me old fashioned, naive, stupid or whatever your choose, but I don't think it's unrealistic to LOVE our work, and to be able to show the same unbridled enthusiasm as The Lovely Little Miss Sunshine and her classmates did at their pre-school professional day. No, it's not unrealistic but it does take courage.

Courage to say NO to mediocre at best and terrible at worst

Courage to say NO to perhaps a third of my life lived in neutral

Courage to say YES to exploration, hard work and discernment

Courage to say YES to not knowing the answer but being determined to find out

And finally courage to say YES to what's better for me and those I love


Are YOU grown up enough to be all you can be and everything you ever wanted, a ___________? (fill in your blank)


Have a GREAT weekend.

Epilogue to the end of an era

Sitting on my sofa listening to the radio and wondering how on earth to follow yesterday's post when all of a sudden it appeared...

"Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened"

Thank you Radio.

The end of an era

Morning Joy, Love and Work-ers!

Recently I found myself at the end of an era, it wasn't entirely unexpected and didn't announce itself with great fanfare but I noticed being cloaked in a peculiar form of melancholy and sadness that only presents itself when something is ending, over, finished, done.

And I am sad.

Life and work are full of eras, some good some bad, eras are the markers that announce we're alive, signifying progress, growth, possibility and change, and that's why they can be painful. Transitioning from one thing to another whether known or not, has more than its fair share of wildness attached. We long for change but we hate the way it sometimes catches us.

Sadness isn't a very popular thing, we get uncomfortable when we or other people are sad wanting to cheer up and get back to normal as soon as possible, but if we skip sadness I think we miss a lot. For me sadness gets me closer to God, makes me slow down and pay attention, take better care of myself and be more thoughtful about others - things which often fall by the wayside in my usual 'high-octane' life.

My saddest end of an era happened in the second half of 1999 when in just eight short weeks and with enormous support from my family and friends I moved my entire life from the UK to the USA. I was a mess, sadder than I could ever have imagined possible and barely able to function. But eleven-and-a-bit years later I'm here to tell you that the end of that era opened a whole new one that was one of the best things that's ever happened to me and has presented more gifts and blessings than I could ever count.

Sadness is the opposite of Joy but it isn't bad. It just is. For me sadness makes Joy even sweeter but I won't rush to get back to Joy, if I did I might miss too much along the way.

In-di-vid-u-a-li-ty

Morning Chaps

Call me obsessed but after almost forty hours of snow it's still fresh on my mind!

Just look at this...

Snowflakes, each one different, unique, special and they're all so pretty too - doesn't that just blow you away? 

For some reason snowflakes remind me of the following Bible passage

            For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

             Psalm 139:13-16

God of the snowflakes is our God. He created each one of them and he created each one of us, we can see from the snowflakes that he doesn't spare a single detail in the process of creation, he's on it, all of it, all the time and it's the same with us too.

However we look, however we feel, whatever we think is right or wrong with us we have been perfectly created to do the work God has for us to do, and that work is right here, right now wherever we find that we have landed - just like those snowflakes.

Our individuality and uniqueness are the tools we have to do the work we have to do, there's not one perfect type of person for every situation but instead we are perfectly equipped to do whatever lays ahead of us. In my professional life I've seen people try and change who they are to be 'who they think they should be' and it never works; we can't keep ourselves down too long before we 'pop-up' in all our glory and our cover is blown. 

Here are two top-tips for releasing our in-di-vid-u-a-li-ty:

1.  Position ourselves in a place where who we are is appreciated firstly by ourselves and then by others

2.  Ask ourselves this question on a regular basis "How can who I am make what I'm doing better?" 

Being a first rate version of ourselves is so much better than a second, third or fourth rate version of someone else. So go ahead, let your little in-di-vid-u-al-snowflake-self-sparkle! because by doing so, you'll give others the permission to sparkle too :-)

Sparkle on y'all!