Knilly Frickers

I've shared some of my happy lists on my blog before. Sometimes I write them when I'm feeling a little down and it reminds me of all thing things I have to be happy about, sometimes I write them when I'm feeling quite good.  Today I've had a fairly quiet and reflective day, I have quite a few weekends like that a month where I shut down for a little while and take stock of where I am, what I'm doing - in life and in that moment and think about where I want to get to or things I'd like to do. My friend was speaking to me about how she's drafting up a list of things she'd like to do/achieve in 2018 and I thought that sounded like a great idea, I've loads of things I'd like to try, experience or achieve and over the next few weeks I'll put some thought in to that.  For today though, I thought I'd make a list of some things that make me smile in the here and now.  I'm used to keeping myself busy and I can get into a habit of thinking so m...

My head hasn’t really been in the game for the last month, it’s become a bit foggy, I’ve been extra tired and lacking in energy. I started comparing myself to my phone this week, which sounds daft..but stick with me. My phone is by my side all day, I check and use it a lot, I go home and use it there while simultaneously using other devices and then I leave it sitting on all night while I sleep, not using it, just sitting idle by my bedside.  In a way I kind of treat myself like that too.  I get up, sometimes I forget to have breakfast, go to work, run on empty until lunch, feel sluggish afterwards because I’ve eaten something unhealthy and then meander my way through the rest of the day.   I’ll go to my other weekly activities after work, then I’ll come home, snack on rubbish and over stimulate my brain with devices galore and go to bed late because I’ve binged watched my way through some box sets on Netflix or watched about 4 soaps one after the other and then I’ll go t...

About two and a half years years ago I wrote a blog post about doing one thing every day that scares me.  I've done this in fits and starts since then with varying results. At the time of writing the original post, I'd just decided to resume driving lessons, the outcome being that I've now been driving for a year and that's a direct result of doing something that scared me. I haven't stuck to that commitment of doing something scary every day, I've been less terrified to fry an egg (heck I poach them now) or get stuck at traffic lights on a steep hill but I haven't set out to purposefully remove myself from the comfort and security of my own bubble.  I thought I'd  done the occasionally daring thing, my hair was post box red when I started my blog, it's now black and blue but looking back that wasn't really a daring choice.  That was done in an effort to put myself back in my box a little bit.  I've kinda been putting myself in a box for the...

I’m on annual leave today, I’m not actually away on holiday anywhere, just taking a few days to chill and relax.  My original plan was to make use of Netflix, binge watch something, do some online shopping seeing as it’s pay day………today had other plans for me.   The internet was down, the television was down and my xbox game collection consists of games that are far more appealing to my 12-year-old nephew than myself – so I decided to read one of the mountain of books lying on my bedroom floor. In a moment of amusement given my lack of technological stimulation, I picked up Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. This book was recommended to me by my colleague Chelsea, she had read one of my blogs last year about my inability to say no to things I don’t want to do (you can read that here if you wish) and recommended to me that I read this book. I’d be lying if I said that I’ll go through the rest of my life suddenly starting to throw out no’s all ...

I’m far from being the perfect human being, I’m deeply flawed, make silly choices sometimes and I’m often annoying but I like to think that for the most part I’m an okay person.    I have some traits that I like and hate about myself in equal measure. One is my ability to let things go and another is my reluctance to make a fuss. I like that I can let very little bother me but it also means that I let others away with things that I shouldn’t. My reluctance to make a fuss kind of goes hand in hand with this.  This week I let both of those take over. I visited a restaurant - I won’t mention which one - where the person serving me clearly found something amusing about my appearance. I am all kinds of quirky but for me I was dressed very tame, this wasn’t a 'what is she wearing’ or ‘she looks odd’, this was just straight up finding  amusement  at the way I look.  I felt very uncomfortable as whilst I couldn’t hear what was being said it was blatantly obvious I ...

Hello! It's me! I've been wondering if after all these days you'd like to read.  Sorry, Adele is playing on the radio and I got a bit carried away!  I've been thinking this week about how summer is starting to wind down, I say summer, the rain trickling down the window in front of me as if to mock my notions of a Scottish summer isn't much fun!  I know summer as I know it is coming to an end because all of my extra curricular activities are beginning to reappear in my week, my music rehearsals are already back in the diary, the children's club I volunteer with is back on next week, my park group are meeting again soon and soon all those free and lazy nights and weekends will disappear.   I don't actually mind that though, I like having those things to keep me busy and help my brain to focus on other things other wise I'd come home from work, I'd eat and I'd sleep. It's healthy for me to have other things to stimulate my mind.  The season of s...

It's exam result day in Scotland, where school and higher education students alike are either anxiously awaiting their result, celebrating or wondering what to do if they didn't get the result they needed, wanted or expected.  I've been there, longer ago than I'd like (this whole ageing thing is a bit rubbish), I was never as good as my  school friends at exams or school really, I didn't struggle but I didn't excel either so my results came along and they weren't terrible but I'd compare them to my friends results and feel like crap.   For the majority of my time at school, I just assumed I was stupid and I'd never really find my path, not like my friends who had it all mapped out and were on their way to skipping down their respective yellow brick roads to their respective wizards in search of careers.  That wasn't for me. Or so I thought.  I found a college course nearby, applied, got in and suddenly a light bulb went on in my head, this is wha...