Knilly Frickers

It's the last day of 2017 and as I often do at this time of year I'm feeling inquisitive about what the coming year will bring.  In the past I've spent the entirety of this day thinking about all my flaws and imperfections, what I'd like to change and how I'd fit those into New Years resolutions.  In the last few years, whether it's come with age or circumstance, I've learned that I'm really not about New Years resolutions.    I even posted a blog about it in January which you can read here .  I do have some challenges I'd like to take on and some achievements I'd like to unlock across the next year but I'm not going to make them a must do, more of an I'd like to do.  There will be no need for me to feel like crap come the 5th of January when I haven't achieved the first 10 on a list of 15.  I'd like to change my blog a little, not much, but a little. When I first started my blog, it was really self therapy with the occasional rev...

Today’s musings came to me while I was eating my lunch. Alongside my lunch I had five Jaffa Cakes (other biscuits are available).  When a colleague asked my how I eat them (full moon, half moon, total eclipse)  it occurred to me I don’t know!  I decided to make it my lunch time mission to eat each on in a different way.  It set me off thinking about a thing that I hear people say quite often about how you can’t do the same thing and expect different results.  In a lot of aspects of my life I do tend to favour the same approach and hope that something happens and get sad when it doesn’t. That’s partly my own fault, I’m indecisive and I like to err on the side of caution and remain in my comfort zone. Sometimes that’s a good thing, it keeps me safe and it keeps me happy, but other times it holds me back because I’ve not taken a risk. As you’ll have gathered, I don’t thrive on risks, not big ones anyway.  I’m trying to get better at that, identify ways to step...

It’s seven days til Christmas! I’m not sure where this year has gone! Well, I grasp the passage of time but I do feel like it’s zoomed past!  There are also two weeks left of this year, I’m not really into this new year new me nonsense, but it is my opportunity to think about how I want the year ahead to take shape. Normally at this time of year I make a list of all the things I dislike about myself and try to channel them into ways I’m going to change.  I’m not really into that anymore.  I’ll always want to be the best version of myself but that doesn’t mean I have to change everything about who I am. That’s not me saying I’m awesome, flawless and require no self improvement, but I don’t need to become someone else to achieve it. Right, that’s my mind cleansed of thoughts for Monday lunch time, I’m going to try and get back in the habit of getting my musings out of my head and onto paper more often. 

It’s officially the first of December, at time of writing in Scotland anyway. It’s already the second in some parts of the world and by the time you read this December could have been and gone.  I’m side tracking, December is here. I’m turning into one of those people who comments on how quickly the year has gone in - like elderly ladies at bus stops, I’m not sure if that’s a universal thing or a Scottish thing where we pass the time of day with fellow soon to be bus passengers by commenting on the speed at which time accelerate and how the weather of this particular season is vastly inferior to the years prior - back to my point, this year really has gone quickly. I really do feel like not that long ago 2017 was a fresh new year and I was ready to tackle it with gusto and determination. There is now a matter of days left of the year before the next begins and I’m wondering where it has gone.   Usually around this time of year I start to panic when people talk about being orga...

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...