Hello it is Monday once more and time for a new free printable of tips on Getting your life together that you may find useful and simple but effective.
Who watched The Grinch this year at Christmas? It is one of my sons favourite films and think Jim Carrey is brilliant and as I was watching thought about how we can all be the grinch and not have Christmas Spirit, but this can be changed.
Photo I took yesterday in Kingston and had a nice coffee in a cafe in John Lewis with a good view of the River Thames.
If you have lost someone in your life then don’t feel obliged to read this blog. If you live with others who do want to celebrate Christmas then let them do that, find a place you can go to grieve as, from experience we feel bad in lowering the mood and don’t want to upset those looking forward to Christmas and new year.
If you just feel fed up because of affording gifts then don’t buy a gift. Instead pay them a a visit to chat. It can cause stress because of money and do what you want and celebrate how you want.
I know Christmas is over but even the new year can effect our emotions and my dad never liked New Years Eve and I would get emotional over it and disliked it. I felt my life wasn’t going anywhere and the new year is going to be the same. I felt unaccomplished and wanted to be lifted off my feet by someone. I wanted my life to be a magical story. Yet now I see I have had a great life and more to come because I made a choice to either grow or just fade away not doing anything with my life. I am in charge of my life and don’t want to be rescued but grow for my son and for myself.
Life is full of ups and downs. There is a guy I see in Wimbledon and he talks to himself and shouting about that he doesn’t like this and waiting at the bus stop have seen him look at me and my son Henry and say that he doesn’t like kids but that is up to him. I don’t see him all of the time, but now and then, but I have no idea of what has made him feel he needs to express those negative feelings and try not to feel like I have to be negative to him. People will always have those who are against them, it is how you respond and react that can help you not allow their feelings to pass on to you.
I am not a fan of crowds when shopping and yesterday we went to Kingston and walking down the stairs I try to move over and had these two woman totally ignore the fact that I was trying to move over so I could let those coming up the stairs go passed and expressed my annoyance. Yet we had a nice coffee in John Lewis and had a lovely view facing the river and all was good again and continued to have a good day.
I have set my goals this year and have my life together and by changing my own outlook on life has helped me to not be like the Grinch and had a good Christmas. I didn’t go any parties like I used to when I worked in London, but had a nice chilled one. I did my Christmas walk I like to do each year, wrote a blog and had a nice dinner and yesterday after we got back to Wimbledon from Kingston had a nice meal and watched the new years celebrations and this morning had a nice coffee in Pauls in Wimbledon Village and then back home.
I wish you a happy new year and lets continue to build our lives for 2025.
A cup of tea and breakfast: I look forward to breakfast now and plan what I am going to eat that will boost my energy each day.
Reading: I love a good book to read and its nice to do a bit of reading and helps build my knowledge and helps me with my writing.
Go for a walk: I read at the doctors last Monday, as I had my Mental Health review and on the wall was a leaflet saying, that just a 10 minute walk is still exercise and vary my walks and routes I like to walk that is peaceful and love a pond or a river.
Do some studying: I have been doing a lot of courses and this has helped me use my time wisely as there is so much I’d like to do and helped me with writing my blogs and focus on my own wellbeing and understanding the body and mind, and love studying and learning new skills and building my knowledge on life to help me and pass on my knowledge to others, build their wellbeing.
Set your goals: A lot of time we can feel overwhelmed when we hear about setting goals and take a lot of time, but that is not the case. Focus on what you want and can be a small goal or a large goal. I did my 2025 goals and didn’t take long at all and looked the areas and things I enjoy and will help me feel good and enjoy life as much as possible as it goes to fast.
Change jobs and lifestyle: I have worked for many large companies, like I was a steward at Fulham Football club, the manufacturer Philip and International Tennis Federation and Diners Club and it has helped me shape my life and found the working world suited me, because I like earning my own money, but often found I would get bored and as soon as I found myself dreading the day, knew that it is not for me anymore and moved on. I currently do volunteer work and I really enjoy it. I work for Epsom Hospital Radio and have my own show on Sunday’s 4pm to 6pm, and been focusing on the things I enjoy and why I have been doing courses and getting back into fundraising. I am doing a Winter Walk in London in January and so glad to be able to do these events again as I have had battles with my Mental Health and so focusing on what I really want to do, like writing and working on radio, doing more volunteer work.
Family Time: I like family time and taking my son out and playing sports and walking. I feel privileged to be his mum and love that he loves my attention and this week after dinner and bath time, in the evenings been watching Deal or No Deal and playing table tennis. This week was his birthday and I was nervous about it but seeing him enjoy himself and love his presents make me appreciate time I have with him and with seeing other members of the family, because it flies by and like feeling like I have had a good day being productive and love the little things, as well as the big things.
Sorry there was no cheat sheet last week, my son was off from school with a Chest Infection, but all better now. These Cheat Sheets are free to download and print and I post them every Monday. This weeks one is al about Staying Safe in your home. Today watching the news, a charger that was bought from Amazon exploded in a families home, causing a fire and I have had accidents in the home, like playing about on the stairs and fell down them.
It is so easily done and now we are heading for the colder season, we will be relying on electric appliances, spending longer days indoors, cleaning our home for the autumn and so wanted so lets all keep ourselves and our homes safe.
Images of places visited in the Summer of 2024 and places I have visited and walks
So I have had a really good summer, by doing some wonderful things and I think it is having more positivity, and one of my dreams from when I left school back in 1996, was working on a radio by working for a hospital radio and it has happened and I love it.
I am doing courses that I have wanted to do and feel that my life is taking shape and to continue to follow my dreams, and yes there have been bumps on the road, but that is part of how we can have a different outlook on life, by pushing forward and not allowing those bumps, stop me, from having a good day now and have been less stressed over it.
There was a time I just didn’t want to be alive and felt my life was boring and I had become a different version of myself, someone who didn’t want to get out of bed and go out. I was sleeping through most of the day and needed help.
I got the help, from spending time in hospital and it helped me get back on my feet and back to feeling good about my life and now I have cleared my debt, gone for long walks again and exercising, taking my son swimming, finding my son a good school that met his needs better and having fun with my son, and with family and writing books. I have one that is being proof read and working on a series called Mum&Me, and working on book 2 and got other books I am writing and reading a lot.
So you can change your life into a more positive one, no matter what hurdles you face?
Absolutely and being in my 40’s my love of life has grown and have so many things I am loving, like seeing my son ride his bike, going to pubs and having some food, enjoying what I have in my life and not focussing on what I don’t have and that life is about, how you make it and what it means to you.
Please check out Pinterest where you will find my videos, blogs and resources for this years Summer Project 2024. Please give me some feedback and what blogs you liked and what you’d like to blog and film about in next years, in 2025. You can leave a comment below.
It is good to just take my time to drink a cup of tea or coffee and gather myself to set the tone of the day and not rush. It is good to set up your day so you look forward to it, like a nice cool shower with a lovely shower cream you like, that makes you feel fresh and alive.
My choice is Radox, Nivea, Sanctuary Spa and just enjoy the water on my body, with a hair wash with Dove, head and shoulders and others I like to use different ones and do this each Sunday morning feeling properly awake, ready to take on the day and week ahead.
I do like a bath too but I save that for evening and good to have a lovely soak after a very hot day and just wind down after the eventful day to ensure I get a good nights sleep. I am been using Sanctuary Spa bath soak.
Then it is going through my plans for the day. I love planning and setting goals. I am going to set up some goals for the next season that is coming up (Autumn) and prepare for the next year of school, so my son is prepared to go back and completing my Life Coaching programme “Summer Project 2024” and if there something you liked that I have covered in this years (2024) life coaching programme, please give me your feedback of what you’d like me to talk about on this blog. You can leave a comment below.
The other thing is journaling. I love to journal and going to get back into scrapbooking, to store memories and get some pictures printed to help store them and creating more art and started to create my own prints as I am going to be doing up my room in Epsom and also going to use the shed, which we having work done. We are getting the roof of the shed redone and plan for my programme, Autumn Reset which I do each year and helps to get areas of my life completed, to start new projects and also complete another course. I have completed many as there are many things I want to do and create and continue to grow online and on the outside too, by making a difference for people.
It is important to have things set up so you can ensure that every gets done and you enjoy life.
We can get so bogged down with to do list and feel “Why?” can’t I do that another day? And so think about it, what do you want to do? What would make it easier? Perhaps you are thinking too much about it and thinking about the process, and that is putting you off.
One of habits to get bits done is to jot if down and what is the first step I need to do. Example: Cleaning my room. So I think about what one thing can I do write now that will help make it less painful? So I started clearing receipts and put them in a small folder. I then it charged it up and then went through what can I do next, and then found myself taking it all cleared and it took literally five minutes to do.
So take your time and clearing one thing is still getting it done.
I will spend my time each day checking my bank accounts and what has come out and gone in. Every Sunday I will go through what I spent in the week, and helps me to monitor what I buy and how it is spent as I do prefer spending cash and not debit.
just staying stop of things, gives me that piece of mind.
So go through your habits and what habits you want to implement in your life, and what is working in your life and what is not. Set your goals and what the outcome do you want. If you’d like this blog then please click, because it helps me see what subjects you like me to share and if you want to read more and be notified of my posts on this site then please subscribe.
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Life will often hit you like a sudden death of someone, job loss or a holiday that has been cancelled that you were really looking forward to and so what can you do? How can you change the feelings of sadness and shock?
It takes time and grief is a personal thing and it dependant on the person but just take each day as it comes and allow it to build your strength and I miss my dad, and everyday I think about “What could I have done?” “What would he say if he was still alive?” and I wish he was here still but I know that dwelling on that is like hitting a dead end, so the importance for me was to move on for my own sanity.
You can’t fix everything and life is challenging at times and it can affect us in what we do each day. Its change. When my parents divorced I tried to block it out and was going out a lot to avoid what was going on and I was working up London and then it hit me and it really sent me down a downward spiral.
Yet I pictured it along time before it happened, but I had to take time to face it and the first Christmas of that year in 2000 was tough, and my spark of the festive season went and dreaded it.
Then in 2002 I went to the Southcoast to work at a holiday camp (Butlins Bognor Regis) and met my now husband and for a while I didn’t realise we were going out but we were, so in 2006 got married and moved back to London and then 2013 my son was born.
I am sad that my dad never got to meet him but he did know about it, as my brother saw him and so I had to come to turns with it as my mind can analyse everything and it drives me mad, so to help me to grow and going on my dads mistakes made sure I didn’t follow suit and remembering the good times and not worry about the bad.
Life will stop you in your tracks and this is good and bad, so I spend a lot of time in focusing on today and not rushing into things. I have had the intensity to think about the Autumn when we are still in Summer and being thankful of what I have in my life today. I was struggling with this blog because I felt I was rambling on and talking all about my passed and that I have had a good day so far today. I got the shopping I needed, worked on completing my Counselling course and watching a bit of Youtube and did a bit of tidy up.
I am having my first coffee for the day and journaled to help get this blog written for my Life Coaching programme Summer Project 2024 and filming a vlog and just enjoying each day, letting myself think about the now and not tomorrow and next week unless it is important and can help to not have too much to do and what I am looking forward to, to stop thinking of the bad feelings and what I don’t have right now.
I just as I write this blog, started journaling to figure out what to do about my restlessness and what I want next in my life, visioning my growth, building my life but focus on what I can do today to get to doing those things and listening to a self help video, listening to music or a podcast.
So today I am filming a vlog, going to make an apple crumble and then see what I can do today to complete my tasks planned for today.
If you want to make changes in your life then start from going through what is getting at you, and needs sorting out. This time four years ago I lost sense of myself and things were happening according to my mind, to realise that actually it is okay and I was in debt, staying in bed all the time and felt very alone and that my life was just too hard to face.
Now it is June 2024 I feel so much better taking on new opportunities as I am now working Voluntary for Epsom Hospital Radio, which I wanted to do when I left school, but had no idea of how to go about it, I published another book I Mum&Me and editing another to publish and got back into my fitness, building steps and doing weight training and focusing on my son as there was a time where I hardly saw him at all and have a stronger bond than ever before and I love him more each, playing sports with him when he is not moaning, and got my life back and is growing more and more each day.
There are still so much I want to do and as humans we are growing everyday, and ask yourself, what do you value in life? I had to change to get to the next stage in my life and not holding back from opportunities and building back my confidence within myself and belief, and planning what else I want in my life and taking action.
I’ve being watching a lot of Amy Winehouse, who build her own successful writing music and singing and raw songs as she wrote about what was happening in her life, but sadly she left the world when she was at the height of her career and it feels me with such sadness that she was not in a good place, yet had major success.
So it is not about having it all but finding what makes you happy in the world we live in and not allow life get to us and to make your stronger, and live your life to the best of your ability.
Hello and welcome if you are new to this site! Each week I post a cheat sheet on this blog and my other one http://theparentingadventurestipsandtricks.com and already posted my one for that site, so please check it out, as the passed weeks I have shared the same one, but this week wanted to be different because it is UK School holiday for a week, and I had a good Sunday yesterday and so want to inspire you have good Sunday doing things you don’t always get around in doing in the week, and having fun with friends and family and recharge before a new week.