Tomato: Week 11

Last week I focused on the whole ME concept. This is still an ongoing struggle, particularly as work gets busier and busier. This week is a short one at work for moi because I'm headed to Vancouver on Thurs thru Monday for my cousin's wedding. I am BEYOND excited, but also nervous b/c I have a LOT of work to do (yes, even while I'm there). I hope to balance play and work and not be stressed out the whole time!

Anyhoo, I did OK with last week's goals...

1. Keep my Friday nights sacred, and say no when you have to. And DON'T feel bad about it! - Check! Although the real challenge will be doing this from here on out.

2. Re-implement the 11 p.m. lights out rule, and set wake-up time to 7:30 a.m. (will be earlier next week if this week goes well). Give myself at least 15 minutes to do morning pages. Fail. I was good last night and went to bed at 10:30 - it was divine and so much easier to wake up this morning. Must do better...

3. Replace evening laptop time with book time. It's so easy to drag my laptop into bed with me, but I don't think it does me any good. And since I'm on a computer ALL day at work, it would be nice to indulge in my 20+ books instead of indulging in the internet. I did pretty well with this last week, and I'm going to continue. I love reading, after all, and I have beaucoup de livres to get through!!

WEEK 10 GOALS:

1. Journal daily, including making Gratitude Lists

2. Turn trip to Vancouver into one giant Artist Date. Take oodles of pics, write a lot, enjoy the scenery, and enjoy yourself even while working (I'm going to try and find a fun coffeeshop w/ free wifi so I can work AND indulge!)

3. Be better at responding to reader questions on my blog (I'm really bad about this!)


REWARD: 90 minute massage post-trip!

Vienna: Back in Barcelona for my last day of holidays.

I am back in Barcelona now, quickly writing from my sister's computer again. I first sat down with the intention of posting a summary of all my thoughts and (good) writing intentions for this new academic year. A summary of the struggles and reflective moments I've experienced all trhoughout my journey. However, I feel like I need to digest loads of things. I need to sit down with my own thoughts, write them down, think about them, put them into the right order. Again, make some clear space in my mind and my life. Understand. If I've missed one think during these days, it has been silence. For reasons I will later explain, I haven't been able to have one minute just for myself. There have been mistakes but also, new ways to cope with the consequences and some 'never again' situations. Live and learn, I suppose. Thus, at the moment I'll leave you with one of my pictures and I'll get back to you once I'm back in the UK. The picture shows one of the beaches in Nafpaktós in Greece (previously named 'Lepanto' by the Venecians and famous for its battle in 1571). Here on this chairs facing the Corinthian see I used to have my breakfast of Frappé (Greek iced coffee) every morning while we stayed in the town.

Thank you very much for your supportive comments. It has been great knowing that, in the distance, I still belonged to this fantastic SWIMmers team.

gussying up week 2

i hope you all had a glorious weekend as i did. i'm writing this on sunday due to saturday being a very energy filled day. i took a reiki 1 class from 10 - 4. it was information packed and intense 6 hour course. there were just two of us taking the class. although the class was small, in all honesty, it couldn't have worked out more perfectly as far as i'm concerned. i have had energy work done before by the instructor and had some amazing results. i instantly clicked with the lady that was taking the class with me. it's as if i already knew her although i've never seen her before. i don't know if you believe in synchronicity at all or not but yesterday made me think a little more about it.

while we were sitting on yoga blankets in the floor in sukhasana i happened to look over at my fellow class mate and she had on the exact pendant that i wanted to get at our local bead store. it was a gorgeous tibetan pendant with turquoise around a tibetan symbol. later on i asked her, 'did you get that at the beadmonster?' and she was like 'yeah, how did you know?' and i was like 'cause i had my eye on it and was going to buy it but didn't have the money that day and when i went back to get it, it was gone.' we shared a laugh over it and she told me we could share it. :) i told her that it was where it rightfully belonged but that i was a bit jealous. we again laughed and laughed. it seemed to make our connection grow even stronger.

to finish up our session we got to practice reiki on each other. it was extremely powerful. it was a great experience and definitely left me curious for more. one day i hope to make it to reiki master.

i came home starving after my reiki class. i heated up some vegetarian chili that ryan had made the night before and ate that while telling him high points about the class and about meeting my fellow class mate. all of the energy i had expended earlier in the day left me longing for a nap and with my belly full of chili, that is exactly what i did. i spent the rest of the evening sharing an ice cream and book store browsing with ryan. after our running around we came home and shared the couch reading our new purchased material (him - 'the serpent and the rainbow: a harvard scientist's astonishing journey into the secret societies of haitian voodoo, zombis, and magic' by wade davis and me - the september of real simple magazine).

tree at cooper's rock - photo by moi

recap & outcome of week 2 goals:
- continue with 3 posts on gussying up the tuttle and 1 post for my morgantown musings - YES
- learn the bones of the body (in prep for getting ready to start massage therapy school in just a little over a month) this was a goal i set for myself for august. here it is the last week of august so i must get on this! - actually no. i know most of the major bones of the body but don't know them all. i spoke with a mentor about where i should start to help prep for my classes at the end of september and she recommended that i start with a massage therapy book that i have.
- continue morning pages if i feel that the quality of writing is good enough - i am afraid that i didn't do a single morning page but i don't feel a bit guilty for it either.

my reward (even though i didn't fully deserve it): real simple magazine.

week 3 goals:
- continue 3 posts on gussying up the tuttle & 1 post for my morgantown musings
- spend some time collecting my thoughts regarding my future as a massage therapist (start a notebook/file with thoughts and ideas)
- morning pages if necessary
- practice reiki on myself everyday and journaling about my experiences

i encourage each of you to give one thing this week - whether it be holding open a door for someone, pay someone a compliment, a hand written thank you card, even a smile. see how it makes that other person feel and subsequently how it makes you feel. it's so simple but yet so powerful. it can even turn your day around. i hope you all have a productive week.

Alison week 1 update

Thanks so much for the warm welcome.

This has been a strange week as we have all had colds and I have been running on a couple of hours sleep a night. Here is a review of my goals:-

*3 quality blog posts (at the moment I am typing them out exhausted when the little ones are in bed. I know the quality is not that great and would like to develop this area).
I have managed to complete this and am pleased that the quality is improving and I am regaining the blogs focus. I have also created some posts to be published when I am away.

*Get up to speed on my google reader account. I love to see what others are up to and it also offers inspiration to my creative journey.
Am now up to date (although I know it will be crammed full on return from my holidays but that's alright as that's just life!). I think that I will start to implement a system of reading blogs 3 times a week as opposed to daily as that seems more manageable.

I am writing this with my son asleep beside me and my rather wriggly daughter on my knee. Not the ideal environment for creativity but this is my life right now (which I love!) and until I return to work I will be the queen of juggling!

No goals for the next couple of weeks as I am in France but I am looking forward to catching up on my return. Have a fun and productive fortnight.

How do you decide how much to share?

Hello lovelies. I am sorry that it has been so long since I have posted here. The reason I have been so absent is that I had to attend to both physical and emotional health issues. Now that they have balanced out, I feel like I can dedicate more time here and to my blog.

I just caught up on all of your posts and you are all so lovely and inspirational. It makes me so happy to be a part of this community. I also wanted to extend a warm welcome to Melita and Allison.

I have a question for you lovelies. In your writing (for example memoirs or research papers on a subject that are near and dear to you) and on your blogs, how do you decide how much to share? I am currently having difficulty with my blog in deciding where I want to draw the line on what to share. I want part of my blog to be an honest depiction of what it is like to survive abuse and fight for justice. I just don't know how much about my story I should share. Do any of you lovelies have any suggestions or strategies for how much you share about yourselves?

Tomato: Week 10

Bonjour, my darlings! Remember when I said I'd start my goals on Monday? Yeah, that didn't work out so well for me this week, now did it? Here it's already Wednesday - oops! Ah well, let's revisit those Week 9 goals, shall we?

WEEK 9 GOALS:

1) Write blog post on therapy avec Dr. G. Y'all have been so supportive about my decision to see a therapist, and I've been wanting to share some of the things I've discovered/learned about myself through my sessions with Dr. G. Le FAIL. But I will do it... soon.

2) Devote Friday night to crafting, creating & writing. Make it a lovely artist date complete with yummy food & fun jamz. I didn't do a ton of crafting & creating & writing, but I did keep it mine, which is what I intend to do from here on out. I need my Friday nights to myself!

3) 1 morning of morning pages (on a normal work weekday!) Oui, and it was divine, but I am still oh-so-struggling with my mornings... :(


I'm kind of having a rough time. Not sure what's going on. Part of it is that work suddenly got so busy, and I'm so not used to it. Part of it is that when my schedule gets more chaotic, I crave solitude even more and feel bad about saying no to social engagements and other obligations. Do y'all have trouble with this? I feel guilty about putting me first.

Last night, after a particularly rough day at work, I decided to have a ME night - no work, no obligations, no guilt. Instead of hopping on the treadmill, I crawled into my bed with My Life In France and proceeded to stay there until I finished. It was divine. I need more ME nights.

And with the whole ME concept in place, voila my Week 10 Goals:

1. Keep my Friday nights sacred, and say no when you have to. And DON'T feel bad about it!

2. Re-implement the 11 p.m. lights out rule, and set wake-up time to 7:30 a.m. (will be earlier next week if this week goes well). Give myself at least 15 minutes to do morning pages.

3. Replace evening laptop time with book time. It's so easy to drag my laptop into bed with me, but I don't think it does me any good. And since I'm on a computer ALL day at work, it would be nice to indulge in my 20+ books instead of indulging in the internet.

And so I bid you adios....

School starts up again next week and I am in for a very rough semester. After my trip to Maine last week I did some long and hard thinking about how I spend my time, where my stress lies, obligations vs free time, etc. In all of that, I realized that I need to cut some things out. Unfortunately, writing here, as well as most free time type writing, will need to take a backseat until I graduate in May. I can barely keep up with Everyday Revelry (and may not even do that very often), so I need to cut back elsewhere too.

Well, my dear SWIMmers, it has been a great run with you all.

I hope to join you all again next summer. Until then, happy writing!

~Lauren