A THANK YOU FOLLOW UP FOR JENNY

I wanted to follow up on my thank you to Jenny. I wrote here about how much her gifts meant to me, before I even opened them. Well on Christmas morning they were the first gifts to be opened. For someone who has never met me Jenny certain 'knows' me.

Every gift was something I would buy for myself. In fact Tamika made the comment "Has she been stalking you outside the house for the last six months". That is how spot on the gifts were.

T2 tea, not only my favourite brand, but my favourite flavour. Old Gold original dark chocolate, how I love it! My biggest weakness. Seeds for my garden two practical and one of frivolously beautiful flowers. The perfect balance. The vintage fabric, oh how I am torn between making something and just admiring this fabric. The handmade Christmas stocking, so every year when we put up our tree I will be reminded of the kindness of strangers.

Amelia Earhart:

No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.

CHANGE OF MIND

Last week I wrote a post about kindness, about how women have stoped being nice to themselves and to other women. Tamika and I tested the theory of random acts of kindness to someone else, with good results. I elicited a smile from a previous sullen face. But it left me thinking it was time to suck up my own advice, and start being nice to myself.

I have been wearing my cranky pants, actually more like my stressed out pants, way to often of late. The stress of no money has made me a very unhappy person. While I cannot change the lack of money in my life, I can make a change on walking around feeling grumpy.

So I set myself three ground rules

1 Stop obsessing about it (easier said than done when you have an OCD personality)

2 Accept life for what it is (I want to be a stay at home Mum, so money is not going to appear from no where)

3 Fake it until it becomes real. (Put a retail smile on my face, until I can find my real smile)

Over all results? Not bad, I am still worried about money but trying to stop being obsessive about it. Attempting to look at the over image of my life. instead of the tiny details. I am smiling more and getting better at not always faking it.

I went grocery shopping with Tamika and Jarvis, (oh yes how exciting is my life?) and got told compliments by two separate people. One on my hair and the other on my skirt. I colour and cut my own hair, and have done so for the last twenty or so years. So when a woman approached me, telling me my hair was stunning, and could she have the name of the salon I go to, I was…. I was clumsy in my thank yous. But I did get a thank you out, and said I do it myself. Another girl came up to me and said that she loved my skirt. I just replied “it is an old tablecloth’ and walked off. Tamika got up me, and told me I should have said “thank you I made it myself; here is a business card if you want me to make you one”.

Goals for this week, practice saying thank you and remember to say positive things to others.

Again, the images really have nothing to do with the post. I discovered this old beach house on one of my explorations and thought it was like me, old and run down, but still had a certain charm. Each time I feel myself getting stressed I imagine myself sitting on that chair by the ocean. Does it work? Nup, but it would be a bloody nice place to be.