Month: March 2016

Life is always in motion so I cannot be stuck

~ Fridgesays ~ 10 Comments

 Quote by Esther Hicks, the princess of Law of Attraction.

I often feel stuck. Please don’t misinterpret this as I’m grateful  for all I have, for I know it’s much more than most…but stuck is how I often feel.

Stuck with 9am-5pm, which is actually more 7am to silly o’clock, and in seasons gone by the dark nights make feeling stuck a little more like I’m being suffocated.

The bit that I dislike the most is ‘adulting’ between you and me I’m really not a fan. I don’t mind the responsibility or the chores, for me personally it’s the reality of it all. One of my favourite birthday gifts was my 27th. My other half bought me a huge trampoline and I realised (probably whilst jumping up and down) that that is the secret to life…no not trampolines although they are pretty awesome in the fun department, let me explain.

When I was growing up our back garden was a little narrow and had a good gradient to it. So it’s no surprise that giant trampolines (14ft) weren’t practical.

As an adult with a much flatter and wider garden – it was achievable. I think adults often limit the ‘fun’ they have, I also think that we don’t stop to look around. We rush and go from supermarket shop to meetings with friends and family and the motion of life gets distorted. We decide what behaviour is appropriate or immature – in short, we limit ourselves.

I have a solution. I’ve been doing it for a while (within reason) I watch my son and do my best to observe the sights and sounds he sees, I try never to say no when he asks me to read and yes to when he asks me to play. I say within reason as sometimes the adult in me needs to get to work (that sucks).

If you’re reading this then you are blessed – life is still in motion for you, as I’ve written before you are the writer, author and most importantly the creator of your journey. You can live it 9am-5pm like a robotic clock that is consumed by bills and getting by…or you can buy a trampoline and laugh from your toes, smell the daisies or snuggle up with your loved ones and read a good book.

Enjoy the motion of life and make it work at a pace that suits your dreams and aspirations.

Take care of your body

~ Fridgesays ~ 25 Comments

  
Quote by an American entrepreneurs and general gentleman who has his sh** together / Jim Rohn.

I really should begin this post by telling you about my upcoming marathon…but I’d be lying.

I could tell you about the secret to my dieting success…but we had take away last night and I began the day with a bacon butty.

So instead I’ll tell you about my Laryngitis. It crept up on me during my year ten last lesson of the day a week or so ago, suddenly my vocals decided to dance a tune of their own – which incidentally is awkward when you are trying to teach the current political voting system. Within myself I feel fine, at times my throat has felt a little tender or swollen so I talked through it (don’t do this) and sounded like an elderly pensioner who smokes forty fags a day, I know this as one of my darling year seven pupils told me I sounded like ‘Marges sisters from the Simpsons’ – gee that made me feel better.

While my tonsils do the tango and attempt to sort themselves out, I have realised what I learn every time I’m slightly poorly – health matters. 

As a pretty healthy yummy mummy with an immune system that’s usually like the Great Barrier Reef (thanks to years in the classroom surrounded by grubby hands and chewing gum squished under the table) it’s something that I value and look after…most of the time.

I say ‘most’ and I eat dairy (chocolate), grab take always for convenience and pure mouth amazing moments, I exercise when the feeling takes me (the feeling is often too busy at the local gym to pop around to visit me) and two qualities I lack are patience and commitment which are essential for any long term fitness commitment.

However, I’m really good at the balance of indulgence and treating myself whilst not bingeing or indulging to a point that people tell me I ‘look well’ this is usually code for ‘fat’. 

My body is my temple and I’ve believed this since I knew it was mine and it was all I had. Recently a tree branch came down on my right hand side wing mirror whilst I was driving, a little eBay shopping and a replacement was found and normality was resumed, (plus I learnt that it was heated?I never knew you could heat a wing mirror…) The point im making is had the branch of been an inch or two further it would have destroyed my front window screen and due to the fact I’m teenie tiny and sit literally on top of my steering wheel, it would have taken me with it…parts for me can’t be found in eBay, neither can a new mother for my son, so I counted my blessings and stay a little more on the healthy side or in this case – avoid country lanes where possible on windy days.

You don’t have to be Mr Motivator 24/7 to be healthy, a little treat is all good, a glass of wine with dinner is always pleasant…but if you’ve drunk the bottle and decide a tequila shot is a great idea or the glass(es) of wine have become a daily ‘treat’ it might be time to have a word with your brain and check there are no voicemails from your liver complaining about the amount of stress it is under and how its calling its trade union.

Look after yourself – no one else is going to and nobody else can. 

*this post is void over the Easter weekend, eat the chocolate and if you can eat the kids chocolate and get away with it – do it. 

Three is the magic number 

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Lyrics from De la Soul.

Dear time,

Thank you for blessing me with a healthy and (usually) smiley boy. You gave me nine months to prepare and then the clock began to tick…how did my baby become three?

He has imagination that can take him to worlds where time cannot go, he can spend hours reading and making up songs that make me giggle and he always knows when it’s bedtime. Since birth he had slept like a king (thank you) and he wakes wide eyed and ready for more minutes of delicious adventure and every second brings more funny sentences from his ever developing vocabulary and expanding mind.

He is like an alarm clock of questions through out the day as he bellows ‘why, how and who?’ As he takes it all in I can see in his eyes the cogs are turning, exploring and fine tuning just as a fine pocket watch might.

What makes him tick is easy; simple delights in his trains, cars and his plastic crocodile, Spotting the moon and telling me with pride when day turns to dusk and the calendar pushes forward.

So time, many thanks for the blessed memories and the opportunity to be called Mummy, the pride in watching him grow and gift to see a much more exciting world through his eyes, one that acknowledges emotion with giggles from the belly and tears from the soul.

All I ask is that you slow down,

Love Mummy x x x

Happy 3rd Birthday Prince J .x

Only the ideas we actually…

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 Quote by Hermann Hesse, sometimes the best bit for me about a quote is the Authors contributions, as a poet, author and Nobel peace prize winner Hermann is such an inspirational man, I can’t help thinking his perspectives for the time he was writing in were advanced. Not surprising when you think this is what most of the greats do.

I have ideas popping through my brain most moments of many days. Not all the ideas are worthy of life, a second thought or even any further thoughts BUT I think I could cover the Eifle Tower in post-it’s of possibility most weeks.

Friends of ours recently packed up, shipped out and took over a BnB in France…raving mad or living the dream, I think either option has potential but right now their idea is real and alive…how many people dream of living abroad and don’t go any further than a 2 week half board once a year?

We often discuss how we can’t take the material world to the grave with us, yet I often wonder behind the coffin how much potential, how many dreams and ideas were never realised…because they too die or never really came to life at all. 

I wonder if ideas were the size of golf balls whether we’d all be drowning in ideas like the crazy golf course had exploded in some internal nuclear eruption…

Ideas are so important. Whether they are silly, like those straw glasses you can get a sporting events or life saving like vaccines and antibiotics…these of course spectrums apart have lived on beyond ideas and so are part of life as we know it.

Many people take part in detox diets, 100 days of happiness projects or even use lent to clean out their soul…or leave the biscuit tin alone. I wonder what would happen if we took note of ideas for just a week and actively did what we could to breathe life in to just one of them – I bet by listening, taking inspiration and acting on it this world would become pretty awesome really quickly, that or we would all walk around with the crazy straw glasses on. So 1987

Have a blessed week and take time to listen to and activate those ideas you didn’t even realise whizzed through your head space. It might just be a miraculous week 🙂

Lovely things #7

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Who is stealing 2016…March is upon us and I feel like we just experienced Christmas? 

I’m surrounded by Pisces boys, so between Mr Fridge, my Dad and my little man February to March brings cake galore, endless wrapping paper and I’m partial to a balloon on the door (even if the bigger boys find it embarrassing).

Half term bought the chaos of potty training to our home and although at times I felt trapped in the confides of my living room walls, we did venture out to our local book store (J calls it the book shelf) for these newbies below, not PR related but Catherine Rayners books come hugely recommended (plus the sequel came out last week and is upstairs hidden waiting for an up coming birthday), we also purchased the doughnut below and I made a cup of tea for us both – we snuggled on the sofa and it was one of those delightful afternoons where being a Mummy is effortless and joyful. (Plus the prospect of cake helped stop him reading the books on the way home)

  

Next on my list of love was J helping me with my fridge business – he is just on the precipise of learning his alphabet (we are up to G), his favourite letter is C for crocodile – this plastic creature comes everywhere with us (inc bed) and was the best £2 ever spent. However, as I arrange my fridge magnets and usually usher him away (previous toddler behaviour has meant he had eaten them or ran away with a crucial vowel)…I realised he was interested, he wanted to help and to my Mummy delight – he was useful, well as useful as you can be if the letter I required was from A-G. This photo below was what happened to the remaining alphabet but for me captures that wonderful moment when you realise you made a tiny human. That really is a lovely thing.

 

I guess this time of year reminds me how blessed I am to be surrounded by a pretty awesome selection of boys / men who for most of the year drive me bonkers, really are the best team around. 

Incase you are thinking where’s the girlie bliss, the bubbles or the sparkle – I offer you this…

  

  The Neom candle is a slightly wonderful soya based delight that I’m in love with. This one is ‘tranquility’ and with a heavenly scent of English lavender, sweet basil and jasmine…I’m off to bed one happy lady

*dedicated to my boys and all of the beautiful candles of the world.
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Life is a BIG canvas

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 Quote by Danny Kaye.

I usually write while J sleeps be that in the day when he naps or at night but this blog is written by the side of a swimming pool whilst Daddy ‘swims’, he brought a Daddy friend (hehe) and J’s friend. It’s boiling on the sidelines and they are blaring out loud tunes whilst kids leaps on giant inflatables…think of it like a tropical paradise if you will (the reality is a little more mid Sussex at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon)…what’s that got to do with a canvas? Well twenty minutes a go we were snuggled on the sofa with no plans – then a friend calls and says ‘wanna go swimming’ and we’re here. Like I said the reality isn’t exactly the tropics but I don’t think canvas’s need to be…a good life painting should be varied, involve as many new experiences as possible and as many cultures, new foods and as close to natures as possible…for myself I’ll also add a wardrobe full of high heels and a book collection to turn heads.

There is a challenge where people say ‘yes’ for a year and although I’ve never done it myself the results seem to be impressive and the reflections are often how one opportunity leads to another or that the person realises how often they use to say no.

Saying ‘yes’ surely has to lead to bigger things and a better canvas as you exit this crazy Earth of ours? Worst case scenario you may end up an your local swimming pool with an hour  to yourself 🙂

It’s never too late…

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 Quote from George Eliot. Now a quick Google and I found out that this Victorian author was in fact female and was actually called Mary. Her pen name was masculine so that readers took her seriously…I love this quote even more now. I may even give one of her books a go, plus she felt her work was to enrich and enlighten – over a hundred years later and she is still doing this for me.

Alas, in true Lucy style I am going to lower the tone. When I was about five I fell in love with a Goldie Hawn film…this is the kind of love where you are able to watch  the film so many times you can warp the video tape but know all of the words. The Film was called ‘Over board’ (1987) and to this day I know every word, so much so I don’t find it enjoyable without receiting each word…which means no one will watch it with me.

This quickly led to the love of the film ‘Mannequin’ 1987 with Kim Cattral which I wasn’t so obsessed with but definetly secured my love of blonde chicks and also in my thirties, still secretly desire an actual mannequin for my home, I think I even asked for one for my eighth birthday? So practical…

The third film that I would note had another blonde…Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks (don’t even start me on sleepless and Seattle or you’ve got mail) in Splash (1984) this sealed my dream – to be a Mermaid and my passion for crimped hair.

Now when Areil hit the big screen (1989) this only enhanced my love for both Disney and Mermaids, she was my ultimate heroine (if only she’d been blonde), amazing vocals, a fish as a best bud, perfect hair even in the worst of storms and let’s be honest how can anyone who takes guidance from a seagull not be loved? Areil was fiesty and independent; of course she would walk and I’d gladly have swapped my legs to be her.

So, at around four years old I also decided to be a teacher, which as you guys know worked out great as I love my job…but I wouldn’t hesitate it in a second to dive ‘under the sea’ to be ‘part of that world’ because ‘Darling it’s better down where’s it’s wetter, take it from me’…fine I’ll stop the lyrical inserts and I’ll even admit that it would have to be ‘Disney sea’ that I lived in with talking fish and bright blue / warm waters rather than the south coast murky, absolutely freezing can’t see bugger all real sea…but the dream is still present.

The dream makes me smile from my belly button, it makes me wonder how a 2016 Splash would adapt to 4g and surround sound, to mobile phones, tablets and ‘gizmos of plenty’? I will demand until the moment that I fly from this planet that dreams are possible, no matter how extreme or how unlikely. I will always live in my world where dreams can be achieved no matter how old, fat or thin you are, whether you’re rich or have little, loved or are allergic to nuts because what’s the point otherwise?

Maybe your dream isn’t reliant on growing a fin, maybe it’s stemmed in a new venture or way of life…maybe the dream for you begins tomorrow – however close or far it is, dream big and never let anyone tell you any different, perhaps they have lived a sheltered life without Disney or Goldie Hawn for entertainment and moral structuring, meanwhile I will move a step closer by asking my Mum to knit me a Mermaid blanket.

(Seriously look it up on Pinterest)