The Saturday Session #19

Whoosh and other week speeds past. This week I have totally won at life, why I hear you cry from the far corners of the globe? Well basically Ive successfully juggled work and play. I’ve ticked my to do list, as well as made time for myself and some indulgent moments, I am definitely enjoying 2018 and long may the successful juggling continue.

Which connects me beautifully on to my featured blogger from week 18. When I read her blog it seems to me that she is living fiercely, boldly and with risk…not to mention enjoying the journey – Rose Tinted Ramblings of a life less ordinary , these attributes are certainly something which I find magical. Plus, she drive a pink car – whats not to love. Click the link above to read about her first solo exhibition. Despite loving every second and going for it, she also captures her anticipation and anxiety beautifully. Often anxiety is seen as a mental health issue and connected to worry, but I really do see anxiety as showing you care and when used to drive the vision of you dreams, its often complimented by accomplishment. This lady could teach the world a thing or two.

Hayley, my cohost has been utterly greedy this week and gone for two featured bloggers, by clicking here you can take a peek at who stole her heart.

Without delay, lets launch week 19 of #thesatsesh and get this party started. Here are a few quick rules and normal linky etiquette.

RULES

  • Link up You can link up to 2 posts, old or new
  • Grab a badge Please do add #thesatsesh badge. You can do this by copying and pasting the badge code into the text/HTML area of your post within your publishing platform and its located in my side bar for your ease.
  • Tweet Share your posts on Twitter using the linky hashtag #thesatsesh and tag us in for retweets @fridgesays @mummy_mindful. Follow us if you don’t already please.
  • Comment sit back, relax (its the weekend after all). Please use #thesatsesh and in usual linky etiquette comment on each of the hosts posts, mine and Hayleys, the post before and after yours. If you comment on more, that would be wonderful but FOUR is more than enough
  • Following the rules means you may qualify for our featured blogger announced weekly, plus this linky is run by school teachers so detention for anyone that doesn’t

OPTIONAL EXTRA: Come and play in our IG community by using #thesatsesh for photos of your weekend or perhaps connected to a post you’ve linked. Follow us on Instagram @fridgesays and @mission_mindfulness_blog and we will keep up to date and follow you back.

I’m realistic, I expect miracles

Quote by Wayne Dyer

This quote totally sums me up. My head is in the clouds and my high heels are firmly on the ground.

At the beginning of a new year it’s naturally to look ahead, to book new adventures and reflect on the previous year. It’s an opportunity to readjust and redirect your journey.

I’m not particularly a fan of making drastic changes, I’ve worked too hard to love me as me. As a result a new year doesn’t need to be a new you either. But a new direction, motivation or goal is always a blessing.

As a Teacher I have two New Years; the school year and the calendar year. Back in September I set a goal to see more theatre and I’m excelling, this is something I hope to continue into 2018. I’m always appreciative of any recommendations.

Travel is always a goal for me. I can’t wait to see where my suitcase and passport will take us this year.

If you are setting goals, make sure you are also open to opportunities and experiencing an abundant lifestyle rather than just creating a list of all the things you are going to cut out. After all, magical things can only happen when you are open to receiving them.

As I jump into the pool of January 2018 I am totally realistic about how epic it will be. I also hope that miracles bless your year and look forward to the magic that lies ahead.

Creativity is intelligence having fun.

Quote by Albert Einstein

Seriously, just as you think Albert can’t get any cooler, you find an awesome quote like this.

This seems super appropriate as I’m currently on a coach driving back with fifty year seven pupils (eleven years old) after a theatre trip on the last Friday before the end of term #exhausted #crazy

However, the show we went to see was spectacular and they loved it (I loved it). The theatre never seems to let me down. Plus much like being a Parent when you take children, you get to see the show through their eyes…only in a Teachers case we times it by fifty. It’s a huge honour and one hundred percent a bonus of my career choice.

Teaching Drama is also pretty special, sure there are some down sides – mainly when they try to attempt horrendous American accents that they’ve copied off of the latest box set they’ve seen and most days are full of ‘cringe’ moments, but there are also frequent rays of delight and I can always laugh at something one of my cheeky chicks say. Today on the coach on the way up one of them pointed out (with excitement in her voice) the place her cat was killed and another pair discussed the magic of Christmas…yup they still totally believe.

Watching the show tonight reminded me how lucky we are to have such talent. The actors were sensational and the production incorporated acrobatics. Creativity is incredibly fun but also essential to our mental wellbeing. Whether it’s getting lost in literature, settling into a theatre seat or perhaps drawing, painting or making, I believe our imagination is crucial to our health and perhaps more than five portions of fruit and veg a day.

However, there was a sad side to tonight… many seats in the auditorium were empty. So, this post is going to become a British broadcast, with no political views. *Please use our theatres to protect the arts for our children and future generations. Take your family to performance of dance or acting, music or comedy…give experiences this Christmas and for birthdays to come, rather than more clutter that nobody needs and ends up dusty on a shelf. The theatre makes me breath easier and according to Albert – more intelligent, double win.

Example is Leadership #3 Iris Apfel

Before I begin my swoon on this American delight – you would be correct in thinking I have a soft spot for the elderly. In light of this series, please *click the link to find out whats its all about, I do believe we can learn so much for listening to our elders. Perhaps that make me sounds old fashioned, but its more basic maths…longer life equals more experience to share.

For many you have to dig deep and stay patient but for Iris Apfel a quick look on google images will begin to give you a picture of why she makes me smile.

Her love for colour and her vitality towards life means that this legend born in 1921 can almost be summed up by looking at her. She is truly living, knows what she likes and if you watch an interview or two with her you can see that she has some serious opinions and could’t give a banana skin about what anyone may think of her. Personally, as someone who was never the best at taking criticism as a child, this ‘cake and eat it’ beauty is my kind of lady. She always looks so elegant and therefore its no surprises that she has taken part in several design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents.

As a role model I love that she doesn’t follow the trends to the tee and usually puts her flare and style on just about anything she touches. I also adore her marriage lasted ‘upon death do us part’ a staggering 67 years, with her husband Carl sadly passing just before he was due to turn 101 years wise. If you see images of the couple they ooze love, sincerity and gratitude for each other. With several of my friends ending marriages before the year was out, I have to fully bow in this couples legacy of love.

The Saturday Sesh #15

Eeek, it’s December! I have two major rules in the run up to Christmas that may just change your life 1). Never enter the spirit before the 1st December – it makes for a long month, but fully submerge yourself from here on in. We will only be watching Christmas DVDs, listening to Christmas albums and any excuse to sparkle is fine by me (although this is a 365 day rule) 2). Never buy Satsuma’s after New Year – seriously they are perfectly in season now, but by the New Year you will be pulling sour faces, or even worse TASTELESS faces and reminding yourself that you should of taken notice of this little corner of the internet.

With the spirit of joy and love around the corner, I’m really enjoying reading blogs about enhancing kindness and giving, not from a commercial perspective, but my featured blogger this week is Rabbit Ideas with a Christmas wreath that’s edible for birds. I loved the idea, not just from a moral perspective but also as the post suggests its great for little hands and their motor skills. I am purchasing monkey nuts this weekend. The link is well worth a look at if you are looking for budget friendly children activities. Go on click the link above.

Also don’t forget that Hayley from Mission Mindfulness is also selecting a featured blogger, so why not see who she has selected?

Ready to link for week 15? Read the RULES below and please follow them. If you don’t comment Father Christmas will be updated and bottles of joy (both alcoholic and perfume) will be removed from his sleigh.

  • Link up You can link up to 2 posts, old or new
  • Grab a badge Please do add #thesatsesh badge. You can do this by copying and pasting the badge code into the text/HTML area of your post within your publishing platform and its located in my side bar for your ease.
  • Tweet Share your posts on Twitter using the linky hashtag #thesatsesh and tag us in for retweets @fridgesays @mummy_mindful. Follow us if you don’t already please.
  • Comment sit back, relax (its the weekend after all). Please use #thesatsesh and in usual linky etiquette comment on each of the hosts posts, mine and Hayleys, the post before and after yours. If you comment on more, that would be wonderful but FOUR is more than enough
  • Following the rules means you may qualify for our featured blogger announced weekly, plus this linky is run by school teachers so detention for anyone that doesn’t

OPTIONAL EXTRA: Come and play in our IG community by using #thesatsesh for photos of your weekend or perhaps connected to a post you’ve linked. Follow us on Instagram @fridgesays and @mission_mindfulness_blog and we will keep up to date and follow you back.

Now click the blue box and join the fun

Be happy, it drives people crazy.

Anon

Despite the fact it’s still November consumerism seems to be taking hold of the nation/globe following Black Friday…the Friday sale that lasts a fortnight. Christmas chatter has taken over many blog posts and is the topic of conversation in our staffroom. Panic sweeps the nation. And I stay firm. I will not get swept into a frenzy on what I’m doing, got to do or who I haven’t bought for (the answer is nobody yet). There is plenty of time. However, I adore Christmas and refuse for it to become a burden. I stand firm in a smile. When asked how I feel about ‘all the catering’ I reply with a smile and say it’s an honour to have family to feed. I am not a saint but I know one thing to be true. Being happy really does drive other people  nuts. “Ohhh I don’t know how you can be so relaxed, I ordered the Turkey in June” hehe…yup and I was busy enjoying the start of summer.

It also means that for the people I dislike, hate and wish would disappear I increase my sparkle, smiles and graces – why? Because it pisses them off and reflects the stress and chaos back at them. I will not absorb negativity from them. It’s my super power and a skill that you should consider as a New Years resolution – forget weight loss, make 2018 the year you choose to be happy.

I choose happy because it makes me happy, it makes others happy and it’s contagious.

Christmas Day will come and go whether I stress or not. The dust will gather again from the moment I flick the duster, the bills will get paid and all those tasks on the ‘to do list’ will eventually be over taken with other tasks and thousands of other ‘to do lists’ but for now I am blissfully happy drinking a hot cup of tea after an intense yoga session, and for now and for always ‘I choose happy’ (and tea) (same thing)

Have you ever picked positivity as a power to piss others off?

Example is leadership #2 Davina McCall

As we move on with my series, please recap by Clicking for an introduction  to understand what this series is and why I’ve chosen to create it.

I feel a little behind when introducing this UK star, as the BBC did a ‘who do you think you are?’ programme on her (the TV series look into the ancestry of famous peeps), however I have always adored her and even more so since listening to her on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 recently, I actually listened to the podcast version and would totally recommend Davina’s.

Davina McCall was born in 1967 and I have to sit down whilst writing that this means she is half a century, she could give most twenty somethings a run for their money.

 

Davina was the first Big Brother presenter when it first aired in 2001, I was a fan of the first few series but mainly I tuned in to see DM. I also loved her on a show called ‘street mate’ where she would hook couples together on the street. I loved her sense of humour, her presenting skills are in my opinion superior and frankly she has always rocked her locks.

But that isn’t why she has made it into this series, nor is it her traumatic and toxic childhood, or her own battle with narcotics. Don’t get me wrong, these aspects intrigue me (we all like a happy ending) but its her own self doubt and ability to over come it that really makes her sparkle for me. In February 2014, Davina undertook a challenge called ‘Davina – Beyond Breaking Point’,  she also recorded a documentary during seven days of either running, swimming or cycling across the UK to raise money for the UK charity Sports relief. In my initial post I mentioned my distaste for humans, but for me Mrs M seems to epically rock ‘fragile vulnerability’ that consumes so many people. She has complete self doubt, prepares and does it anyway….as an onlooker, it would appear to me that she seems to thrives off of anxiety and I think she often surprises herself with her capabilities, and I like that level of sincerity. I’m not a DVD fitness fan – but I’d buy hers just to watch her smile and seriously, her abdominals are awesome. Not bad for a woman who has battled many dark corners of life.

Her ability to test her body, be a Mum and also have a clear sense of who she is makes her a national treasure. She is relatable and I imagine living with her is much like the Green day track: walking contradiction, she is both weak and strong, sensitive and blunt, fierce and fragile, focused and usually turns up late. Some how though, she gets the balance just right and it works. 

Example is leadership (Intro)

Quote by Albert Schweitzer

Being human is complex. I’m not sure I’d actually like to consider myself part of the human race – we’re very often mean, selfish and ignorant. However, I am no different and have had my fare share of moments when I have imparted negativity on others; the awkward time (before I became a Teacher) that I got horrendously drunk at the office party and was a drunken pain in the *insert body part of your choice, to my then boyfriend. The time I was cruel to my best friend and ignored her, I was twelve; that isn’t an excuse and I was a horrid because I didn’t realise how much hurt I had caused her. The thousands of times over the last thirty something years I have spilled vile comments out of my mouth like grenades to loved ones, friends and even the women who carried me in her stomach for nine months (sorry Mum)…

Due to my disability (being human) I can’t promise that I won’t do any of the above things again over the coming days, years or moments. I also will probably experience grenades of negativity from others because other people that I share this planet with have the same disability, the population is increasing ten fold and this means human condition grows.

HOWEVER, what we do have is the ability to slow down. To breath and to make kinder choices, to say nothing instead of the horrendous words and actions we have previously intwined together. How? Well I have never claimed to have all the answers, but I have made a conscious effort for many years to be kinder, gentler and positive. I take my position as a role model extremely seriously, I care about how I present myself,  as I want the girls that I teach to present the best them to the universe. I care about how I make others feel because I believe that karma is something that rhymes with rich and I want my son to grow up with characteristics that matter. So, with my disability in check, I make these adjustments both forwards and back and sometimes I win and sometimes like any disease it takes hold of me.

For as long as I can remember I have collected people. (*Authorities need not worry there are no humans in my basement – in fact I don’t have a basement) Metaphorically speaking I have always been fascinated by humans, people watching is one of my favourite past times. When I was at university my bestie and I would sit in the front of a local cafe with a huge cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows people watch from the shop window. As we were both on a drama degree we would often create scenarios for the people and why they were in town, what they had purchased and usually added unnecessary details like what they had had for dinner and who they were sleeping with.

Much like horror movies, we all seem to be attracted to what we also dislike – my love / hate is humans. So, I have decided to share with you some of my favourite icons with a new series. I hope that my sharing the qualities I recognise in them, you can take something away with you that you see in people around you. Most of them will be famous, some will be personal and a few will be somewhere in between.

I will attach this post to the series titles so that readers will hopefully understand why this series exists, because no matter what our age from zero to one hundred we all need role models  to help us thrive.

One obvious last question – who are your role models, idols, mentors or humans that offer hope? 

Lick the lid of life :)

Strangley there is a lack of yoghurt quotes in the world, so I pinched Muller yoghurts slogan from a few years back. 

Warning: this is a ramble that was going around in my head which I attempted to share with Mr F but he told me I was jabbering. So I thought, fine I’ll share my brain with the world instead.

I decided today that humans are basically the same as yoghurt. (Yup, this was the point that the Mr walked away) There are high brands and basic ranges, logos and cool kid varieties, that can come in awesome wrapping and even sometimes in a squidgy tube, some have character endorsements to make them even cooler #princessdisney

It must be sad to be a basic own brand yoghurt. Surely you’ve still got all the calcium goodness that the others have, in the pot you’re still made of the same ingredients, but some supermarket dude has labelled you as not worthy of a sufficient price tag as other pots.

Then there is the privileged and organic variety, the cows were perhaps treated better from birth and fresh grass meant that the yoghurt is superior and has more stuff than most right from the start. The price tag is high and picking this kind of yoghurt makes the consumers feel like they are saving the world one spoonful at a time.

Ohhh I should probably add that organics best friend or close relative is the probiotic branded kind. It’s like the fitness freak of the yoghurt family and even refuses to be eaten with a spoon. Instead it insists ‘on the go’ and is drunk from a sleek mini bottle. It’s more than a yoghurt and is promoted as a deity.It can cleanse your bowel, shuffle your ph balance to optimum ph-ness AND save you from 250 types of cancer you didn’t even know existed.

I wonder if like humans the yoghurts on the shelves look at each other and compare packaging. Or perhaps the more refined yoghurts read the labels of the lower price yoghurts when they aren’t looking to make themselves feel better (“ohhh he is high in sat fats and I’m not even sure why sour cream is in this isle?”). Firstly, I agree my imagination is at times rather ‘unique’ but judging packaging on yoghurt is just as absurd as us judging each others hair, occupation, cars, holidays, or how the couple across the road have afforded an extension and holiday (I’m not bitter). I’m not saying I don’t do it, I’m just acknowledging that it’s a weird thing to do if you look at it from a distance.

I also fully understand (within the mind set of yoghurt) why being a shop discount brands must be tough. For starters (let’s judge for a bit longer) your packaging is so basic it cracks, your lids loose and you sit opposite the smoothie with fricking bobble hats on. If I were yoghurt I’d want to have a brand, a place to belong. Perhaps even an advert on TV? I’d want to be low fat and have all the taste of full fat…I’d want to be yoghurt heaven…and then I gave it some more thought and I realised that I’ve overlooked a yoghurt that’s much more me…

The best yoghurt I’ve ever had was on holiday. It wasn’t over priced, it probably was calorie horrific but you can’t beat authentic Greek yoghurt. It’s thick, creamy and utterly tasty; so much so it doesn’t really need anything with it, it stands alone. My preference is a little honey but is also nice served with fruit or a dessert – human wise it works well as a team or individually. It’s authentic, it doesn’t have fancy labels, hype or need to be promoted. The taste has depth and clarity and most importantly its not trying to be anything more or less than it is.

So after my yoghurt rant I’ve decided we all should be aspiring to be us, full fat or otherwise…

  • Labels are man made and only read by people that doubt themselves.
  • True character doesn’t need media attention
  • Greek yoghurt is awesome
  • Own Brand yoghurt is essentially the same on the inside as all the other options – give it a try
  • Perhaps if we all knew our own self worth we wouldn’t need to judge the packaging of others
  • I like yoghurt 🙂

Sorry if you are lactose intolerant and had a reaction whilst reading this yoghurt rant. 

*Whatmyfridgesays takes no responsibility for this because its a made up rant with no ingredients, preservatives or other things found in foods that I don’t really understand.

Owning less is better than organising more

Quote by Joshua Becker

This quote resonated with me as I have a dream. To live in a minamilist house with a few precious objects. White clean lines and quality rather than quantity…

The current reality is a three bedroom house full of plastic (seriously my child is a plastic magnet), dog hair and crap that I might need ‘one day’. I’m not a hoarder or collector and I’m not a fan of ornaments, I like objects to have purpose SO WHY DO I OWN SO MUCH STUFF? I don’t go shopping that often and over the last few years I have refused to shop in many high street shops swapping quantity for classic pieces that are better quality, I even have a charity bag on the go all the time….still we have stuff everywhere? 

My house is like some sort of Bermuda Triangle of stuff, it seeps in through the cracks and clutters the side boards and surfaces. I’m purposely using the word stuff as I’m not sure what we have… most of it is practical, used and loved and I’m even thinking of moving house as an excuse to chuck it all (the actual reality would be a million boxes I’d never get around to unpacking and probably the purchase of even more stuff)

So, for once I don’t have the answers, not even close. Instead I’m asking you for advice on how to minamilise before I suffocate in stuff and drown in a pile of a toys. My living room looks like Toys R Us and only the bathroom is clutter free; even then I have to keep an eye on the ratio of bath water to plastic toys in my sons baths. Work surfaces that I clean are filled in an instant, Paper flows through our letter box like the scene from Harry Potter – the irony is that only one local take away will actually deliver to our village, so why do I need 65 flyers of exotic food that I can’t order? Then, why do those flyers get stuck on sideboards around the home, poked in corners and laid on the bottom of our staircase for days, weeks and in some cases months. 

Sorry to rant, although I do feel better – they say writing is therapy after all? In this case any practical tips would be welcome in the comment section, because honestly owning less would be so much less organising… 

Love a Minimalist wannabe x