quotes to inspire

In the end we all become stories

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

Becoming a story sounds romantic, the reality is a lot bleaker… I never met all of my Grandparents due to them passing away before I was born, but I can tell you stories about them that my parents have told me and I can tell you about by Grandfathers who I spent time with…but what you’ll actually receive by listening to my story is my perspective on past memories, told by me and reflected from my past. Often as humans we share memories with an emotional subtitles such as ‘My Grandad was so funny, this one time…’ or ‘ My Nanny was so brave she once…’ – the bleaker reality is that in under one hundred years your stories like those of my great grandparents will be slowly lost. Our lives will become shared memories and stories, a few will become iconic within familiar circles but most will be forgotten.

What does this mean for today? For me it means to live authentically and not for other souls. To delight in my whimsy corner of the world and to ensure that even when I am considered rude, aggressive or perhaps unkind it has purpose and a truth to me.

Often when people recount a memory you shared, you don’t remember quite the same set of events. As time passes memories fade, alter and different people resonate with different aspects of the experience. It doesn’t mean they are wrong, we all just process moments individually, most forgotten altogether.

If this feels heavy or sad relish the joy in the forgotten. Few people will remember the excessive ‘Rachel from Friends’ hair you attempted to pull off in 1996, the tiny blemish that you doused in toothpaste and worried about all night, even we often forget why we worried all night just a few weeks ago…

Time really is a gift and ‘that’s why we call it the present’ – where possible leave people feeling good and often the stories they will recall will be of a similar nature. We can’t control the narrative and nor should we. Day by day we are all doing our best and sometimes in a blink of a moment our happy ever after has unfolded. For those you have loved and are no longer with us, recall the stories you cherish to others and for yourself be kind and don’t worry about the details, no body else will.

Unless I am myself, I am nobody

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Virginia Woolf

Authenticity is one of the many things that makes you wonderful. Talents vary, interests unique – you are you and that in itself is precious.

I began this blog when my son was about nine months old and in hindsight I’d probably lost myself between career, homemaker and my new role as Mum. It makes sense that I sought a creative outlet, a place to be me, some where that I could voice my thoughts and dance to my rules rather than plan and prepare for others.

Life can move so fast that you can get caught in variations of yourself that don’t allow you to balance all of the aspects that make you happy. For some it’s hobbies that get boxed up due to work commitments, for others it’s suppressed emotions or family life that requires your full attention.

Dreams and whimsical notions are often the first things that we shed when life gets busy, but often they bring joy and hope for better versions of ourselves. Creative outlets can be hard to maintain and time with those that we love can sometimes get lost between mundane tasks…so what can we do?

Make a cup of tea, cut a slice of cake – if that brings you joy and grab some paper and a pen. Whilst you sip your tea write a list for things you are grateful for and in the next column write down a ‘to do’ list, not in this case the ‘pick up milk’ and chore type but the one that you’d like to do…the things you’d like to do, like to experience or have more time to do.

Next comes the hard part, making it happen. You don’t need to do the whole list overnight, in fact the list may take a life time and if you review it every few months, you may find your desires alter. What I can guarantee is that small shifts and being true to yourself will improve your quality of life.

Warning: being authentic to yourself is contagious and may increase your wellbeing, quality of life and health.

I reviewed my list at the start of the summer break and wrote down ‘drink more water’ – I know that I am happier when I’m hydrated but honestly sometimes I just forget to drink enough. To ensure this happened I made sure I drank from my glass bottle, kept it in the fridge between sessions and gave myself a goal that I could manage. Every time I reached for my water I was prioritising me and that in turn made me feel better about myself.

Another I did a little while ago was I started recording on instagram what I was reading. I just took photos of the covers and sometimes wrote a few words about the books to make me accountable, as last year I read less than previous years. Reading and making time for my imagination is never not a good thing and books are something that bring me a wealth of joy and sometimes knowledge too.

Unless I am authentic to the life I want to live, I can easily get swept in a life that mirrors those around me. The images online that the algorithm send me, the goals my friends have and I feel I should do too, progressing in my career in the same manner the person above me has…I need to check I am happy with my choices, the way I spend my time and with who. Unless I am myself…I am lost.

Are you aligned to your authentic self? you know him/her well when you lose track of time, feel content and aren’t always exhausted. If you look in the mirror and like who you see…

Little me would save me to her Pinterest board

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Firstly, a little homage to Pinterest; the little app that I’ve been loving for decades that isn’t trying to be like every other app…contently making boards and window shopping for visually pleasing or specifically themed images forever. I love it! My favourite thing about Pinterest is the secret boards – just for me. Not everything has to for the world, sometimes a little secret board fills my soul of whimsy images and joy.

This blog picks up a lot of traffic from Pinterest, as I upload each post weekly…feel free to join the Pinterest page at: https://pin.it/1uLD19eb6 and follow the fridge journey.

So why would little me adore forty year old me? I think about little me a lot; her likes, joys and hopes. At four years old I wanted to be a teacher when I was older – done!

When I put my sparkly jelly shoes on (no straps, cheeky little heel)…I know little me approves. These are what she wore and would take a full day of summer holidays dedicated to finding. The more glitter the better.

What I wear, do, places I go are often mentally approved by little Lucy. A pink princess who loved Care Bears, Shera and Roland Rat knew her own mind and wasn’t influenced by others, and nor am I now. Of course we evolve, grow up, develop and learn…but I’m truly at my happiest doing things little Lucy enjoyed too…being in nature, playing in water, snuggling dogs (although Little Lucy went through a fear of dogs when a dog down our street ran off with one of the sparkly jelly shoes mentioned above – luckily Mummy ran after the dog and returned victorious, whilst I sobbed in shock that the fluffy ball of joy robbed me), not much has really altered. I still enjoy baking, reading, nature and all the little Lucy elements of life.

Connecting with our inner child isn’t just for people in counselling, it honours ourselves and who we are, our journey.

At around three years old, I had an invisible friend, well husband called Steve. He was an electrician and went to work on a aeroplane, mainly to Africa. If a plane went over head I would remark on whether Steve was on board, heading home or off to Africa for a shift. My forever Mr F is sadly not called Steve, or an electrician- but when we met he did go to Africa for work! *Did little Lucy know? I doubt it but it made for a good serendipity chuckle.

Give time this week to do something the little you would adore, perhaps a historically favourite snack (dolly mixtures), watch a favourite show (Snoopy and Charlie Brown) and honour the littlest version of you, for she/he is your foundation of all things good. Enjoy

I could explain, but I won’t

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

All behaviour has a function. Its the fundamental rule of being a behaviour specialist, even if it’s subconscious and we don’t realise it, every behaviour is learnt and repeated to receive a desired affect or to make us feel a certain way or gain something from those around us.

As long as we don’t cause distress to others we are only accountable for our behaviour to ourselves. This allows us to be free in our authenticity and often results in us creating goals and habits that help us achieve them. Issues occurs when we don’t align our behaviour/actions with our outcomes.

Consistency is often missing from goals and if we reflect back to a period of time when we did that habit for the longest period, it’s logical that that’s when we saw the most success. Take exercise as an example- perhaps you ran consistently all of last summer, got injured in the early Autumn and from then on your consistency due to weather, pain and resting became inconsistent – you don’t need to start again from scratch, you need to analyse the pattern of last year, what worked well? Running first thing in the morning (do more of that), what didn’t work well? Not enough rest days so injury occurred and excuses if it was raining (do less of that)…so now we can create an improved routine – morning runs every three mornings, then a day off – repeat indefinitely with no weather excuses… when we make that nonnegotiable our experience a consistently improved is our outcome. If we want long term success with that goal, then we will need to analyse that behaviour pattern again every few months, life happens and things change – perhaps you change jobs and can no longer run in the mornings, you have a baby in the house and sleep deprivation means rest days need to become more frequent for a period of time.

Humans become stuck when we consistently run old patterns of behaviour that no longer serve us but we do it for one simple reason ‘we always have’ or we don’t react to new circumstances, such as age, life style changes or outside factors such as family illness that have a knock on affect to us.

Take time out over the next few weeks to reflect on your current patterns and which are serving you and which you may need to alter. And remember if it makes sense to you and doesn’t hurt those around you, you don’t owe anyone an explanation for your actions. Do you – that’s your super power.

We already have enough

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

This week I’m sharing with you a lesson I taught myself this week…honestly, it felt like I’d slapped myself in the face.

Last night I was scrolling on Instagram and found a reel of a woman who was doing a food challenge. The challenge consisted of seeing how long she could eat out of the food already in her house, rather than top up shop every few days. In the reel (it was about day seven) she was substituting ingredients such as cream with yoghurt or peas for frozen broccoli, I don’t follow the person online but scrolled up to see how many days she’d be able to do the challenge for. I was shocked to see it ended on day ten, in fact even on day ten she’d bought some chicken to go with her evening meal…regardless I was surprised because she hadn’t taken the challenge to her own discomfort eg. Day 10034 and I’ve eaten a teaspoon of jam and a pickle. instead, she feedback that she’d realised how privileged we are. We don’t necessarily cook with the ingredients we have, instead the consumer culture encourages us to have want we want to eat and if we don’t have it, it’s easily purchased in an accessible store.

As someone that does a large family shop each month and then frequents local stores several times a week for one or two things this resonated with me. Mainly, as those one or two things becomes much larger and I end up purchasing ‘treats’ and food that we don’t necessarily need.

I was still thinking about this concept the next day and decided I would make it my next blog. Home alone I was saying out loud what I would write and how I would structure the post, planning and scripting as I go, like most working parents I did this whilst also baking. I make most of our meals from scratch and a regular in my baking cycle is sourdough and homemade Soreen, Half way through adding my ingredients for the Soreen into my mixing bowl I realised I was out of dried fruit. How could I be talking about not over consuming whilst also thinking about when I could nip to the shops for some dried fruit! The ingredients (minus the dried fruit) were in the bowl – it was too late to not make it? That said Soreen without mixed fruit is well.,, brown mush?

I double checked my larder in hope that a bag of dried mixed fruit might appear when the slap to my face hit me…I didn’t have mixed fruit but I did have some dried cranberries and some (potentially passed their sell by date) raisins…I could adapt.

That’s exactly what I did. The slap felt huge mainly as I was learning about privilege and entitlement in that very same moment that my instinct was hardwired to ‘I’ll pop to the shop and get some’

Whilst I can’t promised I’ll succeed, I am resolute in trying to change this programming. We can make do, we can use alternatives and I believe it will take repetition to alter my mindset but it’s something I’m committed to trying and would encourage you to try too!

Lastly, of course the cranberry and raisins worked beautifully and my family didn’t even notice the difference.

Sometimes soft girl, sometimes dinosaur

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

As I read this quote I took it to mean, sometimes princess and sometimes warrior…I’m now reflecting that perhaps it meant sometimes young and sometimes old. Well, we haven’t time for aging – far too much life to experience! That leaves us with soft girl and ferocious beast. I am both, we all are. We aren’t one dimensional beings, we are complex hypocritical, emotionally vulnerable and sensitively beings. We are making this crazy thing called life work and some days we do better than others.

I have never grown out of climbing trees – trees are calming and fun and the views are often better than you think. I hope I never grow out of climbing trees. The other day it was sunny, I had a plain white T-shirt on and a peach coloured tutu with white converse. We had decided to go out for a spontaneous evening walk. The forest was covered in dapple light and fading bluebells hanging on to their last moments of bloom. As we made our way through the woodland I saw a tree that needed to be climbed. Under my tutu (I work in schools) I had on some cycling shorts to avoid any awkward blusters of wind. The boys said I shouldn’t climb the tree as I might rip my skirt….the soft dress girl internally roared and I hoisted my tutu into my shorts and climbed the tree. Imagine a ball of candy floss climbing a tree… that was me. When I got to the branch I’d set my eyes on I released my skirt and let it lightly blow in the wind…I am both soft and dino roaring. Making my way down was a little difficult until I threw my tutu down ahead of me and popped it back on when I was ‘back on solid earth’ – some fights aren’t worth having.

You are not one thing and you get to decide what you want to be. You can be brave and scared – most adults are. You can be soft and hard – we are walking contradictions and it’s this simple act that makes us interesting to live alongside. We can do what we please and yes of course we have to live with the consequences but often if we are true to ourselves the consequences are easier to live with. Don’t let people tell you who to be, how to be or what to do, you aren’t a robot and your super power is that you are uniquely you, so wear the tutu and climb tree.

I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

Initially, we are heavily influenced by our parents, not just our DNA but our homes environments cultures, traditions and how we approach basic tasks; in some houses you remove your shoes, others you pop on slippers, some bare feet survices…some sit at a table to eat together, others join in unison on the sofa. In turn, as we grow we subconsciously absorb these as our own, not just how we do things but how we think, our moral compass and often our beliefs,

The influence doesn’t stop there, many children and teens want their hair styled and clothes to look like celebrities they admire. As a little person of the eighties I always loved a pair of patent shiny boots with sparkles on them and titled them appropriately as my Michael Jackson boots, my friend once got her hair cut like Posh spice (she regretted it for months) and I think every teen of the early nineties styled their hair like Rachel from the TV show Friends.

We are made up of what we have seen, who we spend our time with and what we hold close to us. We really are mosaics of those we love.

As our loved ones pass on, I like to think that they continue in the mosaics of those they leave behind. Some bring colour, others intricate design – some leave cracks and others leave very little.

In life we can love and by proxy, pass on small parts of ourselves. Strangers can be influenced by the kindness and compassion of people, and in turn we may pass on mosaic pieces without even realising it. Life really is a large floor plan and each piece we add (or deduct) along the way makes for a unique piece of art. May your life be more beautiful than you’d hoped.

I am out with lanterns looking for myself

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Emily Dickinson

What a fabulous quote. I had to pop it on the fridge, it has a frivolous feeling and yet feels deep and tender, with a twist of romance…

It doesn’t matter how much you know yourself, take time to align and balance the various elements of life…sometimes we get lost or forget what brings us joy or what we need to say no to. Each stage of life brings new joys and challenges, things that once bought us joy can feel like they are causing us to drown and at times new experiences can offer new perspectives, if we are open to receiving them.

Emily’s quote expresses the need to shine the light on the dark areas of life, the ones we hide away due to shame or overwhelm, the bits of us that live in the shadows because ‘shining a light’ on the issue then involves us having to do something about it. Facing fears sounds hugely dramatic but often we know that there are daily small tasks we should tackle but often pop into our shadows. In the shadows these small tasks can multiply, small leaks become floods, chipped paint that could be sanded and repainted in minutes becomes a bigger issues that requires sections to be replaced. I know this because I have a plethora of tasks hidden in my shadows. One of the stupidest tasks that I hate doing is washing the kitchen floor, however I have learnt time and time again that it takes under 15 minutes and makes me feel seriously satisfied- it’s a stupid task because I know all of this and still put it off, perhaps on reflection I’m stupid and the task is basic.

As we step into a new season and spring beckons us in with a daffodil of joy and a sprinkle of sunlight to inspire us, it’s time to reflect on where we are in our own journey, each season often needs us to adjust our sails and this quote reminds us where to focus our attention, obviously mine includes the kitchen floor but also other goals such as a consistent exercise routine and making myself accountable in other areas. Sometimes it’s not action that is required, often it’s rest. At other reflective moments we realise that we need to rebalance the time we are spending on one activity and redirect action in another area – it’s not more, it’s just different. As we head into spring where do you need to shine your lantern, where can you see gains that are currently stagnant? They’ll always be shadows when there is light, you don’t need to tackle it all today, but you don’t want the darkness to consume you either.

We remember moments

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote by Cesare Pevese

As a parent I’m good at creating moments for my son. Spontaneous moments, magical moments or disbelief moments ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ – this is who I am.

It began with my son’s hairdressers appointment in a local village to us. He is often reluctant to go, but honestly it’s been so long since his last appointment that he looked like a Lego man and even he recognised that it wasn’t a desirable vibe. As we were leaving the house my spontaneous magic decided to take our tortoise with us, it was a sunny day and I thought he’d enjoy it, plus the hairdresser has a lovely little garden attached to it for him to explore. We got in the car and my son took care of the tortoise, im spontaneous but I’m not a ‘tortoise and drive’ kinda woman. I’m always early for appointments so we had half an hour for my son to grab a meal deal and we browsed the local shops, we went into one shop and as the shop sold food, I popped the Tortoise in my handbag, I didn’t want to upset anybody and frankly he loves a dark hole.

My handbag is a little extra (see Instagram reels for more details) but it has an old fashion telephone handle attached to it. In the shop was another mother and son, the boy was about seven and he noticed my bag. He muttered something about it to his Mum and I said ‘It cool isn’t it, want me to blow your brain – the phone works’ he smiled and his Mum complimented the bag. I looked at the little boy and said ‘If you really want you brain blown I have a tortoise in my bag’ – at this point the boy looked at his Mim confused and I have to agree it’s not an average thing to hear. I carefully took Nathaniel out (that’s out Tortoise’s name) and the boys smile exploded across the shop. It was huge. He began to giggle and I asked if he’d like to hold him, he did and as he handed the tortoise back to me I wished his Mum and the boy a wonderful weekend.

As we walked over to the hairdressers where Nathaniel snoozed in a sun spot content with life’s offerings, my son remarked on how happy the boy had been. He joked I was like Mary Poppins and we giggled about Nathaniel spreading joy. We wondered if he would remember it in disbelief, or tell other people and it seems like a magic trick. My son thinks he’ll probably badger his Mum for his own Tortoise.

Either way, we spread a little joy and created a beautiful moment for a little boy. I should probably add we often take our pets on adventures but always with their comfort and safety first. Perhaps you have had a similar experience or feel inspired to share some joy. It’s doesn’t have to be the same as our experience, maybe it’s just paying a compliment to someone who needs to hear they are beautiful, or appreciating a moment with a stranger. Spreading joy and taking time to interact with the world around you is the best way to make unplanned memories of magic.

Life is one big tasting menu

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote from fridgesays

Little people say the best things and I am currently working with the sassiest five year old. This week she taught me all about ‘my menu’ and I’m sharing this little tale in hope that it helps you reflect on your life menu.

The classroom assistant was passing around a bowl of fruit for snack time and when it got to Miss Sass she politely declined the offer of a Pear by flicking her ponytail and saying ‘that’s not on my menu, thank you’ – the assistant misunderstood her and said ‘xxxx, Pears are what we have today’, but Miss Sass stayed in her own lane and stated again ‘Pears are in your menu but not mine’

True to her nickname, she remained polite with a pinch of sass but reminded me about boundaries. Of course, she was actually trying to say she didn’t want a Pear, having seen her lunchbox I would guess a sugary treat was on her menu, but actually just because something is being handed out doesn’t mean we need to except it, especially if it isn’t on our menu. By this, I’m referring to larger life issues than Pears – when a person cuts you off in traffic, you don’t need to retaliate and allow their action to drop your vibe. When someone is gossiping, you don’t need to join in, you don’t need to follow the crowd because being authentic serves you and everyone around you. Often I fall out of alignment due to how those around me act, not my own mood or thoughts.

Since hearing about Pears not being on the menu, I’m wondering if I need to look at my own values and beliefs. Am I rejecting what doesn’t align with me or am I getting caught in other peoples tasting menus? Personally, I’m always a pink lady over a pear kind of person, so here’s to declining Pears and going without – less is more when you surround yourself with your own menu.