Tuesday 8 January 2008

Feeling happy and homely.













The New Year is here - as I'm sure you have noticed! - and I am pleased to report I have my usual New Year frame of mind; I'm feeling happy, positive, homely and nesty, enjoying challenges and enjoying my family. Will it last? Er, probably not but its nice while it's here!

I made a few revolutions (a Lauren-ism from her toddler days)as I always do; some were for my business aspirations and so I posted them on my Pipany blog, but here are my more general ones:

* To get outdoors more - I sort of became sewing room based and almost forgot what the great outdoors looked like, so I have been going for walks again over the Christmas period to get back in touch with this beautiful county I live in.

* To smile!!! - I always think of myself as a smiley person but I keep catching sight of myself in windows/mirrors and the frown is a more permanent fixture! I am now smiling whenever I think of it and it actually becomes quite addictive. People smile back and I feel quite a chirpy soul - obviously I look slightly insane and that is why people smile back (you know, that sort of Dickensian 'tip her a nod' thing!)

* To take on any problems which crop up with a positive attitude rather than an oh no, what now? kind of Eeyorish manner which inevitably makes me feel unable to sort anything and saps any energy which I may have got from going for a lovely walk. I really quite like problem solving and so why do I instantly moan before I do anything else?

* To sort my erstewhile beautiful garden which has become a digusting quagmire with little to draw me out there. We used to all spend hours out there with Dave and I gardening while the kids played boule or chased hens and ducks around. Somehow we created more and more beds (plus a flipping enormous pond) and lost the grass areas. So.... we are going to recreate some grass bits, tidy up our campfire area and replant all the things we move; also put the honeysuckle arch back up instead of leaving it where it fell over a year ago.

Well, there's a few to be going on with.. no doubt more to follow. In the meantime the decorations have gone for another year; Twelfth Night was spent doing a reading of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with a friend who came for dinner (and which dear Sam joined in with even though he is 18); the garden remains a quagmire and I have made a huge batch of sticky, fudgy brownies and delicious shortbread so I am off for a cuppa.

See you soon xx

11 comments:

  1. I guess you've got some busy days ahead. Best of luck, particularly with the fallen arches.

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  2. Ooh, that's better! It's done me good to read your post, I usually adore new year but I'm feeling very eeyorish at the moment so must take a leaf out of your book!

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  3. I tend to recycle my resolutions from year to year because they're so all encompassing and not very tangible. I like yours because you can measure them everyday. Success to you in each and every one!

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  4. Ooh I'd like to live in your life or Kitty's - you are both always baking deliciously sticky fattening things and yet you both stay so slim!

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  5. Ooooo lovely another really positive New Year blog . . there used to be a sign up in the children's old school - if you see someone without a smile - give them one of yours . . . .it is amazing how much it really does work.

    Hope you got your invite to the Purplecoo party tomorrow night.

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  6. Please dont mention sticky fudgy Brownies...I'm trying to lose weight!

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  7. Going outdoors has to be good for the soul. I don't go for enough walks and often scorn at myself, leaving a flippin' great frown which is becoming all too permanent. I might try your revolution of smiling more. I am already insane so it shouldn't make any difference!

    Crystal xx

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  8. Beautiful, beautiful. Please do pass some of those brownies and shortbread over to me!

    All that you propose to take with you as you head into this promising New Year is very inspiring to me.

    The walks to clear the air inside one's head. Yes. And reading Shakespeare on Twelth Night. Yes.

    Pipany, again I do tell you how amazing you are!

    xo

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  9. nice revolutions! I smile a lot, but mainly so that people the next day think that it's because I am like that rather than that I was the night before a lot because I was drunk. Although since I don't drink in January (thank goodness) I could sort of have this month off. But I like smiling, and it excuses some of the wrinkles. Agree with Wooly that there tends to be a grim repetition with mine, all stemming relentlessly on being a better person, yadda yadda. Yours are nice being concrete.

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  10. I love your revolutions! Just one thing.........I may have gained weight just thinking of the brownies!

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  11. Fab revolutions, Pip.....Another Eeyore here I'm afraid - but WILL be more Tiggerish (or maybe Roo-ish) this year.. Jxxxx

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