Music Matters

Music Matters!   Normally I listen to a sports radio station interspersed with news on my 2 hour commute each day.  Recently however I have been turning it down because it irritated me, to then switching to a local music station with ads (the ads irritate me).  The change has been interesting to reflect on.  

I have become more enthusiastic, pumped up and ready to start my day.  I have tracks which I identify to and share with my nearest and dearest.  It has helped developed bonds, open up conversations with a wide range of people throughout my day and put me in a positive space.

When I was younger I was really into my music but as parental and job responsibilities took over the music decreased.  However my daughter and I have always shared music and singing in the car and we have many musical memories - very precious.

When deciding what music to walk down the aisle to we all discussed this and came up with Match of the Day, maybe not everyone's taste to walk down the aisle to but appropriate for me and mine and a talking point for others for all of time.

I have a song that was playing as I went to be interviewed for my current job and which continues to be my inspiration and anthem and which I turn to when days are tough and long.  I have a coming home on Friday song which at the moment I sing badly and forget the words to but one which is instantly recognisable as I come down the quiet street where I live and it pounds away signalling the start of the weekend.  There is music for every emotion and which you can turn to to celebrate, to get you through you hard times or just to give you thinking time.

Music maketh man or woman in this case and on this morning I am luxuriating in some Spotify space and listening to Emile Sande, Lawson, Lady Antyebellum, Gueta and then I will wallow in my before years of Elvis Costelloe, Flock of Seagulls, Prince, the list is endless, the mind is unwinding and motivating at the same time.  

So to me Music Matters and Maketh Me!

Project Parent

Work is always challenging, which is why it interests me and I must admit I have stamped my own brand onto the company I work for.  Over the past six months, I have just got to the landing stage where I think, yep I have tweaked, changed, curtailed, achieved,and worked many hours with many people to change the culture, to make processes easier and to encourage ambition and achievement and to exceed expectations and targets.

The road is long and hard and as I stood nearly on the precipice of a huge team achievement and was about to start to consolidate, reflect and review another change came into view.  A change unexpected and new and which will challenge me in everything I do.  However this change came about the day before a very personal achievement in my life.  

When someone asked me about my reaction to my work, I replied with "it is fine and it will be fine, with a lot of work to do but to be honest with you my biggest project comes to fruition tomorrow", they asked what is that, thinking they knew everything that was going on in my life (not a member of my immediate team so they would not know all the minutiae) .

My biggest project is and continues to be ............parenting.  Having just gone through the stresses and strains of the GCSE's, a delightful set of results which exceeded my daughter's expectations, then there came the wait for college.  

I didn't want to receive the calls from parents who had everything sorted, what if I failed project parenting at this crucial time with no place for my daughter and nothing organised, just a large void of expectancy.

A mad dash between two colleges ensued (with the school offer as a final back up) and finally the relief of two offers and then the decision which to take and finally acceptance of a place to study A levels.  Phew I thought project parenting can now take it easy for two years, but no, my work colleagues informed me that there are year 1 exams and the traumas of these not being passed played out before me. 

A friend rang with GCSE good news but a story about a levels students having to start again, basically going back a year and another shared with me the switch in Uni's from year 1 to year 2.  Hmmm this project parenting still has years to go.  Whereas with work projects they are timed and controlled.  

The worse thing for a control freak is to be out of control and dependent on others which as the child grows older becomes more apparent.

So this parent is going to grow old disgracefully, and in the words of one of my favourite poems, wear purple.  At that time the roles will have changed and the anxieties of a parent will move to my child and hopefully her worry about her own project parent ie me!!!

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

 Thanks to Jenny Joseph for this inspirational poem

Simple Sanctury

I have lived in a few houses, in each there has been a room I have particularly liked.  You need a space if you can to call your own, a sanctuary that restores sanity.

In our last house before this one it was the lounge - large windows to the front and a small, yet tall window to the side.  This enabled me to lie on the sofa when looking for sanctuary for the sole and gaze at the clouds. 

 In this house, we have been here four and a half years.  My space has been firstly on the landing over one side of the house, and when I worked on a Sunday the bells pealed from the church and clouds scudded past the small window.  That was a small sanctuary space, however my favourite room at that time was the dining room, and indeed was the first room to be finished.  Subsequently my life changed and an office in the garden was built.

The office was my sanctuary, I spent most of my life in there with the cats, had my pictures and everything I required and could gaze out across the garden and be at one with the elements and again watch the clouds, the seasons change and be at one with myself.  At night whilst working the stars twinkled through and on fireworks nights it was a spectacle to cherish.

Life never stands still so another change, and the house changes too.  The space at the top of the house is requisitioned as a bedroom.  With it's cream walls, high ceilings and huge arches of beams.  With two windows to the back of the house- on a level with the clouds and on gazing out views for miles.  The window to the front, with the noise from the street, this room has now become my new sanctuary.

As you venture upwards, ducking your head and  squeezing up the narrow staircase, with a ships rope as a bannister,  you feel the day slipping away.  You are on your own high altitude, with only your own attitude.  You look outward to a setting sun and become one. 

After a few weeks sourcing the relevant pictures, candle holders and accessories, themed to reflect the passions ie New York, the beach, hearts in different configurations, candle holders, large vase full of scented lilies whose fragrance fills the space and I can lie on the bed, gaze at the clouds and forget for a while, the day to day minutiae which frustrate and reflect on the small successes that we all work hard to achieve and  now the room has become.........

Simple Sanctuary.

It takes time to realise you need your own space, your own thoughts, your own mind, to be at one with being  one and to enjoy your own company and balance this with good friends and family who keep you grounded, give you other points of view be there to laugh with you and pick you up and of course the simple sanctuary.

Inspirational Images

My inspiration comes from many things, maybe a poem I have read, a conversation I have heard or people I see on the tv or hear on the radio.  


My personal inspiration image is one which I see normally every day and even if I don't gain my object of desire it focuses my mind on what I do every day and why  I do it.  It motivates and stirs me to perform every day and do my best in whatever way.  


Everyone has their own motivation and on asking a person in an interview setting what their inspiration was and what motivates them, they confided in me that their motivation was a can of a well known energy drink.


Everyone has something in their live that inspires them, even if they don't realise it and it made me realise that motivation, however small or large keeps us going each and every day.  WIthout inspiration or motivation what would we do?


Sometimes though motivation is hard to find and that's when a well pointed blog or two have helped me unwind,  Indeed over the last six months when I have wondered whether I can achieve my goals and objectives and inspire others which will lead to my insprations being realised, I have posted words that inspire me. 


Tomight is no different, after an incredibly difficult day when everyone in the office sympathised and offered virtual glasses of wine to me, we still set out to do the very best we could do but this image sums it up tonight and thanks to everyone everywhere for ensuring that my inspirational image and my motivational flag flies as high as the Olympic flags that flutter in the breeze.

Motivational Monday Mantra

Well after receiving some heart shaped pictures to add to the

 "sanity sanctury" this seemed appropriate for 

Monday's Motivational Mantra

Thanks to Positive Outlooks for sharing and keeping me motivated more on a Monday!

Bottles not bubbles.........

Loved my day at work today, well when someone brings you a prezzie back from their holiday called Cornish Lust what more can you do than smile!

Can recommend it after dinner with a huge slice of home made chocolate cake - what a combination!

Olympic Overview

Posted this the other day and had quite a few likes so as it somes up my thoughts so far.....

Yay all those people watching the opening ceremony last night - 22.4 million, peaked at 26.9 million last night the biggest ever audience on the BBC. I think we did ourselves proud, I for one could not have had the imagination or the organisational ability that the opening ceremony provided, an inspired way to light the cauldron and amazed that health and safety did not stop the amazing spectacle. My biggest respect goes to the people behind the organisation of the Olympic Torch relay throughout the country - amazing how they managed it every single day, whatever the weather.

 Proud to be British and enjoying the Olympics so far

Go Team GB go!

Thanks to John Keen for the piccie :)