...shipwrecked...

Sea-change coming!

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

~~Shakespeare, The Tempest

Time does absolutely fly when your life is in a bit of chaos. At the end of June, DAC and I ran away to the Gower to sit on the beach and talk the day away.  In the course of that day, we made BIG decisions which will have very long-term effects. I have offically decided that the only place on the planet where BIG decisions should be made is sitting on a beach with my wonderful husband and watching the sea.

SO...DAC is leaving teaching high-school and has, in fact, already worked his final day. Next, he's going to take a bit of time off to figure out how to change career paths completely. Back to university lecturing? Publishing? Library work? Or perhaps even Occupational Therapy? The world is his to command. The job we do in life to keep body and soul together should NOT make us miserable. And it is high time, I had a happy husband who enjoyed his day job!

To facilitate this, on the 12th of August we are moving to his parents house in Surrey. No rent, no council tax, no electric or water or heating bills! And they've got three empty rooms we can have to ourselves.

It's all very exciting and filled to the rim with major life changes. It's a bit overwhelming at times...especially since I haven't lived with my parents in almost 20 years. And now to be moving in with someone else's parents seems a bit strange. But hey...they've been very sweet and helpful about everything and I've always loved a challenge! It's a bit scary at times too...but that is no reason to stay ashore!

And besides, I LOVE MOVING! It always feels like a fresh start. It's the perfect time to get rid of things you're not using, to donate clothes and furniture and random things to charity, to have a major clear out in advance of moving into a new nest!

It's a big change but it's a sea-change...and that makes it all OK!

This is what happens when you SHIPWRECK your ankle!

Last weekend, I wrecked my ankle walking through a farm field looking for a missing, rebellious cat. As a result, I've been working from home, propped for days on the sofa with my ankle elevated watching it turn a variety of colours and learning that...YES...your toes can in fact swell up! One outcome of this has been the newly revamped blog now living at TypePad instead of Blogger. I did this as part of a larger blogging project in an effort to keep things simple. [NB: Larger blogging project to be discussed more openly very soon! ] Suffice it to say that now all blog spots will be located in one place. I'll be informing my amazing followers on the old space via FB any minute now.

You can't help but notice that this layout/design is a bit more stark - though I like to think of it as a bit more streamlined, a bit more tidy to look at. The challenge now is to introduce some colour in both the photograhs and the text content! This is no small challenge!

Today's very colourful photo is here just because I love it. It is my visual version of Spring - and I am so glad to see Spring entering the game! Yes - it is my feet...my favourite pair of Birkenstock sandles and a fabulous nail colour! You can't help but have a good day when this is the way your feet look in the morning on the way to work!

 

Those of you who may be following my 37 day challenge, please note that I have done pretty well getting up earlier than necessary throughout my recovery from the torn ligaments and wrecked ankle. Ok - mostly this has been to get up and take pain killers or get an ice pack or wrap or unwrap the ankle depending on how it's feeling. That said - I was up and at 'em at 6:30 this am and have gone full tilt since.

With this newly redesigned blog space, I've decided to set myself a subsidiary task with my morning's stolen time...take a colourful photo daily...sometimes to be added to the blog! So here you go - Day 13 of the 37 Day Challenge...Day One on the take a colour photo challenge. For today - I'm going to count the one above...I have no interest in the colours of my right foot at the moment!

Confession of a time thief...

I have spent my life being careless with Time. My 37 day challenge is to get up earlier than necessary every day for 37 days and my reason for doing this is to become more careful about my usage of Time. Once completed, the challenge will (hopefully...) have taught me about being a morning person. Becoming a true morning person will (hopefully...) have given me more Time in the day, Time for myself. I can also already see that this first week has made me very aware of Time, how I spend it and how I want to spend it...it has taught me what works for me and what really doesn't. Being aware of Time...it seems like the first lesson learned in this challenge.

In this challenge so far, I've managed to stick to it every day but today. Oh well - one day off the proverbial wagon in 7 is not bad and I'm not going to kick myself over this. Besides - every day is day one...so I can just start up again tomorrow. I have experimented during this past week with how to use this additional Time that I have stolen from the night. Result? Getting up earlier in the AM to work on the PhD just put the PhD in mind all day leading to blind, panic attacks about it by the end of the day. Not good.

So this next week - my stolen hours will be spent exercising. Get up...ride the torture device (a combo cross-traininer/stationary bike) and then do a 10 minute yoga moment and a plethora (love that word!) of ab and stomach exercises. Something tells me already that spending my stolen time exercising will actually have the knock-on effect of helping me to focus better on the PhD in the evenings. Let's hope so...that particular project needs all the help it can get!

37days challenge March 27 – May 3, 2009

I, __SarahElektra__, being of kinda sound mind and body, have willingly decided to try to do one thing consistently every single day for the next 37 days. C’mon, self, it’s just 37 days. The one thing I will try to do every day is this:

I will get up earlier than I normally do every day...in order to have extra time to celebrate life!

I’m not going to pick two things or nine things because that will dilute my focus –- just one thing. One. One simple action. An action, not a goal. An action, not a value. An action, not a wish. Something I can DO.

I’m doing this challenge at this time because: I know that time passes more quickly than we want it to and I want more of it in my days to cherish.

I’ve chosen this particular daily action because I believe if I do it consistently for 37 days with no (NONE, ZERO, ZIP) exceptions, I will: have more time in every day...more time for friends and family and pets and myself. Time is a blessing and I must learn how NOT to squander it.

If I should fail, I won’t blame anyone but myself (not even my partner, that idiot with 29 items in the express lane at the Piggly Wiggly, the IRS (so needy!), the people who make frosted Pop Tarts and Lofthouse Cookies, or Fate).

I also realize that this contract is solely with myself and carries no rewards, penalties or punishments other than those associated with the reflection of the strength of my character.
New things will happen for me.

I’m ready.

TODAY IS DAY ONE.

If yesterday was day zero, today is DAY ONE!

Please look at the list of blogs I follow. One is titled 37days. Read the blog, buy the book, follow the path. Patti Digh is a fabulous author and I love her outlook on life. I'm learning mountains from the book and I'm taking her latest 37 day challenge very much to heart.

So - for the next 37days my plan is to do the very simple thing of getting up earlier every day that I normally would. I may not get up at 5:45 like I did this AM. And I recognise that getting up earlier will not fundamentally change the world. But I did make myself and DAC lunches for work. I did tidy up parts of the house. I did get my morning FB fix before work. I did cuddle with our cats for a bit. I did plan the vital parts of my day and how/when I would get them accomplished. And, most importantly, I moved that alarm clock out of arm's reach. Now...this is way more than I would've been able to do if I'd gotten up at 7am and had to rush like mad just to get to work without being TOO late.

It's a single small change. And, mathematically speaking, it should just about give me two extra days worth of time in the next 37 to celebrate life! Thanx Patti...watch this space to see the effect my single small change will have...

Too much of everything is just enough!!

The title is part of Grateful Dead lyric. It occurred to me as I was thinking just how much I'm enjoying this blog...must start writing more. It's more and more spring-like in England. Perhaps that is where the motivation comes from. Time to begin the work so that I don't remain almost 10 years older than I really am. Time to spring-clean more than the house...time to spring-clean my heart, mind, soul so that the next 37 years are fabulous.

Begin as you mean to go on.

"Shipwrecked" redux...

In thinking at length about the philosophical concepts around being "shipwrecked" vs. the literal and more negative meanings of the word, I realised there is a key component which I haven't mentioned.

So...what would you do if you were shipwrecked on a island somewhere tropical but devoid of modern life and physical companionship? Would you know instinctively what to do to survive? Probably not - and certainly not at first. You would have an enormous period of adjustment coupled with a process of trial and error to determine the most successful methods to find and store fresh water, hunt and/or forage for food, maintain shelter, create fire. Assuming you find coping strategies for these more immediate concerns, they would likely be followed by exploring creative methods of marking time, for studying ways of escape, for not just sustaining life but finding ways of enhancing it as well.

Similarly, in my newly "shipwrecked" life, I'm very much in a period of adjustment and trial and error. It seems self-evident that being literally shipwrecked you would learn a great many things about your internal self while also learning an enormous number of day-to-day coping skills, new routines, new habits, new creative outlets. Therefore, at the beginning of thoroughly enjoying and evolving into the life I want by embracing being philosophically shipwrecked, I am researching a few tools of the trade, methodologies and specific types active changes to put into place which [hopefully] will have the knock-on affect of developing new interests, hobbies, habits and coping strategies. Such new approaches will then provide the learning that can bring about the happily shipwrecked life.

Like any good shipwreck, it's as much about the journey as it is about the arrivals and departures...

Beginning...

It's Saturday morning and I'm wondering...am I a "blogger"? What is a "blogger"? Is there a definition of the word of "blog"? Can you decline the verb "to blog"?

Questions, questions...too many questions...

Answer found here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.^[1] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.