Monday meander 8/6/15

I love chocolate.  I have a small box of Godiva chocolates on my kitchen table.  I bought them yesterday when we were on a chocolate walking tour in central London.  The tour was a present to me from my son and his partner for Mother's Day.  They had bought 2 places so hubby came too.  We met our guide by The Ritz hotel and we wandered through the streets of Mayfair visiting several very classy chocolate shops.  We learnt about the history of chocolate and also got to taste some samples.  I was in heaven.

Several of the shops were very small but we also visited Fortnum and Mason which supplies the Queen.  It's a very impressive shop with a huge chocolate selection.  Of course it also sells teas, preserves and oh I could go on and on.  The staff uniform is very traditional.  It was actually the first time I had ever visited the store.  We notice this everytime we do something like this - we've lived in London all our lives but there is so much of it we haven't seen.  When we retire.....

Of course some people think I've retired already.  The jury is still out on that at the moment.  I had a better week last week having got back to scheduling things to do and there is still lots to be done at home so I've no plans to look for a job just yet.

As for my June goals well I managed to complete reading all the Hodgepodge posts from last week.  Thanks to all who left me comments.  I hope I've responded appropriately.  I also managed to visit 10 blogs on the A-Z Road Trip list at the weekend.  That was interesting.  One blog hadn't even posted any A-Z posts, one site seemed to be a promotional site for books and another had quit after only a few posts.  Not sure why they included themselves on the Road Trip.

I also managed over 10 miles of walking but I'm yet to get on my bike.  (Although I did pump up the flat tyres.)

Today I have finally got round to touching up the paintwork in our kitchen.  We had a couple of patches where I think the paint was applied before the plaster underneath had totally dried out so the paint had peeled.  Nothing major but just one of those annoying things that need to be fixed.  Well today I fixed it (hopefully it won't peel again!) now I just have to take bets on how long before my hubby notices.  Maybe if I leave the painting paraphanalia around he might get the hint.

I also thinned out my Hellebore seedlings: 

I have a thriving Hellebore in the garden and it had seeded earlier this year so my gardener had me collected the seedlings to grow into new plants.  I think she has an ulterior motive - she is part of a group setting up a community garden nearby.  It is a huge undertaking and they will need all the help they can get, including donations of plants.

Well I started this post yesterday and it's now nearly bedtime today so I will end now.  It's been a good start to the week.

A - Z Road Trip & goals for June

Hmm no blogs for a few days then three in a row.  A bit like London buses.  Although that's actually not a fair comment anymore as our bus service is actually quite good locally.

Having completed the A - Z Challenge, as a means to get back into blogging regularly, I've now signed up for the Road Trip - this gives an opportunity to continue visiting the blogs of those who participated but without the pressure of trying to do all that and get a daily post done.  There's also less pressure as only 172 bloggers signed up for the Road Trip compared to the huge number that took part in the challenge. (1509 at the final count.)

I think my aim for this will be to read 10 blogs a week. (Probably at the weekend.)  I've copied the list into a word file so that I can make notes or just cross off the ones I've been to as I go along.  I'm going to start at the bottom and work my way up so that those on the bottom of the list feel some love early on.  (Be nice if some others did this as I'm near the bottom of the list!)  That should give me plenty of time to get through the list before the next challenge starts.  Yes I will be doing it again but I might try and do a bit more forward planning next time.  I'll also need a theme.  For me having a theme definitely helped.

There's one problem I have with blogging - finding the time to visit other bloggers.  Especially things like memes where the whole point of joining them is to interact with other bloggers.  I love the Wednesday Hodgepodge but it takes time to get around to all the participants.  Again I'm giving myself a target of 10 at a time until I've done the list. 

In my previous post I talked about having a schedule but also being flexible.  That said I also think I need to set myself some goals to aim for each month so for June these are as follows:

Walk at least 10 miles per week.  
Fix the curtain in my lounge (the heading tape is coming adrift)
Touch up the peeling paint in the kitchen
Strip the wallpaper in the spare room
Ride my bike

These things are realistic.  I could add in lose weight but that might not be realistic.  I'm not overweight but I'd like to weigh a bit less.  Having said that I'm not unhappy with how I am and as long as I don't go in the wrong direction I'm not going to lose sleep over how I look.  (Plus I'm not much good at dieting!)

Schedules

The last week or so I've felt out of kilter.  After my bad experiences that left me leaving my job and feeling very down I had some therapy sessions which really helped.  One of the things I started doing was keeping a log of my days and I was encouraged to build in ME time and not feel guilty about it.

The weekend before last we had my mother-in-law with us from the Friday until the Wednesday and my routines went to pot.  I love my MIL and she is absolutely no trouble to have around.  She is not the reason the routines went to pot - I could have carried on and she wouldn't have minded.  I just got lazy.

Then this weekend we were away, which was actually lovely - we went down to the New Forest and met up with some of my cousins and family members.  It was something we'd talked about doing as we often only meet up at weddings and funerals and lately there have been too many funerals.  And it finally happened so it was a good thing.

But back to reality on Monday and I was beginning to feel overwhelmed and out of control so I sat down and drew up a schedule that builds in doing the things that need doing at home but also allows time for blogging, reading, hobbies etc.  This might sound rigid but I'm prepared to be flexible.  I just need some structure otherwise whole days go by and I feel that I've achieved nothing.  I know that it's ok to have ME time and although some things at home are more urgent than others none of them are vital.  They'll get done as and when.  Life's too short to spend every minute working.  I know this as I've been there and got the T-shirt

I was looking for an image that conveyed some of this and I stumbled across this:

 

it seemed rather apt!

Wednesday Hodgepodge 3/6/15

Wednesday's Hodgepodge is brought to us courtesy of Joyce at 

 From this side of the pond

Pop over there to see other posts and if you want to join in add your blog post to the Linky List at the end of Joyce's post.

Have fun!

Well I'm a day late this week but here you are:

1.  What's something you're looking forward to in the month of June?

My wedding anniversary and my birthday.

2. In what way have you come full circle?

I’m back at home full time with an empty nest.  The last time that was the case was just before our daughter was born, 29 years ago.

3. Lonely Planet lists 10 spots in America you should see in 2015 and the reasons why. How many on the list have you seen? Which one on the list would you most like to see?

Queens NY, Western South Dakota, New Orleans, Colorado River Region, North Conway NH, Indianapolis IN, Greenville SC, Oakland CA, Duluth MN, and the Mount Shasta Region CA

Well I haven’t seen any of these and am unlikely to do so, this year at least.  But I would probably pick New Orleans.  My daughter-in-law taught there for a couple of years and my son has visited.

4, A song that describes your mood right now? 

I am useless at songs and I’d need one now that would take "I'm busy doing nothing" out of my head!

 

5.  Strawberry ice cream, strawberry short cake, strawberry pie, or strawberries right off the vine...your favorite?

Do I really have to choose?  If I must it would be strawberry short cake.

6. Aesop's birthday is celebrated on June 4th, although there is some disagreement as to whether or not that's accurate, or if he was even a real person. Regardless, the name Aesop is associated to this day with many well known fables. Which of the following best applies to something in your life right now? The Tortoise and the Hare (Slow and Steady wins the race), The Ant and the Grasshopper (Be prepared), The Fox and the Goat (Look before you leap) or The Crow and the Pitcher (Necessity is the mother of invention)

It would have to be the Tortoise and the Hare – I’m working my way through all the clutter in my house slowly but surely.  I’m definitely the Tortoise!

7. The answer is yes...what's the question?

Am I blessed?

Insert your own random thought here.

When I drafted this last night (and didn't get around to posting it) it was:

I love doing the Hodgepodge because it makes me think.  The questions are a nice variety of ones where I can rattle off an answer quite easily and others where I have to stop and pause for a bit to compose an answer.  I also enjoy doing the rounds of checking out the other posters. Thanks Joyce.

Right now it's How could I be so stupid as to lose last week's Hodgepodge entry!  No answers necessary, I know exactly how I managed it :(