Color me angry!

This is a photo of me,

as I feel at the moment,

No amount of deep breathing

 seems to be doing the trick

Why you ask?

Because last night, I left the car in the street.

I just forgot about bringing it in

 until just before it was time to go to bed

Top, bless him, remembered 

and out he went to get it!

Unfortunately he was just a little late

 as the local graffiti artists had been well and truly at work

In black

texta 

right across the bonnet

 and the drivers door

 were words and suggestions

 that I would associate more with public toilets

 than a car driven by a rather old fashioned woman!

I am so angry 

that kids of today

 have no respect for the belongings of others

I am angry that parents 

allow their children 

to roam the streets at night

But

what worries me more

 is

 that I rang the police to report the incident

and in a town of 5000 people

 they could not find our address

With all our outside lights on

 I watched them drive past twice

 and this was after they had rung to check where we were

 because

 they had already been to the wrong street!

What if it had been an emergency?

I am off to try meditation again so once more I can be like this

PS It took Top all morning

 to remove the offending graffiti 

but it has now gone thank goodness!

Goodnight

    

if only.....!

Sometimes you come across

a series of photos that just take your breath away

These do it for me

I would like to think

 that I could live in a house that looked like this

but then I have to be a little realistic

 and realise that with our animals,

my total dislike of housewifely duties

 and our lack of finances to pay for someone to do it for me

that the best way to enjoy this place

 is just to bookmark the site here and visit regularly 

I love the pale timber floors

 and the brick

I love the minimalist look

I love the modern furnishings

and I am so not a modern girl!!

I love the wall paneling

I love the touches of gold

I really love the bedroom

I just love all of it

Do you like the look? 

Goodnight

          

one...two...three....

four...

five....

six...

 seven...

Oh sorry I didn't realise you'd arrived

You just caught me sitting here

counting my breaths and thinking of 

this

as I start my meditation

Better stop now while you are visiting

and tell you why.

I have a massive  slight, very slight stress problem so

 my lovely GP sent me off to do a course in

 'mindfulness for managing stress'

an 8 week program modeled on the stress reduction clinic

 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

and right in the middle of the program I picked up this book

For all of you, looking for a good book,

 it is delicious.

The beautiful heroine counts....and counts

 and then counts some more 

its about OCD, love, mistakes and life and 

 I highly, highly recommend it.

Toni Jordan the author 

gave me permission to print a quote from the book

 that describes exactly what mindfulness is

"Most people miss their whole lives, you know. 

Listen, life isn't

when you are standing on top of a mountain 

looking at the sunset. 

Life isn't waiting at the altar

 or the moment your child is born

 or that time you were swimming in deep water

 and a dolphin came up alongside you. 

These are fragments. 

Ten or twelve grains of sand

 spread through your entire existence.

 These are not life.

 Life is brushing your teeth

or making a sandwich

 or watching the news

 or waiting for the bus. Or walking.

 Every day, thousands of tiny events happen

 and if you are not watching, 

if you are not careful, 

if you don't capture them and make them count, 

you could miss it

You could miss your whole life."

Isn't that just a magic quote?

We are into week seven and 

 my neck and back are more relaxed, the headaches are gone!

I have started painting again and

I have found my patience once more

Best of all I am noticing the little things,

 the beauty that surrounds us, the music of nature

 and food...food is wonderful!

Life is a sensuous experience when you live NOW!

if you want to know more about mindfulness you can find it here

Goodnight

        

A piece of history

This Building is call Stratford House

and it is in Birmingham in the UK

It is listed as a grade ll* building which means

particularly important building 

of more than special interest

and has been scheduled as an ancient monument

 Now it is offices

but in 1601 it was built by Ambrose Rotton as a home

for him, his wife Bridget and their children.

The initials of Ambrose and Bridget are carved over the porch

and they called it Camp Hill Farm  

I wonder if it looked something like this 

or perhaps this in 1601

If, it was still a home

 perhaps the staircase would look more like this today

Was the dining room of those years

served from a kitchen like this?

and could it look like this now?

Would Ambrose and Bridget

 have had their living room looking like this?

and would current owners have it more like this?

Would a new dining room have looked like this

         

When once it was this?

         

Perhaps it would look more like this today.

***

It doesn't really matter though

 because

 what matters is

that we have a family tree on my Mothers side

 that goes unbroken back to 1216

and smack dab in the middle of that family tree sit

 Ambrose and Bridget Rotton!

The Rotton family lived in this house for 95 years

 before the farm was broken up and sold

Apparently the City streets of Birmingham

 are built over the paddocks that Ambrose's cattle once ran in.

Now isn't that a fascinating piece of history for my family?

UK daughter doesn't yet know

 that she is going to try and get photos of the interior

 but she will when she read this. LOL!!!      

Goodnight

           

The silence of the mind......

Today,  I walked in a rose garden

                                                                                                   here

Today,  I felt the sun on my back

Today,  I felt the breeze on my face

Today,  I watched a spider spin his web

                                                                                                 here

Today,  I discovered I don't really like peanut butter rolls

Today,  I saw  new buds on all the trees

 and we are only into day 4 of Winter

Today,  I smelt the last of the roses

                                                                                                  here

Today,  I sat and walked with six others and

Today

I

spoke

not

a

 word

Today, I listened to the silence

Today, I went on a mindfulness retreat

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in  order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary 

-Peter Minard

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

-William Penn

My beautiful and loving friends

 said I would be expelled before we hit 10 a.m.!

Bless them, I loved every minute

Goodnight

         

Something lovely...something awful...!

Oh dear, oh dear

Something lovely has happened!

Something awful has happened!

The lovely thing is

 that without noticing 

I now have 51 people who follow this blog

How beautiful is that?

When I started,

 in a very half hearted way,

it was just something for me.

My two beautiful daughters followed

and then I got a few others

how exciting

I remember Lauren from

http://purestylehome.blogspot.com/

came on as No 11

and I was quite amazed!

Many years ago

I designed and wrote

 for a living

 but those days are long, long gone

 and it is eons since I have done either

so it is very flattering to my creative ego

 when people enjoy what I do enough to follow

so

A great big thank you for

hopping aboard

and to those who leave comments

I really love the contact thank you. 

now

pull up a chair and join me 

here 

while I hide my face in shame and

before I can pull the duvet over my head here

let me 

tell you about the awful thing that has happened

!!!

With 51 followers

 I have become 

SHY 

BASHFUL

and

TONGUE TIED

!!!

as a result I have tried too hard

and every post for the last week has felt contrived

or just wrong. 

I have four posts in draft stage

that should never see the light of day

I haven't quite worked out how to delete them  but I am working on it.

Now isn't that just

 totally 

and

 absolutely 

ridiculous?

Goodnight