Happy Sunday! I intend on spending the evening snuggled up on the couch watching Christmas movies and chomping on some healthy snacks (more on that later!) I've had a pretty chilled week and weekend, spending most of yesterday indulging in a How I Met Your Mother marathon, and I don't feel bad about it one bit! I'm definitely a homebody at heart and love spending time pottering around the house. Here's what I've been feeling grateful for over the past seven days.
I'm grateful for Prayer
Last night I was browsing blogs and came across With Great Expectation, a blog written by a woman named Logan who shares her journey of living with PCOS and her experiences undergoing infertility treatment in the US. Logan and her husband Andrew are finally expecting their first child which is so exciting! What struck me after reading through a number of Logan's blog posts is her faith in God and her dedication to prayer. Logan and her husband have been through a hell of a time and their journey hasn't always been an easy one, yet she remains so positive and proactive. I find that sort of confidence very inspiring and uplifting. She peppers her posts with meaningful quotes and anecdotes about prayer, and I was completely absorbed in her story for hours.
Although I was raised Catholic I'm more spiritual than religious now, but I believe faith and prayer transcend religious boundaries and are open to all. Prayer has always brought me comfort, and I see it as a form of 'targeted meditation', a chance to reflect on situations and put my feelings and thoughts into words, in doing so beginning to process them. I guess you could even say I 'pray' with the tarot, in the conversations I have with the cards about the situations they bring forward and illuminate. I often pray intentionally to the 'universe' rather than to one God, and I find it a very grounding and comforting thing to do. I'm grateful that I'm able to pray in my own, and I'm grateful for the example of others who incorporate prayer into their lives in such a positive and empowering way.
I'm grateful for Choices
Don't you just love strange coincidences?! As I was applying my makeup yesterday my mind randomly recalled a psychic reading I'd had emailed to me a year or so ago. Now, a lot of what was in the reading was nonsense and didn't transpire, such as me having a baby by the end of the year (as far as I'm aware, I'm not nine months pregnant). One thing she did say, though, was that a 'flair for numbers' runs through my family and that my future sons would be accountants as that's a career path tracing back through my family tree. At the time I thought this was crazy, as maths was without a doubt my least favourite subject at school and I wasn't aware of any accountants in the family. It then transpired that there are accountants in my family and it is a career that traces right back through my family tree for generations. Hmm!
This morning while having tea with my mum I mentioned that I'm missing working and really want to start looking for a job, but I'm still unsure of what I should be looking for. I want something that I find fulfilling and interesting, in order for me to save up enough money for the alternative therapy courses I've got my eye on. My mum randomly said 'well, have you thought about doing something completely different to what you've considered before? How about that accounting idea you had a while ago?'
Spooky coincidence alert! While I'm not convinced about this whole accountancy thing, I do think that looking in other directions could prove interesting. All I've ever really known is working in education and that's not really something I'm keen to get back into. I'm feeling grateful that I'm in a position that enables choices, and that I'm able to spend some time researching the different avenues open to me. While I'm not sure where I'm headed yet, it's quite exciting to be looking at a clean slate and feeling ready to move forwards. Wish me luck!
I'm grateful for Time
Some days it seems I get hardly anything ticked off my to-do list, other days I feel super productive and everything falls into place effortlessly. Monday was one of those days! I managed to get a fair bit of uni work done, scheduled a blog post, sent lots of wedding related emails and had a good clear out of my room. One of the annoying things about living at home is that all of my things (and Chris's things) need to fit into one room, my bedroom, and there just never seems to be enough space. I decided to embark on a huge clear-out in time for January, as I refuse to begin married life surrounded by outdated clutter!
As much as I love my huge CD collection I knew there were CDs in there that I would never listen to again, such as freebie CDs from magazines and random singles purchased in my teen years. I bagged up a huge stack which freed up room for more books on my bookshelf, something I'm in desperate need of!
I also gave my room a thorough dust and hoover (I do that regularly, of course, but I made an extra special effort to polish!) There are still lots of things that need to be either taken to the dump or bagged up for the charity shop but my room is looking much better and my desk area in particular is looking very neat and tidy. Phew!
I'm grateful for Willpower
Speaking of the wedding, I'm determined to try my hardest to improve my skin as much as possible by the end of January and a major break-out on my chin this weekend has made me even more determined to feed my body better. I've been wondering for a while if dairy could be triggering my skin problems and after spotting a few bloggers discussing it on twitter I've decided to lay off the dairy for a while and see if it makes a difference. I've swapped cow's milk for soya milk and regular yogurt for soya yogurt, and I'm aiming to cut down on cheese as it seems to be all I ever eat! I know it's important to have a calcium rich diet so I'm researching calcium rich foods to ensure I won't be missing out.
I'm also making an effort to swap 'normal' tea for anti-inflammatory packed green tea in a bid to clear up my skin, and so far I've been finding this quite easy to do. I love the taste of plain green tea so chugging back three or four cups a day is proving rather easy! The only problem is it's not great for biscuit dunking, but I guess that's a good thing really as I've been consuming waaaaay too much sugar recently, another thing I'm aiming to change.
I've set myself the goal this coming week of starting the day with a healthy breakfast. I usually eat the same old slices of toast or bowl of Weetabix, so there's definitely room for experimentation! I'm thinking poached/boiled eggs, porridge with chopped almonds, yogurt with chopped banana... I figure if I can start the day with a healthy choice I'm more likely to eat better the rest of the day. Here's hoping!
I'm fed up of eating unhealthy snacks throughout the day, so I'm on a crisps and biscuits ban and am aiming to snack on healthier options: banana with Nutella (so good!), rye bread with cream cheese and baby tomatoes, various fruits and veggies etc. I'm a pretty small person and weigh around the 8 stone mark but I am such a snacker and I always seem to reach for biscuits, crisps and chocolate coated cereal bars. I end up feeling sluggish and bloated and I know so much sugar can't be doing my insides any good! I'm feeling grateful for the willpower I've shown this weekend and I'm hoping it will see me through next week and beyond!
Reading back over what I'm grateful for, it seems this week has been a rather reflective one. Funny how some weeks it seems lots of external things happen, and other weeks it's mostly on the inside. I wonder what next week will bring!
Baci e abbracci,
