The art of being positive in 3 steps.

To start each week on a good note, we should all try and read an inspiring quote. This is why I want to include as many quotes as possible on this blog.
But we should really be doing this everyday, every morning even!
We do set our mood for the day the moment we wake up. If you wake up, look outside, you think it looks grey and cold and you don't want to go to work... I can tell you now: you are going to hate your day!

You need to think of something positive to get you started for the day in the most positive way. Give yourself a list of things you love about your life, right now. Tell yourself 5 things you look forward to doing today. Think of 5 positive things about yourself... That's step n1.

It's not always easy to stay positive. But being positive isn't just thinking that everything should go well, and be happy and that's that. The true art of being positive, is also of letting go. Of letting things be. When things go wrong, and they often do, it's easy to start hating the world, and blaming people or things for it. What you need to do is to start letting go. Especially the little things to start with, they are the easiest ones, like the traffic, or something just as trivial. Complaining, as much as it might relieve you momentarily from your stress, is not going to bring around more positivity. On the contrary, you'll attract even more negativity. And so letting go, becomes your step n2!

Now I have an exercise for you to do, if you think you are a negative person, and tend to complain a lot.
Find an elastic band or a bracelet you can wear easily around your wrist. It needs to be something you can take on and off easily. I'll explain why.
As you go through the day, be aware of how many times you start complaining about something, say something negative about someone or something. Each time you do notice yourself thinking/saying something, take your band off, and put it on the other wrist. Observe just how many times the band waltzes from one arm to the other!

You'll start noticing what really kicks you off: people, traffic, being late, rushing... once you notice that, we're on to step 3!
Do something about it. You hate getting stuck in rush hour traffic? Set your alarm to half an hour earlier and avoid the traffic. For each of the things that annoy you, there will be a solution. It's then your job to do something about it.

And to end this article, here is a quote for you to think about: "Let it be, open and bright like the sky, without taking sides, with no clouds of concepts." Longchenpa (1308-1364)

On that note... Have a good week :)

Creativity

They are two things I tend to say I will do and never end up doing:
- picking up random bits and bobs that I find to make something
-Taking pictures of food/painting/crafts that I am making to upload it to a blog.

To be perfectly honest... I've actually never followed through!
So today I'm rolling my sleeves up (not to high though coz it's quite cold!) and presenting you my first project:

The Christmas pussy-willow branches!


My mum had kept a dead tree branch that originally belonged in a bouquet. I started having ideas about what I might be able to make for her with this branch that she could use as a decoration... That's when I saw a picture of a Pussy-Willow branch in a magazine. And so the project was born!

It's mid-November, Friday night, I've set myself up comfortably in the living room while Abs learns his lines for his new play. If I make another one, I'll put on one of my favourite films on as well, one that I already know well enough to only have follow... maybe a Christmas movie :)

You can make different alternatives of it, and it looks beautiful as a centre piece on your dinner table.
It doesn't need to be done at Christmas either- you can make it for different seasons by using different colours.
The best part of this is the price : 4£ is the total I spent on making this...

Ingredients:

PVA Glue

Glitter (Silver for our one)


Dead tree branches spray painted silver

Cotton Wool balls

A tall vase

And a Cuppa!! :)

STEP 1:
Spray paint your branches in the colour you have chosen. At Christmas, you can find Gold, Silver and Snow paint easily. Other wise, any craft shop will have them. I used 2 cans of spray paint for 4 branches.

STEP 2:
Once the branches have dried, arrange them in your vase in the position you will want them to stay in. As you do that, add some loose cotton wool balls in the bottom of the vase. Other options would be some big white beads or fake snow.


STEP 3:
Take a bit off a cotton ball and roll it in between your fingers so it becomes of the size you want it to be. The small the more realistic. Then, put a drop of glue on your small cotton ball and dip it into some glitter.
Stick the ball on the branch, at a place where you can see a bud should have grown, like on the picture.

STEP 4
Carry on until you have covered each branch with fluffy glittery buds. To add a bit of frost effect, make a line of glue on the branches, and then sprinkle some glitter over it.
The greatness of PVA Glue is that it is white but dries see-through, so you can see what your doing without worrying about the final effect.

TADAM!!!!

You have a really unique and cheap stunning centre piece for your dinner table, or simply as a decoration for your house.
What we also did- and this was actually Abs idea- was to wipe some of the stray glitter ( and trust me there will be some) with some more cotton balls that we also put into the vase, giving the frosty effect even more power!

Seasonal changes

If you're reading this, HI! And welcome to my new blog! I will be updating this weekly Inch'Allah! So here we go...

When everything outside is starting to die and to fade away, I am turning in with a new page in my life, and therefore starting fresh with something new and exiting: NO FACEBOOK!

A lot of people have asked me why I've suddenly come off it and the reason for that is really simple. Facebook was eating up my creativity and making me very lazy.
I spent any spare time checking it, while I could have been doing so many other things which I couldn't even think off because all I thought of was : check Facebook.
Actually, I would say it's more than turning a page. I think I have completely put the book down and put it away somewhere on this shelf of life. Instead, I want to focus on what really drives me, and makes me who I really am: Writing.
Hence the birth of this new blog.

My old blog is still up but from now on, it will be this one I will update. I tried having my other one as a bilingual one, but I think that meant that no one really could follow on what was going on, once in English, once in French. So this will be exclusively in English. And, if I have the time or the need to, Sable et Cailloux will be only in French.
I will also be starting another blog shortly, for me and abs to be able to share with our wedding guest information and for me to get to blog about the preparations leading up to our big day. I will let you know when we have the date set.

October has started beautifully for me, with some really nice people visiting over from the US, and who helped make my birthday extra special. I feel that my young days are behind me now. I am 25. That means I'm only 5 years away from 30 ! Eek! Not a young lady anymore, I'm a woman. There's no getting away from that!
I say that but I am loving it really. Abs treated me to some new clothes for my birthday, I'm really loving the very feminine 30's and 40's style out this season.

So that's what I wanted to say for today. But before I go, I want to share some inspirational stuff with you to get us all soaring through the week.

What is Enough?
A scolar visited a zen master named Nan-In to learn the art of Zen. Nan-In served him tea but continued pouring when the cup was full. The scholar told him to stop. Nan-In replied "like this cup, you are full of opinions. I can't show you Zen until you first empty your cup". There's a lesson here. Just relax, and let reality be, instead of constantly forming an opinion about everything. This is the essence of Zen.

"We can complain because roses have thorns or rejoice because bushes have roses." Abraham Lincoln


Have a good week everybody!!

Fi.

xoxo