Before you make a scene

Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. It’s important to choose wisely those who are into possibility not drama, love not hate, fun not miserable. If those around you are anxious you will become more anxious. If they are more joyful and positive about their environment that surrounds them, then you will become that too.

However simply removing negative people and negative energy is not the answer. Just because others have a different perspective on life doesn’t mean they should be pushed away because you want to take control of your life. You shouldn’t need others to change in order for you to feel good, or to distance yourself in order to gain control.

Instead of ridding negative people from your life work on cultivating and nurturing those relationships already in your life. There will always be negative people in the world, those who don’t like you or have the same values as you. Ask yourself:

What if I could become the kind of person who was able to be around anyone?
What if I could be happy, loving, powerful, compassionate and intentional even when I’m around the most negative of energies?

Tonya Leigh offers the following advice:

When your parents don’t approve don’t judge them because they don’t have the same values as you. Appreciate them just as they are, focus on their wonderful qualities. Change your perspective of them, don’t expect them to change.

When your work environment is toxic listen to co-workers complaints, notice their energy but you don’t need to join in. If you need to, choose to avoid them to honour what you need. Speak your truth, don’t tolerate abuse.

If you don’t like where you live don’t waste time and energy daydreaming about being somewhere else, the grass isn’t always greener. Don’t put off living your life waiting for something better, if may never come. Look into what your area has to offer and embrace its culture, arts, nature and activities.

When your partner isn’t supportive remember they will never be 100% supportive all the time. Romance isn’t a Disney movie or Hallmark card. Love and support yourself. Appreciate the times when they are supportive but make your own decisions about your own life.

When your children are negative its not their job to make you happy, they have enough going on in their own life. They should challenge us and deepen our own beliefs. Don’t take their negativity as an invitation to consider yourself as an inadequate parent. Seem them as perfect just the way they are. Love, discipline and guide them without the drama. State your expectations and consequences clearly. Being intentional about your own life will improve your relationship.

Before removing people from your circle, ask yourself:

1) what’s the real problem here?

2) How can I thrive where I am?

3) what’s being triggered and will removing someone from my life solve that?

4) How can I love and protect my heart?

5) Who really needs to change?

Change your perspective not the people around you. Let them have their drama, be in pain or rude, but hold your own.

Harnessing the power of breath

Beathing is easy, right? We do it all the time, about six million times a year without giving it so much as a second thought. Breathing is central to life, allowing the body to generate the energy it needs to function. But breath has so much power that we don’t fully utilise. We generally only breathe using our chest rather than the whole diaphragm. If you’ve ever watched a baby breathe, their belly rises before their chest does, giving oxygen to the whole lung system and bloodstream.

Unless we have an underlying breathing condition, breathing exercises can help boost your mood, ease stress, anxiety and panic, help relieve joint pain, help you find focus, help you sleep better, control menopausal symptoms and lower blood pressure, according to an article on Woman and Home magazine (August 2021).

Like every other part of our body, our lungs could do with a workout. Exercising breathing techniques are something we can do anytime, anywhere. Most involve inhaling and exhaling through the nose rather than the mouth, so quite different than breathing techniques used in many mediation practices.

If you’re new to breathing techniques you may feel a bit light-headed at first, this may be due to breathing too hard or too fast, so slow down, or stop and go back to it later. If you find yourself yawning often, this may be a sign that you are not getting enough oxygen.

Healthline gives 10 different techniques for breathing exercises to target specific problems (https://www.healthline.com/health/breathing-exercise) :

Pursed lips breathing to help you slow down;
Diaphragmatic breathing, deep belly breathing to help use your diaphragm;
Breath focus using specific words or phrases;
Lion’s breath, a yoga practice that helps to relieve tension in your chest and face;
Alternate nostril breathing for relaxation;
Equal breathing for focussing on smooth breaths bringing balance and equanimity;
Resonant or coherent breathing for reducing stress or depression;
Sitali breath for lowering body temperature and relaxing the mind;
Deep breathing for feeling more relaxed and centred;
Humming Bee breath for instant calm and soothing anxiety.

So breathing is not as straight forward as we might think, and for those who suffer with breathing problems, or who have had Covid-19 symptoms, not something to be taken for granted. It is something to be conscious of, and exercise to maximise the benefits.

We are relatively lucky where we are that the majority of the air we breath is clean(ish). We have countryside to get out to open spaces away from the smoke and smog of the cities.

Take a few moments today to concentrate on your breathing, take a few good, deep breaths and fill yourself with oxygen.

In the truncated words of The Police song “Every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you”. Not really, that would be creepy!

If only every day could be this way

I had a most enjoyable day on Saturday.

The day started with a lazy wake up. No alarm set, we got up when we woke up. As has become the norm during lockdown and lack of reason to be out early on a Saturday morning C made the customary bacon rolls for breakfast.

Whilst C was in the shower I made the Leftover Buttercream Cookies I talked about a few days ago. I added a bit of sparkle to a few. They were delicious.

I then received a lovely message from my brother saying they read my blog regularly and sometimes find it helpful. That was nice to hear. If you do enjoy reading my blog tap a ‘Like’ or leave a comment so I know you’re out there.

I picked some freshia and calla lillies from the garden. There’s an abundance of greenery after a few days of rain and its lovely to have fresh flowers about, even more so when they come from your own garden.

We popped into town to the fruit and veg stall to stock up for the week. I’ve decided not to make my usual Biscoff Pancakes for breakfasts, opting for a 0% fat free Greek yoghurt and berries combo instead. We stocked up on grapefruit (not for C though), strawberries, raspberries and blackberries and some red grapes for snacking. I can no longer say I don’t like fruit.

I bought yet another baking book, still using up vouchers from Christmas and birthday (side note: no more book vouchers please and thank you). Having looked through the recipes I look forward to making my way through them all.

In the afternoon I spent a few hours dealing with some #bellringing work, took a call from one of the workgroup leads, finalised the latest photo competition round, messaged the winners, sent their prizes, wrote up the articles for publication next week. I then had a good clear out of my many inboxes. I have Central Council, local association and personal inboxes to get through. Its nice to get back to just having the essential messages to be dealt with left.

We had a lovely facetime chat with R. Her Internet has been down for a couple of days and still didn’t look like it was going to be fixed before the weekend was through. She’d been to a small venue gig which she said was oddly not odd to be in a room with that many people. We’re going down to visit next weekend for the Hampton Court Palace Food & Drink Festival. Really looking forward to seeing her in the flesh but does mean I won’t be at a CC meeting. Opportunities to see R trump all else so, passing the baton on to someone else from my workgroup to attend the meeting in my place. R had been double jabbed on Saturday morning, so that’s good news. Thanks Dolly.

I had previously asked C if he would make his “full fat” lasagne for dinner. We’ve had slimming world friendly ones of late, which are very nice and all, but he makes THE best lasagne. So much so that I won’t order lasagne in a restaurant because I know it won’t be as good. He obliged and it was accompanied by a bottle of red wine. Y U M!

We then passed a convivial evening watching TV and reading, taking some time to chill.

I had a thoroughly pleasant day. I hope you had a good one too. How was yours?

Two for the price of one

You may recall a few weeks back my mentioning the purchase of a rather expensive handbag for my brother’s wedding. I have yet to use it again but will when a suitable time comes. A subsequent blog went on to lament the silent listening devices as I had mentioned the word handbag and my social media feeds were inundated with images of handbags, designer ones, discounted ones, ones from Milan, Paris and such places.

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about retiring my everyday handbag. I have had it for a couple of years now. The leather strap has started to split, and the sides are showing signs of old age. I am, however, quite particular about handbags. The size needs to be big enough to get what I need inside, but not too big I have to go fishing for things. The strap needs to the right length to go over my shoulder but the handles large enough to rest over my arm. I don’t like too many pockets and it needs to zip up rather than popper up so when I’m out in the city, a passing ruffian can’t dive down it and steal my purse or phone.

I decided today would the ideal opportunity to take a quick visit to our local outlet village. I haven’t been there for years and associate it with dismal Christmas get togethers (not because of the company but because it was always cold and wet). I also used to associate it with skinny people as none of the shops seemed to carry stock for anyone bigger than a pencil.

I had a vision of the bag shop to the left as you go into the village being the place I would find my ideal handbag. I also had ideas of items to look out for in a couple of particular shops that had been there the last time I visited.

Needless to say, when I arrived the bag shop I had even to C I was going to go in was now a Wildwood restaurant, and the clothes shop I had intended to visit was no longer there and the unit has been split into several smaller units.

I did wander into some exclusive shops and considering this was supposed to be an outlet village where goods are sold at discounted prices, had a nice look around and then left. It was pleasing to see some familiar shops and I had a look around those and even made a couple of small purchases. I was starting to wonder if I’d actually find an handbag though.

I had just sent R a photo of the front of the Lindt shop and the view of the pick and mix, when I noticed a few bags in the window of the Kurt Geiger shop. I wouldn’t necessarily have gone in there otherwise.

Well, I was suitably impressed. There was a fabulous array of bags, and all at very reasonable prices. So much so I ended up buy two. One black one to replace my everyday bag, and a creamy coloured one for posher going out. The price of both bags was less that I paid for the bag for my brother’s wedding!

By now I had also received instruction, including photographic support, regarding purchases from the Lindt shop. We’re going to visit R next week so I can take them down then. The shop assistant was really helpful as R had identified flavours they shop didn’t have, but apparently some are not available in the UK.

So, a successful shopping trip all round.

Facing your Phobia

I was reading an article in a magazine that discussed how phobias hold you back and leaves you missing out on so many good things. My biggest phobia is expanses of water. I can cope with the shower and a bath tub but anything more than that and I get a dizzy feeling, a headache and heart palpitations. I certainly couldn’t completely submerge my whole face/head underwater.

I’ve had it for quite a long time, and as far as anyone can tell, was not caused by anything traumatic. My mother told me that when I was very young I used to be able to go in the sea and into a swimming pool, but I was never really comfortable and never learned to swim. I’ve often thought about trying regression therapy to see what may have caused it to help get over it. Maybe I was on the Titanic in a former life!

Over the years, I’ve missed out on opportunities to swim with my husband and daughter on holidays, to swim at the gym, or relax in a pool at a hotel. I’m not keen on boat trips and have actively refused to go on them with friends, meaning I missed out on the all fun and frolics.

I couldn’t even take my own daughter swimming when she was a baby, I had to get my parents to do it for me so that she didn’t get a phobia by osmosis. Luckily primary and secondary schools did swimming lessons, and when she was older she had weekly swimming lessons at the local pool.

I remember the first time C and I went on a ferry to France. I had explained everything to C and he had been mildly amused and thought I was exaggerating. As the car drove off the jetty onto the boat, he looked over and said that he’d never seen anyone go so white so quickly. We headed straight for the bar and I sank two, double, neat vodkas before I could even begin to relax enough to move, let alone go outside on deck.

When we were on holiday one time many years ago, with his two children, the tide was out a long way, and to get to it you had to wade through a large pool of water. This pool ended up being about knee deep. C had forged on ahead, and I was holding E and V’s hands. I recall E shouting after C to come and rescue me as I was crushing her hand.

According to the article we are born with only two fears; falling and loud noises, everything else is a learned response. It went on to say that phobias are caused by a shocking or traumatic event that leads to an aversion through memory response.

Whilst being fearful of some things is important for survival, many other phobias tend to be more irrational. In the UK the top ten phobias according to Chrysalis Course are:

Spiders – 19%
Heights – 18%
Snakes and small spaces – 9%
The dentist – 8%
Crowds – 7%
Flying and vomit – 5%
Mice – 4%
Lifts/Elevators – 3%

So my particular phobia doesn’t even make the top ten.

The article gave suggestions on how to cure a fear of flying, spiders and heights. All seem to have the same pattern:

Acknowledge it; reading around the subject; simulate the experience or therapist and breathing techniques; increasing exposure to the phobia.

I have often thought about joining a gym for 1-1 swimming lessons, ensuring that the instructor is aware of my phobia so that we can work slowly to overcome it. Swimming seems such a good way to get exercise, something that we could do together when on holiday.

One day.

What to do with leftover buttercream

I made my brothers and his wife’s wedding cake and as usual overdid the volume of buttercream used for the crumb coat, adopting the “I’d rather have too much than not enough” mantra. I now have a tub of vanilla and a tub of chocolate buttercream to use up. It’s seems such a waste to just throw it away when it tastes so good.

I had been thinking about what I can make to use it up and standard response was to knock out a batch of cupcakes and try different patterns of decoration, just for practice. Whilst that would do the job and be yummy, with just the two of us at home, that’s rather a lot of cupcakes to eat, although I’m sure there would be some people willing to offer their quality control expertise. So what else can leftover buttercream be used for? Google time.

The first thing that came up was Leftover Buttercream Cookies by adding an egg and flour, baking powder etc. I’d never thought about that.

Other options offered included:

grab the tub and a spoon and tuck in. Tempting, but incredibly sickly. Buttercream, by nature of the icing sugar in it, is spectacularly sweet (at least I find it so).
create fashion cookies. Use store bought cookies and sandwich two of them together with the buttercream. That’s possible, but again, sounds quite rich/sweet for me.
make cake balls. This is similar to making the batch of cupcakes. It would require baking cake, mixing the crumbed cake in with the buttercream, forming in to balls, then covering in chocolate or candy melts. Too much faffing just for the two of us.
use it as an ice cream topping. Heat it up slightly and pour over ice cream. Hmmm, not sure about this one.
spread it. Simply spread it on biscuits and cover in sprinkles. Great activity to do with kids I guess.
mix it with cream cheese and use as a dip for seasonal fruit. That could be nice but without further information on the quantity of buttercream vs cream cheese, it would be case of trial and error until you find a combo that suits.

Of the offered solutions, I think I might try finding a recipe for Leftover Buttercream Cookies.

I have plenty of time this weekend to dedicate to baking and prepping breakfasts and lunches for the weekend ahead. I shall channel my inner domestic goddess.

Calling it Round – Bryn Reinstadler

Not content with bringing the world the virtual #bellringing platform Ringing Room which has been an absolute saviour for many when we were unable to ring real bells, one half of the developer team, Bryn, has now given us the first few chapters of a new “book” entitled Calling it Round, a guide to learning when, how and what to call touches of simple methods. Best of all it’s free and available at https://callingitround.cccbr.org.uk/

Calling and conducting is something that I don’t get to practice too often. Generally, there are only one or two people who call touches in our tower, or even for a plain course it tends to be the same person. And I have to say, men! I’m not hyper feminist, but why can’t the calling be shared out more? Why can’t some of us women do it? The research in https://www.womeninringing.info/ demonstrates the gender imbalances in #bellringing that need to be addressed. I have called touches, and even a few quarter peals of Plain Bob Doubles. I have called a touch of Grandsire Doubles once, with someone standing behind me, nudging me when to shout “Bob”. I have called Bob Courses of Grandsire Caters or Cinques but only from the treble because it’s easy to see when the treble is in thirds on the way to the front.

I can call “Go” and “Stop” for things, but don’t get the opportunity, so have built in some hesitancy about knowing when to say “That’s all”, especially for Surprise methods as I’m never sure when to say it during the dodge. I cannot conduct though. I don’t know what the coursing orders should be, I can’t see what other bells are doing, I only just have a handle on what my bell is doing.

I have tried to read other books on calling and conducting but as they are all text, I find them hard to follow and the tone and language can sometimes be hard to relate to.

I say “book” but this new variation is available on line only and not intended to be released in print, although there are some calls for that. The great thing of it being available on line is that there are interactive elements. After distilling some theory in an interesting and easy manner, your understanding is then tested by some multiple choice questions, videos to watch with questions afterwards and exercises to complete.

This new resource takes it right back to the basics of even how to say “Go”, “That’s all” and “Stand”. When the calls should be made but also how to say it, speaking clearly and how voice pitch has an impact on the effectiveness of the call.

Subsequent chapters look at simple touches, learning how to call a quarter peal, conducting by way of checking the ringing, coursing orders and lots of other resources to help with understanding compositions.

The final sections on choosing the touch whether for practice night or Sunday service ringing, placing bands, giving guidance and handbell conducting give supplemental skills that every Tower Captain, aspiring Tower Captain, or person asked to call a piece a ringing should read and take note of.

I have made it known, on several occasions, about my desire to call more touches and of different methods, but also just to say “Go” and “That’s all” for plain courses. This seems to have fallen on deaf ears over the years.

With this easy to use “book” I will work through the exercises to increase my understanding, knowledge and confidence at calling. I may never reach the dizzy heights of becoming a Conductor, but at least I’ll be able to say “Go”, “That’s all” and “Stand”. I will continue to push to be given more chances to put it into practice.

Set priorities for tomorrow today

Life is whizzing by at a rate of knots. This was brought home to me at the weekend when we went to visit step daughter #1 who had very recently given birth. I am now a step-granny. I have joked at being called the Wicked Step Granny or WSG for short. The fact is that apparently, I am now “old enough” to be a grandparent, albeit an arm’s length one. And I’m not sure I feel ready to be considered “old enough”.

It’s funny that even before a child is born we are making decisions about its future like what schools it might go to. Before we know it we are making decisions today that will impact our tomorrows, or those of others around us. We might live in hope that when we are “old enough” we won’t look back at those decisions and wonder about opportunities lost or time squandered.

Maybe now is a good time to consider the things that matter most to me and help me move through life by doing an inventory of priorities:

Health – eating and exercising right needs to be first and foremost. If I am not in the best health I can be, I will not be any use to anyone else. As we get older, I might have to look after aged parents, an aging husband (he’s 15 years older than me), children going through their own experiences, and now a grandchild who will need support in navigating early years before they are able to make their own decisions. I am certainly making good inroads to eating more healthily. I fantasise about exercise, but I really don’t enjoy the activity of doing it. I walk when I can, but apart from that and #bellringing, I do no other physical exercise.
Family – I keep saying I need to spend more time with family. During the pandemic this has of course been very difficult, but as we emerge, now is the time to re-engage, find reasons to spend time with loved ones, schedule fun things to do together, spend more time with those you love whilst you have the chance, and reassess those more troublesome relationships.
Self-growth – if you’ve been following my blog for a while, you will have seen me comment on this many times. I feel I have made some improvements but still a way to go.

I do need to be deliberate with my use of time. I have many roles at home, work and bellringing, which is great as it keeps me busy, but I need to stop and take time for myself every now and then. I need to be precious about my spare time.

As our todays vanish all too quickly how can we make the most of every day in order to have the best tomorrow?

Be careful, you never know who might be listening

Every now and then, after I’ve had a conversation with someone about something fairly innocuous my social media feeds start posting things related to that conversation.

The other day I mentioned to C that I’ll need to get a new work handbag soon as mine is stating to get a bit tatty and the leather handle has started to split. The next day I started to see adverts for handbags in my feeds.

A while back when R was home we were having conversations about certain film celebrities, I think there was some awards ceremony on the TV. No sooner as we’d mentioned a name but couldn’t remember what film they’d been in, R went to Google them and their name was the first thing in her search feed.

Most of the time its fairly unobtrusive but this weekend my news feeds have been filled with some very entertaining ideas.

C and I have been up to see step daughter number 1 and their new baby. The first time C has got to see his first grandchild, as we had my brother’s wedding event the first weekend after bubba was born.

As you might image most of the conversation has been about the arrival of bubba and associated new mother requirements. We had been talking about breast feeding. Lo and behold my social media feeds have started showing me adverts to do with breast feeding, like pumps, how to feed in public places, how to do it properly and such like. I hate to tell them, that ship sailed 24 years ago.

It does make you wonder though who or what might be listening in to conversations.

I think there is a way to turn off the microphone or whatever it is that picks up what you’re saying, but I’ve not worked out how to do it on my phone.

Sometimes it can be useful as in the case of the new handbag, as its offered some styles and shops I might not have seen before. Sometimes its mildly entertaining or amusing, such as the case of breast feeding. But it is concerning that something or someone is listening in. That’s why we’ll probably never get a smart speaker. They know too much!