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Our kitchen cupboards and our freezer have been full of stuff we never eat for months. Years even. I blame Gillian McKeith, author of You are what you eat, for the mung beans and the aduki beans, and my friend Nigel for all the vol-au-vent cases in our freezer (I bought a load in for when he came to visit as he loves them – then he became a dad and he never visited again!) In January, I made a resolution to use up all that stuff, I didn’t realise it would be so much fun.
“Where have you disappeared to?” asked a text last night. I suppose I have rather disappeared of late. I haven’t been going to Ceroc, sending nearly as many emails, going out with my friends as much or blogging. Initially, this was because of a conscious effort to “retreat at home” to make up for not having gone on my six week retreat at St Beuno’s. But one week later, things started to happen. One minute I was unemployed, single, fed up of my Help100 project and fed up of having nothing much to do and the next minute…. Continue reading
If you read my blog regularly, or know me in person, you’ll know I should be away on a six week silent retreat now. But I’m not. I retreated from the retreat. Partly for practical reasons – I am finally getting some work after months of being unemployed. Partly for financial reasons – it wasn’t cheap and I wasn’t sure I could really afford it. And partly because, plain and simply, I chickened out!
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I’ve been craving entertainment recently. I know there’s nothing unusual in that, but Father Christmas’ recent visit has tripled my DVD collection. I’ve treated myself to a few more books on Amazon because, despite having loads on unread titles on my shelves, I can never find anything I feel like reading. I have Calderdale Library’s entire collection of Maeve Binchy audiobooks out on loan (apologies to everyone else who lives in the Halifax area!) and I can’t spend more than two nights in in a row. Plus I’m spending more and more time on Hotmail, Facebook and Match.com. I’m not normally like this.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to curl up with a good book, talk to your mates on Facebook, have a decent social life or watch the occasional TV programme. But it’s the extent to which I’ve been doing it recently that worries me. Continue reading
Next week, I am supposed to be going on another silent retreat. I am so nervous about it that I might chicken out. It’s for 6 whole weeks. No TV. No email. No texting. No chatting. No going to the pub with my mates. Wind my life back just over 2 years, to the end of 2009, and I would never have dreamt that I would even be thinking about such a thing. How on earth did I get here?
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The internet is full of blog posts about New Year’s Resolutions and there isn’t any need for yet another post full of well-intentioned advice on how to stick to your good intentions. So I won’t write one. But I am wondering why so many of us resolve to try and live differently at this time of year and why so many of us fail in our quest. Continue reading
Where did 2011 go? As I get older, each year seems to go by more quickly and 2011 was no exception. Like many people, I marked the New Year by making resolutions but nearly 12 months later, I’ve more or less forgotten what those resolutions were and have no idea if I managed to achieve them! A quick glance at my diary reveals there were 11 of them, but they weren’t so much resolutions as things I wanted to prioritize in my life. So have I prioritized them?
Inspired! was a year old this month and I missed it! Completely forgot! A whole year of blogging. For someone who is good at starting things, but not so good at finishing them, sticking at something for a whole year is a bit of an achievement for me. This blog started off as just a collection of things that I’d seen and liked and felt inspired by: books I’d read, things I’d heard and so on. It was supposed to be a place where I could share absolutely anything, so here to celebrate my 1 year anniversary of blogging is my Great Auntie Betty’s ginger cake recipe. The taste of this cake takes me right back to my childhood. It’s delicious! Enjoy! Continue reading
Recently, I ended up in Kentucky Fried Chicken with a group of meat-eaters. I’ve not been veggie for very long – just over a year. I was working and I knew I had to eat or risk getting a migraine so I had a KFC meal. And I’ll own up now – KFC is one of the few things I miss since turning veggie! “Naughty naughty,” the meat-eaters said. I laughed, but deep down I was thinking, “What?!!! Who are you to judge?”
Soul2Soul Help100