Tell Me About Yourself Award

How exciting!  Thanks to Sandra at Learning to Walk Alone   for this award and for the comfort that I’ve found in reading her blog.  Like my dad, her husband died of Parkinsons.  I’ve also found her unwavering faith to be an inspiration.

The rules for receiving this award are:

I must tell seven things about myself and I must pass on the award to 15 other great bloggers.

Here are seven things about me:

1. I was once told by a Venezuelan that I “have a lot of rhythm for a white girl” when I danced with him.
2. I stopped biting my nails when I was a kid by chewing gum instead.
3. I am a Manchester United fan and have been to Old Trafford on a number of occasions to see games and once to take a tour.  English football rocks!
4. I like boogie boarding in Cornwall because I don’t have to try to stand up on a board and my eyesight is so bad that I wouldn’t manage to survive waves larger than those found inEngland!
5. I love watching Charlie Chaplin films, WWII documentaries and visiting museums.  I expect that officially makes me a nerd.  Oh dear, what a shame.  (!)
6. My favourite painting of all time is The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, based on a poem of the same name by Lord Alfred Tennyson…  Wonderful!  
7. My dream job would be to work for a charity organising various fundraising events.  I am painfully well organised and love the sense of achievement when it all comes together successfully.  The biggest event I’ve ever organised was an auction of promises that raised about £2000 – and I did this as well as my full-time job.

The 15 blogs I’m passing this award to are:

1.  The mud and the lotus
2.  My autoimmune life
3.  The Dexterous Diva
4.  Verity PCOS
5. The Warrior Woman with Endometriosis
6. Endometriosis: the silent life sentence
7.  Chronically creative
8.  My Endo Diary
9.  I will not suffer in silence
10.  Endometriosis Update
11.  Bangable Dudes in History
12.  Cool Chicks from History
13.  Pictures of War (which is currently banned inChina)
14.  Wearing History
15.  History and Women

Each blogger who receives this award must write seven things about themselves and then pass the aware onto 15 other bloggers.  To copy the award logo, right click, select copy, go to your blog post and click paste.

I expect some of the above won’t “accept” the award (Verity is a charity and therefore not run by one person) but are most certainly worth a look!

Foxy

Soul peace

Making others happy

I thought that peace was something that you could achieve and put the certificate on your wall; it would give you the ability to react to certain situations, you’d always be calm when dealing with stress, you would be perfect.  The sad fact of the matter is that perfection is unattainable.  I’m paraphrasing Steven Hawking when I say that, had the matter in the universe been perfectly and uniformly distributed throughout the universe, the universe would have remained static, thereby achieving perfection in its uniformity.  How dull is that?  Imperfection makes beauty. Lucky for me, perfection was never something that I was interested in.  I preferred to count the smiles I made in others as my life’s achievements.

Even though I’ve tried to make others happy for many years, it’s only been more recently that I’ve been content in myself.  Although I consider myself at peace, I do not sit on a cloud and spout philosophy all day.  I have a full-time job and a mortgage.  I have many of the destructive emotions that everyone else does.  I have been known to give other drivers the two-fingered salute when I felt they desperately needed it.  I occasionally get frustrated with my body and the pain that I go through with my numerous chronic illnesses.  I regularly shout at the television when my favourite football team is playing.  In short, I’m just like everyone else.

You cannot help how you feel.  We all feel anger, fear and aggression from time to time.  The point is to try and take your negative emotion and turn it into a positive.  For example, rightly or wrongly, I was very angry when George W Bush came to be president, very angry indeed.  I have found that I feel better when I make people laugh so I put my “Cat in the Hat” hat on and walked to work that day.  There were so many people pointing and laughing that I couldn’t help myself and I began to laugh too.  Anger fades into mist amongst cheerful laughter, so long as you join in!

You can only change the world through positive steps.  I expect to make people laugh everyday.  I smile at strangers.  I try and forgive misdemeanours.  Before you know it, strangers are acquaintances who say “Good morning” and “Terrible weather we’re having, isn’t it?”  I’m not saying we have to be life-long friends with everyone we meet, but certainly the world feels a better place when everyone makes the effort to be pleasant to one another.

Simply smiling is more important than you’d imagine.  When I was studying at university, I was also a security guard in an art museum.  I found the portrait room to be of particular interest: the clothes, the hats, the symbolism were all of historical significance.  The most important part of the portrait was the facial expression of the subject.  Who wants to try and imagine what someone would say if their face looks like they’ve just swallowed a lemon?

Making yourself happy

The difference between making others happy and achieving soul peace is by being true to yourself.  Being true to yourself sounds easy but I’ve found it’s much easier to put yourself on the back burner and think of others first.  As a woman I have a number of expectations that society puts on me, my family puts on me, my friends and co-workers expect of me.  I feel that society at large expects women to be a certain size, shape and to always want to have children.  My family and friends have certain obvious expectations: remembering birthdays, organising to see one another regularly and keeping in touch.  Co-workers expect me to have a certain level of experience and expertise as well as being pleasant 99% of the time no matter what saga you may be going through at home.  Living up to all this expectation can leave us forgetting ourselves.  Is it little wonder that I found making others happy easier than trying to sort myself out?

Ultimately it was that little voice in the back of my head that wouldn’t go away – for the years I was with Ramman – “I don’t want to be here anymore,”  “I’m tired of all this drama,”  and “Find me somewhere quiet where I can ponder my navel for a while.”  Now, thanks to the right man and the right job, I have a quiet head.  The only drama in my life comes from Maia at the moment, and that’s not exactly a chore because I know she’ll grow out being a teenager eventually.

You can have happiness coming from outside and peace coming from within yourself.  I’ll never have the peace certificate on my wall but I’ve got more accolades than I’ve ever dreamt of.

Foxy

 

Award

J at Autoimmune Life has given me an award on her blog site.  I’m really touched.  Thanks ever so much!

I’m so grateful that you thought of me when you received this award.  It means so much that we can give one another the recognition that we deserve.

Since I can’t give it back to you I’ll forward this award to:

Emmy’s Thoughts – http://emmynjoe.blogspot.com/ She’s been brave enough to share her experiences with infertility – and it’s nice to read a success story!

Stephanie Butler’s website – http://stephaniejbutler.com/  Like me, she is strugling with chronic illness and she has a wonderful positive attitude.  I find her writing inspiring!

Once you’ve received your award, the rules for passing it on are:

-Add logo to your blog
-Link the person/blog from whom you received this award from
-Leave them a message on their blog, letting them know they have One Lovely Blog!

Lots of love, Foxy

Still here – just!

I have had a couple of interviews but no luck so far.  I’m still feeling down about my luck but am keeping my stiff upper lip!  It’s hard to carry on searching the websites when you are starting to wonder about your luck!  However, I’m doing my best – I have no other choice.  I have to carry on.

 Helios and I went to visit some old friends of his Friday night.  I got to hear some fantastic stories – including the time when the Three Muskateers (Helios and two others he is still in touch with) bought a bottle of champagne for Helios’ birthday.  They gave it a shake on the way to the park and jumped up and down with it until they popped the cork and it shot into the air!  “WA-Hey!”  They sprayed each other and when they finally went to drink it – it was gone!  They had sprayed it all over just a bit too much!

 The funny thing about visiting these people was how clearly excited they were – Helios was slapped on the back more than once and everyone was introduced to one another.  I must admit that even I was a little nervous about meeting them – perhaps I am too interested in what people think of me?  I know I am keen that Helios’ friends and family like me.  Luckily they do!

 Saturday we spent with Helios’ parents.  I think I’ve said how much I just adore his parents before…  It’s so nice to feel welcome into a family!  That evening he and I went to see the new Star Trek film together.  I’m just enough of a nerd to say that I absolutely loved it – great story, good cast.  My only complaint is that the photography is just a little too white and shiny for my taste but it wasn’t too much of a distraction. I talked to Mom as well on Sunday.  She’s doing ok but her brother has cancer and the prognosis – after a spell of remission – isn’t good.  I grew up knowing that we could count on him to help with things that Mom just couldn’t do – from snow shovelling to cleaning out mouse traps to fixing the garage door opener.  He usually did these things with a grin and refusing payment of any sort.  It was from their relationship that I knew what sibling love should be like – and how I want to treat my own baby sister… Mom is really upset about his health and I wish there was something I could do – but I know I would feel just as helpless over there as I do 4000 miles away… 

I have another interview tomorrow.  I’m trying not to get too excited about it because I don’t want to get my hopes dashed again but the subject is very interesting to me.  I’m trying not to say too much because I don’t want to jinx it!  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

 

I have received an honour from J at Autoimmune and I’ll pass on the Award soon. 

 

Keep the home fires burning.

 

Foxy

It’s a Lemon!

Wow!  I’ve just been awarded The Lemon Award from Endochick at Endometriosis: the silent life sentence.   The Lemon Award is given to bloggers who have an attitude of caring – and I expect of turning life’s lemons into lemonade.  The award has indeed brightened my week!  My most grateful thanks.

Following the spirit of the award I pass it onto the following people who I think need some recognition:

1.  My mom (I know she’s not a blogger, but I think you’ll all agree that after her car died on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, she needs something to brighten her day!  It’s still not fixed and it’s precisely at times like these that I hate living in England – I’m far too far away to lend her a hand.  Mom, have some lemonade.)

2. My sister (Do you see a pattern here?  My sister is a blogger but her’s is about her career.  She’s a great gal.  Have some lemonade, sweetheart!)

3. Emmy’s Thoughts http://emmynjoe.blogspot.com/

4. Alex at The In’s & Out’s of Endo http://theinsandoutsofendo.blogspot.com/ 

5. and finally, http://i-am-not-endo.blogspot.com/

The spirit of the award requires me to name 10 people/bloggers who really deserve it but, as I’m still relatively new at this whole blogging thing, I’m not aquainted with a wide variety of blogs.  I’ll try and sound more professional going forward…  In the meantime, I expect that you can give yourself some lemonade too. 

Foxy