Renewed L.O.VE Focus

Spring will soon be round the corner so it's time to get out more, plant more bulbs, cycle more and L.O.VE focus more on the things I know I am best at doing and being, producing and creating - Amen!

Squishy Words

Sometimes a new song - tune and lyrics will pop into one's head fully-formed. This happened on my cycle back home after an enjoyable swim at our local. 

Problem was, as soon as I got indoors both words and lyrics started to evaporate.

Had to dash back outside in the rain, pen and paper in hand to write out whatever I could still remember.

Empty Spaces

It - (did I actually start my sentence with the word 'it'? Yes I did!)... IT, is a well-known fact that nature abhors a vacuum, so what should a person do once the inessentials have been removed? 

Well first off is to pay attention to what one allows back into that cleared space. For some people this will require being hyper-vigilant of what to allow back in. 

For others, this requires trail and error experimentation. For yet others this may mean allowing a greater spirit of creative courage and adventure back into their endeavours. 

My current L.O.VE Focus is on L.O.VE Crafted stories. I have enjoyed my blogging adventures this past month. However, it's now time to knuckle down and continue with my L.O.VE Focused projects.

Shedding the Inessential

A well known author once said that one of the greatest benefits of failure is that it:

'....strips away .... the inessential...'

I love this quote and can totally relate to it. Over the past few years, I too, have been shedding the inessential. 

Old habits, outdated beliefs, possessions that are no longer of value. All have had to go. I don't know whether it is because I am a minimalist or whether it is because it's such a cathartic process. 

All I know is shedding the inessential is very very liberating!

Hot-Housed Humans

Last weekend, I read the Scotsman, Ian Robertson's recently published book, The Stress Test: How Pressure can make you Stronger and Smarter.

I enjoyed this book over several delicious hot chocolate CUPPSOs. 

This book covers real-life accounts of how different people dealt with unexpectedly stressful events.

What the author wanted to know was: 

Why do some people show great resilience in the face of traumatic, often life changing events, whilst others struggle to cope with smaller ordinary events?

The author stumbled on (a part of) the answer in a conversation of all things about ... grass! He describes this under the wonderfully titled "The Grass and the Greenhouse"  - a lovely name don't you think?

Some grass species survive in the toughest of natural environments such as the Russian steppes, where gale force winds batter their stems flat for days on end.

This wasn't the remarkable part though.

What Robertson found most telling was that, when the exact same grass was grown in the sheltered environment of a greenhouse, then:

 "... planted out in the open, 
the first gust of wind (would)
...snap and kill it."

The author concludes (my  words here) that one can get too much of a good thing. In other words too much of the happy, easy life can have a detrimental effect on some people.

This is because such people never had to develop resilience or adaptability.... which reminds me of a saying I heard long ago: 

True friendship is like a teabag in a cuppa CUPPSO. The hotter the water the stronger they get! 

How to Grow 2cm (I Inch) in your 40s (I kid you not!)

Last month I measured myself and was back down to 170cm tall. Although this has been my normal height since my teens, I was still disappointed.

But not surprised.

Four years ago age 40, I managed to grow an extra 2cm in height; this was all down to practicing hot yoga regularly. All that s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g in a hot room did wonders for my spine and posture. 


Since moving house there hasn't been a yoga studio nearby until now. Although i've tried other styles of yoga, Bikram is the one I love the most.

The fact we students come out of class looking like we'd had buckets of water thrown over us is all a part of this amazing practice. 

Shrinking Tv Sets

While most people continue buying ever bigger Tv sets with flatter screens, I am moving in the opposite direction. 

Just this morning, I found the sweetest little Tv / DVD set, not much wider than an A4 sheet of paper, with a screen that's half the size of a standard laptop; it's called a Roadster, and is meant for camper vans and such like.

As our home can best be described as doll-sized, in other words tiny, I was very happy replacing our former, also small Tv set with this, even tinier one. 

Less is definitely more!