Monday, March 18, 2013

sensible sucks

This year I pledged to myself that I would be more balanced, take better care of myself, make sensible choices...
For the most part its been a great thing - I have made choices that are keeping me sane, helping me achieve more less painfully, making me feel more adult, together, balanced, happy.
But sometimes I just wish that the sensible choice was also the easier, more fun choice.
Once upon a time I was much more reckless, much less safe, much more impulsive, much less "sensible"...
In so many ways I miss those days....


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Today I feel in love with the crazy world....

I may be a little insane at the moment, but my heaviness has lifted and little bubbles of happiness and love for the world are floating out of my chest and popping in rainbow flashes around me.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

my charming angel...





Snapshots of love

Created using Pic Collage. http://pic-collage.com




Sent from my iPad

ENFP

So today I finally did the Myers Briggs test, after hearing the jargon in conversations for many years...  Turns out to be scarily accurate... Hmmm. I know that there are many who will say that its auto suggestion and that I would recognise parts of myself in all of them, but I don't actually think so... It was like reading a page straight from my blog...in one of my more self indulgent self obsessed rambles about what ever recent piece of self awareness has slipped into the puzzle...
Funny though, I really expected... Don't laugh now, it's not nice...that I would rate as an introvert... I don't see myself, anymore, as the extroverted type. Man, I must have blown off the scale when I was young!

#8 the introvert within...

Saturday, March 9, 2013

its those moments...



So if a lifetime is made up of moments, I want remember my life by these moments...

Thwarted in our beach sand castle plans by the darkening clouds, we took to the roads for an adventure instead.  (by "roads" I mean driveway, and by "adventure" I mean riding up and down the drive way with mummy running behind to help with the uphill bit at the end).

Ah the pride of peddling very very fast, and not falling off the side of the driveway into the muddy swamp either side...
Ah the elation of reaching the top of the hill at the end of the driveway...
Ah the nervous excitement of rolling down the hill with mummy's reassuring hand on the back of the bike...

And then... lets do it all again!  and again!  and One-More-Time...Pleeeeeease....

Its these moments that define a childhood, for little and big people.

Clever angel

R O O F. Mummy, does this make "roof"?

The angel wanted in on the action...

"Mummy with very long hair, and she grows and grows until she reaches her hair..."

#5 keeping all the balls bouncing...

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

New challenge... Sketch #1

 
So I have decided to set myself a new personal challenge. In the ongoing quest to maintain positive life balance and keep myself sane in what is rapidly becoming a completely insane year, I am trying to reconnect with the past artist version of myself.   I liked her, she was cool.  She drew in her art journal daily... She was grounded in her emotions (if they were filled with youthful angst). She took risks, was open and adventurous, and she was creative in her life.  I'd like to see more of her. I know she's grown up, and changed, but I know she is still in there, just enjoying an extended nap. 
So since being back in tropical disturbance land I've taken up painting again. With my limits of time and energy I haven't exactly been prolific, but it made me happy to start back down that path. 
I can feel the work monkey sucking at my back, wrapping me in the endless tentacles of the unachievable to do list...and so in order to keep a grip on my journey back to my artist self I have decided to post a sketch a day for 21 days.  Readers may recall last year's 21 days to inner beauty challenge... And this one continues the theme by using 21 days to change a habit, reinforce a new habit or break an old one. 
So here goes... 21 days, 21 sketches... Just quickies... Just to keep my mind in visual self expression mode... And this is today's.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

gratifying...


So I am terribly pleased to know that I must be doing something right at home... today the angel kissed my knee and said "I really like you today mummy"... words of endorsement indeed.


Yes Boss...

So it may not come as a surprise to some in my life, but I have realised that I may have a little issue with authority figures... I have been noticing that when ever I am deeply unhappy in a job the reason is almost always a "bad" boss.  In this case I AM the boss... so its my board that have the power to render me almost blind with rage and frustration.  I have been trying to work out where this might be coming from... what is it in me that reacts so vehemently to someone telling me what to do - if I don't agree with them.  I have great respect for bosses who simply let me do my own thing most of the time and provide gentle guidance and support when required.  What really gets my goat though is bosses who I don't agree with but have to follow anyway... it eats me inside.... I lay awake at night, and ruminate on it constantly... its a deep frustration and a silent rage that renders me almost irrational.  Is this a childhood issue that is unresolved?  Is this an arrogance and pride in me that thinks I know better?  Is this my natural and common fury at perceived injustice?  Am I just a bad loser?
It seems that the universe is determined that I confront this issue.  I've had a few really great bosses, but I have had quite a share of ones that have prematurely aged me.  The other time I recall being really frustrated was running a struggling business in which I was the boss - and I wasn't a great one.  So I was mad at myself as well as the situation.  So here I am again - in a really hard job but one that I do actually enjoy, despite the workload... and the thing that is making me walk on the day that my contract ends is a bad boss/board.  Now I know that they are actually independently shit - many people who have no reason to lie to me have indicated that I really do have the bad end of the stick with this one.  And sadly the way that our constitution was written means that they can't be sacked, they can't be brought into line and they can't be controlled except by their own members.  So I am rendered almost powerless and it is eating me up from the inside out.  So... this is my challenge... I will find a way to overcome how badly this affects me.  I will find a way to keep calm.  I will find a way to see this as an opportunity for me to learn about my own issues with authority.
I will turn this around and use it for good instead of evil.
Wish me luck!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

And then there was more....

So.... I have realised that the theme for my year as CEO is "going beyond"... The strongest sense I have of the year is that every time I think that I am completely over loaded and stretched as far as I can be.... Then the universe gives me more.... It's crazy.  So at the moment I am almost single handedly running this ocean liner of an organisation since all of the senior management positions are currently vacant.  Thank god I still have my CFO, and my National Manager of Sustainable Futures Programs (yes I named the position coz I am just like that) is back from leave next week....for two months until she goes on maternity leave.... But I am about to get word on a new lot of funding to provide services in 7 other pacific countries (long story, ask me later) and due to a stuff up on the side of the donors I now have to produce an extra $120,000 dollars worth of policies, org review, manuals and other documents before I leave so that the organisation can get the operational and wages money we were promised and have already spent.
So on top of everything else.... Much much more....
But you know what? I'm ok.... I'm smiling... I may be hysterical but then again, I look back over what I have achieved this last year and I think....I've managed to do a huge amount...I've actually done an amazing job under the circumstances...it's been really hard, but I've done it... And yes, I will do this too... And I'm being a great mum, and I'm doing 12wbt and losing weight, and I'm keeping up my social life, painting, reading... Somehow I am holding life together and I'm pretty damn proud of myself.