Wishes

My 8 year old niece is wise beyond her years.  I'm always astonished by the things she says (most of the time in a good way!).  The other day she was getting me to write down a list of things she wanted for her birthday and she asked that I write "Birthday Wishes".  She asked me if I wanted to know why she called them wishes and I said yes.  She told me that she calls it a wishlist because you're supposed to write down all of the things that you wish for, not just the things that you hope to get.  Not surprisingly, the item on the top of her list is a great dane!   She teaches me to hope and dream for things, even if they seem so far out of my reach.  Oh how I love her for that.
I think that I'll write a list of my wishes.  Maybe for things that I hope to manifest in my life more than the material things I want, although that couldn't hurt either!  Let me know if any of you have lists like this.  Do you keep them up to date?  Do they help you reach your goals and live your dreams?

Inspiration and Staying Positive

via pinterest

These are two things that I have been thinking about lately.  I love it when I am totally inspired to create something or to work on something.  It gives me a purpose and makes me happy.  When I am not inspired, I feel restless and at loose ends.  There are times when it's good to just relax and be but most times I need to feel some sort of pull towards something whether it be a book, a movie, a project etc.  I like having something to look forward to when I get home from work.  I think being inspired is directly linked to being positive and staying that way.  How can you not be in a positive mindspace if you are doing something you love?  I am a true believer in thinking positive and staying healthy.  Negative feelings eat away at a person and in my opinion if your mood is bad for a period of time, your immune system is suppressed and you are likely to feel the physical effects of negativity as well as the emotional.  That's why stress kills and depression hurts.  That's not to say that we won't ever have any negative feelings or that when a person does, they should ignore them.  I think that if you are feeling something, you should embrace it, deal with it and eventually move on.  Stuffing feelings down is never a good choice, however, obsessively ruminating over negative feelings is unhealthy.  I guess that's why I like my journal so much.  I can write things down and purge them from my mind when I'm feeling down and when I'm happy, I can keep the mood going and remember it by writing it down.  Works both ways.
Lately, I've taken to writing myself messages on my bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker.  It is one of the first things I see in the morning and it starts my day off on the right foot.  I know it might sound cheesy but it totally works.  I'm all about the person mantra.  Lately it's been "You are beautiful, your are loved, you are worthy."  Whether you believe it's true or not, after reading this every morning for a few days, a person begins to believe it.  It might be subconsiously at first, with a lightness in your heart but eventually you will actually come to believe these things.  I mean, why do so many people think they have to be a size two to be happy, worthwhile and important?  All of the ads they are assaulted with each day in the media is the clear answer to that!  So why not change what you see and hear each day to something more positive?  I truly believe that if we work on being positive, it will not only resonate in us but in others around us and that's catchy.  It could really make the world a better place to live.
So go out and get inspired and think positive! Let me know how it works for you.

Another new journal

When choosing a journal to write in, I almost always use a moleskine.  This summer however, I decided that I would try again to change my habits as I have been looking for a thicker book to write in.  I wanted something with a lot of pages, something substantial.  So when I was in Spokane, I went to a Barnes and Noble and picked up a Miquelrius notebook.  It was appealing to me on several levels.  First of all, it was thick.  Even though it was quite a substantial notebook, it wasn't heavy and it was small enough to comfortably fit in any of the bags I own.  This is a must with any journal I have as I tote them with me everywhere. 

Secondly, it has gridded pages that allow me to write as large or as small as I want and I quite like the look of my writing against the lines of the graph paper.  This is also very helpful when it comes to creating my monthly calendar. 

Third and not least of all, it was very inexpensive; only $9.99 US, which this summer was an even better deal for me because the Canadian dollar was doing so well!  So far, I have been using my new notebook, whom I've since dubbed Scarlett, since the end of August.  Admittedly, only a couple of weeks but that's about 10 days longer than any of my other attempts at using something other than a Moleskine to write it have lasted.

What kind of notebook/journal are you using?



Pug love

So, even though I'm endevouring to write more in a public forum, I can't help but post some pics of the girls.  I don't know if everyone is as crazy as me for pugs but I believe that anyone looking at pictures of pugs cannot help but smile.  So here are some recents:

Little Rosey with her tongue out for the camera

Ruby wants a journal just like mine!

Rosey just can't keep that tongue in her head!

This weekend we are also babysitting our friend LittleMissEmmaLarge.  We love her.  Hope you're having a great weekend!

Thoughts on writing

I write entirely to find out what

I'm thinking, what I'm looking at,

what I see and what it means. 

What I want and what I fear.

-Joan Didion

So lately I've been thinking more and more about writing and why I do it and how to get better at it. I've always written daily in my journal but mostly about random stuff that's happening in my life in order to help me to gain some perspective on things.  I'm still doing this but lately I've been thinking more and more about actually writing articles, essays, opinion pieces etc.  I am a perfectionist and although I love to write, I often believe that if I were to try writing something other than my personal journal (that would only be viewed by me) that I would somehow fail and my dream would be lost.  Today I'm thinking that if I don't ever try, my dream will be lost to me for sure.  So it is with that thought that I begin to write once more on this very neglected blog.  Not only will this help me gain some confidence (writing for others, even if only one other person reads this, takes a lot of courage), it will help me practice and get better at my craft. You'll notice that I even changed the layout to coincide with my newfound insight.  I'm not saying that what I write here will be grand but I will be writing for an audience so consider this my playground and feel free to comment on what you read.

Books on Journal Writing

Hey there! I know it's been a while.  I'm fighting the winter blahs.  It's the first day of Spring and we are expected to get 18cm of snow by tonight.  I think it must be close by now, it's snowed all day long!
When it snows outside, I like to sit in my big comfy chair with a cup of tea (or a Chai Tea Latte from Sbux) and read a good book.  I try and read fiction and non-fiction at the same time so that when I get tired of one, I can read the other.  Right now I am reading this:

and this:

Sherlock Holmes books are written as diary entries of a sort by Watson.  I watched the series on the BBC this Christmas and was hooked.  The books are even better. 
So far, I am finding Tristine Rainer`s book very interesting and inspiring.  I try to write in my journal at least once a day and sometimes I`m at a loss for what to write about.  She provides many different writing styles and reasons why to write to keep me going.  I am not done reading the book yet, however, I would recomend it so far!
And although this is not my beloved Moleskine - here`s a bit of inspiration for you.  I found it via a link on Shaynie`s blog.  You should check her blog out too, she`s one cool girl!

Of Pancakes and Women and other randomness...

I am pretty excited today because it's Fat Tuesday, meaning I get to eat pancakes for dinner tonight!  Yeah!!! And as if that weren't reason enough to celebrate, today is also International Women's Day.  It's good to be me!
On another note, I woke up this morning with covalent bonds on my mind.  What is a covalent bond, you ask?  I didn't know either so I googled it and came up with this:  A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, and other covalent bonds. In short, the stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding. Wikipedia
This is what I call a brain leak, when my brain leaks out information that is no longer useful to me.  Apparently I am leaking Chem 12 these days.  Of course I had to look it up to make sure it wasn't something that I should be holding onto, however, I don't think Chem 12 will make or break my day. Does this ever happen to you or am I the only weirdo out there?
I also happened upon a quote that I quite like while browsing the interwebs today:
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
 ~Toni Morrison

I found it here.  You should really check out this girls flickr.  She's rad.

And because this wasn't already random enough, here's a photo I took in Ireland. My name on some random wall in Belfast.  That's how I roll.