#atinylife tinyAdvent

Hi all,

December again, and lots of us are in the middle of an insane whirl of activities that come with having school-aged children: nativity-lyrics-tickets this, shopping-bankruptcy that, tinsel-candy-cane this, special-magical-day-out that.

The pressure to remain joyful is intense: and the calendar looks like a story that’s been edited by three different people in four colours of pen. Of course we want to spend time with friends and family, find perfect gifts, wrap them beautifully, reach out to old friends with a card.

But please do remember to look after yourselves too.

And for those of you who won’t be as busy, for whatever reason, special tiny hugs to you. Yuletide can be difficult in lots of ways.

I wish you all a joyful and peaceful festive season. Looking forward to 2019 and more tinylife adventures.

tinylife will be back mid-January.

Cheryl Smith #atinylife ageing

I have a birthday soon, one I once imagined I’d never reach. I expected youth to last forever, but at around fifty, it finally became clear that it wouldn’t, it hadn’t, and it would never be mine again. That was a decade ago. Time now for a brief review.

In my fifties, I have, among other things:

• Deepened into sickness, and got better
• Made friends
• Lost friends
• Changed location, and changed again
• Explored my depths with shamans and sacred medicines
• Bidden farewell to all of them
• Seen my nest empty
• Become a widow
• Learned to grieve
• Questioned the nature and existence of happiness
• Proved myself wrong
• Seen my name on a book cover
• Met myself in other incarnations

At thirty, or forty, or fifty, these things were as unimaginable as being sixty was. Was youthful me so lacking in imagination?

 

#atinylife Grateful²

Grateful for another thing that might not be considered classic gratitude material this week.

My notso successful writing career.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going OK. I have crunched this year’s submission statistics, and not only are they a huge improvement on last year’s, they are above the average (which I believe is 1/7 acceptances: I had 1/4.2 this year!).

But despite this, I’m not working with multiple deadlines or receiving lots of requests for work. So when I wake up, like I did on Sunday, with a wee cold, I can stay in bed, drink Lucozade, and the edits and submissions can wait another day.

While I’m (not) on the subject, it’s OK to take sick leave when you are ill. My feelings on how this is perceived in UK workplaces would require more than 140 words for me to rant about!

#atinylife Fridge

When I started this blog, one of my main inspirations was a thought for the day I’d heard on the radio. A list of things, all set up like this: ‘thank you for paying taxes, because  I have my rubbish picked up and my kids go to school for free.’

Of course I couldn’t think of examples of this every week. A few of my early blogs refer: this one, and this one. And today, another one happened.

The fridge broke.

BUT

We have savings which paid for another one, even at the end of the month. My next door neighbour offered us freezer space to house our rapidly defrosting chicken nuggets. I had delivery of the new fridge and disposal of the broken one sorted and paid for by 9:15am this morning.

I am so very lucky. And thankful.