Cell phones

Saw this over at Gill's Jottings and I just could not resist doing it.

Your Cell Phone Etiquette is 17% Bad, 83% Good

You are practically a cell phone saint. You never annoy the people around you. Everyone should have phone manners as good as yours. And you sure wish they did!

How's Your Cell Phone Etiquette?

Virtual Book Tour Continues

I am hosting the Virtual Book Tour on my 4 Day Win Blog today.

It is a 1min 20s Affirmation Video because we believe affirmations can be used daily to bring more light, love and happiness into your life.

Click here to go directly to this post. It is worth the watch.

WW and Swap

Fight or Flight response

I am sure you have heard of this term before. I think just about everyday this response within us is challenged. When we experience this challenge intensely or it becomes overactive we become very stressed which could lead to a breakdown physically or mentally or both.

How do you deal with it when it gets intense? Life with out a little stress , a challenge is boring.......but when you are faced with making adjustments and changes at every single turn, in every single area of your life, then it gets a bit overwhelming.

Personally I am still figuring out what works for me. Its seems to change from year to year, from situation to situation. Sometimes rephrasing my thoughts is all I need to do, other times I need to take a time out (go for a walk, listen to music etc.)..........

I think the most important lesson I have learned so far is that the world is not going to come to an end if I slow down or do not complete a specific task. I am human, I am not perfect. I am essentially good and I am trying my best.

So sometimes I need to fight, other times I need to run away and other times I need to check my thoughts and make sure I am not blowing things out of proportion (in that case all I need to do is be still).

I say You Think

Hosted by Luna Nina

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Protocol :: rules, rules, rules
2. Girlfriends ::fun, supportive
3. Shoulders ::aching, pain, weight
4. Coming home ::returning, once you were lost
5. Let it in :: the dog
6. Honor :: some times a little too late.
7. Tyler ::an actor? - tylenol
8. Thriller ::makes your heart go boom, scary, too much excitement
9. Angela::Ashes - Ireland
10. The winner is :: ME, ME, ME (I hope)

What is the recipe for your Personality?

The Recipe For Simone

3 parts Desire 2 parts Friendship 1 part Creativity Splash of Panache Limit yourself to one serving. This cocktail is strong!

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Make me a Bookmark

Made this for an e-mail bookmark swap -
my partner's favorite colors included green and pink and she is a Buddhist

WW - Wednesday Edition

GUEST POST BELOW: JOURNALING THROUGH CHANGE

Journalling through Change

We (Tara and I) are very excited that Simone is one of our Virtual Book Tour Hosts (thank you Simone). We are touring the virtual world promoting our recently released guided journal and companion meditation CD, Journal for the Modern Goddess.

Today I thought I would talk about ‘Journaling through Change’. As we know Simone could possibly be going through a major change in the future if/when her and her family move to Ireland. Having moved from Australia to Hong Kong, I went through a huge cultural change, just as Simone will if/when she leaves South Africa. Journaling helped me cope with those cultural changes.

Journaling is the practice of keeping a journal that explores your thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of your life. It is more than keeping a diary and recording the activities of your life, journaling allows you to clarify your thoughts and feelings, thereby gaining valuable self-knowledge.

As we go through changes within our life, whether it is a change in relationship, a job, a family member passing away, moving to a new home or even a change within you, journaling through your life changes can be more beneficial than just talking about them.

Journal can help you to:-

Reduce Stress – Journaling has a proven benefit of reducing stress. The process of writing your thoughts and feelings down allows you to let go, and not carry as much with you throughout your day. This is a powerful form of self-expression, and through that expression you can gain clarity, release, and relief.

Grow Personally – As you express yourself through your writing, you can integrate new experiences and learnings, compare how it once was to how it is now, explore your dreams, and feelings. By expressing yourself, you are allowing yourself to move forward in discovering who you really are.

Better Know Yourself – Journaling helps you create awareness of your beliefs and options, as well as help identify your values. This self discovery reveals different aspects of yourself, and allows you to better know yourself and make changes where you feel there is a need. This is particularly important when living in another culture because you need to integrate yourself into a new environment. By understanding your beliefs and opinions can help you move through any difficulties in adapting to your new home.

Communicate Better – Instead of saying something you may regret at a later stage, journaling is a safe way of expressing feelings and half-formed thoughts until you are ready to communicate them to others in a healthy and constructive way.

When we created our Journal for the Modern Goddess included a section dedicated to ‘Moving Forward’. This section allows the journal owner to recognize the changes she is going through, at that moment and turn them around to focus on how she can move forward, and through the change.

There are many different journaling techniques you can use to help you move through change, the three journaling techniques we used are:-

Asking Yourself Questions – In our guided sections (Dreams and Inspirations; Moving Forward; Gratitude and Happiness), we provide a number of questions that allows the journal owner to ask herself. By asking herself the questions she can start to journal her answers and allow her answers to flow.

Our questions are guides; therefore any journal writer can ask herself a range of questions such as “how do I feel at this moment in time?” “What makes me happy?” “What changes are going on around me and how do they affect me?” etc.

Asking yourself questions provides you with prompts to move from not writing to writing, and from there you can allow your pen to flow.

Guided Meditations – Our journal comes with a companion guided meditation CD and we encourage the journal owner to write down her experiences from the meditation and if there are any actions she may need to take to move her forward in her life.

One of our tracks was specifically designed to release your fears and when there is change going on, usually there is a fear about the change.

Meditation allows a person to relax and journaling directly after listening to a meditation CD is powerful because the insights you gained through your journey can be put onto paper immediately.

Free Flow Writing – We have also offered journal pages for the journal owner to write whatever she feels like without being guided. Some call this “intuitive writing” and others call it “free writing”. Free flow writing has one rule, and that is, there are no rules.

Free flow writing is you put pen to paper and write whatever comes into your head. If it is “I don’t know what to write”, then you write that and any thought or feeling, you write and you don’t stop. At first you may set yourself a time limit of 10 minutes and over time you may increase the time.

During this time you do not worry about punctuation, spelling, grammar, capitalisation, paragraph breaks etc. Do not worry if it doesn’t make sense, because you are writing purely for you. Free flow writing leads you places you never would have imagined. Allow your thoughts to flow and your pen will naturally move without you having to think about it.

Overall journaling can be an effective tool for processing the changes going on in your life – As they say; the only constant in life is change. Don’t be afraid to journal your way through your change.

Your journal is your own sacred space, where you honour yourself and the unique light that you bring to our world.

Happy journaling!

~

Nicole Graham and Tara Spicer are currently on a virtual book tour promoting their recently released writing journal, Journal for the Modern Goddess.

About the Journal for the Modern Goddess:

This beautiful hard covered, spiral bound writing journal helps women uncover the beautiful, unique and powerful Goddess that they really are.

The journal features 6 coloured inserts with inspirational quotes, guided questions, affirmations and 204 lined pages for journaling. The coloured inserts divides the journal into sections - Gratitude and Happiness; Moving Forward; Dreams and Visions; Journal Pages; Guided Meditation; and Sanctuaries and Sisterhood.

The companion guided meditation CD features 3 tracks that provide women with sacred journeys that inspire and encourage them to create positive life patterns. These tracks help them to recognise and invite magic, inspiration and loving energy into their lives.

The journal retails for $34.95 AUD including GST.

To view or purchase the journal, please visit Nicole and Tara’s website, Journals for Empowerment.

Tomorrow, Tara and Nicole have a friendly chat over at Nirvana Visions (http://nirvanavisions.iblog.com). Please drop by.

WW - Tuesday Edition

Photo taken by K. Foster High School Student

WW - Monday Edition

Desired Things

I heard this poem once - it really touched me, found it again by "accident" and thought I would share it.

Desiderata - What I live my life by

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.
Read more about this on Wikepedia

Therapeutic Writing

"the greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing
the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
William James

I am in the process of writing up and organising The 100 list swap. When I hit list number 9, I had to pause and think for a bit.
When a person sees or hears or reads we react differently to stimulus according to our own experiences and inner scripts.
Two things came to the fore for me - one that some people are going to read this swap and get upset. They are going to lash out at me.Was it rational for me to think this?
Last I organise a swap with really good intentions and it coursed quite an uproar.
The second thing that came to the fore - was that is it really going to be helpful for me to do this swap. Do I really want to make this specific. Was this a rational response?
I have experienced depression and I think it was legitimate question to ask.

After some thought I felt that organising list number 9 could be therapeutic for us who decide to do it. I remembered that three/four years ago when I finally listed all things I was doing, I realised that I was expecting too much of myself, my husband realised that he was expecting too much of us as a family. We were able to turn things around. Not only are we a closer family but we are of better service to the community we live in.

If you would like to read more about the 100 list swap go here.
If you want to know more about swap number 9 go here.

Here is an interesting article about therapeutic writing in general.

Inside The Butterfly Jar

Inside The Butterfly Jar

Who am I to confess my sorrows, when there is no one left to care?
My soul feels like a butterfly, trapped in a childs jar.
Though the beauty may still exist, I am suffocating.

I can feel my wings tapping on the glass walls
Knowing on the other side, only silence exists.
Time and existence seem to have lost their meaning.

Emotions, which at one time defined who I am are now merely shadows.
The smile on my porcelain mask denies my pain.
While I am drowning in the sands of an hourglass.

When will the mercy of the reaper,
Place the last grain of sand
Then finally release my soul to the wind?

© 2007 Brian K. Walters

Happy Valentines Day

Send this eCard !

Exhausted

I have only had 3hrs sleep. My class's Valentines Banquet was last night. Today is my daughter's birthday and tommorrow we must sell stuff for Valentines Day.

Unconscious Mutterings

Hosted by Luna Nina

1. Score :: points, get what you want


2. Luxurious :: pleasure, expensive


3. Party :: fun, wild


4. Limited edition :: exclusive


5. Security :: precautions, safety


6. Betty :: Blue


7. Under construction :: oh no, bummer


8. Pest :: control


9. director :: actors


10. Express :: train, speak out

Virtual Book Tour

I will be one of the host for a virtual book tour.

"A virtual book tour works the same way as a real-life book tour however, instead of stopping by actual bookstores, gift stores and the like, we are touring the virtual world and stopping by blogs, websites, online stores and radio shows. The virtual book tour enables us to travel the world, three times over without needing a passport or a packed suitcase.

We hope to be touring the world many times over through out 2008 and beyond.

With magical love and light,
Tara and Nicole"

The book is entitled Journal for the Modern Goddess. The purpose of the journal is for women to uncover the /beautiful/, /unique/ /and powerful Goddess/ that they really are.

Its uniqueness is not only in the beautiful imagery of the journal or the specifically tailored sections for self empowerment through guided self-study, but in the companion guided meditation CD that takes each journals owner on a magical journey to find their own personal power.

1. Simone's Butterfly - Tour Date: 20th February:

Guest Post by Nicole.

2. 4 Day Win - Tour Date: 28th February:Affirmation Movie that focuses on positive weight loss

3. Simone's Butterfly Website - Tour Date: 5th March: Interview

To find out more or to meet the other hosts click here.
Find out about the competition click here.

What are you doing this weekend?

I busy, busy, busy. Teaching Sabbath school, preparing for the Valentines banquet on 12 February - a fundraising event hosted by the grade 11's, other school work, my daughters birthday on 13 February, Fundraising on the 14 February and the school gala on 15 February. Plus setting test etc.......

Irish Music

My husband has returned safely from his trip to Ireland. More photos will be coming soon.

I have realised that I there are quite a few music artist that I enjoy listening to that are actually Irish. Many times I hear a song I like it and never really make an effort to find out who sings it.

Started thinking about some of the music and sounds that I enjoyed and realised that many of the song and bands I enjoy are Irish. These are the ones I could identify:

1. U2
2. The Corrs
3. Cranberries
4. Westlife
5. Boyzone
6. Enya
7. Celtic Christian music
8. Celtic woman
9. Autamata (Out of this - theme song from Tara Road).

The Valentine's Day Blog Re-Design Giveaway

Hosted by Laugh a Daisy

You leave a comment on her blog, She will buy and your blog becomes awesomely cute. (If I were you, I would be de-lurking right about now! If you ARE lurking...)

So, if you want your blog re-designed, here are the rules.

1. Stop by Summer's Design Blog and take a peek at her new site, what she offers, and how it works. (She re-designs Blogger blogs only right now, so I'm sorry Wordpress and Typepad users, I'm afraid you're excluded from this one. Sorry.)


2. Leave me a comment on this post and let me know how awesome you think my new blog design is. (You must be willing to send me your email address.)


3. Post about The Valentine's Day Blog Re-Design Giveaway on your site with a link back to this post (I'll be checking!). You can copy the graphic too, if you'd like. And tell me your favorite Valentine's treat, date, excursion, etc. Anything that you love about Valentine's Day.


4. Comment deadline will be Thursday night, February 7, at midnight.


5. I'll randomly select and announce the winner on Friday, February 8.


6. I'll make arrangements with Summer and provide her with your email and blog addresses. After that, it's all between you and Summer. She's great to work with, so you'll be well taken care of and receive great service.


7. Send me an email when your Re-Design is complete so I can post a link to your site and we can all come see your Bloggy Beautifulness!

WW

Click to Get Code!

Get More Comments Here!

Unconcious Mutterings

Run by Luna Nina

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. What women want :varies
2. Epidemic :out of control
3. Taxes :are necessary - the question is: are they used wisely
4. Hello :Goodbye (wouldn't be surprised if many have the same answer)
5. Confidential : secret,private, important
6. Lights :in the sky,romance
7. Summation :conclusion, what I actually mean to say, The point
8. Hard feelings :upset, emotional, anger, hatred, stone wall
9. Electric :cable, not necessarily better
10. Fresh start :new beginnings, metamorphosis

100 ideas - Keri Smith-inspired!

I have enjoyed doing this swap for a number of reasons. It motivated me to complete some goals I had set for myself previous viz. make a website and learn more about Photoshop (still learning - I include early works when I was clueless and you can see my improve on other pictures) and be more creative.

It inspired me. It led to other peoples work and blogs. This in turn inspired me to start a swap - which 126 people joined - 100 list swap - the ripple is still continuing with a blog designed by Jennifer where swap participants can post their list: 100 Lists Swap.

Contact with people, doing some of the projects with my daughter etc. has been nurturing.

Its been an amazing journey that will continue even after this swap has been rated and ended. I knew when I joined it would take time and effort and it has been worth it.

Website: Simone's Butterfly Website
The heading is 100 Ideas Swap

Fire on Helderberg Mountain

Photos taken by Mr Sparrow - My daughters principal. She said when the helicopter passed over the school she felt like it was raining.

The fire trucks fill up in our road. Wednesday morning I got quite a fright when I heard the truck and the lights were flashing at 5am. I thought there was a fire in the building next to ours.