My mind's telling me no....but my mouth, my mouth is saying yes!

Oh dear - I'm in trouble. Not only have I not written on my blog for over a month, but it appears that I have been told off for being a workaholic. Not really in keeping with the peaceful, tranquil year I was hoping to have. Opps...my bad....

Why does this happen? Why do the best of plans and intentions fall to the wayside when deadlines loom and everyone seems to want something from you all at the same time? I'll tell you why. Not being able to say a little two letter word. 'N.O'

I've long been afflicted by an inability to say such a small word, even though I work with words for a living. 'Would you mind redoing that piece of script?' The answer should be 'no', but it always comes out 'of course'. Someone says 'I need help with this report, but just can't seem to get it right, can you help me?' From under a pile of my own work, I say 'Sure!!!!!'

I need help people. For the last three months I have worked flat out on project after project and finally this week finished the mother of them all (even though the Grandmother of them all is now at the top of the pile...but more on that another time.) Instead of feeling relief, I just feel exhausted, washed out and in need of a million years of sleep. Instead I'll have to make do with just a day off, because it all starts again on Monday.

It's a shame I feel like this, as just a few weeks ago, I was invited to a spa night hosted by Susan Kushnatsian from Bee Gorgeous Organics. She's so wonderful. Not only does she create the most scrumptious organic body care products that are good enough to eat (I do it regularly, with her Miel Facial Viel....not intentionally, but it does taste good when some falls into my mouth by mistake), but she loves to entertain and feed people. So me and 'Homie' along with a small group of women went to her house and were treated to a night of complete and total relaxation. Candles, great food, cucumber infused drinking water, fruits, vegetables and spa treatments. Feet dipped in water with flowers. Hands scrubbed with rosemary scented salts and other goodness. Lotions that smell like they've just been picked from the back garden. And conversation, laughter and just complete abandon from work, life and everything else. Oh yes, and a little hot tub action in her back garden under the stars. Lovely. I almost didn't want to leave, but I don't think Susan would've been too happy having me take up residence in her hot tub....

The talk of the night was about how we treat ourselves. Especially as working women, we forget to take time to pamper ourselves, to breathe properly, to think about something other than work or what needs to be done in the house. I left there determined to make 'me time' a priority, but instead, deadlines have made me stop exercising, not eat properly, go to bed late, get up horrendously early and just feel, well not my usual self.

So today I make a pledge to:

• Make me time
• To say 'no' (nicely) when I need to
• To go to bed on time
• To workout and eat as I know I should
• To not be called a workaholic again!
• To continue to eat my honey face cleanser, because it tastes great and makes me happy!

Thank you Susan for a great night, and for reminding me that life is more than work!

What are YOU going to do to make your me time? Let us all know!

I'm off to lie down on the sofa and watch trash TV.

More next week

xx

From So Solid to Kylie to Chrisette: A musical ode to friendship

Do you ever wake up and just have a song in your head? It happens to me all the time, but usually I can pinpoint the culprit (it was on the radio, my husband sang it the day before - some reason). But the tune on my internal iPod this morning was just random. Being 'of a certain age' some of you will remember the British garage group known as 'So Solid Crew'. Calling them a group is an understatement - about 20 'yoots' from South London made up the musical entourage back in the early Noughties. Anyway, I started singing 'Oh No (Sentimental Things), but, so it turned out, with the wrong words. I've always thought that Lisa Maffia (the only woman in the 'Crew) was singing 'It's just the simple things in life, So Solid make you feel alive'. But after nine years You Tube proved me wrong. She's singing 'It's just the sentimental things in life'.... (the clue really is in the title....details, details....)

Anywho, wrong words aside, that song set off a whole chain of thought which has led to a musical trip down memory lane. 'Oh No' got me thinking about one of my best friends who is living in the dust bowl that is Eritrea (yes, East Africa). She picked herself up last year and moved there to teach for two years. More power to her. But I miss her. So...back to the music. Miss Eritrea would always sing - in a comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks-esque voice the chorus to 21 Seconds
by said, So Solid Crew. I think she was actually making fun of some of her students, but it was hilarious (she's a good teacher, honestly!) That brought back memories of meeting, randomly, at University, cooking in the halls of residence kitchen, sharing some love life horror stories (oh, so many), celebrating our achievements, spending the night in a dodgy London hospital with a suspected broken ankle, holidays, comparing mortgage deals and the (very occasional) disagreement. All that from a song!

Then - while still on You Tube, I found myself seeking out Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out of My Head'. This is the song of my 'Home Girls' - friends from high school - we've been through it all. We danced and danced to this song during a trip to Dublin (a birthday? Most likely). Just recently, one of my Home Girls got married (fab day!) and we were all there. Now that I don't see everyone often (6000 miles will see to that) I sat there at one point and just started to scroll back on the 20+ years we've all known each other (25, in some cases). The letters we wrote back and forth in class so we wouldn't get busted for talking. The trips to the local shops at lunchtime to buy salad creme and onion sandwiches (don't make that face...they're good!). Sleep overs. Nights out with a dose of MTV back at the house afterwards (my parents were very patient, now that I think about it!) My bedroom door falling off its hinges during one of (many) gatherings. Eating Chinese takeout, followed by ginger bread and custard. Walking miles to get anywhere - and not complaining. Our first holiday away. Exam disappointments and successes. Weddings, births, tears, laughter. And a stack of photos to show for it (you know who you are..!) Every friend different, but all wonderful and amazing.

Moving away makes you appreciate good friends - especially when you have to make new ones. Which takes me to song number 3, 'Be OK' by Chrisette Michelle. A mutual friend introduced me to the person I refer to as 'My Homie' in this blog. I'm not kidding. This move would've been unbearable without her. She listened (as all my friends did) to my various traumas for a good 12-18 months after I moved. She was patient. She kept the jokes flowing when I really was ready to just cry for months on end. And on a practical level, she helped me with work, which eased alot of my stress, more than even she realizes. One day, we jumped in her car and went shopping. 'Be OK' came on and I remember listening to the words while we sped down the highway and thought 'It will be ok, I will be fine.' It's now in my 'pick me up' emergency kit of tunes, although, thankfully, life isn't as hard as it was when I heard it.

Ahhhh - meeeemmmorrriiies....(a la Babs Sterisand ). I could've sat and gone from friend to friend, listening back to songs and reminding myself of the good times and our shared histories, but the work thing has a habit of getting in the way (ohhh, a Jill Scott track, that reminds me of a past boyfriend, but we're not even going to venture down that road, this entry is long enough. Another time, perhaps!)

If songs provide the soundtrack to our lives, then friends are the melodies, the harmonies and the lyrics. And the people that get on our nerves are the out of tune singers lurking in the choir!!

Put on your tunes and sing a song to friendship. Like 'So Solid Crew' said....."It's just the simple things in life"or whatever....I prefer my version....call it a remix! :)

Don't it always seem to go.....

The King of Pop is dead. I'm sitting here tuning into as many radio outlets as I can and listening to interview after interview of people literally dissecting his life. He's not even cold yet. Some of the choice questions being asked just hours after his death: " Was his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley a sham? Did he die happy? And this question to his biographer...."was he really hetrosexual?" I mean, come on....! Is that really relevant right now? (Oh, they've moved onto the 'Gossip Editor' of the National Enquirer.....)

As it so happened, I was in a meeting with one of MJ's former publicists who received phone call after phone call as the news developed. "He's been taken to hospital", "he's dead", "he's not dead", "no, he's really dead". As I write this, the reports say he died of a heart attack at the age of 50. That's it. No more. The end.

After my meeting I called my homie. In recent weeks, we've had many conversations about making every single day count. Losing your job is hard, of course, but when you're not tied to the 9 to 5, the possibilites are once again endless. But death is final. Today we lost Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson. Earlier this week, Ed McMahon passed. Talking to a friend this morning, I was told of another woman, not even sixty who died of cancer, and just a couple of weeks ago, a fellow journalist transistioned at the age of 42.

We've all had those conversations -- you know the ones...."Life's too short, you've got to enjoy it, make the most of it." And then we run back to doing what we usually do. Working too hard, not making time for those important relationships. Not doing those monthly breast exams (guilty as charged on that one). Not scheduling pap smears, dental appointments (insert annual medical test of your choice). Not eating right. Not getting enough exercise. Wasting time, energy and brain space on dead weight partners/work colleagues (again, insert your dead weight of choice). And then one day it's all over. If you have the chance to look back on your life once it's all over, do you want to look at hours and hours of you at the office, fighting with people and struggling with your health? Or would you rather spend the time laughing about the silly things you did? The special times? Those landmark days - weddings, births, celebrations?

We really do have a choice.

I remember the story of a guy who worked for the same company as me. 'Bob', we'll call him, couldn't have been more than 40, if that. He had a young family and had been feeling ill for a while. Bob kept putting off his doctor's appointment because he was 'busy at work' and he had to finish his project. Very important project. On the day he finally decided to go to get himself checked out, he died. The project was never finished and the world still turned. People talked about Bob for a couple of days. Flowers were sent to the funeral and a card posted to his heart broken family. Fast forward 6 months, a memorial was held for Bob. No one from the office went. Why? They were too busy working.

I didn't know Michael Jackson or 'Bob' or the countless other people who live to work, not work to live. But the message is coming through loud and clear.

• Money doesn't buy you happiness
• Surround yourself with people who truly love and appreciate you
• Laugh as much as you can
• Don't spend your entire life striving to do better to prove a point to others
• If anything happens to you, people in the office won't care after a week....

Feel free to add to this....and go and do something that makes you happy RIGHT NOW! Cos like Joni says, " you don't know what you've got til it's gone....."

xx

The weight of the world on (young) shoulders

Sup family?

Loads of stuff has been happening, which I'll fill you in on, but just a quick update on two things that really disturbed me over the weekend and which really illustrates why we have to be careful about what we put out in the world (ok, this won't be quick - it'll end up being as long as the Sermon on the Mount, I'm sure...but you'll understand why).

Summer is coming and it's time to keep cool and look cute, so I was out shopping over the weekend. With an arm bent out of shape thanks to the sheer weight of the clothes I was carrying (gotta love those discount stores!) I headed to the fitting room with the grumpy faced assistant (Girlfriend, it's really not my fault that you're working on a Sunday. You have a job, which is more than most folks right now.....fix ya face, as my Bajan Mama would say)

Anyway, by the time I got to dress number 10 and had placed most of the clothes in the 'maybe' pile, my ears tuned into a conversation between some young girls in the cubicle next door. They were chattering the way girls do about the outfits they were trying on, their upcoming holiday to see the family in Mexico and why it's safer to drive than to fly "Because planes just, you know, fall out of the sky and you die. Much better to drive. Why don't you drive with me?".

**SCREECH** What?! These girls couldn't have been more than about 10 years old at the absolute most, but they were having a very serious conversation about the dangers and merits of different forms of transport. It stopped me dead in my tracks. Is the media just pumping out too much bad news? Is this what they worry about? Should children even be THINKING about this kind of danger at their age? What happened to messing with Barbie and Ken? Playing jump rope and hopscotch? I so wanted to reassure them that flying is ok, that what happened with the Air France flight, isn't common, that pilots really don't die at the controls on a regular basis and it's really not that often that you'll see a plane land on the Hudson River. But if I'd said anything, bearing in mind what they see and hear on the tv and radio, they probably would've thought I was some crazy woman and been like, 'yea, whatever'.

But it gets worse. So I go back to my clothes (I'm on to skirts by this point - more in the 'maybe' pile) when the girls start talking about size. One of them said "I'm so happy - this is a size 4 and it fits!" The other girl responds; "You're so lucky to be able to wear a size 4, size 6's don't even fit me." Again, I say "WHAT?"Young girls worrying about weight and what size they are? How an outfit fits? Unbelievable.

What message are we sending out to young women ( and men too) that they have to look a certain way, be a particular size? Why not 'be the best you can be and be happy'? As women, especially, we are conditioned that 'thin is good, big is bad'. As I said to my homie the other day, I look at it this way. My shape (curvy, thank you very much) is a carbon copy of my Mum's and that of my sisters. If I continuely complain and berate my figure, then I'm being negative about them too. And in reality, would I ever say that my Mum or my sisters are unattractive because they have curves in all the right places? I would NEVER say that. Ever. So why is it ok to say it to myself and destroy my own self worth?

As older women that (should) know better, every time we complain about ourselves, we're planting seeds of doubt into the minds of our youngsters. We're giving the gift of self deprecation and years of self loathing. Just think about the things you were told when you were younger. Still rattling around in your mind, even today?

Let's try to lift the weight off of these young shoulders. Children should be just that, children. Your thoughts please...

P.S I didn't buy a thing in the end....

35 and a day and still loving it!

Happy Birthday to me -- made it to 35...woohoo!

No, I'm not weird, but I really am happy about turning 35. I'm not worried about my eggs drying up overnight, as medical reports would suggest. I'm not concerned about not reaching the goals I set as an over achieving 25 year old in my ten year plan. And I'm really not mad about not being the same size I was when I was 21 (my dress sense was awful, my hair was just wrong and honestly, I look better now, so it's really all good.)

So why am I writing this? Well, I was out running the day before my birthday, so aged 34 years and 364 days (ok, at the point I had this thought I was really walking, but you know, details) and it dawned on me that life really is good and that I really need to take a chill pill and relax.

So many things have changed beyond recognition in the last two years. I left a great career and well paying job. Rented out my home, moved to another country, got married to a fabulous man who amazes me every day. Looked for a new job (because it would be easy, right?) Couldn't find a job so started my own business. Joined a church, made new friends, ran a marathon (yes, my joints still hurt, but I'm doing another one) learned to drive on the wrong side of the road, got a book deal and have learned to live on less money than I was making as a graduate 13 years ago.

Yes, life has changed...

So back to the run. It dawned on me that we're always being told stuff like '40 is the new 30', '50 is the new 40' -- but what about being happy with where you're at?

I recall turning 30 with a certain amount of dread after returning from a trip around the world, because there were things I should have achieved... marriage, a house, some children, a glittering career (that bit was ok, but I wasn't happy, so what does that tell you?). As 35 approached, people started to ask me how I felt (especially other friends who had already turned 35) and all I could say was 'EXCITED!' Why do we view getting older as a bad thing? Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves to do certain things within a particular time frame? I hold my hands up and say I used to be like that, but during the run (ok, walk) I made a pledge to myself that this year, there would be none of that. I'm just going to approach everything with confidence and a smile and if it makes me feel anything less than ok, then it's out.

I don't want to hear about diets, scales of succees, lastest fashions trends, the places I should be eating, the destintions that are 'hot' right now. I don't want to be compared to others or for others to compare themselves to me. I don't want to be told that I have to have a child because my eggs are old and ready to be put out to pasture. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in denial, but I just want to embrace this life without the nonsense and toxicity that comes with it.

This blog is my way to document that feeling and share year 35 with others who are between their 30s and 40s....life is great just where we are!!! So my reasons to be cheerful this week are;

1) I'm 35 and all of my immediate family are still alive
2) I have friends I've known for 25 years
3) My husband is the kindest human being I know
4) My body still works. A few modifications here and there (not for vanity!) but it's all doing what it needs to
5) I like myself and will no longer be ruled by a dress size, my weight or what the media says I should dress in. My butt is big, thanks to genetics. My skeleton isn't even a size zero and skinny jeans just ain't happening for me. Really, it's ok. I'm a journalist, but I could strangle some of my fashion editorial colleagues sometimes. If you could start looking at stuff for women a size 10/12 up (US sizing), that would be fab. Thanks much.

Ok, enough from me - I'm off for a mani-pedi. Your comments welcome too!

More next week....

xx