Ask Molly

It's the end of a busy couple of weeks and last night I came across this article on the Guardian website. It was one of those 'Ask Molly Ringwald' features. Someone was asking how they could stop being lazy and get motivated and as I've been feeling my own motivation start to slip away these past few days, I decided to give it a read.

Two sentences struck a chord with me;

"Your brain desperately needs the hormones that fire during exercise.."
and "..our living spaces are reflections of who we are."

Ok, well I know exercise is good for you both physically and mentally. I know that when I ran regularly, I felt and functioned better. I know that the 'runners buzz' you sometimes hear about is actually a thing and I know that surprisingly it's also addictive.
I also know that the first run is an utter bastard and isn't so much a run as a walk with the occasional Bambi-like, legs flailing everywhere, shuffle thrown in. Because no one tells you that you won't look like a proper runner at the beginning. I learned this the hard way when I caught sight of my shadow during my first run.
The image I had in my head of what I might look like (Paula Radcliffe having a gentle jog), was shattered as I saw my shadow self lolloping along in a slow Quasimodo style. But if you can past the lame excuses, the fact that you will not look like Paula Radcliffe (at least, not yet) and push yourself through that crappy first run, you'll find genuine enjoyment.
So yes, that will be happening this weekend. I will kill my demotivation dead with running.

And of course, the other thing I took from that article was the bit about our living spaces reflecting who we are.
It made me look around my living room and I saw, splashes of pretty, unfinished projects and a LOT of mess and clutter. Which pretty much sums up who I am perfectly I think. If I had to change anything from that little lot though it wouldn't be the mess or the clutter. Which shows how much I've changed in the past few years as I was a self confessed neat freak. Nowadays I view the mess as a sign that we're a family and I've written before about how bloody grateful I am for that, so no regrets there whatsoever. That said, perhaps I wouldn't be adverse to painting over the crayon and sticky hand prints on the wall now.
No, if I had to change anything it would be the unfinished projects. But as Alessi is now at a more independent age, we're finding that time is ours to play with again. That feels like a gift in itself. So I'm sure there will be more DIY and projects coming up in the not to distant future.

This post doesn't really have a point necessarily. But I've noticed that I've been self censoring what I write here lately. This blogs readership has grown over the past year which is what I'd always hoped for, but oddly this has made it harder for me to write as freely as I have in the past. So this morning, while Dan took Alessi out I thought I'd just sit down and write. The Molly Ringwald feature and my thoughts on it seemed perfect. Does it affect anyone else? No. Will it enhance anyones life? No. Is it even relatable? Probably not. Do I care about it? Why yes, yes I do. And that's the point.
I want to get this blog back to being what it was, a personal space for me to write shit. It isn't a platform to sell my work. I share my work here and on social media because it's a huge part of what I do and I bloody love it. But I don't make money from this blog. It's merely my spot on the internet to record my inner monologue of thoughts and today that includes Molly Ringwald, running and my living room.

I fully expect my next post to be about what a stupid idea running is, how I hate my living room and how Molly Ringwald can suck it. ;)

My Weekend Off

Last weekend, Dan and Pip went to London for the weekend leaving me home alone.

YEEES!

Usually when I get time like this to myself, I use it to focus on work. Not this time. April has been a very busy month and I promised myself that if I achieved everything on my list, I would keep the weekend for rest and relaxation only. And for once, that's exactly what I did.

Breakfast became an event. Real coffee, pastries, papers and morning radio. Such a luxury!

Lie ins. No need to say more.

I'd heard a few people in my Twitter timeline mention the documentary, 'American Blogger' by Christopher Wiegand, so I decided to give it a go and have a bit of a movie night - with beer and buttered pop corn of course. It was pretty good on the whole, although I think it would have been even better if it had focused on a smaller group of bloggers and spent more time telling their stories. But, very enjoyable nonetheless.

Oh and I gave myself a throw-together foot spa at the same time. Hot water, Epsom salts and soak..

Admittedly, this was not so relaxing, but I wanted to start running again after over a month and a half off. It was a disaster. Apart of raining, my hood refused to stay on my head, my music stopped playing and I had to stop to walk twice. This is most definitely a forced smile.

But it got better once I got back to relaxing and not doing very much at all. 

Lesson learned.

Cool running

Last October I decided to stop procrastinating, stick on a sports bra and try that ol' running malarkey everyone and their dog seemed to be doing. No one was more surprised that I was that I genuinely enjoyed it. Mainly because up until that point I didn't exercise. And I mean at all. I had tried to get into to various things. Swimming, yoga, spinning, Salsa aerobics and some torture disguised as an exercise class called Ab Attack - I hated them all. I either felt bored, resentful that I was paying good money for such rubbish or just just plain uncomfortable that I was exercising with a group of people.

That last one was a biggie for me. When it comes to exercising, I like to go solo. I don't want some skinny, tanned bombshell in front of me shaking her bum perfectly in time with the music while I have a seizure behind her (and in the wrong direction I might add). 

That's why running appealed. You can do it whenever you want. At the drop of a hat. It's free, you can push yourself as much (or as little) as you like and all you need is a pair of trainers and a sports bra. 

Win. 

Today I hit my first target. I ran a mile without stopping. Actually I ran 1.38 miles without stopping to be exact. Now considering I started running months ago, this will seem like very slow progression to most. However two years after Pip was born I continue to have pelvis pain if I push myself too much so I'm taking the whole thing very slowly. And slow progression or not, I'm very proud of myself and grateful that after all these years I've finally found a form of exercise that I genuinely enjoy.

Now I've just got to come up with a new goal!