Audiobooks

I love listening to books on cd (or mp3 or whatever!). Both fiction and non-fiction

When I'm doing the housework or sitting on the bus or working.

There are a heap of free podcasts on iTunes that have given me hours if entertainment

Give them a go!

Make it as you design SSSs


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100% enthusiasm, occasionally little finesse

My words may not always be eloquent. My thoughts may not always be cohesive but I hope you get the heart of what I am saying. If I go over and over a post to try to perfect it, I find that i loose my zest for it somehow. So please forgive me for putting them out raw, but with enthusiasm!


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Handling Disappointment and Bad Days

One of the blogs I love and one of the women who are my mentors from afar is Kimberly Wilson. You can see her blog here.

This year, she started a great idea where she has guest bloggers regulary contributing to her blog. While perusing it today, I read with much head nodding, a post by one of her guest bloggers Samara O'Shea. It was exactly what I wanted to say in a draft post I had saved previously. This paragraph was the trigger for the head nodding:

'I call my new ideas boomerangs, and it's my job (your job) to keep throwing them out into the Universe. Every resume, essay, poem, book proposal, blog, small business plan etc. is a boomerang. Throw them out there again and again. Some will get lost and others will come back to you when you least expect it. In 2010, boomerangs that I threw out in 2007 have come flying back at me. 2010 wouldn't feel this good if it weren't for 2009—the year of nothing going my way. And I'm sure there are other set backs ahead, but I need those road blocks to fully appreciate when I do get what I worked for (and more).'

She also said that, ' I had figured out how to field failure, and having a plan for failure is as important as having a plan for success.' From personal experience, I have realised the importance of this and I touched on it a little in yesterday's post Julie & Julia.

Things happen that can disappoint, you can feel rejected, barriers seem to be everywhere and it will feel horrible. A heartache, a bad feeling in your gut, physical effects of disappointment through your body. Fortunately these are only temporary! And it is up to you to find the way out of this situation.

Create a 'plan for failure'. Expect the best but be prepared for the worst. Understand that things happen, and this 'bad' thing may be a blessing in disguise because something better is around the corner. Or it is a wake up call to improve your game.

What can you do to overcome this 'failure'?

• Speak with your friends - a problem shared and all that - good girl friends have a knack of making you feel better!
• Look at your perspective - can you put this event in its place in the bigger picture? Look at the possibility that this may actually be a good thing because you're not ready or because something better might be coming along?
• Throw yourself into an activity you enjoy - be it cooking, planning, running - to remind yourself of the good things that exist in your life
• Look at what created the disappointment and improve it. Can you make it better for the next submission, or is it still really good and it was just the wrong person to show it to or discuss it with?
• Take the time to connect back to yourself and see what is important to you in life.
• Listen to some feel good music to lift up your mood. Check out Phoenix - my current fave!

Make it what you wish SSSs!
x
Arienne

Global Poverty Project

There was a lecture run at Uni the other evening. It was outside my work time, but it interested me greatly so I stayed back. It was presented by Simon Moss, one of the co-founders of the Global Poverty Project and he spoke using a version of their 1.4 Billion Reasons talk (a trailer can be seen here).

It really moved me. We often hear about poverty and those living in it. Did you know how much helping and empowering girls and women in these countries can bring about social change? Hearing individual stories is moving and then you realise you can do small (and big) things to help.

Things like buying Fair Trade products and how that really can impact individuals in developing countries and how that in turn increases education and health care for those who need it.

Some sites and resouces that can help you find out more:
www.10thousandgirl.com - the fun finance program I am involved in that aims to get 10,000 Australian women more financially literate and that ultimately helps others through microfinancing via Opportunity International
www.girleffect.org - bringing awareness to how a single girl can make a drastic change in her community
www.Kiva.org - loans that change lives
www.globalpovertyproject.com - commit to take action to eradicate poverty
www.fta.org.au - more info on Fair Trade

What small thing can you do to help?

Julie & Julia

I finally got to watch the amazing movie Julie & Julia today. I can't describe how much it spoke to me. The women, their personalities, their lives, their newly discovered passions.

As Julie Powell describes it herself in the last post of the famous blog:

'Who knows how it happens, how you come upon your essential gift? For
this was hers. Not the cooking itself so much – lots of people cook
better than Julia. Not even the recipes – others can write recipes.
What was Julia’s true gift, then? She certainly had enormous energy,
and that was a sort of gift, if a genetic one – perhaps the one thing
about her you can pin down on the luck of the draw. She was a great
teacher, certainly – funny, and generous, and enthusiastic, with so
much overbrimming confidence that she had nothing to do with the
surplus but start doling it out to others. But she also had a great
gift for learning. Perhaps that was the talent she discovered in
herself at the age of 37, at the Cordon Bleu School in Paris – the
thirst to keep finding out, the openness to experience that makes life
worth living.'

What got me was these normal women finding their drive and purpose in life. Wanting to break out of something and channelling their energy into something they found meaty. This is right up my alley and makes my heart sing and my heart pump a little faster!

Julie's character and situation really spoke to me because I am in a similar place right now: Working in a job that I don't mind, but is not what I want to do; wanting to do more in my passion projects, but finding it hard to find the energy at the end of the day to get stuck into my meaty things. Perhaps setting a deadline, like she did, will keep me more focussed and help me build momentum. So, I'm going to blog at least every three days!

The other thing that touched me is the negativity that can come from others, even from those that we idolise or highly respect. I've been there before - getting disappointed after meeting someone you 've thought was amazing for a while, and the encounter was nothing like you had envisaged. Or showing some work to someone whos opinion you respect and you get shot down. It's like being let down by someone you idolise. Julie Powell received a lot of flak after the movie for a variety of reasons. Julia Child experienced book rejection. But what I'm learning is that you have to deal with that disappointment and continue to move forwards if you truly believe in what you are doing, because someone else will love it, someone else will benefit, someone else will see its worth, someone else's life will change because of it.

I don't proclaim to be someone who knows everything about creating an amazing life (I am still at the bottom of the mountain, dreaming about the climb - wanting to set up amazing strategies - wanting to become a better person). But I want to have the experience, I am on that journey. I have 'the thirst to keep finding out, the openness to experience that makes life
worth living.'.

Do you have it my SSS's?

The people that mean the world to you...near or far

When life gets busy, it is amazing how the important things can fall by the wayside while you feel like you are putting out fires. Things that are absolutely the most important things in the world. Friends and family. Especially those special people who live far away from where you do. I love them, they are in my mind, I think of them often, but there can be times of little contact. It has really been on my mind for the last few months.

So I called my Dad today (he lives in Switzerland and yes, it is as beautiful as you imagine), because I haven't spoken to him in a month or so. I wanted to tell him how much I love him and how I've missed him and have a good gander about life etc. Then...he didn't answer! Great...

Well, at least I called and left a message and he knows I've tried, but it is nowhere near the same as actually speaking to him. I sometimes feel like he may not know how much I care about him because I allow everyday life to take over rather than creating the time to make a call. With the time differences and long days at work and not really having a home phone, on top of the social activities, the time I need to rest, the time I try to put aside for my passion projects, it sometimes feels too hard, or the time flys by and all of a sudden a week has passed. But that is pathetic! That is horrible! He is one of the most important people in my life and I CANNOT continue like this. My admin job is not as important as my father.

So what can I do? What can I do to ensure I have the important time to speak to him, and the other important people in my life, especially when life feels so busy and out of control. These are the times it is even more important to connect. I want to involve them in my life, find out what is going on in theirs - laugh together, commiserate together, find out the little and big things going on in their everyday.

Well, I can put aside the time. Cement it in my diary that at least once a fortnight I call him. Write it in my diary that at least once a week I write an email to him (and my mum in Perth, Tatiane my sister, Yvette in the US one of my best friends). Then once a quarter write it in my diary to communicate with my more distant relations - my aunt in Germany, my lovely family in Singapore.

So Daddy, while I couldn't speak to you today - I'm shouting out a message through the World Wide Web :) I love you!!!!! and call me ;)

Blog from anywhere?!

So this is a test blog sitting on the front steps of my house using the phone. Oh technology... You can bring us so much conveniece at times!


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