Scrumping Lemons

Normally at this autumnal time of the year, it is traditional to go scrumping apples, or pears if you can find them.  Basically scrumping,  for those who don’t know the word, is nicking ripe fruit from someone else’s trees.  Usually involving a clandestine bit of hopping over fences and good old fashioned trespass.

Being the law abiding citizen that I am, I tend to err on the side of just climbing on the fence if I can reach the apple.  And now we have generous neighbours with an orchard of trees who take all the fun out of it & say pop round any time.  Although this year is an abysmal one for apples, leaving thin pickings.

However.  This autumn we have spent a week in sunnier climes.  We have just got back from a week in Cypress, visiting my sister.  Which demanded a different kind of scrumping.  Oh, yes indeed.  We got to scrump some lemons for our tea.

One very proud nearly-4 yr old with his lemon.  Yes, it looks like a lime, but its a green lemon, honest.

When I am going to bed I am going to be 4, mummy?.

Well, it finally happened.  Roo turned 4 on the weekend.  As my youngest brother put it, 'He seems to have been 3 for an inordinately long time'.  I guess we must have been saying he was almost 3 for a month or so before his birthday.

Self portrait with a bit of camera stealing!

Sunday, however, he woke up to find himself 4.  Which he was very pleased with himself about.  Sadly we were all too jaded from our red-eye trip home from Cypress to really make a big old song and dance about it.  But over the past week he got to have a cake in Cypress with cousins, Dorset with Grandparents & Auntie and next weekend another family celebration with more Grandparents and Uncles, in Hampshire.  Its all good, being an international jetsetting 4 year old!

Jus' writin'. Everyday.

It is time.  About bloody time.  I am going to just write.  For one week.  For seven days I will  write, write, write, even if it is total drivel.  AND I will hit the publish button.  Every day.  One post a day, imperfectly.  Wish me luck.

It is an interesting one, this desire for perfection.  The classic ‘what is your weakness’ in an interview question.  A stupid question if ever there was one, for which there seemed to be an expected answer.  'Oh, I can be rather perfectionist.'  Which was secretly considered a good thing.  Aha, here is someone who will really care about their work.  So I did on occasion use this on the ole CV/application form, although I never really believed that I was a perfectionist.  I was far too slapdash and disinterested in minutiae.  Which employers were less than enamored with.  (Case in point, before spellchecking these sentences, minutiae and enamored were incorrect.)

However, as I have gotten older, I have realised that I do have perfectionist tendencies.  A tendency to overplan, analyse and overthink things.  Spending far too much time in the planning stages and failing to get to the actual doing stages.  Like my imaginary blogging.  Like waiting until I have the great photo to go with that post, until I am ready, until all my ducks are in a row.  And guess what.  Those darn aquatic birds fail to line up so frequently that it never gets done.

My brother D is a great one for just doing it.  He doesn’t spend time agonizing over whether he made the right decision.  He just makes it and moves on.  Lives with it.  And gets things done.  Now, his way of living might just make me feel breathless, I need to live at a slightly slower pace I think.  

But I am willing to learn something from him.  And its probably going to be his latest ‘kick Jac’s butt’ saying of “Better Right Now than Right.”  Or as Christine Kane advocates in her Uplevel your Life program,  Take Imperfect Action.  I have even made myself a poster of that phrase.  I took that sentiment to make me start my Happy Ever Arter circle.  And it worked.  I started, adjusted and continued.  It is a whole lot easier to continue than it is to start.

One of my favourite Renaissance souls

I would like to introduce you to one of my favourite Renaissance souls, who has just started his own blog.  With a bit of persuasion from me {read nagging sister}.

Oh yes, ladies and gentlefolk, this is none other than my own sweet brother.  A true renaissance man and multi passionate creator.  His latest post on his foray into cravat making really made me laugh.

G Rex

And yes, I do believe he did actually make that hat himself.  A multi-talented man who is also a scientist and a gardener.  Check him out!

Allotment love time

This weekend I finally made it down to the allotment.  oh boy, does it ever look neglected.  I need a strong man down there to tame the grass & weeds.  :)

On the plus side, I did manage to get a small punnet of raspberries.  The largest crop yet.

At our annual allotment meeting with the parish council this week, I have paid up for another year of what my husband calls 'slug farming'.  I wish I could argue this one with him, but it is sadly accurate.

Time now to dream great plans, and be prepared for landing a little lower than the moon.

And in other news, I do now have a grownup phone with a camera.  I just need to work out how to get photos from there to here!

Business Goddess Course

I want to be a business person.  I want to bring my gifts out into the world in a joyous and adundant way to support me & my family. I would like to have an online business too.   I am searching and exploring deep stuff at the moment.  What do I want to do.  How do I want to do it.  y'a know that kind of stuff.  And how do you download photos from iphoto onto blogger.

Leonie Dawson has set up a business around a seemingly impossible niche, and proved that you can make good money while still keeping your heart open and creating beauty in the world.

On one of her latest videos she revealed that she has only just got herself a dedicated office space.  I kinda knew that she went to various places to do her blogging & videos etc, but I hadn't realised that was because she had no space!  So she has built a 6 figure online business with the most basic of ingredients, upgrading as her business did.

It shows what is possible and I do find this girl an inspiration.  She just gets on with it and doesn't moan about stuff, or make excuses.  And she keeps turning up.  Consistency seems to be the key that I keep misplacing.  It seems to be my life lesson at the moment!

So, if you are looking for a business course, you could do alot worse than to join us on Leonie's Business Goddess Course.  She really spills the beans about how she does what she does, in useful techie detail too.  Conventional wisdom says 'don't train any potential competitors', but I love the vibe that Leonie and others embody of a deep belief in the beneficence of the universe to support all of us.

You can download the course here, or you can join the Goddess Circle (soooo recommended!) & work through the course with a supportive group of amazing women.  You will also get all of the other courses and meditations she offers.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the Goddess Circle has changed me for the better.

The next run of the Business course starts October 1st 2012.  I will be co-leading it with two awesome goddesses!  Join us! 

Full Disclosure: I am also an affiliate of the Goddess Circle, as well as a circle guide for her there.  So those links are affiliate, where Leonie will give me a wild donkey and a bag of carrots if you join.  Maybe.

Do you come here often?

No I clearly don't do I.  I think about it often, but don't get to show up.

Does any one else partake of imaginary blogging?  I think up interesting posts, deep retrospection, hilarious commentary.  But it never quite makes it on line.  Sorry about that.

Tomorrow I am waiting in all day, as you do, for a delivery.  This delivery is taking me into the 21st Century.  Hopefully I am finally joining it.  With a touch screen phone.  Samsung galaxy ace, with camera.  yay!

Who knows, once we get to know each other, I might be able to take pictures and blog 'em straight away.  Not just imaginary.  Wow.  Imagine that!  Really getting my thoughts out there.

Here's hoping. x