Starting Today; or, How To Pull Yourself Out of a Rut in Twelve Not So Easy Steps

Firstly, welcome to the first of some new posts that Lauren and I have decided to start. They are basically a more personal, “what I’m up to, where I’m going, what I’m loving – today” type post, we’d love to hear what you think of them.

So, the weekend before last I spent an entire afternoon figuring out my goals, writing them down and devising strategies that I can put in place to meet them. Today I met with Dave Burton, writer, blogger, my lecturer for a semester and old friend for some advice on writing. Did I need any advice? Not really, as it turned out I was really just having one of those meetings where you hear exactly what you knew you needed to hear, despite the fact that you really knew it all already but you just didn’t want to listen to yourself. Of course Dave gave some pretty insightful advice and the metaphorical kick up the behind that was necessary to get me started again. I walked home after a quick stop at the health food store up the road and wrote a page of the first fictional writing I’ve written in at least half a year. BAM.(A page may not seem like much (that is, unless you’re a grade nine student struggling to get through their English assignment about Pride and Prejudice) but it was a pretty important string of sentences from my point of view.)

Of course, Dave's advice and what I knew to be true all along; nothing gets written if you don't write it. Action is key, nobody got anything out of nothing.

So far so good. For the last week I've started to work towards making a habit of daily meditation, affirmations, mindful, healthy eating, "creative time" and flossing, and have only once or twice not been able to tick each of them off my list as I do them. This morning I started with my first attempt at making a "Green Smoothie", (2 pears, a handful of spinach, half an avocado and water all blended up until thickshake consistency = surprisingly yummy) a Lush The Sacred Truth face mask and spent my afternoon making a vegan version of the vegetarian casserole with dumplings I made last week. Small steps towards big (yet achievable) goals!

I spent the weekend trying to get over the mother of all colds that I caught early last week, while also running around my home town going to appointments, catching up with people, going to a dress up party with Lady Gaga and Elton John (wink) before driving all the way back again on Sunday with two of Stevie's friends in the back seat.

What are you up to today?