living heavy//travelling light

Hello again.

Excuse, if you will, the chorus of crickets that have consumed this blog these last few months.

Truth be told, I almost never made my way back here and even now it feels a little like I'm trying on an old dress that doesn't quite fit any more.

For a while there it seemed like life and it's wicked sense of humor had been pulling some of it's best moves to trip me up and send me out of step with the music. I let a few key events get the better of me until I literally stooped beneath the sad & sorry personal rain cloud I was totin'.

My bad run culminated in the death of my beloved Nana Kitty on Sunday who was, and will ever be, my hero. 

Coming back to Ireland for the funeral has slid all of my bad luck into a new perspective and I realize that any heart sickness I might feel now will somehow, over time, evolve into the footnote to a new, and happier, tale.

During a particularly rotten week when I was ready to crack some skulls my family whisked me away with them for a few days in Weymouth on the South coast of England. It's incredible what a dose of sea breeze, fresh, salty lungfuls of air and several rounds of tea and crab sandwiches can do for the bluest of the blues.

So here's to wiping the slate clean, picking myself up after yet another tumble, and finding comfort in old dresses.

goin' up the country

My last few weeks on the Emerald Isle have had the most round house kickin'/ fist pumpin'/ air guitar playin' kinda effect on my heart.

My beautiful cousin and soul sister Finn came to visit for a long weekend. I'll be sharing a house with this amazing girl as well as some other pretty rad house-mates when I move to West London tomorrow (TOMORROW!).

We managed to squeeze in a full day of sightseeing, Irish coffees and pub time in my parent's home-town before packing up the car to head off to Kerry for a big old family knees up.

A 5 hour car journey, way too many travel sweets and one retail park pit stop later we were in beautiful Killarney in Kerry to visit my aunt and her family. It was a girly affair with 4 aunties and three girly cousins staying up way past the witching hour at the kitchen table drinking wine, taking photographs and swapping family anecdotes.

I treasured the opportunity to connect with my little cousin Zio as it's only the second chance I have had to meet her since she was adopted from Vietnam when she was a baby. Such a funny, smart and kind little human being, she just adored getting to know her grown up cousins and we took every opportunity to play with her and get to know her beautiful personality.

When she jumped on my bed one morning and said "Let's play 'Mamas and darlings', you can be the Mama and I'll be the darling" (a game she learned from a tv show apparently) I seriously thought my uterus would go off like a bomb. Sigh. 

As well as the (several) maternal ticks and twitches I also thanked my moon and stars for being blessed with such a huge close-knit family and I relished the chance to bond with some seriously cool female matriarchs. 

Killarney is a treat to visit and if you're ever considering a tour of Ireland it will tick every box~ I particularly fell in love with this time capsule tea room which we all loved so much we ate lunch in it two days on the trot. Smoked salmon and poached eggs and eggs benedict for the girl who wanted to run away with the china. Delicious.

My flight to London leaves at mid-day tomorrow so it'll be an early night for me tonight. I can't wait to check in with my first post from my new home. Thank you to all of you who have left such sweet words of luck and encouragement for me on my journey. Hugs and kisses are on the wind to you all x x x

Thank you so much for reading! Why not hitch your wagon to Stars in Jars?
>.<

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link party ♢ weekly wishes #6

...time has run away with me, in just three short days I will be boarding a plane that will fly me into the next phase of my life. Eeshk!

I'm going to be a Londoner again and my heart could burst I'm that excited.

Today is a flurry of folding and packing, checking off lists and re-organizing piles.

And for making big decisions on what is important enough to bring and what can be let go of and left behind.... both literally and symbolically.

I've decided to dedicate today's weekly wishes link up to a few affirmations for 'London V.2'~ just a little contract with myself that will help me make the absolute most of this move and avoid returning down paths best left in my past:

△ Be a present participant, not a passive observer of my own life~ looking back over the past couple years I recognize that there have been times, moments and events which I have not taken an active part in and enjoyed to their fullest potential. By continually practising mindfulness I won't be a passive participant any longer, instead I'll make an effort to be present and active in each precious moment.

△ Keep one eye on my heart and one ear on my soul~ I've learnt the hard way that ignoring something that your soul is screaming for doesn't lead to anywhere good. We have a little inner guru working away inside of us that only has our best interests at heart. It's tricky to tap into what he's telling us at times but it's a necessary tool and well worth the practise.

△ Cultivate connections: friendship, communication, intimacy, conversation. All are vital to happiness and sense of self worth. Don't ever neglect them or shut them out. 

& don't be afraid to reach out, there'll always be someone there to hear you, whether you believe it or not.

△ "Change is a present activity, not a future event"~ This motivational quote has helped me no end in these last few months of healing and growth. These are words to live by and draw from in those moments when I just feel like phoning it in. 

Thanks again to the inspirational Mel for this wonderfully motivational link-up~ the posts I've written for them have unwittingly ended up being some of the most cathartic and therapeutic posts I've written!

Her blog is also a massive resource for positivity, honesty and self love. 

Go check The Nectar Collective and get your own spoon of honey!

Wanna join the party every Monday?

Click below!

Hitch your wagon to Stars in Jars!

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link party ♢ weekly wishes #5

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Sometimes I wish I could hammer a nail into the centre of my forehead and wear a sign there that reads "Work in progress". 

Thanks to Melyssa's lovely link-up I've been reminding myself daily that it's really ok to trip up and fall down, to muddy my cheeks and scuff up my boots. It's the striving for better-ness along the way that counts. I don't believe that a 'perfect' human being exists, rather our whole lives are one big never-ending journey of self-improvement.

Last time I posted my 'Weekly Wishes' I said I wanted to focus on strengthening my heart chakra by practising forgiveness, love, contentedness and yoga.

Two weeks flitted by and I thought I did pretty good; I bit my tongue when I got frustrated with my parents, I offered to hang out with my young cousins while they are on summer vacation when I would rather have had a Woody Allen marathon, I made concious efforts to put my own convenience to one side in order to make others around me happy.

So far, so "pat me on the back for ain't I good".

Yesterday morning I received my first negative comment.

A lady posted a comment telling me she couldn't finish reading because of my "foul language" and that I wasn't her "cup of tea".

I was stung.... embarrassed, hurt, angry, ashamed. 

 My knee-jerk reaction was "oh my god I've offended someone and the evidence is all over my dirty little blog for all to see...delete, delete, DELEEEETE!"

I deleted her comment and enabled comment moderation for the first time ever. I basically did everything short of running and hiding under my duvet while at the same time telling myself I'd done the right thing by ignoring her and getting rid of any evidence that there could possibly be someone out there who might not dig me or my blog.

But, as the day went on the comment and my reaction to it stuck in my throat like a bad taste. I couldn't shake it.

I started to wonder if I really had done the right thing.

 Was I really being honest with myself by deleting the comment, or my readers for that matter? Is the best response to negativity or criticism to run and hide from it? Was this the reaction of a strong, assertive, self loving person?

No, no...no.

I wish I could go back and un-delete that comment. Deal with it in some other manner or thank her for her honesty, even!

I shouldn't place so much importance on what one person thinks of me or on the impression I want to make on a lot people I don't even know.

 This is my space, my creative outlet. I can write well written and meaningful posts or sloppy posts or drop the occasional S-bomb here and there if I feel so inclined and not expect rainbows to be shot up my ass by every single person who finds themselves reading. 

And I refuse to edit myself! This is me. I can swear and belch AND write about my spirituality and self-improvement at the same time. I won't hide what I'm about and I'll make no apologies. 

I can't please everyone.

 And that's okay.

This is my new promise to myself: Don't shy away from criticism, face it head on and take it on the chin like a bad-ass.

Now, I'm off to disable my comment moderation ^.^

Wanna join the party every Monday?

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don't mind if I do, Mercury

Are we all here? Everyone make it out alive?

You're here reading this so I'm guessing that you did but I'd just go ahead and check your wit and wisdoms are all in order if I were you.

In case you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, until a week ago Mercury was in retrograde.

For us earthly folk this occurrence signals all manner of personal and professional jiggery pokery.

Since the planet Mercury symbolises truth, travel, communication and clear thinking and when a planet goes 'retrograde' it appears to travel backwards in the sky, these things can start to go a bit cuckoo bananas for some us. A bit of a planetary shit storm if you will.

Scan back in your memory between June 26th and July 20th. Anything seem a bit "off" to you?

Were you feeling cloudy and tongue-tied? Experienced problems with travel plans or electrical equipment?

Trouble communicating in your relationship or on the receiving end of wrong information in your personal life?

These are all effects of the pandemonium caused by that little silver planet going retrograde.

BUT, my sources tell me, Mercury in retrograde can also present an opportunity for major emotional and intellectual breakthroughs. A chance for us to, essentially, "get our karmic shit together".

During those weeks that the cosmos spent tripping out I spent a lot of time walking the back-roads behind our house at the magic hour, catching some terrific captures of the sun sinking down behind the treetops along the way. As I pounded the pavements, listened to my music and drank in the sunsets I had ample time to think. To mull over my past and ponder on my future and mentally karate chop some of the doubts and fears holding me back from moving forward.

The outcome? I have a one-way plane ticket booked for London Gatwick in a few weeks time.

It's been nigh on four years since I last lived in the Big Smoke and my heart swells whenever I think about moving back.

So many haunts to revisit, streets to trample down, curry houses to frequent.

How do I begin to describe London? I'd say it's a bit like trying to grab hold of the wind... but here are a few snapshots of my favourite bits + pieces from the place that I am, once again, proud to call home...

<<Brick Lane>>

{{The Shampan curry house on Brick Lane~favourite ^.^}}

When I was 25 years old I announced to my Mom that I was finally ready to fly the coop. A week later I had moved in to a teeny wee bedsit in a tower block near the bottom of the infamous Brick Lane in East London. 

While it can err on the side of being too urban/hipster for it's own good, I will always and forever love this little corner of London for it's utter and unapologetic diversity. You can walk through a multitude of cultures, colors, styles, foods and tastes on just one single cobble-stoned street.

 Pop-up vintage markets and street festivals, book stands and street food riddle Brick Lane on the weekends and you can treat you retinas to Banksy art and graffitied walls, your taste buds to curry house fare and bagel stores and your ear drums to boom-boxed jazz to live Jamaican kettle drums.

In particular I can't wait to refresh myself after an afternoon's browsing with a mint tea in one of the several spit-n-sawdust tea rooms where you can take your pick from worn leather armchairs or Indian-style floor pillows. As I said, diversity definitely is the key word where Brick Lane is concerned!!

<<Notting Hill Carnival>>

I'm seriously happy that I will be back in London this year in time for the annual carnival in the streets of Notting Hill. 

Sequins and jerk chicken and calypso music, oh my!!

Plus the local upper crust loosen up for a few days and throw open the windows of their million pound apartments to have jamming sessions on their windowsills.

Can't beat that, friends!

<<London Fields Park>>

The sunshine suits London to a T and she wears it like a slutty dress.

The only thing to do when the summer is doing what it does best is to pack a picnic and go people watch in the green grass of London Fields. 

Strawberries, clotted cream and scones are non-negotiable!

If it's possible I just made myself even more excited to return!

So thank you for the mind-buzz, Mercury. An open invitation to take your future bull by the horns? Don't mind if I do!

London's calling...

Toot Toot!!

>.<

link party ♢ weekly wishes #4

This week I suffered a personal setback in regards to my application for the degree course I wanted to start this year. After sitting down with the prospectus, a notebook and a calculator I realized that the total monthly fees are going to be higher than I first thought and will be way out of my budget. My heart fell in to my feet when I realized this and that night I tossed and turned till 5 am, mind churning, feeling deflated and disappointed and angry at myself for not realizing sooner.

The following morning, after beating myself up over it all night and feeling pretty exhausted and low-spirited I turned to my best critic and biggest supporter. I talked to my Mom.

How do Mom's do it? After talking it through with her I felt stronger and more determined than ever. This is just a setback. I may not be able to do this particular course, but there will be another course I can do that better suits my budget. It's not defeat, it's simply back to the drawing board. I suppose I have a tendency to catastrophize situations; here I was thinking my dream lay shattered into tiny splinters at my feet. My Mom simply  bent down, picked up the pieces and rearranged them to make a slightly different picture, and I love her for that.

For this week's Weekly Wishes challenge I want to focus on something that will help redirect my mindset and emotional reactions and ultimately help me on my path to following my dream.

I've been teaching myself about the different chakras recently and I've learned some wonderful methods of opening the heart chakra which I think will benefit me in all aspects of my life.

This week I will challenge myself to apply the following methods to awaken my heart chakra because for me, to practise these in your daily life is to be a better, loving, and more accepting person...

~5 Ways to Open Your Heart Chakra~

1. Be love~ don't be a martyr, allow yourself to be loved, especially by yourself

2. Give love~ love others, love unconditionally and unselfishly and whether they are deserving of it or not

3. The grass isn't always greener~ like the quote says "comparison is the thief of joy", be happy with your lot

4. Practise yoga~ camel pose is a great one for clearing a blocked heart chakra

5. Forgive~ even if they are not sorry, let go of past anger, hurt, grief. Don't look back, you're not going that way.

~~~

I think that by trying my hardest to adhere to these pledges this week will definitely be a challenge, but it will help me to let go of certain things I don't need to carry any more and which may have been holding me back in my journey this far.

I'll be back next Monday to let you know how I got on.

If you read the first three words of the previous sentence and thought of Terminator then I love you and we should definitely be friends.

Peace

x

link party ♢ weekly wishes #3

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Time for Round 3 of Melyssa's Weekly Wishes link party!

My last wish was centred around an application I posted for an online Nutrional Therapy degree course that I want to dedicate the next 4 years to.

Guess what folks, I got an interview >.<

SO, I guess my wish this week will be that I prepare well and pull off the Skype interview so that they respond with a big fat "hell YEAH lady, we want you on our course, come on down!"

 Or a simple "your application has been successful" will suffice too I suppose!

While it is scary putting my personal goals and dreams out there for all to see every week, especially the prospect of being unsuccessful and looking like a failure,  it is at the same time a great push to get myself out there and try extra hard. If I kept this to myself I possibly wouldn't be as motivated, comfortable in the knowledge that if I don't get it then it doesn't make a difference because nobody knew about it anyway. Writing about it keeps me on my toes, keeps me hungry, gives me that extra little fight to really step up to the challenge and achieve something good.

It's not too late for you to jump on the Weekly Wishes gravy train, if for no other reason than to happen upon some really awesome blogs. I've definitely gained a few new additions to my Bloglovin reading list from clicking and commenting on blogs in this link up. 

Give it a try!

{{p.s ~ Google reader has officially shut up shop, so if you haven't made the switch already you can follow Stars in Jars on Bloglovin here ^.^}}

link party ♢ weekly wishes #2

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Time for round 2 of Melyssa's weekly link party!

I'm pleased to say I did really well with last weeks promise to keep up with the daily yoga challenge I signed up for.
There's a quote I love from Joseph Pilates: "You are only as young as your spine is flexible".
  I love to see those pictures floating the internet of 80 year old women who are in wonderful shape and can still contort into the most impossible asanas~ proof of the truth behind this statement. I like to keep this quote and those images in my mind's eye whenever I feel like shirking my daily practise.

Today my weekly wish is based around a big brown envelope I dropped off at the post office today.
5 years ago I developed a keen interest in Nutrition which  has ballooned  into a desire to pursue it as a career choice. After 5 years of procrastination and talking about it I have finally bitten the bullet and filled out an application for an online degree course in Nutritional Therapy.
After much mulling over with my Mom about how this will eat up the next 4 years of my life and income I have decided the end goal is so worth it. I will be able to begin a career in something I am truly passionate about.

My wish this week is that the universe will send back a positive response to my brown envelope and send me down a new and exciting path in my life.

Fingers, toes and eyes crossed >.<

✜ Goodbye Millie ✜

It's been a dull, heart-heavy past few days here. Sadly we had to have our baby Maltipoo Millie put to sleep on Friday morning.

It was a truly terrible shock that none of us were expecting and my stomach still clenches like a fist to think that she is gone so suddenly.

She spent her first few days with us normally, playing and licking and running around the house like a normal healthy puppy, but after a few days we noticed her interest in food, water, playing with Jess and even us start to lower dramatically. She was listless, withdrawn and slept the majority of the day in her bed.

Worried, we took her to the vet who couldn't dioagnose a specific problem and said perhaps she had a stomach bug and told us to keep her on a hot water bottle and syringe her meals in to her to get some food in her stomach. After a couple more days of force feeding with no sign of improvement my parents took her back to the vet, she was so fragile, like a baby bird, and we could feel every bone in her body.

When my parents came home they didn't have Millie with them and from one look at their faces I knew what had happened. 

Apparently Millie had meningitis and there was nothing that could be done.

We lost our sweet little bundle of fluff and I'm still trying to make sense of it, we only had her a week but she was completely ours and we were hers and it feels a little more empty in this house without her here.

All we can do is to take all the love we had for her and focus it on this little rascal, Jess, who became so sweet and caring towards Millie in her last few nights.

It was almost like she knew.

puppy breath

{Jess}

Our country house is officially a home.

Two bonnie baby puppies are currently tug tug tugging at our heart-strings, chewing our bare toes and giving us puppy-tongue kisses with a side of puppy breath right in the smacker!

{Millie}

I got a bad case of puppy love!!

First we collected Jess, our baby West Highland Terrier, and yesterday little Millie was introduced to the house of fun. Millie is a two month old cross between a Maltese and a Poodle, a breed known as a 'Maltipoo'.

Both are ridiculously cute and soaking up the newness of our home and family .

Little Jessie has had full run of the house to herself for three days so her nose is still fairly put out of joint at her little fluffy rival, but slowly, slowly the growls and nips are giving way to waggy tails and bottom sniffing (the doggy equivalent of "hello"~~, sorry, I don't make up the doggy rules!!)

It will take a few weeks to get them properly acquainted, Jess is definitely behaving like the more dominant dog because Millie is so timid and submissive, but until then we are making sure to give both lots and lots of love and play.

These are the best shots I could get of them as they are on the move so much that it's hard to capture them in a still position unless they are very sleepy or asleep~~

 but I will keep posting more puppy pics (try and stop me!) ^.^

I can't wait til they bond and become sisters, to each other and to little ol' only child me!

Three cheers for smelly puppy breath!

introducing....

We picked up our new addition to the family today!

She's a 2 month old West Highland Terrier  puppy and she is as sweet as a bowl full of cherries.

She just loves snuggles, suckling the end of your nose and earlobes and apparently the taste of mascara because she's licked  all my eye makeup clean off me!

So far we don't know if she is a Leila or a Holly.

I'd love to know what you think?

x

on turning thirty

Hello there April 2013, how on earth did you get here so quick?

You're sudden arrival marks the month I will say so-long to my twenties and turn the big three-o.

I told my body to stop at 25 but it seems to have stubbornly marched on with the aging process anyhow.

It's with a certain ambivalence that I approach this milestone in my life.

My twenties has been a reckless decade, filled with abandon and reverie, travel and experience, passion and love and friendships and heartaches.

 It's been wild, it's been beautiful, and I regret nothing.

At this tipping point between my final few weeks as a twenty-something and becoming a thirty-something, I'm less preoccupied with getting older than with refocusing my life goals.

I'll take that first wrinkle, the extra cellulite and the random hairs that start to spring up in unexpected places.

That's the unending march of time and there's not one of us that can do anything to change that.

What I can do is look back on the last ten years and learn from them.

While my twenties were wonderful, they certainly weren't without faults.

 There were mistakes and bad judgments, naive decisions and just plain wrong choices. There were times were I presented myself in a way that I have since been ashamed of.

However none of those were a waste as long as I learned a little something from them and use them as a marker in my future choices and decision making.

This is my first promise to thirty year old Louise...be accountable and learn from your past mistakes.

I feel like I dealt with my twenties the way I'd deal with a large bowl of salty caramel ice cream with hot fudge sauce. Savoring every spoonful, enjoying the flavor and the smell and the coolness of it and licking the bowl out at the bottom.

I've reached the bottom of the bowl.

So that flavor was amazing, but what do I want to try next? I'd like to use this new phase of my life to take care of myself, my mind and my body could do with a little less recklessness and a little more TLC.

I want to be kind and to love and to show appreciation.

 To practice acceptance with the past and to always remember that all of my experiences to date, the bad and the good, have shaped the woman I am today. 

I want to focus on the things I am good at and shape them into a career that I will love and be passionate about. I want to marry my love and be a mama and fulfill that ache I've been feeling for the past few years whenever I see a beautiful baby. 

I want to write and create, to surround myself with beautiful people and things and above all to make myself proud.

If my twenties were caramel and hot fudge I'll take my thirties without the hot fudge.

Still delicious, still to be savored and enjoyed, but a tad less unhealthy.

And that, friends, is something I'm ready to celebrate

 ^.^