Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge – Day 3

Day 3

Yes I know – I probably should have posted this on Monday after days 1 and 2, but I didn’t. Too busy. So here it is instead. 😊

Once again, I would like to thank Earthwalking for nominating me for the “Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge.” Head over and check out his fabulous blog. You won’t be disappointed.

Here are the Rules:

1 Thank the person who nominated you.

2 Post a quote for three consecutive days. (Oops!)

3 Nominate three bloggers for each post.

And the Quote:

Completely different from my other two quotes, but I love Edgar Allen Poe and this quote really resonates with me. It describes me to a tee, and is also the reason why I am resolutely single.

And my Day 3 Nominees Are:

Raynotbradbury

Spasciuti

Oladewalaura

Congrats to my nominees!  There is no timeline to respond, and you do not have to participate if you don’t want to, but you should check out these blogs.

Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge – Day 2

Day 2

Once again, thank you to Earthwalking for nominating me for the “Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge.” I would highly recommend checking out his blog as it really is gorgeous.

Here are the Rules:

1 Thank the person who nominated you.

2 Post a quote for three consecutive days.

3 Nominate three bloggers for each post.

And the Quote:

Another of my favourite quotes about self-belief and creating your own happiness. I think this is definitely something worth thinking about. After all, what’s the point in wishing for a happy future if you aren’t enjoying life right now.

Check out my website http://www.ahappierlifeforyou.co.uk for more inspiration.

And my Day 2 Nominees Are:

Tea and Tales

Thrifty Bibliophile

Writing from the Heart

Congrats to my nominees!  There is no timeline to respond, and you do not have to participate if you don’t want to, but you should check out these blogs.

Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge – Day 1

Day 1

Thank you to my blogging friend, Earthwalking, for nominating me for the “Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge.” I would highly recommend checking out his blog as it really is gorgeous.

Here are the Rules:

1 Thank the person who nominated you.

2 Post a quote for three consecutive days.

3 Nominate three bloggers for each post.

And the Quote:

I love this quote. I think it describes very simply yet perfectly what happiness is.

If you are familiar with my blog, you may have read snippets about my struggle with clinical depression in my younger years. Nowadays, I strongly believe that happiness is all about positive thinking, and having the ability to believe that you are happy, no matter what your situation.

Easier said than done, I know, but your frame of mind does play a massive part in your mood patterns.

Check out my website http://www.ahappierlifeforyou.co.uk for more inspiration.

And my Day 1 Nominees Are:

Laura Sharp amazingjourney.blog

kelseyywritess

Thoughts of Adventure

Congrats to my nominees!  There is no timeline to respond, and you do not have to participate if you don’t want to, but you should check out these blogs.

20 Of My Favourite Autumn Quotes

As you may know if you have been keeping track of my blog, I love autumn. It is by far my favourite season. There are no words to explain how this time of year makes me feel. And I especially love October, which is the pinnacle of the autumn season. The month is packed full of my favourite things; my son’s birthday, the smell of woodsmoke, the golden fire in the trees, the falling leaves. And, of course, the jewel of the autumn season – Halloween. 

I have to admit, everything post-Halloween pales into insignificance until Christmas, and November almost gets forgotten. But it is technically still autumn, and did I mention how much I love autumn?

Of course, I’m not the only one, as I found recently while searching the internet for quotes to post on my Facebook page. There are so many literary quotes out there that capture the beauty of the season perfectly. And so, instead of finding my own words to describe how wonderful autumn is, I’m going to give you 20 of my favourite quotes.

1. “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace, as I have seen in one autumnal face.” — John Donne
2. “Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.” — Unknown
3. “I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it.” — Lee Maynard
4. “How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.” — John Burroughs
5. “Autumn mornings: sunshine and crisp air, birds and calmness, year’s end and day’s beginnings.” — Terri Guillemets
6. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald 
7. “I can smell autumn dancing in the breeze. The sweet chill of pumpkin and crisp sunburnt leaves.” — Unknown
8. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery 
9. “Autumn… the year’s last, loveliest smile.” — William Cullen Bryant
10. “And all at once, summer collapsed into fall…” — Oscar Wilde
11. “My favorite color is October.” — Unknown
12. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus
13. “If a year was tucked inside of a clock, then Autumn would be the magic hour.” — Victoria Erickson
14. “Autumn is my time. I am the most radiant and full of energy when the leaves are falling and there is a ghost of change in the air.” — Unknown
15. “And the sun took a step back, the leaves lulled themselves to sleep and Autumn was awakened.” — Raquel Franco
16. “There is magic in the night when pumpkins glow by moonlight.” — Unknown
17. “Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.” — William Allingham
18. “Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.” — Robert Browning
19. “I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod.” — Helen Hunt Jackson
20. “It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.” — Sarah Addison Allen

Love.. Not.

Lately, I’ve had love on my mind, which is very unlike me. By love I mean relationships, and not the comfortable, non-dangerous love I have for my son and family. As I swore off the relationships kind of love a few years ago, this is unusual.

“Love is a serious mental illness”, said Plato back in 360 BC, and I am seriously inclined to agree with him.  Although I think he may have called it a disease, but same difference. Socrates backed him up with “Love is a madness”, and these guys knew what they were talking about. Hence me giving the L-word the swerve. Keeps me sane, which is how I like it these days.

So it surprised me to get those old feelings back, that craving for a connection, and I found myself Facebook stalking the last excuse-for-a-man to use my heart as a disposable punching bag. Nothing much had changed there, which was to be expected, and I really wasn’t interested in re-hashing the past. What I was actually missing was not any one person, but the thrill that you experience when you meet someone new, when your heart starts to stir again, as if waking from a deep slumber. When your soul sits up and goes “let’s take another look at this one!” Waiting in anticipation for the next text, and thinking about them in your spare time. Watching indifferently as your sanity slowly slides out of the door.

Yes, it will always come back to that, and I savour my sanity these days. I like being in control of me, and being in love, or even infatuation, is not control.

I know, I sound extremely cynical, and I’ll be alone for the rest of my life at this rate. Blah, blah. I totally realise what I am “missing out on”, but I genuinely think that this is the most sensible I have been in a long time. I lose my shit when I’m into someone, and I don’t want to do that anymore. So I avoid relationships at all costs.

I’m not going to cast doubt on love for everyone, not by any means. I know it works for many; after all, I am surrounded by couples, but it always baffles me somewhat. For me, relationships have never been easy, or particularly happy. Love exhausts me. People exhaust me. Relationships just aren’t for me, and I don’t understand how people make them work. It makes me a little envious at times.

I haven’t come to this conclusion all by myself. I do speak from experience, and said experience is not something I look back on with starry eyes. I’ve been an idiot. I’ve been drawn to the wrong ones, I’ve offered them everything on a plate, and I’ve subsequently been treated like a doormat. My own fault? Maybe, but then if they had been decent men, they wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. They would have treated me with the respect I deserved. 

These days, I prefer to respect myself, and this includes staying away from relationships. I know my weaknesses, and I know that I’m a magnet for narcissistic mummys boys. It’s that old self-esteem thing – I only accept what I think I deserve, and until I’ve healed myself of these thoughts, I will stay single. 

Don’t I miss sex? Of course I do, I’m as red-blooded as the next woman. But I’m also realistic, and old-fashioned. I’m an all-or-nothing type of girl. If I’m having sex with you, I’m having feelings for you. Hook ups and one-night stands just don’t make the grade, but thinking about anything more than that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Intimacy scares me these days, and if I’m not ready for that, then I’m not ready for anything. 

I guess it’s a trust thing. I need to work on that.

So for now, I’ll just stay here, safely hidden away, until I start to love myself.

Quote of the Day

“Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.”

~Susan Sontag