Change Ready or Not

freeimages.com It's the beginning of a new academic year. While we all will react differently to that news we share a  common theme. It's called distress. Now my distress level and yours are going to be at different levels but distressed we will be. Managing it will be the key. My mother said there are many ways to skin a cat and the same is true of how you deal with distress.   Some parents will be feel  anxious as their children  start school for the first time or move from primary to secondary school  Some parents exhale  a huge sigh of relief  thankful that they no longer  have to provide activities for them to do to fill their day nor empty their purse/wallet to keep them entertained.  I think i would have to say that I'm glad my purse is shut but as one door closes another will open. Some parents will be stuffing huge levels of distress  at the ...

pininterest.com   Last night I was busy having a really good time at L's  birthday celebration. I found myself speaking to one of her friends and we really hit it off.  Before you get any ideas she and I found we had a lot in  common and talked for ages.  I know I should have been drinking more than talking but believe me I was doing both: talking and drinking.  The more I drank the more talking that happened. Anyway we talked about so many things but what resonated with me was this theme. The idea that we know  when we've chosen the wrong person to be involved with.  We really do know. All we have to do is listen to ourselves. What we tend to do is ignore that gut feeling and instead think that we can change whoever we happen to be   involved with. All they need is for us to show them. Yeah right. In fact if we had listened to ourselves in the first place we might have prevented ourselves from learning the lessons that we eventuall...

Balance@freeimages.com Grammar schools equate to class and money. Neither of which I possess in great quantity. A  comprehensive school system might allow me the option of taking these out of the equation and looking at accessing quality education that works to make the best of us all. Education is not for the so called elite. It is for ALL. Allowing my  children to develop  their true potential is all I want as a mother. So how can this be achieved?  I think if  I look back most of my work experience has been about getting involved and trying to stem the fall out for children who have had poor experiences in their education. But I  realised that some of my dreams may have been were too big for the places I have worked. It seems you need a big voice or is it really all about connected friends? I became involved in school governance and developed a strategic perspective but realised politics has seri...

www.freeimage.com I put a ban on the iPad, iPod and social media in my home. My kids can't use them until the weekend.  Now when I started this little experiment I wanted to see how things would go. I've got to be honest. We lasted about two weeks! Lol.  I mean I noted things for about two weeks and them slowly we adjusted our habit. I noticed that we interacted more with each other. I guess that's what happens to  trapped animals.   As I have mentioned in one of my previous blogs I have been feeling concerned that humans are losing it. What are we losing?  The ability to connect with ourselves and each other other. So you shouldn't be surprised that I try to make sure that my family tap into each other and that we experience connecting with each other whenever possible. Week one without the contraptions  and I noticed  that both my children slept far more than I think they realised. This either demonstrated that they were far more tired than...

I'm here at the airport and going nowhere. The funny thing is that this is the first time that I haven't booked to fly anywhere exotic and assumed that it would be plain sailing !  I mean I'm just taking a one hour flight to Guernsey. I have no real expectations about the weather although people keep telling me that the weather in Guernsey  is better than the UK. I'm really looking forward to spending time with an old work colleague. We haven't seen each other for a few years. So a one hour flight seems like a real dream.  I’m sitting here now thinking it was just too good to be true. It was just a little too easy to expect that by 5pm I would have been sitting with my friend drinking some wine, laughing and catching up. Instead I'm still sitting in the airport departure lounge looking at the departure board for an update on when I am ready to fly.  After 4.20pm I really can’t understand why I'm still sitting in departure so I go see if...

How hard is it to meet a potential companion? Notice I didn’t say boyfriend because the women I know would say they are definitely not interested in 'boys'. So how hard is it to meet a man who you would like to date especially when you hit a certain age?   I’m talking about 39 years upward. I guess we, people of that age, kind of fall into certain categories; Those   coming out of long term relationships, those who have never been married or those who've been single waiting to   find the ‘right ‘ person. I know there are other categories but for the sake of a never ending blog I'm going to stop right there.  So for those of us who have re-joined the dating scene the lick now seems to be using the Internet and on-line dating sites.  I guess I have to admit it is way more common  than   I thought.  Last Saturday I went to a friend’s wedding. He's in his early 40’s and had been searching to find someone he could settle down with. He met...

Sometimes you just have to feel your way through a situation, event or crisis. It is hard because we really rely upon the logical part of our brain rather than the intuitive part of who we are. I guess that relying upon our feelings is scary. I know that it has been scary to me at times. You know what is really funny? Deep down, on an intuitive level you know you are lying to yourself. You just can’t face what feelings or intuition is telling you. They call it denial and I have lived there.  Eventually we all face our fears one way or another. I did. Like many people usually when someone asks me something I've  liked to know that I have an answer. Opinionated I guess is the right word.   After all isn’t that why many of us spend so much time learning, studying, surrounding ourselves with people /experiences so that we gain this fount of knowledge that appears to justify what we are saying or doing? I suppose that is why we arrive at a place of so called crisis b...