Author: groundedafrican

Proudly South African mum to a bright and gorgeous young human. Employee. Life Coach in the making. Blogger. Fascinated with and passionate about people and helping them grow.

Every Sunset Brings the Promise of a New Dawn

I love that quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s Day 31 of Bloganuray!!!

Today’s prompt: Where is the best place to watch the sunset near you?

Oh wow it is the end of January and therefore, the end of Bloganuary. It’s been a great reminder that I can actually write every day if I put my mind to it. Thank you WordPress for the challenge. I have also found new and interesting blogs to follow, met some cool people, discovered new books to add to my (already very long) reading list and picked up a few great tips on blogging. Let’s not forget that I wrote my first poem as well! This has really being a good month!

Now for the prompt. Well, as it turns out, the back of my home faces south west so I often get to witness the sun’s last hoorah for the day.

A winter sunset from our complex’s car park
A summer sunset form the car park.

I know that you cannot actually see the where the sun went down in the winter pic but you can get a sense of it. I have only just noticed how the position of the sun differs between the seasons in these pics. I tried to capture the sun’s position in the east on the solstice days last year but I wasn’t very successful. My son’s school is near the sea which is in the east for us. I think this year I need to find a good spot where I can capture the sun in summer especially as the difference in position is quite huge.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to read my blog this month. Thank to all who took the time to comment as well. I hope to “bump into you” on WordPress again in the near future so don’t be a stranger 😊 Bye for now.

Phenomenal Woman

Bloganuary Day 30
one more day to go


Todays Prompt: What would you title the chapters of your autobiography?

Hmmm
another good question Bloganuary. Funny enough, tuning 50 this month did make me think through my life and the experiences I have had. I didn’t think about titles but now is as good a time as any I suppose.

My first decade would definitely be called “My carefree years”. I don’t recall having too much anxiety during this time in my life and I pretty much excelled at everything I did (I think).

My second decade, my teen years, was a completely different story. “Becoming part I’ would probably be a good title. I had no idea who I was or what I really wanted out if life. Remember how my dream career in a previous post wasn’t even a specific one? I guess that tells you how lost and undecided I was.

My 20’s was “Becoming part II”. I still didn’t know what I wanted or where I wanted to be in this world but by the end of this decade I started to get a feel for what I enjoyed doing . I still wasn’t sure but I could see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

My 30’s = “Evolution”. I began this decade in tears and very angry and remained that way for the first 2-3 years until I discovered the law of attraction and started behaving intentionally in some ways. I still was not there yet. I became a mom in this decade! A revelation! Suddenly it became absolutely necessary to know how I wanted to live the rest of my life and what experiences I wanted to give my son. Motherhood really galvanized me in to action.

My 40’s “Awakening”. Things started coming together. Isn’t amazing how that happens once you have clarity about you want. There have also been major losses in the later half of this decade but with these losses have come some gains. Some of those gains have been spiritual and some have been people. I have stepped out if my 40’s with clarity about my purpose and the talents that God has given me to fulfill this purpose. I have stepped into my 50’s stronger, happier within myself and feeling complete because now I know who I am. I am surrounded by amazing people who only want the best for me as well. There is still so much more to learn so who knows what the title of my 6th decade will be. I look forward to finding out!

Do you know what you would call your chapters? Let me know in the comments.

Thank for stopping by. Bye for now.

Lessons about Writing

Bloganuary day 29

Today’s Prompt: What is something you learned recently?

What a great question! I am probably what is known as an epistomophile as I am constantly reading and absorbing information so this is a great opportunity to take a step back and think about about what I have actually learnt and how much I have implemented

Photo by Kaboompics .com on Pexels.com

The value of morning pages

If you have read “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron then you would have come across the term “morning pages”. Julia Cameron recommends that, every morning, we get up and write out 3 pages of conscious streaming writing by hand. It is a clearing exercise that allows you to dump all the thoughts that are rolling around in your mind. I find that it is easier to meditate after writing these pages as I have now dealt with all the thoughts that usually pop up in my writing. I also often find that by the 3rd page (although I don’t always get there), I start coming up with new ideas, especially for work, which is pretty awesome. There is no right or wrong way to do this exercise and it is often a grump fest and can look like a to-do list. It’s a really great tool that helps you create space for your creativity.

How to easily calculate the readability of my text

This is I learnt today on Tetyana’s blog, #teachisfun, here on WordPress. You can find out more about to do this too at this link. I have always wanted to understand how to calculate the readability score of my blog posts as I am aware of how important it is but I have never taken the time to find out. Tetyana’s post also taught me about important rules that need to be followed for the best chance of creating a successful blog and includes very useful tips on creating a captivating heading for my posts. I suspect I am going to need a lot more practice with headings in particular. 😅

That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Bye for now.

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