Tag: books

“Life is more fun if you play games.” – Roald Dahl

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

Hello Hello! Hmmm…good question Bloganuary. I do play in my daily life. All work and no play makes Michelle a dull girl after all. Play takes several forms for me and which I choose depends on my frame of mind at the time.

  • Online Scrabble – I have been playing this for about 14 years. I love that it has a chat feature. I have made a good few friends over the years. Most are based in the UK. This is my go to game when I need a distraction. It’s not mindless and I am learning new words and strategies all the times.
  • Vegging in front of the TV – This is new for me. I am not a TV person, but I do have a few favourite programmes like Law & Order, Bosch, Reacher and Friends (my son and I can watch that show over and over again). My new favourites are the documentaries on Netflix. I really enjoyed the one on Arnold Schwarzenegger (phew, that took a few attempts to get the spelling right😅). I found it very inspiring. His story reminds us that anything is possible if you choose it to be and set your mind to it.
  • Reading – Books are my forever companions. A fully loaded Kindle and a solar-powered power bank would be a must if you were to leave me on a desert island. :).
  • Coffee with friends – I have very few friends, and they are worth more than their weight in gold. They help me see life from different perspectives and they soothe my soul.
  • Shopping - I looove shopping although I don’t shop as often as I used to and won’t be this since my word for the year is “less”. I enjoy the thrill of acquiring items of beauty for my home that will make me look good or even a new book. I can spend hours in a bookshop just browsing. I very seldom leave empty-handed, too. I must buy at least one book.
  • Spending time with my son – This always soothes my soul. He spends most of his time playing games these days, so I don’t get to spend as much time with him as I used to. As a result, I treasure the moments that I do get.

How do you define play? How do you play?

Image: Canva

Celebrating 2023: A month or gratitude- Day 21

Image: Canva

Earlier this year, a friend asked me how I always noticed the seemingly little details around me that seemed to pass her by. I was humbled by the question. I didn’t realise I did it, to be honest, and had to think about how I got here as I didn’t always notice them.


If I think back, it probably started when I made the choice to be more grateful for the things I had rather than waste time only desiring the things that I didn’t have. I had made a list of all my achievements, big and small, and all the things I owned that I was really grateful for and why. That exercise blew me away. I was so proud of myself and, at the same time, humbled by all that God had given. I don’t have a whole hoard of stuff, but I have a lot, more than most, which humbles me.


Being a mother to a toddler also made me see the world through a kid’s eyes again. Mother Earth is an absolute marvel through a kid’s eyes. The trick is always keeping that child’s sense of awe and wonder when looking at a sunset, sunrise, centipede, or simple tree. I now sit by a window at work that at least has a view of the greenery outside. I had an ocean view for a while but had to move desks. The best part is that even though I sit at the same desk every time, the view outside is never exactly the same. God blesses me with a new picture every day.


I guess the lesson is that gratitude can bring a sense of awe and wonder into your life and help you appreciate the things you would generally take for granted around you. It will even help look at people differently. You will see the positive in them without even trying.


I love this way of viewing the world and life in general. It has allowed me to finally comprehend that “this too shall pass” when bad times try to overwhelm me and that there is always something good to hold on to, even in the middle of what may feel like a hurricane. Always!


Oh, and today, I am most grateful that the book I ordered arrived a week early! I have been waiting for this book to be published for almost 10 years!!! It’s finally here, and I can’t wait to get started! I loved “I Am Pilgrim”. It was the first book I enjoyed reading when my son got a little older, and I had a little time to read again. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I couldn’t find a book that I enjoyed as much for a few months after that. The publisher has been pushing the book’s launch out every year since about 2015. I had given up on it, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to see it exists! Have you read it yet, or “I Am Pilgrim”? What did you think?

Image: Author’s own

Well that’s it from me today. Thanks for stopping by. Be blessed.

Celebrating 2023: A Month of Gratitude – Day 13

Today I did a quick course at work on how to get your team to change. It was an interesting little course. The instructor shared a few interesting examples that illustrated various attempts to digitise the farming industry. I was fascinated by what’s available to farmers today. That wasn’t the point of the exercise though. The point was to illustrate how to get people to adopt new behaviours.

While I have had many firsts and quite a few wins this year, there are goals that I have not met so I need to go back to the drawing board. There are two goals in particular that I have not met:

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I have not achieved my weight goal

In fact I am further from it than I was at the beginning of this year. I am very disappointed but it is what it is. One of the lessons learnt in today’s course is that the change needs to have few barriers to entry for easy adoption. Well I have done myself a disservice by joining a gym that is essentially out of my way. I had done so that I my son and I could attend it together but it is so far out of our way in the evening that we just never get there. I have one of two choices. Join a gym that is closer or let go of the idea of going with him and find something else to do together. The gym is not really out of my way as it is close to work. If I choose the latter option, I can work it into my lunchtime schedule and make a big dent in that weight loss goal.

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I have not created an organisational system that works

Yet. It’s not for a lack of trying all year long. As I mentioned previously, I like the idea of the system shared in Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain, but it’s not intuitive for me so I am figuring out how to make the principles work. Which brings me to another principle I learned today, which is that the system needs to be user friendly. The fewer sets you have to get things done, the more likely you are to have a positive attitude about it and do it. I am trying to get my system down to 3-4 steps at most to store information and retrieve it. I get can quite get lost when I have to click on too many things to find what I need.

The system must be implementable immediately

If a system still needs to be modified and adjusted or you need to buy additional equipement to get started, it’s pretty likely that you won’t achieve your goal. The first time I logged onto my MacBook Air, a YouTube video popped to show me how to use my new computer. It was a few minutes long and it showed me how to do the basics and I was good to go. I am so grateful for that video because I would have been very frustated with the laptop and regretted my purchase. I also would not have used it as much as I would have liked. I was able to get to work immediately after that video which was a huge bonus.

So I failures are a great way to learn and I have enjoyed the challenges that I have faced this year. I experienced more challenges than just these two this year and I am very grateful that I come out standing strong on the other side.

Do you have any tips on how to adopt new systems/habits? I would love to hear form you in the comments. Thanks for reading! Be Blessed!