Tag: #everydayinspiration

A Month of Gratitude 2024 – Day 31

It’s two hours to midnight as I write this.  I don’t know about you, but I am so excited.  We are on the precipice of another year which to me means another opportunity to grow and learn and evolve. 

‘Fear is a poor chisel with which to carve out tomorrow.’  – Andy Andrews

This year, I chose to put my fears in my back pocket so that I could get out of my own way and grow.  It was scary but I did it.  I cannot tell you how often I caught myself behaving in a way that scared me in the past or speaking to people that I did not ever have the guts to talk to before.  This happened partly because I chose to believe in myself and partly because the people I admired believed in me.  When someone I respect and admire asks me to step up because they think I can, I do my best to meet their expectations because they are going on a limb for me.  I am grateful for the growth and the leadership opportunities I have been given at work this year.  

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I am also really grateful for my son’s growth this year.  He incorporates elements of each new experience into how he shows up every day.  I can’t really ask for more than that.  Next year is a big year for him at school, so that’s where my focus will be: giving him all the support he will allow me to give.   

Next year is also potentially a big year for me. Our company is going through changes so I don’t know if I will have a job next year.  We have said goodbye to so many good people already due to the change and there will be more to come.  I do believe that change is good and if it happens to me then something better awaits me on the other side. 

I tried putting a new vision board together this evening or at least updating my current one (not sure if that is the norm), but nothing jumped out at me, so I am taking that as a sign that my current vision board is still relevant and I just need to have patience.  I am pretty happy about that as I still desire all the things and experiences I have on it. 

That’s it from me one last time this year.  Thank to those of you who been on the journey with me this entire month.  I am grateful for your support.

All the best for 2025!  May your year be blessed with only good things, people, experiences and lots of love and laughter!  

Bye for now!

The year that was! Places visited, product launches, achievements 🙂 It’s been quite a full year!

A Month of Gratitude 2024: Day 30

Two more sleeps until 2024 is over.  What a year it has been!  I am very excited to see what 2025 holds though. 

I got a call to say that my son has shingles this afternoon.  His poor grandparents were up with him most of last night, but thankfully, he is feeling a lot better already. I am so grateful that it wasn’t anything more serious. It’s always such a shock when he gets sick as he has an excellent immune system.  The doctors don’t know us that well because they hardly ever see us. 😂

I am also counting down to my fifty-second birthday on the seventh.   I sometimes sit and think about how old my mum seemed to feel once she hit her fifties.  That was the norm for her generation, though.  I am very very grateful that I get to enjoy my fifties inspired by the generation ahead of me.  Celebrities like Halle Berry and Viola Davis who are turning what it means to be getting older on it’s head.  I love that social media is filled with women who are over forty, who are embracing their age and looking fabulous.  Some are launching modelling careers in their fifties and sixties!  It is so cool to be older now.  I am blessed!

That’s it from me today.  Thanks for popping by. I hope you have had a great day.

Bye for now

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”

George R.R. Martin 

I finally finished Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday today.  It took me two years to read.  So much for discipline.  🫣😂. I had set myself a goal of reading 45 books this year since I wasn’t studying and I managed to read 29. although I should end the year 30 as I will finiish current book by Tuesday..  Not too bad.  That was more than two books a month.  

If there are three things that I am always grateful for it is that:

  • I can read and write.  There are still so many illiterate people out there who have a limited chance to achieve their potential because they can’t read and write. 
  • I love reading.  My love affair with books began in pre-school and will never end.  
  • There are so many fantastic authors out there who publish their work so that we can entertain and enlighten ourselves through reading.  
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My favourite books of 2024

This year, I listened to half my books every morning on Audible.  My favourites are read by autobiographies that the authors read.  This year’s pick is 12 Notes by the late, great Quincy Jones.  I listened to it a few months before he passed away.  I was blown away.  What a man and what a full, rich life he led!  I really hope my son chooses to listen to it, too.  There is so much wisdom packed into it.  The story would not have had the same impact if it had been read by anyone else.  Only Quincy had walked in his shoes, so only he could emphasise the lessons in the way that he needed to.  I am so glad he chose to read the book.  The world is a better place because Mr Quincy Jones was in it and God made sure he was in it for a very long time so that he could touch as many lives as he has. He was not perfect but he was a blessing. I highly recommend it. 

I also discovered Robert Galbraith ie. JK Rowling by another name.  I love her character, Commoran Strike.  She uses the same formula as she did for Harry Potter so the two books I read are are looooong.  I didn’t realise how long because I read them on my Kindle.  I read a Michael Connelly novel in between the two.  The pace of his book was so much faster yet I enjoyed both author’s books.  

The book I really struggled to read was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  It was set in the 1960s and tells of Biafra’s struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria. The war was brutal.  I read this book as it was recommended to me while I was in Nigeria last year.  One of our directors told us about his dad’s experience of the war, and that’s when the book was mentioned.  I picked it up at the airport but only started reading it this year. It’s interesting but it took me a while to through it. 

That’s it from me today.  Thanks for popping by.   What are your favourite reads from 2024?  Let me know in the comments

Bye for now.