Wonderful Wednesday #203

{Spring....are you there? *waits until May for answer*}

 Ok so this week, who made THIS week feel like the longest and most gloomy that there ever was?!?  This week has been the week for ALL of the cups of tea, all of the hugs and all of the treasuring the littlest bits of everything....treasurable?! Is that even a word?!  Who cares it is now!  Who else can't wait for the start of a new month; for it to be warm enough to open all of the windows and to dry washing outside?!?!?  Spring i'm so very ready for you!!!!  I've got daffodils in every receptacle i can find and i sniff them an embarrassing number of times in any given day!  

If i was ever more ready for this week's #wonderfulwednesday........

1.  Throwing everything at it.  I take pride with my breakfast, my porridge especially.  I mean, I might have mentioned that it's my favourite meal on here  ninety squillion million times sometimes.  I plan it.  I enjoy choosing what to put with what and what and mixing up new and exciting {for me!} combinations.  But on Tuesday morning this week i just did not know how i was feeling or what i wanted except that i knew i was hungry and that it had to be porridge.  So instead i put everything in it.  Okay so not everything but a lot of things together that i usually wouldn't and do you know what?!  It was my best yet!  I threw together oats, mashed banana, hazelnut milk, a tablespoon each of cacao and maca powder and cooked it through.  Then i topped it with chai seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, black sesame seeds and coconut and a great big zig-zag of peanut butter because it was the only thing i hadn't used yet well why not?!?  I like to think of it as the porridge-y equivalent of throwing lots of colours of paint at a canvas in wild abandonment and ending up with a masterpiece.  It just goes to prove that there is a time and a place for both careful consideration, and sheer careless abandonment.  It also goes to show that if my evidence of 'careless abandonment' is to go 'off piste' with my porridge then i seriously need to get out more....

2.  Kindness.  Oh god i know here i go again!  But can you be over-thankful for it?!  I don't think you can you know.  Without being all gloomy, i've had a pretty rotten time the past week or so and whilst i like to think i never miss it when someone goes out of there way to be kind to me; i definitely feel as if i notice it more when i'm feeling a little out of sorts and not myself - over-sensitive let's say.  And last week the world was kind to me.  And you know what, no matter what happens in life - showing someone the littlest bit of kindness - i mean even better if you can go all out and show them all you've got to give - well it might just be exactly what they need at exactly the right time.  What i'm hopelessly trying to say, is BE KIND.  Always be kind.  It mostly costs nothing and it always means the world, no matter how it comes.  

3.  Eyeliner.  From the deep and meaningful to the utterly silly and frivolous! But what is life without balance?!  I never wear the stuff - eyeliner i mean.  Most of the time i'd rather spend the extra time it would take to apply it either in bed or eating porridge in on the sofa in my pyjamas!  But somehow this week i ended up with an extra ten minutes one morning and stumbled across a black kohl pencil in my make-up bag.   I worried i might have lost my knack but as it turns out applying eyeliner is the make-up equivalent of riding a bike.  A few minutes later and i felt all kinds of snazzy and less like the sleepy bed-head that i really was.  Doesn't a smudge of eyeliner have a way of making everything else seem....effort-less?!  You can go with less make-up, wear something quite plain and maybe not even really brush your hair - just sort of ruffle your hands through it and pull it off your face into a messy 'who knows what' and somehow you seem 'Done.'  I mean i wont be giving up sleep for the stuff {and i still don't know where that golden extra ten minutes of time came from - maybe i should have spent it more wisely?  Read my book, put away the dishes.....?} but i'd forgotten what a game-changer one little addition could be.

4.   Singing.  Okay i know enough with a) the singing itself {probably although you can't hear me and if i have headphones on i can't hear myself so it's all win-win} and b) with talking about it again but i've decided it's sort of a bit like therapy for me somehow?  Is that mad?!?  I felt sleepy and like i needed some extra special rocket up my bottom to get me going on Monday morning and whilst i'm pretty much always an advocate of walking to work in silence, this week well i wasn't feel it.  I turned up Florence and the Machine LOUD and i sang all of the way to work at the top of my lungs and got to work feeling flipping out of breath but better.  Miles and miles better infact: Mentally and physically.  Is that weird?!

5.  Self help.  I've never ever bought a self help book or anything like that but this week i bought Otegha Uwagba's 'Little Black Book' which is essentially a kind of self-help book for creatives with a business slant.  I've really been lacking in any kind of professional 'Mojo' lately and feeling a little bit....lost somehow and i am LOVING this little mini book of wisdom!  It's short and sweet and not full of fluff and fizz and stuff you don't really need to know. It's also inspiring and i like that i can pick it up and read any part of it at anytime and i take it all in:  It makes sense.  SO GOOD!

6.  Mint tea.  Because you know me and any tea!  But sometimes, when you're just feeling a a little unsettled and....ish a great big mug of mint tea is just the ultimate 'Fixer.'

7.  Fresh air.  I don't feel as if this really needs explaining.  But i really couldn't live without it in some form at some point in the day!  I could never be someone who spends forever inside and even when i'm so very tired after along day at work and my little legs wont carry me anywhere fast at all; a few steps and focusing on nothing but my two feet, one in front of the other and the simple in and out of filling up my little lungs - WELL it's as silly as eyeliner but in a completely different way but i don't care because it's bloody GREAT.

8.   Daffodils.  It's that time of year when bunches of daffodils cost a POUND!  JUST A POUND!  The urge to put a bunch in every single room and maybe just carry a jug of them around with me at all times is very real!  The smell of open daffodils is THE smell of Spring and i just can't get enough!  Plus their cheery little bright yellow heads are the perfect fix of 'sunshine' on what feels like the longest January ever!

9.  Berets.  Something else that's been making my outsides appear far more put together than my insides feel!  I got a couple of new ones at Christmas to add to my collection and i feel as if i have worn a different coloured one each day!  Beret +  eyeliner = lifesaver!  

And i'm all DONE!!  This week's list was much-needed and i don't mind telling you i had to dig deep!  Sometimes i could write forever you know:  The words just come out in a twist and tangle of good and great and other times - like long, grey 'end of January' weeks, well they're slow starters.  They fast pick up pace though and better than that i am forever left feeling all of the whole world  better when i get to the end!

Don't forget to skip your little legs right on over to the lovely Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's  blogs to catch up on their very own happy list-shaped #wonderfulwednesday lovliness!  Better still share your favourite bits of your week so far below.  Or chit-chat with us all across social media using the #wonderfulwednesday tag!

Happy mid-weekin'!