An Averted Anxiety Moment…Streams Of Consciousness Saturday.

January 30, 2016February 1, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha25 Comments

Today is one of those days. I woke up with AN anxious pressing of thoughts, yet my mind was scattered to the four winds and I initially could not pin down what it was that caused the pressing niggles.

It was such that I felt like not doing anything but just crawling between the sheets and allowing the thoughts marinate and vacillate.

This was not the ‘I am feeling lazy today thoughts,’ rather, it was more like the ‘let me stew in some unknown worry and annoyance thought.’

However, I knew the fore-warnings and the possible resultant effects of such marinating. I would gradually spiral into a ball of anxious worry wart and by the end of the day, the snappy, stressed dragon will start showing it’s ugly face and it just goes downhill.

So I had to actively decide to turn my ANxiety moment into an active moment and I did just three things before the emotional waves came into balance.

These are the three simple things that I did:

I prayed briefly with my children.

I dragged on my exercising clothes and lazily sweated out for an hour and twenty minutes.

After the sweating, I sat in my thinking corner and turned to piece my thoughts apart to try and put my fingers on the niggles. Some thoughts were dealt with and resolved as quickly as a phone call. Other thoughts were written down and turned into action points to be resolved at assigned specific times.

Doing these three things decompressed my mind. I found myself back to a balanced tandem and my day continued on a good note.

Those moments of ANxiety can possibly be turned into moments of ANswers, but it takes a lot of conscious effort to deal with it.

I have learnt over time, that putting pressing thoughts or issues off or pushing them under the rug does not make them go away, rather the rug only gets higher.

This is my first post in relation Stream of Consciousness challenge and we Linda has asked us to use ‘an’ for today’s prompt.

Inspiration - Motivation · Little rants · Social Issues · Three quote challenge

Nope! You Can Never Go Wrong…

January 28, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha23 Comments

People watching is a social science hobby that I spend quite a bit of my time engaging in. Observing people in recent times, some of the little things I see shows that there some fine redeeming human values which seems to be at loss these days. I am quite sure a good number of you would have observed these things as well.

Two days ago, I watched an elderly lady who was counting her steps struggle with the few things that she had and a couple of the items fell from her hands.

She paused briefly, bending gingerly to try and gather them and from my observation, she probably has Arthritis.

My natural instinct was to run up and help her, unfortunately my distance was a little far off to offer immediate assistance.

Meanwhile, two young men, probably in their mid-to-late twenties stood two steps away from this lady, puffing away on their cigarettes and not one of them bothered to render a helping hand to a woman who looked old enough to be their mother.

For all you know, they were probably busy videoing her difficulty for their YouTube Channel, which seems to be the new thing these days.

People would rather spend time shooting a video of a dying man in an accident instead of figuring out how to help.

I honestly had to curb my desire to make my way over and give them a talk or two about chivalry, they might not take it well.

However, I gave them a thorough scolding in my head 😉 and reminded myself that I have to keep teaching my boys how to be gentlemen.

By extending a hand of fellowship or help no matter how little to those around us who need it, we can never go wrong. We are actually not just helping others, but staying in touch with our humanity.

These are some little nuggets of quotes that you might wish to spend a couple of seconds on.

‘Instruction in youth, is like engraving in stone.’ African Proverb

‘The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth.’ African Proverb

‘We rise by lifting others.’ Robert Ingersoll

Several dear bloggers have invited me for quote challenges and each day, the invitation increases by a notch.

I don’t like to let these things trail for so long, but I also don’t like to just toss quotes out there with nothing to say about them.

I try to look at the things that I observe around me and let them serve as lessons or inspirations for my thoughts.

I would like to thank Sepultura and That Little Voice for their generous invitation extended to me, to participate in the quotes challenge and would like to invite the following bloggers below to take up the quote baton and run with it.

Bunkaryudo

Sheridan Johnson

GloverDeb

No pressures at all. Just go with it if you wish to.

The Little Rules are:

Post three consecutive days.
You can pick one or three quotes per day.
Challenge three different bloggers per day

My regards,

Life · Lifestyle · Love · Personal story · The Great Book Of Lists

My Lettered Mind… The Great Book Of Lists Chapter 1.4

January 28, 2016January 28, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha46 Comments

At a young age, deciphering the lettering in the pages of a book became No. 1 on the list of my favourite things and if it is possible to say, I would say that I gobbled up literature with such veracity, that one would think it was an Olympic contest.

The adventure that I have with books has led to a rhyme or two words.

Out of my forays in reading, I got to learn that I am an incurable romantic realist *if such a term exists* and I always look for the happy endings or at least something heartwarming.

I read several horrors after a fad and found it absolutely not to my taste.

Yes, I admit, the amount of Mills & Boons, Harlequin Romances, Barbara Cartlands, Penny Jordan’s, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Amanda Quick and the rest of the crew that I read, must have contributed some coins from my piggy bank to the authors pockets and it’s amazing how much content the brain can take in and still keep soaking up more each day.

Ah! These brings back the days of mobile library and the ice-cream van to my mind. The two always seemed to come around the school premises almost at the same time and now that I think about it, that ice-cream man must have been responsible for my love for sweets. Just imagine bringing my two favourite things together 😉

I digress. Back to some of the books that caught my mind, held my thoughts and stoked my imagination enough to steal into the toilet for a quick page of reading when I was meant to be watching the beans on the fire and yes, a page turned to several and the beans got burnt.

For this weeks The books that transport me, chapter 1.4 of TGBOL, these ones come easily to my mind:

Lorna Doone – Richard Doddridge Blackmore
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
The Basket Of Flowers – Christope Von Schmid
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Gone with the wind – Margaret Mitchell
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Sands Of Time – Sidney Sheldon
The Secret Garden – Frances Burnett
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
The Merchant Of Venice – William Shakespeare
Comics of : Archie, Betty & Veronica, Jughead, ASTERIX, TinTin
Fairy tales by The Brothers Grimms
Enid Blyton books

Numbers 18, 19 and 20, I pretend to buy for my children and still sneak in a good read and a chortle. Please, you are free to think whatever, I am still a child at heart 😉

Inspiration - Motivation · Life · Quotes For You · Three quote challenge

When You Agree…

January 22, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha29 Comments

In my place, there is a saying which states that ‘when you agree, your God agrees with you.‘

A blogversation that I had recently with an awesome blogger brought back this saying that my dad used ever so often back to my mind and I spent a little time dwelling on the thought of it’s meaning.

As a child whose parents used lots of proverbs to buttress a point, I never quite understood some of what they were trying to say to me then, but as time went on, these kernels of words planted have been germinating profusely and I find wisdom tucked inside them.

It is a common belief back in my place that each person has their own little ‘Chi’ or ‘God’, also perceived as a guardian Angel and that whatever limitations the person sets for themselves, that is equally where their God will set himself.

If you buy into the myopic view of a misguided person that you are not good enough, then you will remain so.

If you set limitations for yourself with all the usual excuses: because I am poor, black, brown, fe/male, tall, short, etc, you will not grow past your limitations. To grow past them you have to stop agreeing to the negative feedback of ‘You Can’t.’

‘What are you agreeing to?’

There is no disputing the fact that there are socio-economic challenges, gender limitations, race boundaries and all the conceivable ceilings out there that hinders us from breaking through the invisible barriers to our perceived success, but wait a minute.

What of the glass ceiling that you have placed on your own mind? No one else will break through it and free you other than yourself.

In as much as there are things we are unable to stop from happening, we have the will power to choose how we react to these things.

Do we remain victims of our own minds, or do we break free from the bounds of mind enslavement of whatever it is that we are agreeing to and become victors?

The choice is yours. What are you agreeing to? What ever it is, is what your God will agree to as well.

I shall leave these little quotes here for you to dwell on.

‘It is not what you are called, but what you answer to.’ African proverb

‘As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.‘ Proverbs: 23.7

‘Be careful how you are talking to yourself, because you are listening.‘ Lisa M. Hayes

For the quotes challenge invitation, I thank Kaushal of Expressive Human for the invitation, and would like to invite the following awesome bloggers to participate in the 3 days, 3 quotes challenge.

No pressures at all to do so.

The rules are:

Post 3 Quotes on 3 consecutive days.
Thank the person who nominated you.
Nominate 3 other bloggers on each day of challenge.

Pancake Bunnykins

Sabiscuit

Commonsensegal

Challenges · Hope · The Great Book Of Lists · Travel · Weave that Dream

Desires of Mine…The Big Book Of Lists

January 22, 2016January 22, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha25 Comments

For Laduchessederat’s great big book of lists challenge for this week, some of the things that I presently wish for, might be daydreams, but, I so love daydreaming.

I wish that I could breeze through editing my manuscript so that I can move on to the next stage. Editing is not as much fun as writing the rough manuscript.

I wish I could get better toe-hold of my health/weight. I know that I can do better than I am doing right now.

For no specific reasons, these two cities have been on my mind: Vancouver and San Francisco. They have always sounded very posh to my ears and out of the long list of places that I would love to visit, thoughts of these two are dangling in my head.

I wish that I would be able to start my authors blog soon, but then again, that is tied to number 1.

I wish to put my short stories together, dust them up and publish them. *Sigh* There is so much to do.

I wish that I could continue with my piano lessons, but over here in Dubai, things tend to cost an arm and a leg, so I can’t afford that right now

I am holding my cap out for a Mediterranean cruise or a repeat tour of Europe by train.

My wish for each day of 2016, is to remain at peace within myself and give the best of myself for each day in achieving my goals.

This thought is rather a far-fetched thought, but a wish that seats deeply in my heart. Sometimes, I am scared at the rapid rate of my children’s growth and other than taking as many photos as possible, as well as trying to appreciate my time with them as much as I can, I wish there is a way to encapsulate these memories, so that even when I am very old, I will remember. If you have an idea how, please do share 🙂