Thoughtful Tuesday

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
-Guillaume Apollinaire

Friday Find

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Things I Love Thursday

It’s that time of week again reader, time to focus on things I Love:

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Top of my list this week is my Latvian adventure-On Monday I’m off to Latvia for a week with some of my favourite ladies to work with a Christian charity that runs a centre in Riga for neglected & abused children. They also run camps/time away. I’m a mix of nerves and excitement but I know it’s going to be a wonderful opportunity and I’m so grateful to be able to help even a little.

Also high on my love list this week is Rufus Hound & his Twitter followers support for the Hope for Laura campaign- Mr Hound encouraged his followers to donate a couple of pounds each to a campaign to raise money for a pioneering treatment for a young mother suffering with an aggressive rare Brain Cancer. The response even within the first couple of hours was incredible. I have no affiliation with the campaign myself but having the opportunity to help give a little hope to someone in need and witnessing other peoples generosity too was beautiful and touching.
Twitter at its best and a reminder that Twitter isn't just for embarrassing footballers.

Little loves:
Finding Forgiveness in the most unexpected place, cute Facebook messages, planning time to exercise (even if it really doesn’t happen. I’ll get there…), late personalised Easter presents from Yen’s mum, chocolate,

Alrighty that concludes my list of pleasures for this week reader, what's making your love list this week?

'A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.'

As it is Towel Day today, I hope I'm right in assuming you are all carrying one ;)

Thoughtful Tuesday

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.
- Robert H. Schuller

Friday Find

Until the mid-19th century, if you bought anchovies, they would be bright red in colour. That's because they used to be dyed with lead oxide, which is in fact toxic. Initially, shopkeepers were extremely sceptical about getting rid of the lead, because they were sure that nobody would want to buy anchovies that looked brown and horrid.

Things I Love Thursday

It has been a whirlwind of a week but a week well lived so without further ado here’s my Things I Love Thursday list for this week:

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Top of my love list this week is visiting my brother and family in honour of my nephew’s birthday. Long afternoons in the sunshine playing in the garden, cuddles on the sofa, not to mention watching Gorgeous Girl kissing the fish tank [Little Man’s birthday present] and shouting "hello ish!". This week I especially loved watching Little Man playing with his friends at his birthday party. I can't believe he is 4 already! Never would I have imagined the absolute joy of watching him & Gorgeous Girl grow, learn, walk, and talk.

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Also high on my list this week is the fact that every moment of every day we have the potential/ability to hit the reset button.

Possibly the most random thing on my list this week is the Congleton Bear Trail- For eighteen weeks, starting in May, fifty five foot bear statues will be displayed on a trail through the town of Congleton to showcase the town's cultural identity and its areas of outstanding beauty. I know its hardly an original idea (in the UK in the last few years alone we’ve had Manchester's cow parade, Liverpool’s Superlambanana and last years Elephant Parade in London)and ok some of the statues may be a teensy bit creepy but I love the sense of community and the revival of local history/folk tales.

Noteworthy niblets:
Safe journeys (even with two hour detours), Surprise packages from a darling friend, complimentary chocolate and wine, discovering the word Omnomnomnomatopoeia: A food whose name is spelled like the noise you make eating it. E.g. crisps, the most recent episode of Doctor Who ('The Doctor's Wife' by Neil Gaiman) -no spoilers sweetie but imho it was beautifully written and executed, so moving.

What’s making you feel giddy, sparkly, joyful or just plain lovely this week reader?

Thoughtful Tuesday

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are
-George Eliot (The epigraph to chapter LXX of Middlemarch)

Friday Find

I came across this article by Douglas Adam’s about the internet on Twitter via Steven Moffat and upon reading it instantly knew I wanted to share it. As Mr Moffat himself says ‘Douglas Adams: ten years gone, still ahead of us. You can't read this without starting a score sheet for the insights.’

Or if that doesn’t float your boat this fine Friday reader, how about a very beautiful and clever short animation by Disney Pixar entitled ‘Day and Night’?

Things I Love Thursday

Its Thursday again reader, I hope you’ve been having a spectacular week so far, and are ready to spill all the great things, big and small, that you’re grateful for. Let the gratitude commence!

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Keyboard shortcuts- An absolute lifesaver for me this week. I was without a mouse for a few days this weekend which annoyingly corresponded with a day when I needed to collate a lot of information and make a dozen or so word documents.

My favourite story about the Royal wedding/couple- Wills And Kate: Proud Parents Of A Penguin

Surprise presents-My wonderful father turned up with an eggs-tra extra Easter egg for me on Saturday, the supermarket were selling their excess stock half price, saying “I got you one with a mug because I know you like them best”. It’s true reader as a child they were my favourites because it meant you had a present to keep when you’d finished the chocolate. I’m almost more touched that he remembered that than by the present itself (I say almost because it is chocolate afterall reader). My dad is an absolute sweetheart.
This gorgeous song by Meaghan Smith, I especially love the video:


Also:
Sui mai and Har Kau for lunch- yum, birdsong at the break of dawn, not spilling anything on my white cardigan,

Alright, that sums up my TILT list for this week, what are the brightest and shiniest snippets of your week?

Thoughtful Tuesday

No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Friday Find

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Worry not reader, if under the influence of this carousal-loving hosiery you overindulge, this weekend I also bring you a 14th-century hangover cure:
If any one have drunk too much, if it be a man the testicles should be washed with salt and vinegar, and if it be a woman, the breasts, also let them eat the leaf or the stalk or the juice of a cabbage with sugar.
(John of Gaddesden's Rosa Medicinae, circa 1314)

I think though I'll stick to my brew and bacon sandwich method.

Things I Love Thursday

It’s Thursday again reader so check out this week's fresh crop of fantastic things:

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High on my list this week is this quote which began circulating the web after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. It was originally falsely attributed to Martin Luther King Jr. I don’t know who the real author is however for me not knowing doesn’t make the quote any less beautiful or valid...

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."

Animated GIFs as an art form, this is fantastic.

Also winning my heart over this week:
picnics in the sunshine, wedding invitations from treasured friends, democracy and I have love for you reader if you took part in the referendum and/or exercised your right to vote today- even if it was for someone I'd disapprove of, when the wind blows it snows cherry blossom petals, friends rediscovering their creativity, sharing my mini crème eggs with the plumber over afternoon tea- a small action for me but it made his whole face light up.

What’s making your week sparkle reader?

Thoughtful Tuesday

Now is the time to get drunk! To stop being the martyred slaves of time, to get absolutely drunk - on wine, poetry, or on virtue, as you please.
-Charles Baudelaire, "Enivrez-vous," Paris Spleen, 1869

Cheers reader!