Tuesday 30 June 2015

Wimbledon

I don't like Summer especially when there's a heatwave coming like this week. But the one thing I do like in Summer is watching tennis and most of all Wimbledon. Yesterday it started of and in the beginning it's all tennis all afternoon and evening long! What a treat!



Today my favourite is on; Roger Federer. I do hope they won't have too much heat problems over there though.
I never liked watching sports much but somehow tennis is something else.
Only the women's tennis is too much moaning for my taste but I can watch it and tweet with others while watching, for hours on end.

Enjoy if you're watching too!

© KH

Sunday 28 June 2015

Music on Sunday, Summer Classics


It's Summer, tomorrow Wimbledon starts (the one thing I do follow when it comes down to sports) everything is at a stand still it seems. The weather is warm getting on hot even starting next week (not my thing) so let's easy in to it with some classical Summer tunes this Sunday..

















© KH


Wednesday 24 June 2015

It's not all that black and white, or is it?

It Don't Matter If You're Black Or White - Michael Jackson


For a long time I thought I didn't want to say anything about this on my blog but after watching this vid on Tumblr just now I just had too. I'm appalled by seeing how this is still the case in for instance the USA. How white people who are destroying property or misbehaving aren't called thugs but black people having a peaceful demonstration are. Watch this clip and judge for yourself;




I believe firmly that we are not black or white or other colours. We are one race, we are the human race! I do not discriminate on colour, beliefs, sexual preference or what ever. We live on this planet together we should all make something of it, in peace and harmony! Live and let live.

Sometimes at work I come at clients homes where the client is discriminating and even though they are old people I always tell them that they don't have the right to. They knew what war was, they were glad they got saved that it was finally over. They always tell me that after they built up the country the Turkish people came and 'took over their jobs'. No they did not! They came because the Dutch people felt they were too good to do the dirty work and those people were needed to do those jobs! Don't whine now that they are here, they worked damn hard to be here and have every right to! I absoluty can't stand discrimination.

The footage in that vid where the young boys trash the private property happens here too after footbal matches sometimes. I have always told my sons that if I here about them trashing things or stealing or thughing I will hand them over to the police myself! I do believe that a large part of that behaviour is due to pampering of those kids. When we were teens our parents were a lot stricter than the parents nowadays.
What if the parents today would actually go back to being parents again instead of being 'friends' of their offspring and stop pampering them? Wouldn't that be part of solving a lot of problems?

What do you think?

© KH

Monday 22 June 2015

Couch Potato



Of course I knew it allready and one look at my body says it all; I am sitting way too much. But new studies have proven that too much sitting can give you all kind of illnesses. Like what; well mental illness for one. I never knew that one!

We all are sitting our lives away; it is bad for our health and even our life expectancy.
Researchers have reported that sitting for long hours is linked to:

  • Worse mental health
  • A higher risk of death from heart disease and other causes
  • A higher risk of being disabled
Dear god, if they want to scare me they are succeeding!
But wait, there's more:

The new studies add even more weight (funny) to earlier research suggesting that too much sitting is bad -- even if you get regular exercise. 

Experts say they still don't know for sure which comes first. Does too much sitting trigger poor health, or is it the other way around?
They also say we may need to think about sitting and exercise as two separate behaviors, each contributing on its own to our health. So while that 1-hour jog is great for you, it may not undo the 8 hours sitting at your desk.



Great, I don't exercise at all! I'm going to die... I'm obese as it is and a huge couch potato. After work (not at a desk) I'm glad I can put my feet up to be honest! Exercise too? I know I should but I don't.

Too much sitting has been linked to cardiovascular events like heart attack, heart disease death, overall death, and death from cancer.
Sitting time has also been linked with high blood pressure, obesity, bad cholesterol, and too much belly fat.

So even though I have not a sitting job, how can I reduce sitting or if you do have a sitting job how can you reduce it?

  • Use a standing desk at work. More workplaces are warming to the idea, she says.
  • Give yourself reminders to sit less. At home, consider a TV commercial your signal to get out of your chair briefly. At work, use a smaller coffee cup or glass so your trips for refills will be more frequent.
  • Change social norms. At a meeting, you might explain, "I am going to take a standing break



 After reading all this I think I will start with walking again, starting tonight!

© KH

source

Sunday 21 June 2015

Music on Sunday, Funky/Jazzy music




Lately I listen a lot to one of the music stations here in the Netherlands that airs funky jazzy music; Sublime FM it's called. It makes me dance in my seat or want me to get up and dance, which is a good thing I think. It's happy, upbeat music. So today, Father's Day, which is mostly a sad day for those who don't have a dad anymore like me, I thought; let's play some funky beats and dance. God knows we need it!
Enjoy!


















© KH

Monday 15 June 2015

Diet



As long as I can remember I am somewhat larger than average. Only after I had kids I became overweight and when my former marriage went downhill I became obese. I had to hear from a lot of people that I really had to do something about it, especially people who are close to me and who say they don't mean anything by it only mean well... Sure, they mean well but people reminding you constantly is a big pain in the you know what!
I do know myself I'm overweight thank you very much!

A few years ago I did go on a diet. I took those shakes twice a day. God I was starving but I did it anyway. Sure I was losing weight, but one day it stopped and I didn't lose anymore. I could slowely start eating regularly again and that's when it started to happen; my body wasn't used to getting much food or fat anymore and every time I ate something that was prepared with oil or butter it started to become upset. My gall bladder was infected and had to be removed in the hospital. Well that's dieting for you, I thought. The friend who did this with me had to undergo the same proceding two months later. Eversince then I have a bigger stomach/fatter one. Never had it before. I've heard people say who had the same that it comes from the operation.




Last week I spoke to someone who is on a diet. She lost 3 kilos already. She reacted not very happy to be honest, more a bit cranky. Maybe it was as a reaction to my reaction, I don't know, I just can't understand why people who are on a diet always have to go on and on about it, and convince others to do the same. Do we need convincing, I wonder?
She couldn't eat all kinds of things, no bread, not oils, no this or that. I had to read the book she said so I did read the first chapter and knew it really wasn't for me. 'Sure, don't even try' she said angrily to me. It made me wonder why it is that people (most of them not even that big or fat) who are on a diet always feel the need to convince other (obese or fat people) that they have to do this or that diet as well. You can't even say that it's proven that diets don't work, that sweetners are bad for you, that Aspartame is by FAR the most dangerous sweetner you can use! NO they bite your head off (Probably cause of the hunger) and you are wrong and they're not. Weeks from now those kilos they've lost are probably already on them again. Diets never work! My own mother is dieting her whole life. Why? Because it doesn't work!



Yes I am obese, yes it is unhealthy. But I don't need you to tell  me that! I know! I feel it! I have issues I need to figure out for myself, I don't need people to tell me I have to get help for that, I won't. I know I won't. Besides, I am healthy, my bloodwork showed I am. A lot of times thin people are more unhealthy than fat ones with diabetes or high cholesterol of blood pressure.
I went to a dietician once and she said they won't work on me unless I seek help with a psychologist or something and I know I won't do that. Maybe some day, but not now.
The fact that I'm obese does not give people the right to tell me I should do this or that diet as well. It does not give people the right to be angry at me if I decline. It is my life, my body, my decision.
Whether it's family or not, I really do not care!
People should mind their own diets, not force others on one too!

© KH

Sunday 14 June 2015

Music on Sunday, Rumours about Paul McCartney's death in songs


Last week Sir Paul McCartney performed in the Netherlands. I didn't go but I heard the prices of the tickets were very high! There was a time where there were rumours that Paul McCartney was dead, fed by the Beatles themselves? If you're interested why they thought that at the time, you can read here why.

Listen yourself;
















Thursday 11 June 2015

Emotions

Yesterday I spent the day at my sister's where we came to talk about someone who was seeking help dealing with some personal stuff which I shall not mention here. That someone started talking about it and how she struggled with it for a long time even to the point where it almost cost her her marriage. Now that she was talking about what was bothering her all these years it also helped her relationship. When she was explaining all that I suddenly felt the tears well up in my eyes for no apparent reason. All of a sudden I sat there nodding, listening and crying at the same time while she and my sis both were saying I should seek help myself. That I can't do it all alone that I think I am strong enough but that I need someone to talk to who can figure things out with me.




I always was and probably always will be someone who's all smiles and happy from the outside but botteling things up from within. Yesterday I first told my mum and later my sis about how things were here, with my autistic partner, that I struggle every day and that he always says that how I'm feeling is not only his fault. Maybe it isn't, maybe it's me as well, maybe I just saw my dad as an example for too many years. The strong type, too strong probably, but one you could always depend on. I didn't have such a person in my life ever since he's gone, not my ex (then husband) not my hub now. I sometimes think: Do I need such a person? If so why do I need him (or her) in my life? Can't I be my own strong person? If I can depend on anyone in life, it has been always on myself! Not my husband (ex or current one) not my family (they have their own lives to live) and I can't very well put my troubles in the hands of my boys. I am the only one who can help me! So why should I go and place my stuff, my brain stuff in the hands of a psychologist or psychiatrist when I know very well what it is that is lacking or not, what I need in life, or not. I have the tools in my own hands/brain/whatever. If I don't choose to do a thing with it, than it's my own damn fault.




I know I am happy when I'm alone in my home. But I can't affort my home alone. Is it fair to stay with my hub soley for this? No you are not doing that, the little voice whispers. We also can laugh when you are allowing to let yourself see through his faults and his inadequacies. The way he was brought up has a lot to do with how he is right now plus his autism of course.
But... but that does not give him the right to curse, to be angry all the time when things don't go the way he wants them to go, or to spent more money than we have. He needs guidance again, needs to do some mindfulness excercises.
I need more meditation. Peace and quiet. Reflecting on myself, my thoughts and my life.
I can do this, I always have done it myself and I will this time!
Let it go and it will be alright. Right?

© KH

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Motherhood


Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.
- Barbara Kingsolver




Now that the daily challenges are done I want to try writing further to improve my 'inner self' or to become aware of my  do's or don't's. But finding prompts is hard. What I can do is write from the heart. Whatever is keeping me occupied at the moment, or what I think will help me (or others) along.

Motherhood for example. Let's dig our teeth into that one. It was easy breasy when the boys were little compaired to now! My mum always says; Little children little worries, big children big worries but she's right! My oldest is living with his dad because his school is closer to where he lives but has an internship now in the town where my mum and sis live. He wanted to have a student room but those are very expensive. Thankfully sis has room to put him up. He was so disappointed in his dad that he didn't want to help him paying for college or a room and now he's relieved at least that this problem is solved.
My youngest boy wants to quit what he's doing now but has to pass his exams first. Only he didn't yesterday. He failed his cooking exam! He has so many nerves when he has to do them that it didn't go well. It's not only a worry what he will do next year when he quits cooking but now it looks like it that he will not even get his diploma for it either.
How do you motivate them? Can you at least motivate them? They need to do it themselves, I can't do it for them. Youngest needs to get a job as well but he finds it all too difficult and is just scared to.. His autism is getting in the way and he is ignoring it. I really find this age more difficult than when they were younger!




I know one thing: If I let go of my worries, everything will be alright. It always has been and it always will. I worry too much about them. I shouldn't it will be okay, but it is hard.

You want them to succeed rather but they too have to make their own mistakes in life, just like I had too. It isn't easy watching that but I know now that it is probably best to let them make them and not interfere in the natural process.
They will find their way. 

© KH

Monday 8 June 2015

30 Days challenge 30, Future self

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson


Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

First of all; I'm not good at those 140 character limit on Twitter and my future self wouldn't be either I suppose. She would write me a long app probably and scare the hell out of me or would she?
Would it change my life or what I'm doing now? Probably not. I think things in life go as they are supposed to go and my future self would too. She knows better then to interfere in things in the past as well. What good would that do? If she could do that she wouldn't text the me 10 years from her past to my now but she would sent a message or letter to the me long before that! But I know she wouldn't, she knows better than to interfere in things that are supposed to happen in a natural order. Our life motto is after all;

Everything happens for a reason.

--

I really enjoyed writing these challenges again. I think I'm going to look for other challenges to continue working on my self. It helps to keep me grounded, if only for a little while.

© KH

Sunday 7 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 29, Alive

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson



When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.


That's easy; I'm most alive when I'm in Scotland and recently I was in Edinburgh with my sister and I really felt alive there. It's my home (away from home) it's where I feel most alive.
Because I was in the city I didn't smell the nature and clean air you normally smell but it's Scottish air, and hard to explain, but different. :) I feel more me when I'm there, more alive and present more ... I just can't explain it. It's just something I always feel over there. I have wrote many a blog about it and many feelings on 'paper' about it. But this is something that explains it best;



Scotland


In a landscape of
Rolling green hills
With majestic pine trees
Where the fog
Comes rolling slowly
On gentle slopes
And sparkling lochs
Where crows
Are scrathing their cries
Thin and desperate
As lost souls
I stand silently, enjoying
And thanking in silence
Mother Earth

© KH

Music on Sunday; James Rhodes



Today this blog is about the amazing James Rhodes a pianist with a story to tell. He recently wrote a book; Instrumental which he almost couldn't publish and had to go to court to get his story told. Read here more about that.
I've ordered that book and James has put a soundtrack on Spotify to go with it. Today, some of those tracks and some of James' work;

I know of him and his work through his friend Benedict Cumberbatch:













© KH

Saturday 6 June 2015

30 Days challenge 28, Personal recipe

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson



Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

Hub and I were just discussing this on a party we went to the other week. There were some people we knew well and they started a discussion about our lives, about hub's mother being in a home and where her assets were going to go to and her things in her house. Why we didn't try to go live in the house and how we defenitely should not sell the house but rent it until his mother should die. Then they turned to me and started to have the same old discussion about my ex and our divorce arrangement. That I should never have exepted those terms because he never pays for his kids or me etc etc. I should again acording to them, make a legal case of it.

When hub and I finally got home we were exhausted! Right then and there we promised each other to never ever let ourselves become like those people; only looking with money in those eyes, seeing the world through means and greed other than personal growth or bettering it through doing good just for no reason at all.
When I put my couch outside a few weeks back and not sell it, just because I thought someone else could have a perfectly good couch and be happy with it I got the same respons from the very same people. I was out of my mind! I should sell it and get a couple of hundred euros (if I could get it at all). The woman who rang my doorbell later to thank me for the couch made me feel a whole lot better than those euros would I can tell you that!



So my personal recipe is to never become a greedy person who only thinks of means or money instead of other people's happiness and your own. To not become a negative person or an energy sucking one! Those are the worst!
Or as John Assarf says it:
“I just do not hang around anybody that I don’t want to be with. Period. For me, that’s been a blessing, and I can stay positive. I hang around people who are happy, who are growing, who want to learn, who don’t mind saying sorry or thank you… and [are] having a fun time.”

© KH 

Quotes and Pics 181






© KH

Friday 5 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 27, Call to arms

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson




What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.
You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!
(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

Note: What we need to do right soley depends on our government and it's cutbacks on the healtcare system here but just imagine that this weren't the case (if only).

From this day on we're only going to focus on the elderly clients and they're needs. If the government says they should stay home longer than we should make certain they can stay home longer. We must focus on making them happy, healthy elderly people. Try to help them where ever we can but if they are still able to help around their home let them do so. Go for long walks with them, sit down and talk to them! There are some who don't see any other person than you for a whole week, so if they want to talk, talk!
There are more elderly each year, people are getting older. Does that mean we just should cut back on healthcare for the elderly? The same elderly people who helped build up the country and the healthcare system? So not to benifit from it now? That doesn't seem fair at all. Those are the people who nurtured us so let's nurture them now. Give them what they need and take care of them. Show them our appreciation and our love.

© KH

Thursday 4 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 26, Ordinary

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson






We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

I don't know but I probably have put down every false expectation already. I love to write, that's the reason why I keep at it. Writing fanfiction does that for you, your expectations aren't that high anymore, you write just as much for yourself as for others who will read it. I don't have the expectation I will be a famous writer one day or a published one. I know that there are better writers but I also know that I am not that bad, there are worse writers as well! If I read my own short stories sometimes and the twists and turns a story makes I am sometimes surprised at my own writing and wonder why I can't make it through a novel. Why I can't make it even through a longer fanfic with multiple chapters? I think it's because I don't have the patience (yet) and give a lot of the story away too early, or am too hasty to start another one.
The way I work isn't the way others work. I know that. I don't sit on a story for weeks or months on end. I sit down, start writing and the story comes and writes itself. I often don't know myself how it's going to end when I begin writing it. But when it's finished I am often pleasantly surprised at how it has ended.
You should never compare yourself to others I think. You are you and so is your writing. As Daan once said to me; You are writing for yourself first and foremost.
That's true of course; If anyone wants to read it, fine, but you want to write it and that's more important.

© KH

Wednesday 3 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 25, Intuition

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you?

Even though my former blog doesn't excist anymore I can remember this prompt. I can even remember which person I chose as the face of my intuition. Brigid is a Celtic triple goddess ruling healing, poetry, and smithcraft. She is one of the great mothers of the Celts.

What would she say to me when we could talk?
To listen to myself more, to her cause she's my intuition. To listen and act more on what I feel inside and not think I can't do that. If I feel something strongly it must matter, it certainly matters more than what other people are feeling or thinking. She would say that I am considering other peoples feelings more than my own. I too am important. She would say that if I keep sweeping my own feelings under the carpet like that, I will get sick inside, it will keep on hurting and one day I will have to pay the price for that.
I know she's right of course but it's so much more difficult than she's saying. She understands that but she's tougher than I am.
She leans over to me, looks me in the eyes and again reminds me that I do matter! That I need to listen to myself (her) more.
And once again I find myself promising I will and we both know it's an empty promise. She shakes her head in sadness, puts her hand on mine and says she will try to remind me over and over again until I get it. I nod, she's right of course I know she is. I feel it in my gut. I hurt inside for a reason. It's starting all over again and I don't know how to stop it. 'You don't' she says, 'you just let it and see where it brings you'.
'But what if'? I say. 'There are no 'what if's'' she says 'you just do what your gut tells you to' I feel the tears well up in my eyes and when I look up to face her, I see that she has left...
She knows I got the message. 

© KH

Tuesday 2 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 24, Connect

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson


Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.


There is no one really. I find that the older I get the more of a loner/hermit I am becoming and that I really don't mind at all. I connect with a lot of online friends every single day so I am certainly not lonely. That's probably the beauty of Social Media as well. You never have to feel lonely; there's always someone available for a chat.
I have learned that often Social Media friends are more real and true than 'real' friends are. There were real friends have let me down in the past, the social media ones have stuck by me. It's under different circumstances you meet but still it's ever so real. If I want to connect and meet someone it's all those friends I've made through Social media! Those are my true friends who are really so dear to me!

© KH

Monday 1 June 2015

30 Days Challenge 23, Enthusiasm

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson




 
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” is a great line from Emerson. If there’s no enthusiasm in what you do, it won’t be remarkable and certainly won’t connect with people on an emotional basis. But, if you put that magic energy into all of your work, you can create something that touches people on a deeper level. How can you bring MORE enthusiasm into your work? What do you have to think or believe about your work to be totally excited about it? Answer it now.

Unfortunately Daan has given up on challenging herself but I won't. Maybe the challenges are repetive but we knew that before we started. I think they made them so with a purpose.
So I'll go on with enthusiasm the same one I have when I work/write.
I believe that you have to have love what you are doing every day or you be miserable every single day in your life. Whether that's in your work or in your personal life you have to love what you do. (making a bridge here) Daan doesn't love doing the challenges, so she shouldn't. I love to challenge myself and see what I can do more to better myself or to learn from myself or others. If you do things simply to please others you should not do them! Only do what you love to, with enthusiasm. Writing is that for me. Writing is like breathing to me. If I don't write I don't live.
I can only hope that what I create is touching people...

But also in my work with the elderly I can put my enthusiasm at work. Just this morning I comforted a lady who recently lost her husband. It's sad but I'm happy to be able to be there at that time for her. To make her smile again even if it's for a little while.

© KH