{mally powell}

BearFaced cheek - a grumble

There is currently a meme on my Facebook stream in which women friends nominate each other to post a self portrait without makeup in the interests of raising awareness of breast cancer. Setting aside the questionable usefulness of the exercise without any attendant links or relevant information*, it raised my hackles in the same way as another well-intentioned initiative - the BBC Children In Need BearFaced campaign did last year.

The idea of the BearFaced campaign is that women are sponsored to go without make up for a day. It is supported by beautiful portraits shot by Rankin of 'bare faced' celebrities (many of whom seem to be to be wearing plenty of 'natural' make up, and all shown bare fleshed as well as faced).

These are both noble causes and raising awareness and cash is great BUT (here comes the grumble...) when did the idea of a woman leaving the house or showing a picture of herself without make up become so shocking that it merits an 'aren't you brave - Go girl!' pat on the back? Let alone actual sponsorship! Is it really equivalent to running a marathon, or even sitting in a bath of baked beans? Given that most sponsored endeavours demand a feat of endurance or public ridicule, which camp does this fall into?

Imagine a similar campaign targetted at men... I can't. It would be a nonsense because men haven't been told that they need cosmetic assistance to make their appearance socially acceptable.

Several of my friends posted that they wouldn't be taking part in the Facebook meme, mainly because of the spurious value of the exercise but also because 'it would put you off your breakfast'. A joke, I know, but I can't help thinking it's based in very real insecurites. I have known people with facial scarring who wouldn't answer the door without their make up on, which I can understand. These friends, however, are beautiful, interesting, accomplished women but seem to feel the same pressure to put on a mask to face the world.

In a society where there is an ongoing debate about the social and feminist implications of the veil, it seems that this approach to cosmetics - apparently accepted as the norm - touches on similar issues about the role of women and the acceptability of their bodies.

I'm not anti make up - like most women I have bought and used it since I hit my teens (though I don't wear it every day - not when applying it is going to eat into my sleeping time!) - but the implications of these campaigns bothers me.

* it has evolved and most friends are now including information on how to make a £3 donation to Cancer Research UK by texting BEAT to 70099. The charity did not initiate the meme but have apparently enjoyed something of a windfall as a result.

Happier breakfasts

One of the things that has stayed with me from Gretchen Rubin's (ace) book Happier at Home is the idea of celebratory breakfasts. These are nothing particularly fancy, just a few things to mark special days in the calendar (valentines, halloween...) and set the day off on a jaunty note.

Today is Ginger's birthday and the first thing Titch asked this morning (after 'I NEED A WEEEEE!') was 'What does the table look like on birthdays?'. He gets it! He likes it! It works!

Thank you Gretchen.

100 days healthier: days 7 - 14

This week has been a bit better than last, though still far from exemplary. So much for my plan for three runs, I managed zero. In my defence, I've been surrounded by poorly males this week and both time and energy have been limited.

I've gone off the rails a bit this weekend, though not as wildly as last week. There was a biscuit baking experiment, which I probably should have thought better of, and I made marmalade. Consequently I have eaten rather a lot of toast...

On the up side, the pint of water before meals habit is easing into routine - not perfect but I remember more often than not. And I've been eating a lot more fruit and veg.

So, my Two Tiny Things for this week are to:
Take my Floradix tonic every morning
replace milk with almond milk.

The Floradix (essentially an extract of lots of vegetable based iron, vitamins and minerals. Not entirely yummy, despite their best efforts with fruit juices, but fine with a fresh juice chaser) works for me when I need a bit of a prop to get exercising. Once I start exercising, I have more energy, but getting started from a low can be tough.

I've cut down on coffee lately but I still drink a LOT of tea. And my tea comes milky. I try to stick to chai as I can enjoy that without sugar, but once or twice a day I'll have a builders brew. A builders brew with almond milk is just not the same; in chai its OK, but I have a limit. See my thinking? Cunning eh? I'm aiming to ease up on my tea habit and replace it with herb/fruit teas, but thats quite a big ask and we're talking about tiny things here. Baby steps.

My mum - 68 in a matter of weeks, breast cancer survivor, pace maker user, all round superstar - ran her first half marathon at the weekend having started from a base of no running at all last autumn. And - at the other extreme of the kick-up-the-bum scale - my lovely, feisty great-aunt passed away the same day. So. No more excuses, this is the week when I get back out on the road, and do some stretchy goodness in between.

Oh, and I STILL didn't do my measurements. I'll do it this week... Probably.

Watch me go (puff puff blow)!

-----------------------------------------------

Previous tiny things:
Drink a pint of water before meals
Eat something green every day

Related articles

100 days healthier

100 days healthier challenge - days 1-7

100 days healthier: days 1-7

The theory goes that the first week of a challenge should be filled with vim, resolution and enthusiasm. It's an excellent theory, and one which I wish was true in my case...

The reality is that I sort of forgot, and then on Friday I made Chelsea-ish buns (moreishly good, recipe to follow) for a special valentines breakfast and (later!) drank far too much wine. Consequently I spent the rest of the weekend eating chocolate and carbs. And cheese.

Because I'm clever that way.

So I'm not expecting miracles on the scales or tape measure tomorrow (not least because I forgot to take starting line measurements/weight/photos. As I said: clever).

It wasn't a total dead loss, though. I did make some incremental improvements:
- I did a couple of workouts, and enjoyed them.
- I remembered to drink a pint of water before my meals a few times, and felt better for it.
- I tried to make healthy choices (some of the time) and replaced my desk sweetie stash with a fruit bowl. In fact, it was going pretty well - in a low key sort of way - until I went slightly mental at the weekend.

Today is a new week. I plan to consolidate and build on those little wins. I'll also do the measurements thing and run three times. Yes - three! Not once on Monday and then skip it for the whole week, thus ensuring zero progress and nagging guilt. Like a boss.

I'm also going to break out the Floradix tonic and green smoothies. Because I need to find some energy from somewhere, and apparently mainlining caffeine is 'a bad idea'...

100 days healthier

So. 2013. That was a toughie... Lots of Big Stuff - some really good, mostly not so fun - resulted in seriously disappointing progress against goals and a whopping two stone (28lb) weight gain (comfort each much?).

This year started out with good intentions and initial progress but has already been waylaid by more Big Stuff. I'm struggling with my weightloss goals, my exercise goals, my budgeting goals, my personal development goals, my make-and-do goals, my home improvement goals...

I think I may have too many goals.

So I've decided to keep it simple. For 100 days, starting next Monday - 10 February to 21 May 2014 - I am concentrating on establishing some healthy habits. I want to:

Get back into healthier eating habits

Establish a sustainable exercise routine

Practice kind/positive self talk (I really need to stop the 'I'm so rubbish at.../too fat...' etc in front of the boy)

Make more time for Girl Stuff (doing my make up, having pretty nails, hair that's 'done' not just stuffed up in a rubbish knot. (Good knot - fine, just not the rubbish ones)

Also, I'd like my underwear to fit again!

Thing is, I am so BORED of dieting (I put on most of that weight while 'on a diet'. Make of that what you will...). Looking back at pictures of myself a year ago (on a diet, dissatisfied with myself, looking great!) I have come to a realiseation that I just can't diet any more. Right now, I am well and truly Over It. Hence the emphasis on establishing sustainable healthy habits:

* Herbal tea instead of builders/coffee in the week

* Drink a pint of water before each meal

* Good bread at the weekend, none in the week.

* Minimise processed food

* Minimise sugar

* Maximise fruit, veg, lean protein and healthy grains

* Some sort of exercise every day. Some days a little, some a lot; I want to be able to run 5k comfortably by May 21st.

Lets see how this new approach works. I'm hoping for a little less lard, and a lot more energy.

Go me!

 

happy list #3

ooh. Happy list #2 was published way back in November 2010. I promise I have been happy since then...

My list for this week includes:

* promises of spring, small and shy but very welcome.

* brief visits back to beautiful, bonkers Shoreditch. I'm beginning to realise I feel better for a regular fix of My London (not just meeting-London).

* a couple of very-nearly-dry days from Titch, promising that one day potty training really will be a memory (it has be s-l-o-w)

* pancake day!

* tiny steps towards a clearer head and a fitter me.

* warm chai and a gentle sunrise.

* being able to see the sea pretty much whenever I want to by coming upstairs or walking to the end of the road. Treasure.

Living with intention

So I've been making my Mighty List recently. It is long. Excitingly, dauntingly long - there is a LOT I want to do (so I really need to start getting on with it).

To that end I hauled myself out of bed an hour early this morning in a bid to buy myself a bit of time to do stuff for me - Get fit, Draw, Live intentionally, Start a business... All these things need time. Chipping away at the head-fogging Stuff - tidying and sorting, filing bags of correspondence (I know, I know - I had a big pile on my desk in the old house, now in a bag by my desk. I am not proud), archiving and backing up a gazillion photos, creating blurb year books for 2012 and starting the 2013 one, a pile of nagging household and personal admin chores... so much stuff just floating around my head and my space and gumming me up so I can't function properly but sit here instead, like a rabbit in really muddy headlights. And maybe have another look at Pinterest or Facebook, both of which are well known tools to boost morale and productivity... Ahem.

Anyway, this morning I actually managed to get up rather than just switching off the alarm again. Win! I plodded blearily upstairs, did two thirds of my home bootcamp workout (I didn't think the boys sleeping below would appreciate mountain climbers thudding about their heads so they will be a fun mid-morning break), then looked at the piles on and around my desk... and went to make a cup of tea.

I fully intended to draw. Or maybe sort through my Flickr feed to find pictures to illustrate my goals over on the Go Mighty site. But it turns out, today at least, my brain is just not in that 'creative' groove at the crack of dawn (blushing pinkly over the rooftops and sea out of my office window. A definite boon to an early start).

So I'm writing this instead. Because I keep promising myself that I will be better at blogging... and then not doing anything about it.

So that's a sort of progress. Right?

stuck

I keep getting stuck.

I work from home, for a company. I come up to my office every morning and sit at my desk, looking at my computer; but just lately I have found that my brain really doesn't want to kick into gear until about 3pm. I need to leave to pick up The Boy at 4:30. This does not leave a whole lot of productive time!

Clearly, something needs to change.

There is a lot going on at the moment, STUFF that eats up head space even when it doesn't take up a huge number of hours. I think this is the underlying problem but, until the STUFF is resolved (not imminent) I need to find a way to focus my mind for 8 hours at my desk. Apart from being a boon to my colleagues and bosses (!), I know this will make me feel a whole lot better in and about myself.

So. What to do?

I have followed the blog and work of Sandra Juto for several years now, and never fail to be inspired by her aesthetic and approach to work and life in general. Sandra, it seems to me, is all about quality: finding or creating moments of beauty in the everyday. She wrote a recent post outlining how she goes about structuring her working day which resonated with me, so I'm going to try a few of her tips:

* start every day with a walk (/run. Generally leaving the house so I can 'arrive' at work.)

* Dress properly for work. I tend to wear my mum-uniform day in, day out. It is practical and comfy but doesn't make me feel great. I'm going to start dressing as though I'm going to the office or to meetings.

* stick to a timetable - basically, behave as though I'm still in an office. Get to my desk on time. Take a proper lunch break. Go outside for 10 minutes in the morning and afternoon to get some air.

I'm hoping that once work is back in its box, my non-work time will also start to feel a bit less amorphous. Just at the moment I seem to be wrapped up in a big cloud of 'should' with very little progress on any front. And that is just boring.

Time for a change.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

I drafted these posts a while ago and never published them. I wanted to run them by my friend first, to make sure she didn't mind (when in fact I knew full well that Mrs Positivity would have been horrified!).

Events rolled on, as events will, and I find myself still struggling to really get my head around the turn they took. So, although these are not in real time, I wanted to post anyway...

My best friend is dying and I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how to be there for her - we are not in the same neighbourhood so popping round is hard, particularly with a toddler. Particularly when her primary illness meant that she would never be able to have a child of her own, even before this secondary slap in the face that means she may not see her next birthday. Particularly when time is precious and we want to talk and be together without a lively toddler demanding constant attention. And particularly as the niggly bugs and lurgies that seem to be part and parcel of life with a toddler could potentially lead to a major health crisis for her.

I don’t know how to deal with the emotions it has stirred up in me.

I want to tell her what she means to me and to spend time with her, but she is grittily upbeat and determined to focus only on being well and avoid all talk of ‘the T word’ which makes me hesitate. Telling her these things would feel like admitting that there may not be as much time as we hoped - assumed. And that feels like a betrayal of her steadfast courage and focus on recovery.

I’m angry. And sad – really, really sad.  I feel strangely vulnerable, and scared  - she’s only 6 weeks older than me. What have I done with my life? Not enough; not nearly enough. Am I leaving it a better place? Have I achieved anything of substance? I don’t think so.

I feel overwhelmed and paralysed and acutely aware of all the things I should do but don’t, or can’t.

So I text and email and leave voice mails. I draw & send little cards and think of suitable gifts – flowers, food packages, good-to-go meals – then worry that they will be inappropriate or somehow not quite right. I even set up a subscription to Macmillan Cancer Care. Mainly, though, I just feel bad.

Then I feel bad for feeling bad as I, after all, am not the one who is sick.

So I joined the gym, and fat club, and started to make a concerted effort to savour every day as I feel I owe it to her, and to myself, and my son and family to do everything I can to make sure I stay not-sick and actively happy for as long as possible.  I’m drawing up notes and lists and firming up plans to take some of my long held dreams and ‘really should…’s off the to-do list and put them into practice. Because my best friend is dying, yet she has never lived more healthily, treatment aside has rarely looked better and is - for the most part - is as happy and sorted as I’ve ever known her. If she can do it I’d better think of a bloody good reason why I can’t do the same. So I should just get on with it.

Things I can do...

Be there as much as I can.

Let her know I’m thinking of her when I can’t.

Look after myself- all those things I know I should do, eat well, exercise, get plenty of rest, attend to any niggling health concerns.

Make a regular contribution to – or fundraise for – a relevant charity.

Join the organ donor register. (done)

Join the bone marrow donor register. (done)

Give blood (super easy, super important, have been a donor for years).

 

My best friend is dying and I don’t know what to do #2

Her health has taken the nose dive we feared. She is in hospital and I am not able to visit her, though I long to see her and talk with her as, I’m sure, do many of her friends old and new. Her family have, quite understandably, closed ranks and her mum is fiercely protective of her. Knowing my friend, this is as she wants it. She’s a shutdown kinda girl.

It is hard, though. I get regular updates on her health but have a million questions. How is she in herself? Is she still feisty? Still funny? Is the overwhelming sadness that I heard in her voice for the first time the last time we spoke still weighing on her or has she found an acceptance and a way through? Is she able to have the conversations she needs to have with those closest to her?

I hope so.

I send her texts and notes; send love and strength and hugs via texts to her mum. But my best friend is dying and I can’t reach her.

I don’t know what to do.

 

My best friend has died.

And I don’t know what to do.

Feeling thankful

Happy thanksgiving!

As a non-American its a holiday that I've only really come to understand in the past few years through following US based blogs. Though I get the history, being European (or perhaps just being a bit ignorant) my only other exposure has been through tv shows and films portraying a sort of havest-festival-come-Christmas-lite. Which, now I think of it, is nice enough in itself (if a little odd).

I think I get it a bit more now, though, and I love the idea of a festival that is not about gifts, but rather getting together with the ones you love best, sharing good food and taking a moment to count your blessings.

Plus, pumpkin pie = yummy.

I think I may institute a family thanksgiving tradition next year, when Titch is a little older. It seems a useful pause for thought in the run up to the Festival of Stuff that Christmas all-too-often becomes.

In the meantime I'm taking a moment today to think about all the things I'm thankful for:

First, last and always - the wonderful, amazing, miraculous statistical anomaly that is my son; and of course his brilliant, funny, handsome and very loving Daddy.

Also: my lovely family, warm home, full tummy, good health, great friends, active mind, lovely colleagues, fabulous neighbourhood...

 I'm thankful to be such a lucky girl.