Write on Wednesdays - Sit under a tree and write...

The photo above was the inspiration for this week's 'write on wednesdays' assignment. I did cheat a little bit and kept writing for about four minutes after my five minute buzzer went! Let me know what you think, hope you enjoy it :)


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Sitting under a gnarled old oak tree in the blazing summer sunlight, Brooke tried her very best to get into the peaceful and spiritual mindset that she was supposed to have already been in for the last twenty five minutes.

She peeked out of one eye and then, seeing that everyone else in the group still had their eyes shut and were making the stereotypical 'omm' sound and looking thoroughly engaged, she seized the opportunity to sneak out the Blackberry she had been hiding under her t-shirt.

'BROOKE URGENT MEETING. WHERE R U???' read the message flashing up at her.

She gulped nervously, feeling the butterflies form in her stomach. She couldn't exactly email her boss and say that she was currently sat on a very uncomfortable pile of twigs attempting to chant her way into calmness and tranquility, could she?! It wasn't exactly 'employee of the month' material was it? Imagine if they could see her now! Sat with a bunch of housewives in fitness clothes who were currently perched, legs crossed, in the middle of a field droning in various pitches and occasionally swaying and raising their arms in the air.

Brooke still hadn't quite figured out what this whole session was supposed to accomplish but due to the fact that her mother had recently called her 'haggared' and 'stressed-looking' she had decided that a 'Relaxing Meditation Session' would be ideal.

Glancing around again, she began surreptitiously typing a fictional reply about her whereabouts.

''Miss ALLEN!'' a curt voice suddenly screamed.

She jumped guiltily, and peeped up through her fringe to see Marjorie, the Meditation Instructor as she liked to be known, standing with her hands on her hips and a very unamused expression on her overly-made-up face.

''Err sorry!'' Brooke giggled innocently, ''Just sending a quick email to the office!''

Marjorie sighed deeply and put her fingers to her temples.

'Miss Allen. You are here to relax and channel your negative energy into meditation in order to achieve a wholehearted spiritual awakening. You cannot do that with your mobile phone strapped to your chest! Now hand it over. I am confiscating your phone until the end of the session.'

'Jesus,' thought Brooke, 'It's like being at school.'

Pulling her attention back to Marjorie's monosyllabic instructions about attempting to reach spiritual enlightenment, she decided to really focus. Marjorie was right. What was the point in taking the afternoon off work to de-stress if she wasn't even going to try to become a spirit, or whatever it was the instructor had said she should be trying to do.

Focus...Breathe...I need to reply to that email....No, focus. Enlightenment...Spirits...But I want that promotion, what if they find out I was here? Come on, concentrate...Meditating...Ommmm...Buzzz.

Buzzz? What's buzzing?

Sudden realisation made Brooke's eyes snap open. Her phone was vibrating right next to where Marjorie was swaying. She couldn't tell if it was ringing or not. If it was ringing, Brooke needed to answer it! What if it was the office?! Surely there must be an exception to this whole mediation thing if your phone was ringing!

She looked around again and, having decided that all the other women were engrossed in their 'omm'-ing, she began crawling as slowly and carefully as she could across the grass towards her phone. Only a few more feet and she'd be able to grab it!

As she edged closer and closer, Marjorie's voice began to get louder and louder as if she was reaching the climax of her spiritual awakening, until suddenly she jumped. And it could not have been worse timing. Her eyes took in Brooke's guilty expression at being caught on all fours with one arm outstretched towards her Blackberry.

''I'm sorry, I just don't think meditation is for me.''

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My Latest Musings...

Have had a fair few exciting things happen to me in the last few weeks, as well as various events that have given me more than a little food for thought. These are a couple of things that have been, as they say, grinding my gears of late.

Healthy Eating:

The realisation that one is going travelling in less than six months and will therefore be living in a bikini for a prolonged period of time has evoked a fear in me that I must tone up this lump that I call a body. However, with no money going spare whatsoever for something as extreme as a gym membership, I decided to attempt the dreadfully sensible healthy eating option in order to obtain the ideal bikini shape.

Unfortunately I have now discovered that I suffer from what I have decided to term 'Greedy Syndrome'. The notion that if you don't eat whatever unhealthy but unbearably tasty treat is in front of you then someone else will is by far the scariest thought that has ever entered my slightly overweight head. I am convinced that I will forever regret that moment of self-control in which you watch the person chow down on what was sure to be the sugariest, jammiest, tastiest donut in existence.

So, in order to counteract this possible feeling of intense regret, I have taken it upon myself to eat everything unhealthy that is currently in the house. Some might scoff that this is surely not the way to tone up, however I assure you there is logic behind my chewing. I have done this merely to ensure that tomorrow there won't be anything tasty for me to worry that someone else is eating and therefore feel obliged to eat myself. And I shall therefore, in theory, be content in eating my banana and ryvita crackers.

You see? Logical. I shall keep you updated as to how the diet is going...Ooh look a cookie.


The Dreaded Question of a Graduate: 

When I finished university a couple of months ago I was faced with the very serious and intimidating question of 'What am I going to do with my life?'
This question has slowly but surely become my least favoured question EVER. Every person I know seems to have asked me. Parents, aunties, friends, friends' of friends, the doctor, the dentist...the list is endless. They all seem desperate to know of some lifelong ambition that I am supposedly meant to be attempting to achieve sometime in the near future.
The first time I was asked I merely shrugged and said I didn't know yet.
The next few times, I made something up just to fill the silence.
'Astronaut,' I said to some. 
'A celebrity,' I said to others.
I had no idea. So I made them chuckle. That was enough to enable me to change the subject.
But eventually I decided that I should probably actually give this whole job thing a thought, and came up with an extremely career-minded idea....I'm going travelling.

I could not have avoided answering the dreaded question any more could I?

I assume all graduates are suffering from the same annoyance as I am with people that do not matter asking you this. It surely cannot just be me.


There was going to be more but tiredness is taking over as usual. Will blog again soon.

Zx

Write on Wednesdays...Status Anxiety

This week's Write on Wednesdays challenge was to use the first Facebook status you come across as the prompt for five minutes of writing. A friend's status of 'Feeling Good' inspired this short piece, which stemmed from a conversation I had with a customer at work yesterday. It's a little different from the kind of writing I usually do. Let me know what you think :)

Feeling good.

Standing back from the mirror, her gaze ran down her reflection from head to toe. She could finally see more than just the wide hips and post-pregnancy belly. Her eyes were no longer transfixed on the mole on her left cheek. The wrinkles around her eyes it now occurred to her could be laughter lines, rather than evidence of her depression. There had been a time when she had laughed.

The dark circles were beginning to disappear as the insomnia she had suffered with for so long began to loosen its grip.

Stretching out her neck, she realised with an inner smile that the bruises had faded. Her pale skin was unmarked. Untarnished. She couldn’t remember the last time her skin had looked that way. Would the memories fade just as the bruises had?

Her appearance no longer sent feelings of self-hatred through to her core. Her thoughts were no longer critical. The years of abuse and insults had made her beauty invisible to her. But no longer.

She was feeling good. Feeling free. Feeling beautiful.

xx

Write the Music - Write on Wednesdays

Have decided to join in with Write on Wednesdays... This week's challenge was to turn on the radio and use the first line of lyrics that you hear as the prompt, and then write for 5 minutes. Capital FM didn't provide me with the most emotive of songs but I suppose for today Girls Aloud will have to do...


''Everything he does, he does better than anyone,'' she assures me.
''What does that even mean?'', I reply dubiously.
I cannot tell you how many blind dates I have been been on in the last six months. Too many to count, and I would bore you if I attempted to list them. Let's just say the candidates that I have been to dinner with and attempted to converse with haven't exactly been ideal.
This is the trouble with being the only single woman in your group of friends. You end up being set up with your friends' plumbers, doctors, husbands' golf buddies and so on, all of whom are supposedly 'perfect for you'. Unfortunately this has not been the case with any of the Roberts, Johns or Daves (no Toms, Dicks or Harrys here I'm afraid) that I have batted my eyelashes at. I will be shocked if this latest one that my colleague Rachel is attempting to force upon me, will be any different.
Despite this, in my current single state beggars are not allowed to be choosers, so I will of course be attending the dinner with the infamous Benjamin. I will sit there in a sexy dress attempting to remember what Rachel told me his interests were and pretending that I share the same passions in order to formulate the perfect relationship that I have in mind.
Now...what did she say he liked to do on weekends? ...Walking? Wrestling?...Fairly different past times but I can't remember which it was....will have to brush up on both head locks and hiking just to be safe.




This was all I could manage in the 5 minutes - it went far too quickly! Looking forward to next week's challenge. Would appreciate any comments!

New Blogger...

I am new to the blog thing...thought I'd give it a go, and join those that spend their lives jotting down their rants and raves in the hope that someone somewhere will read and enjoy them.

When creating the blog (which took surprisingly little time...not sure what I was expecting; a government check and intelligence tests on second thought seem a little extreme), I was presented with a demand for a blog name...With no preparation time and an unnecessary feeling of pressure, under which some very odd grammatical combinations sprang to the mind of this highly sleep-deprived individual, I decided on 'the musings of a small one'.

A 'musing' is defined as a contemplation, mediation or thought...so that is what this blog will consist of; my contemplations, mediations and/or thoughts on whatever topic strikes my fancy on that particular day.

The latter part of this blog name refers rather blatently, if you could see me that is, to my slight deficiency in the height department. I am vertically challenged, one might say. Personally I believe a little over five feet is the perfect height for a female...however some have been known to disagree, particularly when they become aware that I spend my life on my tip toes and attempting to peer in between people as I have no hope of seeing over their unnecessarily-close-to-the-sky heads.

Here's to the inspiration that will lead me to my first proper blog...