Tuesday 24 February 2015

2 Books on My 2015 Literature Watch List

The literary greats have been kicking butt and taking names y'all and its kind of a big deal! Well for those of us who like that kind of thing. haha All images and synopsis found via Amazon books.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Go-Set-Watchman-Harper-Lee/dp/1785150286/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424620112&sr=1-1&keywords=go+set+a+watchman+harper+lee

Blurb: Go Set a Watchman is set during the mid-1950s and features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father Atticus. She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand both her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.'

http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Help-Child-Toni-Morrison/dp/0701186054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424619331&sr=1-1&keywords=god+help+the+child

Blurb: ‘What you do to children matters. And they might never forget’ Sweetness wants to love her child, Bride, but she struggles to love her as a mother should. Bride, now glamorous, grown up, ebony-black and panther-like, wants to love her man, Booker, but she finds herself betrayed by a moment in her past, a moment borne of a desperate burn for the love of her mother. Booker cannot fathom Bride’s depths, with his own love-lorn past bending him out of shape. Can they find a way through the damage wrought on their blameless childhood souls, to light and happiness, free from pain?

Toni Morrison’s fierce and provocative new novel exposes the damage adults wreak on children, and how this echoes through the generations.

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Not only have I read their previous work like Beloved and To Kill A Mocking Bird but i have also had the pleasure of studying them formally. I CANNOT WAIT to get my hands on these new works of fiction from such skilled word-smiths.  I think I'll go search their noble prize in literature speeches to placate my taste buds in the mean time!


What new works of literature are you looking forward to or excited about this year?



Peace. Love. Literary Greatness. 


Thursday 19 February 2015

11 Reasons Christina Yang is my Patronus


 When I started watching Grey's Anatomy I became hooked for one reason and one reason only. Christina Yang ladies and gentlemen. I have never found kinship in a fictional character as much as I do with her since Luna Lovegood! I was feeling a bit confused recently and decided to delve into the lessons Christina taught me as I found us to be very similar. Christina Yang reminds me to be a pronominal woman. I thought I'd share, here area few lessons and similarities via Christina Yang.

1.  She's sapiosexual. Brains over beauty all day every day baby. Or both, both is good too cause lets face it, she is hawt stuff!


2. She is driven towards greatness beyond measure in the area of her passion.


3.  I mean she is raw, not containable, burning passion. Her soul is a wild fire for her purpose and she will not be stopped by the fact that others simply do not understand her colour of heat. She is ready to live complete in mortal loneliness if it means her soul remains fed because she knows that a starved soul is the kind of thing that can kill you every day over and over even while you lay surrounded by the acceptance of everybody but yourself.



4. She's tried the whole be a pretty girl and keep everything in place thing but she'd really rather just be comfortable and happy in her own skin, living life to the fullest, laughing big and using time wisely instead of fixing her hair and wearing heels all the time which, she can in fact do and do well too. Everybody else thinking she is a mess be damned, she'd rather be a happy mess than an uncomfortable one.


5. She demands what she wants when she feels like she has earned it, throwing socially accepted rules to the wind. Stare if you want but she's getting her due.


6. She knows that she is a work in progress, finding the steps in the dark.


7.  She she is a fighter. She knows that the strength that has longevity is the strength found in standing up again, not in the strength lost in a fall.



7. She aint your halla back girl.



8. She gives zero craps about your expectations of who she should be, what she should like or look like to be loved. She knows that she is different and she's okay with not fitting the mould  because she's got plans for all this awesome that she is and she's not going to let what you think she should do decide what she actually does. She will not be made small by your boundaries.



9. She knows that love is beautiful and is meant not to complete you but to stand beside you and help you shine brighter and sour closer to a sky that is wide enough to hold the splender of more than one..


1.0. She loves her self, hot messy parts and all, with no apology because she knows that her level of unique awesome can never be stolen or bootlegged or worked like she can work it. She knows that her soul is a valuable commodity and only she can open the door and use up that treasure baby. Be jealous.


11. She's no hero. She's just a girl, living life, loving her self, loving her people, trying to be brave and trying to dance off the monsters.


Sources: here, here and here


Peace. Love. Shine.


Sunday 15 February 2015

Sunday Sunshine :: Discount Love


You guys! ferrero comes in a heart shaped box??! Wuuuuuuuuuut!

Love is a beautiful thing. That is why I love valentines day (well that and food gets crazy cute all over the place and you know, chocolate). I think that whether you have that special romantic kind of love or not love is a beautiful thing.

Sometimes we forget that because it hurts us to love, it hurts us deep and often but love it self, the actual emotion, the ripples that come as a result of it, the fact that you have someone whom you love and if you're really really blessed, persons who love you back? That entire exchange between human beings, someone who will miss you or think of you now and again or notice when you are not there is beautiful

Sometimes we discount love. We mark down it's worth as though it is made of less value because it hurts. It is the weaknesses of humanity that causes an imperfect love, because love in and of itself is perfect, it exists in this little perfect place of giving and we are imperfect people grappling with how to hold it safe...and we mess it up....but its not the thing so much as our reactions to it that gets us riled I think...

These thoughts got me remembering the times love has touched me enough to write about it. Like when I documented:

10 simple and possibly even vain reasons why I love myself.
Why I love my amazing mother.
One reason why I love friendship.
Thoughts on why I love Teaching.
One reason SELF love is even more important in modern day.
Why valentine's day doesn't actually suck.

Here's some love I ran across lately via the internet:

This Girl Can has been touching me in so many many many many ways ever since i saw it i can't even tell you!
 Put Your heart to paper reminds me that those four letters we as  humanity have stitched together in hopes of explaining that amazing feeling we feel for each other is in no way enough.
This silly little video reminds me that you have to smile and acknowledge the sweetness of being alive.



Don't discount this amazing feeling that has brought us babies and best friends, soul mates and worship. Love isn't wicked or evil or sad, it is the action of discounting it that is.

Peace. Love. Fulfilment.

Tuesday 10 February 2015

Musing :: Style :: Edgey Valantines Day Fashion Wishlist ♥

1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5


The stores have already put out their V Day Style Looks. This year my ideal valentines day outfit is number two in the diagram above, you know if I wasn't sporting that student wallet again haha. My style is rarely dainty and sweet and I often feel like the only one. I like my style with a mixture of preppy, punk, edge, hipster and hippy. I like styles that are multifaceted.  I'd add the boats of number one with that red dress of number three, plus the jacket of course, to achieve it. Perhaps a black panama hat with that dress in number one as well now that I think about it...

These days the media tells a girl that for valentines day she should want a set of flowers and a fancy dinner. What do they leave for the girls who don't want that set up? I feel like every girl should experience that stereotypical expression of love every once or twice, kind of to say that you have, good for the self esteem and all that.

 I don't really like getting flowers, I like potted plants, I don't like going out to dinner because everybody is doing it and it's what you're supposed to do on that day, I don't like fallowing the crowd, it doesn't make me feel special, it makes me feel like everybody else.  Maybe why I never actually wear red on valentines day, always a variation of it: burgundy, maroon, violet mostly pink. I will admit though that on said day the little restaurants in my country really know how to dress a place up and make you want to go!

Chocolate NEVER gets old though, just saying. Chocolate and cute gifts that come in red or pink and themed and such. Thought, expression, difference, touches my heart.

I suppose that's why my ideal valentines day style isn't a pretty dress that makes me feel flirty and feminine.  It's just clothes that make me feel me, truly. That's when I feel most beautiful., when I feel like I am being myself and working it to my own strengths.



Peace. Love. Chocolate.







Friday 6 February 2015

Musing :: NOTD :Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast at Tiffianys





You may have noticed that posts have slowed, now that I am doing one of the most important classes of my school career. I've done alright posting in January though haven't I? Even though I had to reduce my posting schedule to two days a week I am still proud of myself for planning and scheduling my posts the way I have. Yay for keeping New Year resolutions and staying organised! Also, shout out to my A Beautiful Mess planner for continuing to give me good advice! Love this thing and it's beautiful pages and beautiful quotes that help to keep me accountable to my goals and endeavours!

Meanwhile i continue to prepare myself for visits where I will be graded on my teaching performance so people can decide my future haha. Can you say nerve wrecking?!

Anyhow, I've been searching for a mint shade of polish for what five years now? I finally bumped into this one randomly, i don't see a name on it except L. A. Colours so i suspect it is a knock off. None the less it is so very pretty! It looks kind of baby blue here but in person not as much.

I hope you are doing well. Here's to passing my practicum and being one step closer to being a degree holder!


Peace. Love. Be a Champion.

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Musing :: Mind : Be Still and Know...A Lesson in humility.



 Be Still and know...

That is what humility means to me. What a difficult lesson it is to learn to sit back and rest. Yes, i wrote that correctly. Yes you can read it again to make sure I'll wait.

Rest is hard for me.

I got to thinking after reading this post on humility and this one on the importance of quiet time. Personally my mind is running every minute, darting from responsibility to responsibility, from goal to interest to creative endeavour until my body puts it's foot down and the rest of my body fallows suit in solidarity.

In times like those suddenly I find myself incapable of getting out of bed. Suddenly I cannot make a complete thought in my head. My body attempts to show me who's boss or rather who's on the board of directors. 

"Be still and know that I am God" Psalms 46:10

That's the Bible verse that's been coming to mind lately as I consider what humility means to me. For me it feels like God saying, Hey, lady, remember I am bigger than you, bigger than your dreams and your desires. Remember that it is I who have placed those very desires into your heart. 

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart" Jeremiah 1:5

Like He is reaching out and saying Kill that spirit of anxiety, I'm workin' here!

In the midst of chasing all these earthly 'needs' or what we perceive ourself to need we can get caught up. I know I can. I am such a driven person that when I go, I go hard and become very exhausted when my efforts are stopped my necessary events in the natural world and then I push even harder, ignoring boundaries, ready to conquer as I forge ahead to victory, ignoring my wounds as they try to give me the oh so important message that I need to allow time in between each strike.

Humility means acknowledging that I am not invincible, that the best intentions are not the security of success. It is a bitter pill to swallow as it can mean admitting you are wrong about yourself; the person you're supposed to know best. It is a lesson and like I often say learning is painful. For me rest is an exercise in humility, one I don't do enough.


What does an exercise in humility look like in your life?


Peace. Love. Rest.

Sunday 1 February 2015

My Favourite Quote for almost two Decades

I mentioned this in my vlog but today i really wanted to write it down, i've wanted to write it down for a while honestly. This is my favourite quote:

Original image found here

 "As long as we have hope, we have direction,
the energy to move and the map to move by.
We have a hundred alternatives, a thousand paths and and infinity of dreams."
~Author Unknown (I've heard it is an old Chinese proverb.)

It speaks to me. It tells a tale of the many paths open to us on the road of life, how we will never move lest we take steps, we must put one foot in front of the other.

'Faith without works is dead' right?

This quote reminds me that there are options out there, that they will remain options whether i move or stand still at junctions in the road. It reminds me that each path leads to more forks in the road and more forks and more forks and it all goes on and on, with or without us all....

It has been said that a goal is just a dream with a plan after all. So why not start dreaming? Why not make plans and start moving towards them.? I don't think dreams mind the size of the steps as much as we convince ourselves. Here we say 'one one cocoa does full basket' ; eventually, as long as you've started, no matter how little you start with, you are bound to finish someday.


Do you have a favourite quote? Share with me in the comments, i so want to know!


Peace. Love. Dream
This post is a part of IWillBloom's Fabruary Link up.
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