A Year of Learning - Meditation

I've always been a worrier. When there's something on my mind I often overthink it and it can affect me physically, bringing on a headache or my back hurting. I'd like to feel more in control of my thoughts and not have them spiral out of control when I worry about something going on in my life.

I've recently been made redundant from my job due to the corona virus lockdown so this seems a good time to try focus on meditation and my thoughts of doubt. I'm worried about getting another job in these uncertain times. I'm worried it could lead to money troubles. I'm worried I will lose the confidence in myself that my new job brought me.

I'm starting with this website --> https://www.mindful.org/how-to-meditate/

My first experience of meditation was short but interesting. I just sat on the sofa in the morning after breakfast. Neither of the kids were up yet and JD was busy playing on the Quest. It was quiet and comfortable. I started off with my eyes closed trying to focus on my breath. Following my breath with my mind, in and out. I soon realised I'd started wondering if I looked serene! Haha! I went back to focusing on my breath and did that each time my mind wandered. I only did it for a couple of minutes but I enjoyed trying to focus and was amused by the thoughts that tempted my mind away.

Do I look serene? :D

The second time I tried for 5 minutes and found it much harder. Maybe I just had more on my mind that day but I felt my mind constantly bringing up thoughts and I got frustrated trying to bring my focus back to my breath. When I finished I felt a bit more stressed than I was before.

Mindful also do guided meditation practises so I decided to try one of those. I chose the 10 minute one and found it to be very relaxing having a voice instruct me in my meditation. I feel this is a more natural way to learn what to do instead of going it alone. I finished this 10 minutes feeling much more optimistic about being able to meditate.

The next day I listened to the 15 minute guided practise and found it to be just as relaxing. My mind still wandered a lot but with the encouragement of the guide I felt much better about it and managed to bring my focus back to my breath each time.

Next, I tried an app for guided meditation called Serenity. It has a series of guided lessons in meditation. 10 minutes a day for a week. I liked these even more than the Mindful ones. You practise slowing down your breath, thinking of things to be grateful for and stretching at the end of a session. I've done 5 days so far and it feels like a nice addition to my usual routine. I have 10 minutes peace and relaxation as I start my day. I like that the Serenity meditation has soothing background music so it feels easier to ignore noise around the house. I completed the first week which you get for free then it's usually £17 for 6 months. Not bad if you use it every day.

I decided to move on to trying a different app and chose Calm as it seems very popular. It's also free for the first week to try. Turns out I like their guided meditation practises even more than Serenity. It feels so much more laid back, not really like you're trying to focus and more like you're trying not to. I started with the 30 day learn to meditate course and after a few days something clicked in me about why I want to meditate and what it means to me. I've been wanting to control my mind when really I should be learning to let things go.

When the week free trial finished I went back to meditating alone with no guide and found it much easier using the advice I'd learned from Serenity and Calm. There are lots of meditation apps and I feel it's just a case of finding the right one for you. I'd recommend making the most of free trials to find out which one you like best.

I've really enjoyed my month of meditation. I think it will be something I carry on with after this month. There's much more to learn and I'm intrigued to see where it takes me.

Previously in A Year of Learning:

Smartphone Photography

Breadmaking

Arduino Programming

Harmonica

Creative Writing

My 2020 Reading Challenge - 10 Different Genres

For my 2020 reading challenge I want to try reading from a range of different genres. Especially genres I've never read. Such as romance or historical fiction. I suspect I'll stop enjoying reading soon if I keep this up! Haha :)

First up is Gothic Fiction. I picked up this book in a charity shop and enjoyed reading a mix of poetry and short stories. Some of the stories were great (some not so much) and they were really varied in content. My favourite was a story called The Gold Bug which was part detective, part pirate themed. Plus there was a skull :D

 

Second is Science Fiction. I have read some SF but not much and it's not one of my favourite genres. JD loved this book and when he found out I was doing this challenge he bought me a copy to read. I must admit it was a great book with very political themes. A study of capitalist versus socialist societies which describes people being dissatisfied living in both.

 

Third is Self Help Book. Again I've read some self help books before but mostly found that they have one idea and then seem to expand it to fill a book without adding much substance to the idea. This book was very different and somewhat blew my mind with it's detail, backed up my research facts and the span it covers. We're born as Intuitive Eaters but mess it up by dieting or trying to eat 'healthy'. I've learned so much from this book and I'm going to try put it into practise.

Fourth is Classic Novel. I have read widely in this genre but there's always room for more. This novel follows several generations of the Brangwen family experiencing love and sex in England during the early 1900s. It was banned and over 1000 copies were burned after it was taken to court in an obscenity trial in 1915. Must be worth a read for the that fact alone, haha! Spoiler: it wasn't :|

Fifth is Fairy Tales.Wow, this book is an excellent example of story telling done the right way. If all books about myths, history and other such traditionally boring subjects were written with such wit, humour and wisdom then I'd be a well read scholar indeed.

Sixth is humour. This genre can be a bit hit and miss as humour varies so much from person to person. I borrowed this book from my sister Sal though so it should be good. I was right, it was good but not that funny. Still an interesting, thought-provoking page turner.

Seventh is I'm not sure what. It's a book of essays (obviously) which could be classed as politics or philosophy, I guess.  I enjoyed reading his views on Patriotism and Wealth. Wallace Shawn has a great way with words.

Eighth is Thriller. More of a gory thriller than I'm used to and another loan from Sally. I hope it doesn't give me nightmares, ahah! Hmm turns out it wasn't that gory. Or well written. Not keen at all, I prefer a more competent detective not one who guesses and then ends up in danger. Well, you can't win them all.

Ninth is Religion. I don't think I've ever read a book on religion but my daughter Erin loaned me this book about Wicca to read so I'm going to. It was an interesting read, I especially enjoyed learning about the phases of the moon throughtout the year and how nature features strongly in Wicca.

Tenth is Poetry. This book was fantastic, such powerful poems each with heart, sadness and determination. I might consider reading more poetry books if I can find more like this!

It's been a weird year for reading so far. It's taken me much less time than I thought to read 10 different genre books. Due to the pandemic I've read quite a bit more than usual but I've also lost my source of cheap second hand books as the charity shops are all closed. I've had to borrow several books from family (luckily I borrowed from Sally before the lockdown) plus I've had to buy several brand new books. I've enjoyed having more time to read and I've liked reading more diversely too. I'm really looking forward to the library being open again from 4th July, I'll be heading there once it's safe to top up my to-read shelf.

I notice that I managed to avoid reading a book from the genre of romance even though I mentioned it in my intro! Maybe another year, haha!

Family Game Reviews - Traditional Games

We've been trying out some old fashioned games I used to play when I was a kid. We play a lot of video games together but I wanted to get back to basics playing some more simple games together from my childhood.

Marbles

I bought a set of marbles from ebay and we made a (not very circular) circle out of string on our living room floor. We each had a large marble and placed all the smaller marbles inside the circle. You have to take turns to flick your large marble at the marbles in the circle and hopefully knock a few out. You get to keep the marbles you win and the player with the most marbles at the end of the game wins. It's much harder than you'd think and it took us a while to get a good flicking technique going.

I quite enjoyed playing even though I wasn't very good and never won. It's a game that takes skill and practise to do well at. I remember playing marbles at primary school but not very much and I think I used to watch others playing it more often. Maybe if I'd joined in more often I would've easily beat my family at it.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 3, Val - 1, Erin - 2  TOTAL 9

Pick-up Sticks

Another ebay purchase which was a nice little box full of pick-up sticks. You drop them onto the table and then take turns trying to pick them up without moving any other sticks. This takes skill, patience and eagle eyes from everyone playing. It's really tense to play when you're trying to slowly slide a stick out of a precarious position. It's a very simple game but really fun.

JD really enjoyed this one mostly I suspect because he's good at it. Like a pick-up stick ninja he's in and away with a stick before we see what's going on. Me and Erin got better at it as we played more and gave him more of a run for his money. We all enjoyed it more than I'd expected though and since it's quick to set up and play it's a handy one to keep on the game shelf near the dinner table for after dinner fun.

Ratings: JD - 5, Emma - 4, Val - 0, Erin - 3 TOTAL 12

Yahtzee

Yahtzee is one of my alltime fav games and I like to play it any time I can get someone to play it with me. JD got me this lovely Yahtzee board as a gift several years ago and I love it.

It was nice to have a game with everyone. JD's got a scoring app on his phone which we've been using since we ran out of scoring sheets a while ago. It's quite handy and does the adding up for you too. Which saves any dispute about bad maths!

Yahtzee is a quick game to set up and it doesn't take much more than 10-15 minutes to play depending on how many people play. Not everyone loves it as much as me but it's still the highest rated of the 4 games we played for this blog post.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 5, Val - 2, Erin - 4 TOTAL 14

Dominoes

I also love a game of doms but it's not a love shared in my house. JD isn't keen on dominoes and is always slightly annoyed you can't add dominoes anywhere except the ends. Also everyone is displeased that doubles are placed differently. It's not my fault, I didn't make the rules. I just enforce them! Haha.

It's another game that takes hardly any set up and is quite quick to play. Simple but fun. We had a couple of games but I forgot to take a picture so this is a recreation with just me and JD.

Ratings: JD -1, Emma -4, Val - 1, Erin - 2 TOTAL 10

The results were that we all enjoyed Yahtzee the most and Marbles the least. But they were all quite entertaining for a bit of after dinner fun. I'm going to keep my eye open for other traditional games we can play.

Home-made Takeaways - Red Hot Noodle Bar

You might have noticed from previous posts that we love noodles! One of the places I wanted to take JD for a birthday treat recently was the Red Hot Noodle Bar in Leeds. You get a box of noodles and can choose 3 of the several toppings they do. Chicken dishes, beef dishes, veg dishes and tofu dishes. We've walked past a few times but never actually gone in yet.

Now with the lockdown and all the restaurants closed, we can't. So the only thing to do is make it at home. So I sorted out 3 recipes for 3 of the toppings they do and ambitiously tried to make all 3 plus some noodles.

Luckily JD was on hand to help out make his own birthday treat because it was a flurry of chopping, stirring and wishing we had several more pans. I bought some white card noodle boxes on ebay to make it more authentic.

And this is the result of our frenzied cooking and feeling like we worked in a Chinese Takeaway.

Here's what we made:

Chicken with Black Bean sauce

Korean BBQ Chicken

Salt & Pepper Chicken

It was all pretty delicious on top of noodles with a splash of soy sauce and some vegetable spring rolls. There was plenty leftovers for lunch the next day too.

We enjoyed our home-made noodle takeaway and it'll be nice to visit the Red Hot Noodle Bar to compare when it opens again in the future!

OhBurger! 36: The Cheese Toastie Burger

I was keen to try this one as soon as I knew it was a thing! A cheese toastie (or grilled cheese as they call it in America) is a popular lunch/snack in our house so this was sure to be a winner with us. I had a stroke of genius and decided to use milk roll as the bread for the toasties because it's the perfect size and shape. Well, not exactly perfect, it's a bit nobbly but close enough.

So easy to make this one, you just simultaneously cook your burgers (I opted for oven baked burgers this time as the hob was a bit busy) and grilled cheeses at the same time and then bring them together in glory!

Dress your burger with whatever trimmings you enjoy. I just had spinach and barbecue sauce since there was already plenty of cheese in the equation but go with your gut, no judging here.

We really liked this one! The textures were all amazing, the crunchy toastie, the meaty burger and the gooey cheese. The tastes weren't too shabby either, they went so well together. Give this one a try, seriously!

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 4, Erin - 4

A Year of Learning - Creative Writing

Another skill I've always wanted to improve on is creative writing. I do a reasonable amount of writing for my blogs but I'd like to be better at creative and descriptive writing, feel more confident in my writing style and not have times when I just freeze up, struggling to write anything at all.

I've decided to compile a list of 31 writing prompts and write something every day for May.

On 30th April the list went up on the wall and the panic set in. What on earth was I doing? I can't write on demand every day? What will I write? I'll have to share it with my family and even worse show it on my blog! I was having serious regrets about my life choices, haha.

The 1st prompt was 'You fall down in the street.' I'd been thinking about what I might write since the list went up so when I sat down to write you'd think it'd be easy. I sat there for 10 minutes trying to decide how to write. Should I write in Word or on some sort of word counting site? I decided to just open Notepad and write in there.

And I did. I made up a story about falling down and seeing a colony of ants overthrow their leader. It's probably not great but I've made a start on writing for a month! hurrah :D

"Walking home from Sainsbury's I looked up at Erin's window to see her
waving at me. As I raised my arm I misjudged the kerb and fell with my
face narrowly missing the garden wall. I glanced at the wall to see
how close I'd come to hitting it and looked straight though a gap that
went under the raised flower bed.

I closed my eyes tight and opened them again but it was all still
there. I could see about 100 ants lining a stepped pyramid. A
slightly larger menacing looking ant was stood at it's pinnacle
holding a forked twig. He shook the twig and all the ants bowed down
to him. I couldn't see well enough to see his face but I could sense
he was smugly enjoying his authority. He started to walk down the
pyramid and the ants parted to let him pass, bowing lower as they
moved back out of his path.

He was heading towards a rough looking shelter made of twigs and
leaves. I could see the queen ant was residing just within watching
the larger ant approach. As he neared the shelter he raised himself up
to his full height and went to enter. The queen barred his way and
lifted her left front leg to point at another smaller ant behind him.
The smaller ant scurried forward and the larger ant jabbed at him with
his twig. The queen ant darted out of the shelter and grabbed the twig
with her mandibles snapping it into pieces.

The crowd of ants swarmed over the rejected large ant and tore it
apart, punishing it for its bullying arrogance earlier. The smaller
ant entered the shelter with the queen.

I slowly got to my feet and looked up at Erin's window, but she had
already returned her attention to her laptop. I walked up to the front
door, went inside and headed to the kitchen to boil the kettle."

Since that first story it's become easier every time to write. I think about the next days prompt whenever I'm doing something like washing the dishes or making food and try to come up with a good idea. Then each day I cycle, shower and have breakfast before sitting down to write. I'm still just using Notepad but it works.

Every night after our evening meal I read out my story and get feedback from my family. It helps to have a published author in the house! Once I've written I look forward to reading it out loud to everyone.

Some days it was harder than others to think of something to write about depending on the prompt. But some days I really enjoyed writing and could have written much more.

It's been an interesting month and now I know I can get into a good routine of writing if I want to take it further. I might, I've always wanted to write a  murder mystery.

If you're interested in reading what I wrote the stories are all collected on Wattpad.

For June I'm going to be trying to learn to meditate!

Previously on A Year of Learning:

Smartphone Photography

Breadmaking

Arduino Programming

Harmonica

Watch The Birdie - Half Way!

A few days ago JD and I were having lunch and spotted this goldfinch through our dining room window. It stayed for about 20 minutes hopping from dandelion to dandelion opening up the tops and eating the seeds. I'd recently been complaining about the dandelions in the front yard but I'm glad they were there as that goldfinch had the time of it's tiny life. Seeing him gave me 10 points in my I-spy book getting my total to 500 points which is officially half way!

It's been a bit slow on the bird watching front until recently. After the enthusiasm of starting off, winter came and we went out walking less and now this year spring has sprung but we've mostly been inside under lockdown. We've been getting out for walks a bit more regularly now and my bird feeder has *finally* attracted some visitors. So I am again hopeful.

Since the last update my sister Caroline has joined the challenge but both her and Sally are working from home with increased workloads due to the corona virus so they're both finding it hard to commit time to birdwatching. Hopefully things will continue to improve and there'll be news from them soon.

It's really nice to have birds come to the back garden now and there's usually something to see when I wash up. I've seen coal tits, blue tits, magpies, pigeons, starlings, sparrows, dunnocks and a brambling. The smaller birds seem to love the bird seed and sweep their beaks from side to side in it knocking a lot of it to the ground where they will fly to pick it up. It's great to watch!

Also new since last time are these moorhens and this pheasant.

It's almost been a year since we started this challenge on 22nd June 2019 so it's all taking longer than we thought for a kids challenge! Still, we're sticking with it :)

Previous posts:

Watch The Birdie

Watch The Birdie - Update