Sunsets & Fairy Lights

Evening all, I hope the weekend has been good

to you!

I just wanted to post a couple of fun photos from this evening's beautiful sunset and a few other bits and bobs.

First off I'd like to share that I have finally lost a full 3 stone. I'm still having quite conflicted feelings about whether I'm losing weight for the 'right' reasons (Are there right reasons?) as I described in a previous blog.

I am however refusing to give up cheese!

I've also been trying to give 'my space' a bit of a make-over, ok tidy up, so that my room really feels like the sanctuary it should be and not the death trap that it is when I'm tripping over magazines, cables and the odd sewing box! So I did what every sensible person would do and bought a cactus!

The Richardson women have a slightly embarrassing habit of killing plants and flowers but I thought a cactus should surely be hardy enough to live with me ... right? I'm also looking into using crystals to help my general well being, to see if they can also help the energy of my room. I've purchased 3 stones so far, a quartz which is going to travel in my purse with me to work that will relieve stress and anxiety. I also have amethyst for mood balancing and a malachite to help soothe my 'female issue's. I'll report back on how they help.

The Amethyst & Malachite - pretty and functional!

Speaking of pretty I wanted to show you guys Dad's latest, obsession, I mean project of filling bottles with fairy lights. I think they look utterly gorgeous! 

I particularly like this one in the garden -

To round off the blog here, as promised, are some photos of the gorgeous sunset this evening.

Panoramic View

 

And of course, the England flag! Go on lads!

Love Jen

XxxX

Thank you 30STM

With all the Tomo drama happening at the moment I wanted to share the new 30STM video and the words from Jared that came on an email announcing it.

I just want to thank Mars for caring about their fans and highlighting the fight against mental illness that so many of us face.

Check it out below -

Ps if you haven't heard it then have a listen. It's a great song!

Rescue Me is a song about pain, a song about empowerment, a song about faith, and a song about freedom.

Freedom from the wreckage of your past. Freedom from the bondage of self. And freedom to embrace all the promises that life has to offer. 

It’s also a song about the brutal war so many of us wage against fear, depression and anxiety in the hope that we might, one day, live a life filled with happiness and dreams. 

Pain does not discriminate. It can affect us all. In our bodies. Our hearts. Our minds. And often, when that pain is emotional or mental, we are afraid to speak up.

None of us are “ok” all the time. And there shouldn't be a stigma when we aren’t. Both my brother and I have had our own intense personal battles and it has, and continues to be, life changing. I try to remember that just past the darkest days await the brightest and most rewarding moments. And that change is always right around the corner. 

I want to thank everyone for being so brave, selfless and vulnerable in this video. The emotion and honesty shared impacted me greatly and I hope it does that same for you all. I am very proud and grateful to have worked with one of my heroes - the master filmmaker and director Mark Romanek. It’s the first time in 13 years I haven’t directed our videos. It was a gift to have him carry the weight so graciously and deliver something so profoundly simple and beautiful. 

If you think someone in your life needs help, ask them if they’re ok and make sure they they know you’re there for them. And keep showing up. Help however you can. 

If you are hurting, you can get through this. Tell someone you trust. And please make sure you ask for help.

For more information or to seek help for you or someone you know, check out the following organizations:

Treatment Advocacy Center -- http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/
Change Direction -- https://www.changedirection.org/
Crisis Text Line -- https://www.crisistextline.org/
Suicide Prevention Lifeline -- https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
World Federation for Mental Health -- https://wfmh.global/

#RescueMe

https://youtu.be/yEWb6bsd5lo

Is there a feminist way to lose weight?

As some of you my know since the start of the year I’ve been making a real effort to clean up my diet and exercise more. I came to the conclusion that at 30 (now 31 :s) I needed to take better care of myself and was fed up pf feeling fat and lazy when the girls in the office talked about their diet and fitness regimes. So I installed the My Fitness Pal app on my phone set at a 1260 calorie limit a day and bought a cheap 2^nd hand fit bit (cheers Karen). So far I’ve lost 2st8 going from 109K in January to 90.6kg thus far.

The question that’s been bothering me is “Is there a feminist way to lose weight?”. Whilst I initially got started by purely wanting to become healthier after my knees, hips and back started aching whenever I hoisted myself out of my chair. Now I’m also focusing on losing weight to look “thinner and prettier” as is my favourite phrase. It concerns me that it’s against my Body Positive beliefs and also a concern that I’m pandering to society’s strict beauty standards.

I constantly rant about the impossible image that as women we are expected to adhere to, have I unwittingly fallen into the cycle of body fascism? I now want to lose the weight to ‘look good’ rather than look after myself and daydream about becoming as thin as I want back in 2011 (I got down from a size 18/20 in Autumn 2010 to a size 12 but Nov 2011) until I promptly piled it all back on when I changed job …… Thus feeling disgusting.

I think the only thing to do is keep reminding myself that it’s my insides and skeleton that counts rather than trying to look attractive.

Plus I’ll finally be able to get into the dinosaur print dungaree dress that I’ve been lusting after from Minimum Mouse!

Love Jen

XxxX