Day 12: What makes me laugh more than anything else is…

What makes me laugh...lightness of being. When i feel comfy in myself,  I laugh - deep belly aching laughs. I laugh like a cartoon character when I laugh like that - teeeeeeeheeeeeeeee just like that.

Need to find someone / something that makes me laugh like that again.

Seems like a good challenge to set.

Someone who gets you can make you laugh like that. Let's find that someone.

Soon.

Day 11: 1 food and 1 drink for the rest of my life

Wooo, a hard one.

I am a foodie. Check out my food blog Paleo with your food - thats an order! and you will see how much I love cooking and eating!

So to choose 1 food and drink for the rest of my life is very hard indeed.

But I will give it a go.

1 food for the rest of my life....
Steak
Man, I love it - I can eat steak with a juicy fatty slab on the side every day. Its so filling, so nourishing, so tender in your mouth.
Absolutely enjoy it with a strong green pepper sauce and some roasted veggies - I am happy!

1 drink for the rest of my life...
Much easier - champagne! I love a good glass of french dry and can never get tired of the bubbles on my tongue.

Whew - I have expensive taste :)

Have a good evening - need a glass of bubbles now - can feel them tingling on my tongue already!

The best advice I ever received

It wasnt really my advice I received: its from a story that I heard from a friend. But it really resonated with me at the time and still does. A friend of mine told me the story of this lady she met from Scandanavia. She herself was on a gap year - taking some time for herself. And she was in Italy - harvesting grapes in the autumn. Late summer is a great time in Italy apparently - long days, not too hot - but still magickal.

They would wake up at 5am, harvest grapes all day and then after lunch stomp on them. They finished at 5, ate an early dinner in the yawning Italian sun and then collapsed into the bunk beds in the barn and slept like the dead, to do it all again the next day.

Anyway, she met this woman from Scandanavia - she must have been around 34 - 35 and she had been travelling around the world for the past 2 / 3 years - working in a place, earning enough money and then moving onto the next place. She spoke about the opportunity of a lifetime she received to have an audience with the Dalai Lama.

You were allowed to ask one question. Her question to the Dalai Lama was "what is the secret to a great life".

His answer to her was so simple, but in her context of living life freely - so meaningful.

His answer was "take more holidays"

Think its time to start planning my next one :)

Pinings

Ok, so I had to google that to make sure I understood what it meant - day 9 of the 31 day challenge I am participating in with http://writersbootcampza.wordpress.com  is to write about the word Pinings.

The good old broken heart. Whew - havent we all had one of those? Im always thoughtful of my past loves. There have been some really good ones... wow.

Ive dated a drummer, an artist, a contract killer, an aeronautical engineer and a digital nerd. Loved them all - loved the experience of being with them - loved the memories.

But they say you cant go back - and that is the absolute truth.

So my pining is not for the loves that I have lost - its for my future. What does it hold - who will capture my soul next and what adventures will we have together? Im so excited to find out what this journey holds in terms of my next love.

Its time to get started :)

A love letter to my pet hate

Dear rude person to waiters

Nothing grinds me more than people who are rude to waiters - or any other service staff for that matter. When I sit at a table with you and someone brings you a glass of water or your meal - and you dont acknowledge them, you go down in my esteem - badly.

Wait staff - service staff - they do things to make your life better, easier, faster - they do this for a wage, yes - but doesnt take much for you to thank them for their work. And when you dont, I dont like you.

Why is it as a society we have this idea of less than - that some people are less than - that some people are not worthy of our thanks. Everyone should be thanked - hell I even thanked a customer at Mugg and Bean the other day - he looked at me like I was crazy.

This is a place of love - and we should show it to everyone.

Hope this note hits home and changes just a little bit of behaviour.

Thank you,
Kat

Inspired by art

Earlier this year - the most brilliant of artists HR Giger (he designed the set of Alien and other such films) passed away. 

He had a gorgeous sculpture garden at his home. 

You can check out some of the sculptures here:

http://io9.com/behold-the-unearthly-delights-of-h-r-gigers-personal-s-1575774509

I have loved the Geiger paintings ever since I took art in matric and VIth form. Magickal pictures capturing some interesting engagements between the alien and the real. world. He really captures a haunting look in his photos and it makes them come alive. 

When I look at them, they stay with me into my dreams. 

If you want to see Giger come alive - check out the movie The Cell. Awesome use of his art there. 

doors and windows

When I was in Ireland, one of the coolest things I saw was the number of different doors there were in the streets - it was so awesome how people decorated the entrance to their lives and their families so beautifully. 

It made me think about my door - my gateway - my body - and how I treat that and put it together for people. Do I make it welcoming? Do I make myself open and warm and ready to welcome, or am I closed and dark and foreboding. 

I am in the process of transformation at the moment. I am banting - losing kilograms and centimeters and loving it. But it does change me - I am different without the pounds I had before. And its quite scary.

Usually when I go on a diet or an eating plan it goes real well until I start loosing and then I get terrified, I get nervous that I am losing my padding. I start getting noticed by the opposite sex and I feel the vulnerability of no padding.

And then I stop. I relayer all the weight back on and wake up one morning thinking - I really need to lose weight. And we start again. 

Except this time I am working on breaking through that - and actually getting myself over that hurdle. Its exciting - and terrifying at the same time.

29 pounds down. 

71 pounds to go. 

xxx

The perfect job

So the latest challenge for the Writers bootcamp is to write about your life as if you had the job of a job ad you found in the local paper.

I thought I would do something different.

I thought rather, I would write the manifesto of my perfect job.

My perfect job

I awaken each morning excited at the prospect of the impact I will make. I am inspired by the people around me and I cannot wait to get to the office / site where I will be immersed in a culture of positive and driven people who are as eager to learn as they are to teach. I am in a space where no one is jaded, they just see the latest requirement as a challenge and they are excited to embrace it.

I am paid what I am worth without question - and I feel the worth which means that I dont spend what I dont need to. Suzy Ormond says we spend what we lack - never a truer word spoken. I am able to live comfortably, able to treat the ones I love and myself on occasion and travel. I have the time to travel, I have the means to travel. Perhaps I have some work that takes me to places that are far flung - and I latch on opportunities to explore to my work trips.

I am learning - every day. I am getting my mind stimulated and I am surrounded by really great people. Full of ideas and passions - all the time. I am supported by a great team - superiors and my colleagues. We are all in it together.

I have great colleagues. We are work friends, but we are also cool outside of work. They are not my be all and end all but they are great to spend 8+ hours with a day. They know more than me in some respects and I more than them in others. We inspire each other.

My clients / suppliers and colleagues are all committed to generating great success. We want what we do to work and we go for it whenever we can. We are not afraid.

I am an opinion leader, I am an adviser. I am fun. I am serious. I am knowledgeable. I have loads to learn.

I wake up in the morning and don't think of ways to get out of what I need to do. I embrace it.

Not sure what form this job takes - is it in media, is it my coffee shop, my florist in Ireland, is it my freelancing business? Who knows... all I know is it excites me to think its out there.

I just couldn’t live without…

Ah... one of the coolest questions ever. And my honest answer is C H O C O L A T E.

I eat it every.single.day! And I absolutely adore it.

But there is something deeper than that, that I cannot live without. I simply cannot live without passion. I am in a space at the moment where I am selling my soul 8 hours a day and definitely not living with passion and its impacting me deeply. I feel lost - like a boat adrift in an ocean with no anchor, no wind, no sails. Its a horrific feeling - and I often fall asleep in tears at the frustration.

But whats the solution? Its only been 10 months - but then that is 1% of my life if I live to be 75. And thats terrifying.

Oprah says live your best life. My best life is grounded in doing great work, living with passion and experiencing this thing called life to the fullest. When I dont do that, I feel dead. And thats where I am now.

Inspiration is so important - be inspired, be ignited, be alive.

Ive decided to see how I feel in 2 months. If its the same or worse, then I need to make a big call and a big decision.

But curiously, I am quite excited about that.

One of My Greatest Fears

 

One of my greatest fears (Day 3 topic for the @writersbootcmp twitter 31 day challenge) is death. 

Is this really the second time I am writing about death in two days? I honestly want to be a highlander - the thought of dying terrifies me and the idea of being undying until you have a sword death match against another immortal seems like such a good idea. 

I think its because its completely out of our control and I am a control freak - so the thought that this could be your last day is terrifying. How have I spent that day, where has my energy been used, have I told my dad and my sister and my brother that I love them, have I made the impact in the world I wanted to... endless questions I ask when pondering this idea of death. 

So whats the solution? Isnt it to live now... to really live now rather than just exist? When I start to think about that, then I think that I need to change things up and I need to do what I love, spend time with those I love and live as if it was my last day. 

And then I get over myself, turn my laptop on and carry on working. 

But more and more Im thinking thats not good enough!

Mary Oliver says

And that brings me to another fear - imagine if I never discover what my passion is - what makes the fire in my soul burn bright? That would be absolutely debilitating! So its my mission to start really thinking about what this passion is and putting things in place to live that passion. 

I fear that my passion for live may include connection to another - which means vulnerability and putting yourself out there - which in itself is terrifying. 

Whew - am I really that fearful? Did I always used to be...or has the school of life really trained me to dumb down my dreams and to shrug back into the warm blanket of familiarity?

I hope not. 

Actually. 

I refuse to accept that. 

Now thats brave.  

My five favourite words in English (or any other language)

Language

Its an incredible thing and I absolutely love words and more so, I love how they are moulded around each other to emulate (one of my favourites) a certain meaning.

So todays 31 days July blogging challenge is to choose your 5 favourite words (in any language) and report on why you love them and what they mean to you.

So welcome to my list...

1. Emulate... a word with so much depth. Even just saying it, it comes across as rich and regal and it exudes a great energy - to emulate is to match or surpass something, typically by imitation.

2. Vixen - such a sexy word - think its because it has an x in it. I like how it moves around in my mouth - its hot and spicy and drives thoughts of passion and excitement

3. Tenacity - a hard word to say with lots of tons of tongue movement - it means determination - and honestly, if you want to get that word out you need it!

4. Hyacinth - one of my most favourite flowers - scientific enough name to make it special but it doesnt give a hint about what amazing scent it has. Love the flower, love the word

5. Katharine - yup, my name. I love how its spelt, complicated and not normal, I love that it can be Katharine or Kat-ha-rin-e (sounds like Katarina) and so its not grounded or rooted in the expected. Love my name, so glad my dad spelt it wrong :)

Even if you know me well, you don't know this

So Ive decided to do the July Writers Bootcamp challenge (@writersbootcmp on twitter) - 31 days - 31 topics and 31 blog posts. If anything it will add some content to my blog that I havent updated in over 2 years and 3 months (unforgiveable). 


So the topic for Day 1 is: Even if you know me well, you don't know this...

So here goes. 

What most people dont know about me is that I hate losing people more than anything else (probably stems from the fact that I am finally realising, 18 years on that I actually havent dealt with the loss of my mum as much as I thought I had). I hate losing people in my life... to the point where I actually dont create relationships (specifically here romantic ones) because the pain of potentially losing the person overshadows the glory of actually having the connection. 

And its debilitating - because I desperately want connection and romance and passion - I want to feel the fire of love and let it burn me. But Im terrified to put my heart on the line and actually get out there. So its quite a catch 22 with no easy resolution. 

I did hear the other day though - Dr Phil (the good old Oprah one) was chatting to a woman about grief - she had lost her dog and everyone told her to get over it but she just couldnt seem to master that). He said that you have to focus beyond the day of death - because how can you reduce the entire relationship you had to that one day of loss - and let that be your single memory. You should remember all the good things because those, by sum, are greater than that single day of loss. 

So I am trying to take that on board and live more presently because you really exist only in the now at the end of the day (or at least thats what I am trying to tell myself). 

Watch this space. :)