Tuesday 31 January 2012

Positivity

Positivity

I have never been a positive person. I am not ultra negative but never realised until recently that my reactions to things always are negative.
I am the sort of person that would rather assume I didn’t get the job, even if the interview went amazing, and then have a nice surprised if I did, then to think I did get the job and then get the disappointment if I didn’t... That to me made so much more sense than this positive thinking – why would people want to risk disappointment?
But I have been sitting across from my friend Lee Anne at work who is just so pleasant, smiley, friendly and positive and I realised that I used to be called ‘Bubbly’ and felt like a nicer person then I do now. I started realising how grouchy I could be, when someone at work would ask me to do something, straight away I would think of problems in doing the task. It read on my face because I very much wear my heart on my sleeve. So if I am not happy about something, you can tell. I didn’t think you could tell, I thought I managed to hide it from people but I have recently been told that they can see if I am not happy about something. I hated that. For me, being called bubbly etc was nice because it meant that people saw me the way I wanted them too. To be told that they know exactly how I feel makes me upset because I am constantly fighting with myself to not be that person.

So my new year’s resolution was to be more positive, it is hard going! I knew it would be because it is never easy to break a habit but I now catch myself thinking negatively and try and tell myself to stop. I feel like I am getting back to the person I was, before I started working, a bit more. Ever so slightly I feel like the annoyances I feel can be caught quicker so they don’t show and I can get myself past that feeling.... If someone asks me to do something I try and be positive and when I actually manage to do that I feel so much better in myself!
You would think, the fact that I know that reacting better to things actually makes me happier, it wouldn’t be so hard to do it all the time but it is. Today, for example, I woke up shattered and just felt grumpy. It is really hard to then fight those impatient feelings you get when someone asks you a question and you REALLY can’t be bothered to answer or to get up the energy to answer in a nice happy way.

I am really trying though. I guess that is the most important thing, I keep trying to be better and then hopefully one day I just will be that person I want to be.
1 month down and I have both good and bad days, days when it comes easily, days when it doesn’t but I keep trying. 

I think if I can catch myself thinking negatively quickly, then I can actually get to the point when I naturally think more positively. That is what I am working towards.

So New Year’s resolution, 1 month in, it’s hard but I am still doing it and that for me is a positive J

Thursday 26 January 2012

January

January.

January is meant to be a bit of a down month because it is just after Christmas and everyone is poor, the weather isn’t great and everyone has to go back to work. January blues.

This January has been pretty bloody awesome for me! First thing that happened, beginning of the month I won a competition through twitter in which I got £250 pounds to give to a charity of my choice and £250 Mr & Mrs Smith vouchers (a boutique hotel company). That was pretty awesome considering I have never won a competition before and the prize was great!
To get all that all I had to do was re tweet any tweets that ‘The Liquid Way’ (an agency) posted that had the hash tag #sharethelove – simple!
The best part of that prize was the giving to charity, makes you feel brilliant. I gave to two smaller charities who I thought it would mean more too – Strollers and The ACLT. Both mean something to me as Strollers is ran by my future mother in law and my sister had a friend in Uni who died and his mum runs the ACLT.
Dan and I will probably use the hotel vouchers for a birthday weekend away in July (that will also be a great month!)

Anyway back to January. So that happened right at the start of the New Year, then on the Saturday 14th I went wedding dress shopping for the second time with my mum and bridesmaids (Imogen and my sister Stevie). We had a 10 o’clock appointment at ‘Miss Bush’ – great name right?! And then an 11 o’clock appointment to try some bridesmaid outfits on. There was one particular dress I wanted to try back on as had tried it in September and loved it. Anyway to cut a long story short, by 12 o’clock that day I had bought my dress (with £275 off) and paid a deposit for the bridesmaid’s dresses. It was great!
Few days later Dan and I booked our DJ and our day music for the wedding and went and met our wedding coordinator for the big day. Booked accommodation and ran through the day – which was a massive relief knowing our coordinator was so on the ball!
In terms of wedding stuff, January has been pretty amazing and 2012 has started off, as I knew it would, brilliantly!

Saturday 21 January 2012

Blogging/Social Media

 
Second blog.

I am so unsure about this blogging thing. I completely understand the writing down of one’s thoughts and keeping them somewhere online so you can always go back and re read if wanted. Like an online diary. But I never really kept a diary and even if I did I would NEVER want someone else to read it. So why is everyone so desperate for people to hear what they have to say, we tweet and facebook and blog our every thoughts and are happy to see people respond and feel a little let down if there is no response... but why?
Generally nothing we really say on social media sites are really worth reading. Yesterday I tweeted 'Zumba Time'. That was all. Who is actually interested in knowing that I am going to Zumba on my lunch break and why am I telling people thinking they might be interested when I know they aren’t?
I completely understand people who go on twitter to follow famous people they are interested in (as I am one of those people) but these celebs, half the time, are tweeting similar sort of nothingy facts about their day and we soak it up like they are talking directly to us when really they are just like us, normal people going about their better than average lives.

Saying all this I am always on twitter and facebook and I follow famous people and I have tweeted them in the hopes they might respond to me, alas the only 'famous' person to reply to my tweets are ‘Brides magazine’ lol. But because of this I will still tweet them as it is really nice to know that they do take the time to read their followers tweets - it made me feel slightly special. And I have to admit that I am obsessed with social media, I love seeing peoples pictures and seeing what they have to say. I like having something to write on twitter and feel great when new people start to follow me. I am one of those people that lives through their profile and finds out most of my friends big news through their updates. I am happy with this. That is how things are done now and I never have been one of these people who rebel against something because it is 'popular'.

But as happy as I am to admit my obsession with Twitter and facebook, I am very uncertain about promoting the fact that I am basically taking my 140 word allocation on twitter and saying 'that is not enough for what I have to say' as if what I have to say is so important it is worth its own web page!
For me to put this blog link on my twitter would cause me embarrassment and I don't know if I feel right about announcing that, not only have I created my own blog but, I want everyone who follows me to read it. It is so narcissistic isn't it? Craving attention and approval from friends and even strangers, people that you will probably never meet.
I think it takes courage to actually admit that you feel confident enough in your writing abilities that you will let anyone who happens to stumble on your page read your every thought. Does everyone have that craving of slight celebrity?
I really hate the thought of being famous and yet people reading my blog would seem like a win, wouldn't it? Otherwise what would be the point of a blog if you are the only one to read it?! Pointless. The whole blogging point is to get people to read, comment, share, talk about.... is it not?

Ironic that you are reading about my blogging reservation on MY blog!

But in writing this I realise that everything I am conscious about, when broadcasting I have a blog, is ultimately not worth worrying about as I HAVE created this blog, I AM writing on it so I must want people to read it for it to have been worth the time taken to write it.

And yet I am still apprehensive. Maybe it is because, once it has been broadcast and people know about it, I can’t then hide if people hate it or, possibly worse, if no one reads it.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

First ever blog

So this is my first blog EVER on the attractively named 'Peake's Dumping Ground' page :)
I called it that because I assume, knowing me, that this will be more like an online diary rather than anything of any worth or will have any specific subject.


I have been thinking about writing a blog for a long time but never really knew what to write about or why I would even write anything. I have decided though, because it is 2012, to just go for it. If I don't stick to it then no problem I doubt it will be a frequently visited blog by anyone other than myself and my fiancĂ© Dan anyway! Hi Dan by the way, thanks for reading.

I don't even understand blogs other than they are places where people write what they are thinking, feeling, advice etc and other people read and comment. I actually never read a blog before a couple of months ago so I am almost a complete newbie at this.

Anyway best go and think of some subjects to write on here so there is a reason for me being on here!