Daisy Love

When I see a cluster of daisies adorning the grass around our driveway, I know that summer is on its way.

There is something so beautiful and so familiar in these humble little plants. They evoke so many happy memories of summer: weaving daisy-chains outside the high school in-between games of rounders, picnics in the park with friends as we wait for our buses after work, soaking up the sun in the breezy lush grass of our fields, lazy family strolls along the shore road with our dogs - the list goes on.

And there is further beauty to be found among the speckled spots of yellow and white. Though they are shadowed beneath the bold and bountiful summer produce blooming in our gardens at this time of year and though they are ruthlessly trampled underfoot like the dirt in which they grow, these little "weeds", as we call them, continue to blossom and thrive - embellishing everything with cheerful yellow spots on a soft white blanket.  Daisies do not care where they are planted and they do not care what bigger and better things they are planted with, they simply grow and grow and make everything they touch that little more beautiful.

I think I'd like to be a little more like a daisy.

Where Have You Been?

Goodness me it feels good to be writing.

Do you like the new look to the place? I felt it was time for a fresh start and with that came a new name.

(Thanks to Laura over at Dream Literature for helping me with the design!)

In case you have forgotten, my name is Mollie and I used to write here a few weeks (months? eek) ago.

The reason for my temporary absence was that I got to a stage where I felt my blog was becoming a bottleneck to my creativity rather than an opportunity to express it. As a self-confessed perfectionist, I tend to sweat the small stuff rather than focus on the achievements of the bigger picture and so through my many efforts to improve my blog, I began to loose sight of why I started blogging in the first place - to enjoy it!

So a break for some fresh inspiration and clarity was in order and as a result I feel excited and ready to return to my little corner of the internet where my main focus now is sharing my passions and thoughts with the world; everything else can simply grow and blossom naturally.

I am very excited to get started.

If you would like to see what I have been up to during my absence then watch the video below from my YouTube Channel.

Kindness | Mollie'sThoughts

Hello everyone.

As promised, I’m here with a bonus post which will be a more regular occurrence! For this bonus post (which also happens to be my 20^th post), I thought I’d do another ‘Mollie’s Thoughts’ edition focusing on kindness.

The word “kind” is one that we say many many times in our sentences and it is one of those go-to words that just springs to mind and is recognised by everyone. It’s a word that is one of the first we use when listing a friend’s personality traits – kind, thoughtful, funny etc or to round up a letter/ e-mail ("kind regards,"). We use this same word so many times that sometimes we can just use it like any other, without much thought or attention; we forget it’s real importance and meaning.

The online dictionary’s definition of kindness is:   “The act of being friendly, generous and considerate.”

In today’s world, everyone seems to always be in a hurry without even enough time to say a passing “hello” to a neighbour. But I think it’s so important to always make time to show people a little kindess.

For all we know, the other person could be having a terrible day and your kind smile and cheerful “hello there” could be just what they need to pick themselves back up! We all know that scenario very well don’t we? We’ve all been there and felt how much of an impact a strangers’ kindness can have. We also know the impact of when someone simply avoids an act of kindness because they’re being too self-focused to notice/help you. For example, if you’re carrying heavy books through a corridor behind someone and they simply let the door swing shut behind them rather than holding it for you. Or when you’re in a rush somewhere and you’ve dropped something and though people around you have noticed, they keep quiet - leaving you to realise what you’ve done yourself about 50 steps later.

It’s these simple acts of kindness that can make or break someone’s day so why don’t we make the effort to be more "friendly, generous and considerate" to others and make a difference?

We all know a smile is infectious, but so is kindness! When we demonstrate an act of kindness, it will touch and inspire those around us to go on to do something kind for someone else; the potential for a whole train of kind actions and happier people is held in the hands of someone who offers a tissue to a stranger who is sneezing or says “thankyou” to someone who serves us at a checkout.

Adults spend most of their time teaching their little ones to “say please and thankyou” and “don’t be rude” but we ourselves let our actions slip sometimes. So next time the occasion arises, let’s give a stranger a smile, help someone who looks lost, say our pleases and thank yous and hold the door open for someone whether they’re holding heavy items or not. Let’s bring back the old-fashioned manners and courtesy that Britain is famous for and let's show everyone around us some kindness.

20 Acts of Kindness

Now, as this is my 20th post on my blog I thought, why not incorporate it into this theme? So this week (by next Monday), I challenge you to carry out 20 significant acts of kindness and either blog them and link it back to this post (if you're a blogger), leave them in the comments or even write them down somewhere such as a notebook if you'd rather keep them personal and let's see how many people's lives you're able to touch in a positive way in one week! You can also write down their reaction as well if you'd like.

Everyone wants to change the world, so let's begin with baby steps and help make some people smile this week!

Mollie

♥

P.S. I'm so grateful to have this blog and have reached even a small milestone of 20 posts! I'm even more grateful to have every one of you who reads my blog and I want you to know that you're all very special to me.
Don't forget to follow me on Blog Lovin' or add my blog to your 'reading list' if you have an account on blogger! See you soon. xx

Breathe Slow

Hello everyone.

I’ve realised that week by week I have to go back and look at my previous post to remember what it contained. That’s the great thing about having a blog I guess, it reminds me (and gives you an insight into) what is happening in my life at a particular time and my likes, dislikes, attitudes and memories of that time.

Speaking of likes and dislikes, I have always really enjoyed Alesha Dixon’s song Breathe Slow. It has been my go-to song whenever I’ve felt stressed out, weighed down or just generally needed a reminder to just relax -I especially enjoy listening to it during exams.

This has been one of those weeks where I’ve took a quiet moment to listen to it (or sing… if nobody’s listening). It’s been a little stressful and as an already self-confessed stresser it’s been tiring. As you know I’ve had my Advanced Higher art to finish this week (it's all I seem to blog about) and with only two days available to go into school and sort it I wasn’t sure if I’d get it done. To my surprise though I managed to dash into school, package and label everything and get the next bus two hours later as I had completed it. Art coursework? Check.

But the most stressful event this week has been quite a personal one. There was a bit of a family situation which took place involving a loved one going to hospital to receive some potentially devastating news. It’s quite difficult to even write about so I won’t go into detail. I’d also prefer to keep it private. But thankfully, after many, many prayers the news we received was not as bad as expected and normality I beginning to resume in the family.

One thing this has taught me though is that life is too short. I spend the majority of time stressing about one thing or another- worrying about what other people think of me to what I’ll have on my toast in the morning-and to be honest, I’m being pretty ridiculous. So what if I make mistakes? What does it matter what others think about me? Why should I sweat the small stuff? Life is too short and too amazing to worry about the silly little things. The bigger picture is what’s important. I have my health, I have amazing friends and family, a job, opportunities, hobbies, an education; all the things that make me happy. It doesn’t matter what the next person thinks of my life because they’re not living it. Everyone is unique and different and beautiful in their own way.

I’ve realised this is now turning a little preachy but it is only because this is something that really touches my heart. It’s your life, live it how YOU want to and do things that make YOU happy and that will make YOU smile when you sit in your rocking chair one day and reminisce.

Another thing that has happening this week is that because of all my stressing I have rushed my days away before I even knew it therefore leaving hardly any time to appreciate what’s going on. This happens sometimes for me because of my worrying which is why I occasionally have a reflective day where I chill out at home and just process my life a little –this is where I get inspired for a lot of things. I read my Bible, write in a diary or my “What I’m grateful for today” book and just think. Because part of life being so short is that we need to treasure and remember every happy moment of it.

This leads me back to the beginning of my blog, –a circle of writing, my old English teacher would be proud- where I talked about how grateful I am to have a blog where I can put my thoughts and ideas down so I won’t ever forget them.

So, this week I’m going to make a conscious effort to Breathe Slow and take everything in so that when I’m sitting in my stockings, false teeth and cardigan I can look back and remember each precious moment of my life and remember how blessed I am to live it.

I’d also like to add that something else I am grateful to have also come out of our horrible ordeal this week is that I feel I have reconnected with my Christian faith and more importantly, with Jesus. He gave me peace on the day of the news that I can’t describe and led me to passages that gave me hope and for that I’m so blessed.

Mollie

♥

So You’ve Had a Bad Day?

Hello everyone.

Today’s post is as the title suggests, about having a bad day. “But Mollie, nobody wants to think about that, it’s such a depressing subject!”. Ahh well my observant well-spoken reader, the truth is, I know.  Having a bad day isn’t fun at all but it is something that just happens sometimes and besides, this post ends positively. Promise.

I feel I should justify why I have chosen such a melancholy subject to talk about today so here we go. For me today began as just ‘one of those days’. You know what I mean, you wake up with a sigh and an “Oh, here we go again” attitude and nothing seems to go right. The jump in the shower to find there’s no hot water left or style your hair nicely just to find that the wind and rain have other ideas or maybe like me you’re just a little bored of the prospect of yet another day at school/work sort of business. From the moment you walk out of your front door you’ve already got your ‘Well, let’s just get through the day’ head on. This now is where I see I’ve gone wrong.

One reason being that because you’ve got the idea of having a bad day already into your head, you’re stuck thinking you’re going to have a bad day and so all the little things that go wrong which would usually go unnoticed suddenly become your impending doom. You begin to think negatively about everything and before you know it, you dropping that pen for the second time was God’s way of telling you to quit everything. But see, this is where I began to stop and think.

Was me having a double free first thing at school with hardly anything to do with myself really such a bad thing after all seeing as I ended up learning lines for a play and having a giggle with my friends?

Was the dread of going to my admin class and working through a past paper really going to ruin my day when I ended up learning some important skills and identifying a problem with my computer now which if me and my teacher hadn’t spotted could have affected me in my exam?

And was the prospect of me having to stay after-school for two more hours for the school’s play rehearsal going to get me down when I ended up practicing some new scenes and laughing hysterically with one of my friends?

Even after returning home from school, I still thought about my day in a negative way because I failed to notice these positive outcomes to what I felt were frustrating circumstances to be in. That was until just an hour or so ago. You see, following ‘one of those days’ from a few weeks ago I came home and reflected on the day to see what it was that made it a ‘bad day’ and the truth was, I found it wasn’t such a bad day after all; in finding these negative situations I began to remember many of the positive ones that happened either on their own or because of a negative situation.

It was on that ‘bad day’ that I decided I was going to stop remembering the negatives in my day and focus on the positives. It was also that day that I began my “What I’m grateful for today” diary. Starting that day, whenever I’ve had a bad day-or a good day- I’ve sat down in the evening before bed and thought about the things that made me smile. To my surprise, even when I thought everything had gone wrong that day, there was a list of at least 10 things that really made me smile; whether it had been talking to an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while to simply someone holding the door open for me or paying me a compliment. It all adds up and it all leaves me feeling my day might not have been so bad after all.

I hope this post hasn’t been too sad. It’s just something I felt I wanted to share and that I know a lot of people can relate to. (It’s also another item to add to my list of “What I’m grateful for today”!)  I hope that after reading this you will want to begin a diary like this or even just take 10 minutes of your evening to focus on what positive things happened in your day; you will be surprised at how many you can list if you really think about it!

Remember: everyday may not be a good day, but there is something good in everyday. And besides, I think you're awesome.

Mollie

♥