Tag Archives: Deepak Chopra

French Winter Gardens and Welshies

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in For the live of dogs, mental health, My home, Reflections, Simple things, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure, The seasons

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Winter arrived quickly, and for the past few mornings we have woken to frosts and temperatures below freezing, which means we are lucky enough to watch the amazing sunrises every morning.

We are up early for work, RD goes off and my day is full of the chores you have when living in an old stone house, in the middle of rural France, on a limited budget: the good old log splitting, hoovering, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, and today removing the mould that I occasionally grows on our old stone walls (I side). It’s just part of this life we chose, I don’t stress over it any more.

I have often said how winters can be long, and that we should all try and embrace this season. Today I took my advice. It is a cold, crisp, sunny winters day, and I am currently sitting in the garden on one of our garden chairs drinking tea; spending time with nature and my dogs.

I was pushing the wheelbarrow of logs across the garden, with the habit I fight every day taking pride of place: planning what I should do next, when I looked around and thought ‘what am I doing?’ I realised I should seize the moment on this glorious winters day, and take time to sit in the garden with my tea and spend time with my puppies, they remind me very day to cherish each moment.

Even Daisy the cat is giving me stinkeye because she wanted to come out and join us!

She looks like a Bond villain!

I don’t know how long I will live in this beautiful place, so I need to embrace it whilst I can, in every season.

As is my want, being brought up by people who worked hard to fill every day with work, to always keep going. As my counsellor said: I am a ‘doer’ I just will work and set myself what are often un-achievable targets, I don’t feel I have achieved if I don’t and often I don’t feel I have because the targets are un-achievable. Those ingrained habits are hard to break! Despite knowing that we should all take time; despite writing in my diary at the beginning of the year a quote from Deepak Chopra:

‘ set aside a little time every once in a while to experience silence…’

I still have to pull myself up short to do it. I probably achieve it once a month!

But today I have taken the time but sadly my teas is now finished, and the sun is now hazy, my fingers are cold and it is time to get on. Now where are my rubber gloves?

Rosie

Times are changing – The Wedding Fayre – our little endeavour

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Change is a coming, My home, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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Last week I was busy busy busy preparing items for out little enterprise of handmade products that we sell on out Etsy shop. We invested in a scroll saw for Rich so that he can get the cuts precision perfect and as a result I also came up with some new designs.

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I love them, and lovingly wrapped them and took them off to the wedding fayre on Sunday. Having finished reading Deepak chopra I was philosophical that if nothing came from it then it was life showing me the way, and that we would need to let this part of the enterprise go.

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I was pleased with the way the table looked and knew that our items looked good.

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The weather was not good (although as I write this we have lovely warm Autumn sunshine and temperatures of over twenty-four degrees.) in fact it was literally sheeting down with rain; but the French do like to get out on a Sunday afternoon and over eighty people came to the wedding fayre, and many showed an interest in our pretty little hearts.They appreciated Rich’s cutting of the wood more than anything (the boy done good) and knew that what he had accomplished was not easy; and they also picked up on the fact that many of the items would change colour as the day wore on and they loved it! It didn’t help that I had forgotten the word for the verb to make (faire) until the very end of the day, but I got by.

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More importantly I met some lovely people there, a lady who makes the most beautiful cakes, and who made me giggle throughout the afternoon; and a lovely lady who runs a shop in the town of Gorron where she stocks handmade products from artisans; I took it as a sign when she  came over and asked me if we would take some stock to her for her shop as she liked it and wanted to promote it for us. When I said how interested the French people had been she said that she had found that they seemed  to appreciate handmade products, and understand the amount of time and work that went in to them. So life did show me the way and I will be visiting her tomorrow, and Rich and I will branch out and make handmade Christmas decorations and angels in time for Christmas. (Although always remember an angel and a star are for life, not just for Christmas!)

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But, and there is a but…. Having read Deepak Chopra he says that we are all destined to do something, and you know what that ‘something’ is when time flies….

“When you’re doing that one thing, you lose track of time” 

Deepak Chopra – ‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ 

I know that really for me my love is writing, and time does just fly when I am writing. With nearly two thousand monthly hits, and counting, on my blog  it is just getting better and better. So I am going to give it one more try sending my book to agents; however if I am not successful I am going to turn it into a a blog – it needs to be out there, because I know it will help people. It went to board for consideration with two publishers so I knew I had something to say and from the blogs that I have read, and people I have spoken to, there is a need for it – I truly believe that.  As Deepak chopra says

“The third component of the Law of Dharma is service to humanity – to serve your fellow human beings and to ask yourself the questions. ‘How can I help’……

‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’

I would really value your opinion on this one folks shall I blog it?

Look forward to hearing from you.

Moisy

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Changes are coming…How living here has taught me so much

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Change is a coming, The adventures of living life in the French countryside, The continuing adventure

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This was the view that greeted us when we looked through our old and very tatty kitchen window, the old oil tank for the central heating system. We never used the system, firstly because it was so old and dilapidated it didn’t work, and secondly because there was no point in having it repaired because we didn’t have the four thousand euros for the oil every year!

People said to us that we should go back to the Notaire (think French Solicitor ) and lodge a complaint against the farmer who had sold us the house, because he had said it was a working system; this would be the same farmer that owns all the fields around us and could easily make life difficult for us, and we decided that what was the point in arguing over a heating system we were never going to use. It got me thinking….

I have always been the kind of girl that came out fighting, nothing would beat me, because I wouldn’t let it. I am not going to say that my strength did not enable me to come through some of the most difficult times of my life, mostly when I felt abandoned and alone, and I would not have survived without my fighting instinct then; as M Scott Peck explains in ‘The Road Less Travelled’ people with strong personalities are ‘blessed’, but, and there is a but, it is like having the equivalent of ten strong horses in your back yard and trying to control them. Living here has enabled me to do that.

It has given me space, space from people, space from life, with nature all around me. It has given me time to re the Tao Te Ching, and now Deepak Chopra, and it has given me time to contemplate what I have read and understand it. I understand that to come out fighting may get you what you want, but exhausts you in the process; and I understand that you can achieve the same result most times without fighting at all; or you may even decide that you just don’t care enough.

So back to the oil tank, that was taking up a lot of room in our chemin, where we could put another log store. Now talk about life showing you the way, earlier in the week two scrap metal merchants arrived unexpectedly and asked if we had anything they could take; Rich seized the opportunity and offered them the very heavy, and impossible to move oil tank. So out came a huge chain from their big truck and it was tied around the tank, and they pulled, and they pulled, and the tank would not budge! They all decided it was best to leave it when up came the farmer, the farmer who sold us the house, in his gigantic tractor; he jumped down spoke to Rich and without any further discussion lifted the oil tank out of it’s resting place and plonked it onto their truck. Simples!

This is my view from my dilapidated window now

It proves my point, better to be friends than enemies, you don’t always have to do battle; would the farmer have helped us if we had fought him about something that did not matter? I think not.

Choose your battles wisely, and even then go away and think about them.

Look out for more blogs, more changes are on their way….

Moisy