Blog Every Day in May: 13 Year Old You

Dear Me,

How are you doing?  Please don't freak out, but this is a letter from your future self.  I'm sat here writing this in 2013, and mailing it back to you in 1994.  As you read this you're probably sitting in the common room waiting for the tuck cupboard to open.  Or maybe you're in the dorm with Alex, Linda and Jo, gossiping and sorting out your lockers.  I remember how disorganised you/I used to be.  Perhaps you stuffed this into your pocket as you hightailed it across the campus to orchestra (were you late again?) and you're reading this behind your music folder as Miss Cutter rehearses the strings.

Wherever you are, I hope you have the time to read this.

You have so much ahead of you, both good and bad, and I want to let you know - it's going to be okay.  Even on the dark days, in your loneliest moments, when you hate yourself (I know you do sometimes - I am you, remember), please know that you are going to be just fine.  While you might not be able to see it, all you need is right there inside of you.  And when you get to here, you are going to be so happy.

When I realised I could write to you (I would explain how, but it's all a little Star Trek!), I was tempted to give you some heads-ups, to let you know some things to avoid.  But then I realised, that's not the way life is supposed to be.  Just as the wins, the successes, the happy highs are part of life, so are the bad moments, the losses, the disappointments.  How I wish I could sheild you from them....but again, if I did, you might not wind up here.  And I really want you to.  Here is good.  Very good.

So instead of providing spoilers, I'll leave you with some advice.  Please realise that you are neither 'fat' nor 'ugly'.  I know that Peter and Debbie and Paul tell you this daily, but please understand that they are wrong.  And that in a couple of decades you won't even recall their surnames.  Please remember to floss, and take up the challenges set before you.  Be brave.  Be kind.  Be you.

Enjoy the ride, thirteen-year-old me.  It's worth it, I promise.

Love,
Thirty-two year old me/you/us

PS Yes, one day you will learn how to tame your hair.  You'll actually learn to love it. /spoiler alert /worth it

Blog Every Day in May: Dream Job

Today on BEDM, we're two-thirds of the way through and today we are writing about our dream job.

I'm very lucky, because I do my dream job.  Well, one of them.

In my youth, once my fantasies of becoming Oprah, Meryl, Mary Poppins or John Craven had subsided, I had boiled down my career choices to four clear favourites: teacher, writer, singer, mum.

I always tell my class that I'm very lucky.  I have not just one, but three or four vocations, and I get to enjoy them all.

I love to teach.  Spending my days surrounded by wee folk, helping them, encouraging them, guiding them....that's my idea of a good time.  I also love the sector I teach in - being in an independent school is a different ball game (while still startlingly similar - all teachers have plenty in common!), with some different skills required (while others which are needed in spades in state education are left unused).  I love that I get to specialise in certain areas - English, Maths, Humanities and pastoral care - while still working with the age group I adore the most (7-11).  I'm also most fortunate in finding my niche so early in my career - it turns out my boundless energy, sense of humour and Labrador-esque levels of enthusiasm works well for teaching classes of boys!  That said, I loved teaching co-ed too, and every so often the thought of trying girls only education flits across my noodle (when I'm not marking/planning/workshopping!).

My other loves work into my life in other ways.  I write a lot, both here on my blog and elsewhere - poems, stories, limericks for my class.  While my singing has taken a back seat since I moved to London, I can still carry a tune, and have enough remembrances from my youth to recall my singing adventures.  The mum thing may or may not happen, but I'm lucky enough to have a bundle of friends whose children I will spoil rotten if it doesn't!

I am an infinitely lucky girl.  I get to live my dream.

Monday Funday: 20.5.13

Another Monday, another bunch of fun, silly, interesting and thought-provoking internet finds to share!  If you'd like to link up, please do so below - I'd love to see what's making you chuckle, think, or ponder.  Whether it's a post, a pin, a picture or a poem, I love to see what's inspiring you.

Love this post on the best moment of the day - such beautiful writing!  The little moments truly do inspire.

This truly made me giggle.

This tutorial on how to make labels in Microsoft Word is brilliant!  I can't wait to play with this idea!

Once the wedding's done and paid for I might try this money challenge - would probably shift the weeks around though so all the big hits aren't in a row!

My mornings.

Love this stamp for wedding mailings and Christmas cards to come!

Some of these striped floors are seriously groovy.  I'd love to do something like this in our basement or on the ground floor.

I adore all the upcycling ideas here - can't wait to overhaul our garden!

Love this clever post - wedding planning checklists sorted by length of engagement.

Blog Every Day in May: Traditions

I love a good tradition.  Coming from a military family, there was a healthy whack of tradition to what we do.  To this day I still spring to my feet the moment the national anthem plays.  Which was quite embarassing in our Jubilee concert rehearsals last year, as my whole form rolled their eyes at me when I was the only person to do so.  Well hang it.  It's tradition.

Springing to one's feet for the monarch notwithstanding, my school is fairly traditional, and I love the fact that it is.  Our boys wear uniform, learn how to place their cutlery at the end of the meal, the importance of taking their turn - for the good and the less-good things in life, and how to approach exams.  They also stand for an adult entering the room....a small and uber-traditional touch which I LOVE.  From not really having an opinion on such things, I now am convinced that this is important in setting the tone for the classroom and the lesson.  We operate as a school with respect for all members of our team, but that standing up at the start of lessons is a subtle cue to all of the expectations of the study ahead.  It might not work for every school....for our bright, keen boys it definitely does!

In my personal life there are certain traditions I like to keep.  Thank you notes for favours, parties and gifts (I fell off the wagon a little with this in the past eighteen months but am getting back into it).  Sunday lunch or dinner as a focal point in the week.  The weekend phone call to my parents, springing naturally from the weekend letter home they would make us write at boarding school.

We also have a few traditions here at home too - catching up over a cup of tea at the end of a day.  Cards on Valentines (but no gifts) and a meal out on any day but the 14th February.  The early morning texts (Matthew and I started out as a long distance relationship, and this habit remains).  And the many, many Christmas traditions - the drinks party, the meal, the stocking, the twelve days gifts.

For someone who's also a self-confessed hippy at times, I do love me a tradition!

Friends

So, I didn't blog yesterday.  But as I am shockingly verbose and prolific on here anyhow, I'm betting that makes next to no difference to you ;)  But today I am back on it and writing on Rose's chosen theme for the day - 'best friends'. 

Like many people in their thirties, I don't have a best friend, but instead I have an awesome crew of close friends.  Friends from school, uni, uni again, work, Junior League, Join Me, blogging...the crazy cast of characters in my life never ceases to amaze me and make me so, so grateful.  My friends are awesome - clever, talented, beautiful, cool, loving, kind and funny, funny, funny.

Last weekend Matthew and I were lucky enough to be joined by some of our wonderful friends for our engagement drinks - here's just a small selection of the wonderful people we work, play and hang out with.  These photos really capture the fun of the evening and the laidback vibe :)  Wherever we are, if our friends are there it's a good time.  Looking forward to catching up with even more folk over the summer!

Dan, Henry and Siobhán.

Matthew with Caroline and Sy, two of his work colleagues.  Caroline is a fellow Junior League girl too!

Holly and Lindsey - I've been to both of their weddings as Matthew's guest, am looking forward to seeing them at our wedding next year!

Jane and Kate - two of the kindest, nicest people you'll ever be lucky enough to meet.

I *love* my JLL sisters - Natalie, Lauren, Hayley and Bejay are all so funny and cute.  Bejay came for drinks after a whole day volunteering (alongside Eileen, my friend who has now joined JLL too) - what a trooper!  Later on, still more JLLers were able to make it - what a treat! 

My stunning colleagues, Emer, Jo and Margot - they are the other girl teachers in my building.  I was so pleased they could join us!

Tom, Matthew's cousin Jo and his mum.  It was so wonderful to have Matthew's parents to stay, and their faces when Jo and Tom arrived were a picture.  I really hope we can see more of them , they are a fab couple.

Laura, one of my dearest friends (and one of the many members of my awesome bridal squad) was able to come down for the weekend from Scotland.  She's so sweet and so clever!

I love how well all my friends get on!

Hayley, Rory, Eileen, Dan - I can't wait to party with these lovely people at Rory and Eileen's wedding in two weeks! 

My friends always make me grin.

Alastair and Laura.  Alastair and his lovely girlfriend Emma I first met at Laura and James's new year's eve party.  Laura is impossibly pretty and spit-take funny, and engaged to James, one of Matthew's best men.  James and Laura are also getting married next year! 

Laura, Jo and Aksinia.  I was Laura's maid-of-honour a few years back and Jo gets married in 2014 as well (it's going to be a busy old year!).  Aksinia is a true darling and it was so good of her to pop along after a long days work! 

Jo and I being ridiculous.

My colleagues are such fun!

See?

I truly am blessed to have friends like mine.  Time spent with friends is always a real treat!