#JournalinginJuly – Week 4

Welcome to Week 4 of my #JournalinginJuly posts. I’m joining Sue at Sizzling Towards 60 and Beyond, for a month of writing daily journal prompts. I’ll be linking up my weekly posts each Saturday throughout July. Feel free to join in – the link is open to everyone.

So without further ado – here are my responses for the fourth week of #JournalinginJuly

This week again had lots of fun answers 🙂

21. I’m good at…

Sunday 21 July

For some reason, many of us are wired to not blow our own trumpet or constantly tell everybody what we’re good at. Some people can do it really well, but I just can’t. I would probably turn it around and say I’m not good at housework, gardening or cooking but I am good at procrastinating, wasting time, reading, drinking tea and talking 🙂

So I put the question to my husband and my daughters to get a different perspective. My daughters sent me some nice words, after first establishing that I wasn’t fishing for compliments.

And my husband just rolled his eyes at me!

So here are some things I’m good at from a variety of sources.

Apparently I’m GOOD at:

• cooking chicken drumsticks
• planning/organising
• taking risk and pushing myself out of my comfort zone
• learning new things
• infecting the people I am around with happiness and positiveness
• great at being a mum and a grandmother
• looking after others
• travelling and retirement
• being community minded and engaged – Rail Trail, Rotary Youth Exchange
• keeping active
• smelling a camera from a mile away and being ready with a Debbie smile
• making friends and sharing my story wherever I am

22. I’m thankful for…

Monday 21 July

It’s a sad day today. We are with family for the 5th anniversary of my brother-in-law’s sudden and shocking death back in 2014. I have written a post about it which you can read here if you’re so inclined. I’m thankful we had him in our lives and that we have fun memories to look back on.

So I’m thankful for having a loving family, the ability to live well in my retirement, my health, my body that takes me through a variety of exercises without any drama, my youth (yes I’m a young 58), great friends and a curious, inquisitive, playful outlook on life.

Believe me there are so many things I’m thankful for. How about you?

23. My favourite season

Tuesday 23 July

I covered my favourite season back on Day 13 for the prompt My Favourite time of the Year, so instead I’m going to mention a post I wrote a while ago covering my 5 decades and how to live your best life. I actually did a quick recap on each of these decades, which was a fun exercise and one I’d recommend you do for yourself when you have a spare moment.

My favourite season would probably be around my birthday (mid December), leading into Christmas, mainly because many people are excited for all the parties in summer/holidays/presents.

This year I’ll be in England for my birthday and Christmas and it definitely won’t be summer holidays at the beach!! I do enjoy experiencing different seasons in different countries so I’m excited – see Day 25 below!

24. What I don’t want in my life

Wednesday 24 July

Sue asked me to write a guest post for her #JournalinginJuly series and I chose this prompt. You can read the full post over at Sue’s blog here. In the meantime here’s an excerpt for you.

Five things I don’t want in my life:

Negativity/meanness

My mother always told me if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all. 

Toxic people

I’m lucky that these days I have a distinct lack of toxic people in my life.  When I was working, they were everywhere. 

Being overwhelmed

Feelings of being overwhelmed can be debilitating, although pressure is sometimes good. It’s when the pressure builds up and takes over that it gets hard and I know it’s time for a break. I’m learning to listen to my body.

Fake/plastic people

When I worked in the gaol system there was a term called ‘Plastic Gangsters’ which referred to inmates who thought they were ‘real’ criminals but in fact were just pretenders.  We’re all special and have our own uniqueness, so why pretend to be something you’re not?  I just don’t get it sometimes.

A world without smiles and laughter

The world needs laughter and we all need to laugh more.  In my opinion we all need to lighten up and learn to laugh at ourselves and with others.  The chemical reactions in the brain have a positive effect on us and can help us out no end.  I’m not saying there aren’t times when we need to be serious, but we can all use more laughter in our lives.  Life is hard enough!

Smile and the world smiles with you – another great saying!

25. I’m excited about…

Thursday 25 July

I’m constantly excited!! But what excites me most at the moment is the fact I have a new grandchild on the way. We are planning our trip from Australia to England to be with our daughter and son-in-law for the birth and a few weeks/months afterwards. I’m busy planning and trying to get things sorted so that’s always exciting!

But today my excitement was for the chance to catch up with a school friend. We live hours apart but whenever I’m in the area I try to make contact and sometimes we can get to meet and other times it’s just a conversation over the phone. Here we are today.

26. The best thing about today

Friday 26 July

Today is sunny here on the NSW South Coast. I like feeling the warm sunshine on my back as I sit outside reading – especially when I look at the temperatures at home which are quite a bit cooler than here, a mere 5 hours drive away over the mountains. I love seeing the bright yellow wattle brightening up the bush and also being with family.

I’ve had a lovely phone call from one of my daughters today; my mother is back in Australia after her big trip overseas, so I was able to talk to her and welcome her back to Australia; my daughter sent me some fun photos of my granddaughter enjoying herself at a kid’s play area and we caught up with my other sister-in-law.

So the best thing about today is that it’s been another lovely winter’s day spent with family – one way or another.

Facebook reminded me that 5 years ago I posted this photo – it means a lot to me as our daughters had travelled (one from England) to be with us for the funeral of their uncle. So I was very happy to have all my favourites together in the one spot and we made the most of our time.

27. My favourite movie and why

Saturday 27 July

I’ve always enjoyed Love Actually and can re-watch it at the drop of a hat.

Why? There are so many stories going on throughout and I love getting involved in them all, despite knowing how it all ends. I can remember vividly seeing it for the first time on Boxing Day 2003 in Melbourne, with my husband, my sister, my mother and teenage daughters. At one scene I was wondering what we were watching and I was glad the cinema was dark so I didn’t have to see the look on my mother’s face, not to mention my teenage daughters!! It was all good in the end and we all loved it 🙂 . I love the opening and closing scenes of people being met at airports and believe that love is everywhere, if we just know where to look.

Lately I’ve seen a few great movies and the best of these was Top End Wedding, an Australian rom-com which was a feel good, fun movie with fabulous Australian scenery. If you get a chance to see it, then I highly recommend it!

The blurb: Lauren and Ned have 10 days to find Lauren’s mother who has gone AWOL in the remote far north of Australia so that they can reunite her parents and pull off their dream wedding.

I also enjoyed the movies Rocketman and Yesterday 🙂

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What is #JournalingInJuly?

Sue and I are looking at the month of July as a challenge to extend our creative writing skills and get into journaling. Having a daily prompt helps to get me to focus and I’m enjoying the process. Here is the list of daily prompts. We’re on the downhill run now!

Here are my posts for #JournalinginJuly so far, in case you’ve missed them:

Journal ideas in July

Journaling in July Week 1

Journaling in July Week 2

Journaling in July Week 3

My Guest Post on Sue’s blog

What did you enjoy the most about this week’s responses?

I hope you enjoy my Week 4 recap post and if you’re keen to get involved leave a comment or linkup with Sue and I using the link below.

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=ef8b06cc10bc6002458d

Next Saturday I’ll be responding to the final prompts from Sunday 28 July through to Wednesday 31 July. I can’t believe it’s nearly over!

Have a great week ahead and happy journaling 🙂

Deb xx

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