Walking down the lane with OH and the dogs today in the sunshine, with the birds singing and primroses starting to flower in the banks, spring seemed just around the corner and life seemed good!
It made me think back to Monday 11th March last year when I had similar thoughts......... (that week is etched on my mind incase you're wondering why I can be so specific!)
We had just had a very successful Food Festival, had plenty of cheese maturing and lots of plans for the coming year. I was going to one of my favourite places the next day for an Italian breadmaking workshop and I was hoping that Tilly would like to try sheep dog trial training and maybe one day we'd be on One man and his dog!!!!!! ...........
Little did I know that Wednesday would be the fateful day when THAT letter arrived and turned everything upside down!
Yup! You lovely readers have been sharing my life for nearly a year now! Doesn't time fly?
So this year we don't have much cheese maturing and the Food Festival along with another big market has been cancelled due to the apalling weather so sales will be down big time ....... oh well, thats life I suppose!
Now if you'd told me last year I'd be shrugging something like this off and not panicing I wouldn't have believed you .............
This afternoon I heard someone on the radio say 'things happen for a reason' and although I still haven't worked out the reason for the bastard cancer it did get me thinking about how this dance has changed my perspective on life.
For a start it woke me up, not only a wake up call as far as my lifestyle was concerned - I've mentioned it before ......... weight loss, healthy eating, cutting down on wine, exercise etc. but also it made me open my eyes to things going on around me, take more notice of them and others.
I'm still haunted by OH's comment 'you're a long time dead!' when last January he proposed we went on holiday in September and I wouldn't agree as we had a Food Festival. We didn't go on holiday. Two months later I wished I hadn't been so stubborn.
Life is too short.
This year we ARE going on holiday and although I would like to do the Food Festival and one the week before they do fall again when we should be away ............. I still haven't sent off the application forms ..............
I have learnt that its ok to take time out during the day to read a book for a while, go for a walk or just sit down ...... something I'd never dreamt of doing before. Oh no, I was always too busy (doing what I don't know) to fit that in. I have to admit it took a long time to realise this and perhaps if I'd done it during my treatment I might have felt better in myself.
I appreciate simple things more ..... meals, phone calls, seeing friends .......
If I don't want to do something I don't do it ...... initially saying no was alien as I'd always done things whether I wanted to or not usually out of loyalty or guilt ...... saying no more often has been a revelation.
By making changes to my life I have less stress now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any but I don't get stressed up to the eyeballs anymore.
I've learnt to love my life, appreciate small things and value myself more. I feel so much happier now and this in turn makes me smile more!
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