Valentines is coming...

In many previous years this time of year has made me incredibly sad. Well, a combination of feeling like wallowing in tears and wanting to throw up at the extreme soppiness that's around. Big red hearts everywhere: "Buy me for your loved one!" "You need me to make your relationship last!" "You're not worth anything if you're not in a relationship!"

Okay, I don't think that last one is the intention, but it certainly seems to be the message implied.  It almost brings love down to the level of "he who loves the most, will buy the most." If you don't buy me expensive gifts, you clearly don't love me enough.

The teddies and cards and flowers and tea infusers (yes, Paperchase is selling valentines tea infusers - they have a tag on that says "You're just my cup of tea" - If I liked tea I would probably be unable to resist buying it for myself...) are all very lovely, but what do they actually say about love?

Is love, and should love be shown through gifts? Well, perhaps if you're a gifts love person (I'll try and do a post about the 5 love languages at some point, but in the meantime, go google! It's fascinating), but then you're all about the thought, and not about the money.  Should Valentine's day even be all about couples?

Now I seem to be perpetually single, but right now I'm perfectly happy with that.  I'm learning how to love myself, so that, if marriage is in my future, I can love better. Learning to know myself so that I can learn more about what I need in a future husband.

So this year, instead of all the valentines decor making me think "I wish I had someone to buy that for me" or "I wish someone would send me a dozen red roses" it's making me see the love everywhere.  (Well, okay, I'm probably never going to stop wishing someone would send me flowers, but hey, a girl can hope, right?)

A couple of years ago there was a bit of a campaign to make Singles Awareness Day a thing.  Celebrated on the 15th February, it never seemed to me like a great idea.  People who are unhappy about being single, and make more unhappy by Valentines Day, aren't going to suddenly be made happy again by a day which draws even more awareness to it...
To my mind, the better thing to do would be to try and make Valentines Day about all forms of love.  Familial love, friendship love, love for a stranger.

Why not challenge yourself to show an act of love and of kindness to someone you might not usually.  Give a "You're beautiful" card to someone alone in the street.  Visit the elderly neighbour who lives by themself.  Send a note to a work-colleague with something you admire about them.

So what are my plans for this single yet again Valentines?  Well, I'm going to spend some time with Jesus, some friends, and a whole load of other Catholic youths at Youth2000 in Leeds

So how about you?  Single? Coupled up? Happy with how you are? Any ideas for ways to spread the love on Valentines?  Let me know in the comments below!

Patron Saint of Irony?

God definitely has a strange sense of humour...

I've been reading quite a few blog posts recently which talk about taking a patron saint for the year.  I'd heard someone speak a few years ago about how they allow God to show them a new saint to journey with each year and at the time had thought it was a beautiful idea.  As usual though, I never quite got round to it...

The blog posts I looked at all mentioned the following website: http://jenniferfulwiler.com/saints/ 
Easy and simple.  Click the button, pray for the right saint to come to you, and click again.

I clicked the first time half absentmindedly, wondering who it might be, so was very glad for the prompt to pray about who it would be.

Then came the big reveal... Who is it? Who is it?

St. Honorius of Amiens.

Oooh... not a saint I've heard of before.  That's exciting.  I get to learn about someone new.

Okay, what else does this tell me about the saint?

Feast Day: 16th May

Right, I shall have to try and remember that and do something special.  It's a few days after my mother's birthday, so that might prompt me...

Okay, next up...

Patronage: Against Drought; Bakers; Bakers of Holy Wafers; Cake Makers; Candlemakers; Chandlers; Confectioners; Corn Chandlers; Florists; Flour Merchants; Oil Refiners; Pastry Chefs

Oh... Really?

Now Cake Makers I can get right behind.  I love baking!
However, lately I've been having digestive issues (suspected ibs) and since October I've been trying a funny diet called the FODMAP diet.  There are plenty of resources around on the internet if you want to go and look it up, but the essentials of it are no fructose, no lactose, and no gluten.

Yes, that's right.  I'm currently avoiding flour and I've been given the patron saint of flour merchants and lots of things that involve gluten.  Irony levels right now are pretty high...

But, there must be a reason behind it, and I'm sure that it will be revealed in time.

Has anyone else picked a saint for the year?  Anything unusual about them?  Do feel free to share!

30 before 30

A year or so ago I thought it would be fun to come up with a 30 before 30 list.

Being the grand old ago of 26 I've only got a few years left to do this, so I'd better get started...
I started the list on pinterest and then half forgot about it.  Having remembered earlier this evening, I figured it would be a good idea to see where I'd got to with them.

Turns out I only put 10 on there, so to start with I shall add in a new one...

1. Create this list.  (This totally counts, right?)
2. Pray the Divine Office every day for a month (or at least morning and evening pray). - I think Lent would be a wonderful time to try and do this, so I'll give it a go then.
3. Go on a silent retreat.
4. Attend a Papal Mass - I did technically attend a Papal Mass at World Youth Day in Madrid, but since I was having fun with heatstroke or exhaustion or something, I don't remember anything.  I know it was a bit wet and windy... (I have been informed that there was a huge thunderstorm and it has been referred to fondly by others as the night the Pope's hat fell off).  Which brings me onto my next one...
5. Attend (another) World Youth Day.  Now since there's only going to be one before I'm 30, I'm a little limited.  Krakow it shall have to be!  Only slight potential issue there is health...  I would love to go but may have to think a bit seriously about it.

6. Attempt couch to 5k - I think I can cross this one off.  I did attempt it, and completed the first week, but my knees don't like it.  I might give it another go one day, but for now I think it may have to be it.
7. Visit Auchswitz
8. Go on a road trip
9. Spend New Years in Times Square - I'm not sure about this anymore.  a) I suspect it would be too crowded to be enjoyable anyway, and b) there's no way it's going to happen financially, not in the next 3 years anyway.  If I think of something better I can always replace it.
10. Pilgrimage to Rome - I've visited Rome a few times, but always just as a tourist.  I think going mainly for the religious side of it would be wonderful.

11. Read 100 new books - I think I should start a new page and keep track of what I've read to see if I can succeed with this!
12. Sell something I've made - Done this Christmas!  I sold two pairs of fingerless mittens.

Right, now for some new ones...

13. Visit Assisi.
14. Get my honours degree
15. Go to Disney (World, land, Paris, I don't care, I just want to be a princess!)
16. Find a job I actually want to do/have
17. Figure out my vocation (as if it's going to be that easy...)
18. Read every book CS Lewis has written Just looked at his bibliography.  Yeah... That's not happening.  Editing it to: Reading all of his signature classics.
19. Walk the Camino (or at least the last section)
20. Go to work with an Ash Wednesday cross on my forehead.
21. Make enough items of clothing for myself to be able to wear a different outfit every day for a week.
21. Make a full costume for myself and attend MCM comic con wearing it. (Currently thinking either Ariel or Anna)
22. Dye my hair proper full on Ariel pillar box red.

23. Figure out my diet/what makes me ill
24...

Hmm... I seem to be running out of ideas... If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

New Years, new post!

Well that went really well...

No posts since September?  Well done me.

Time to try again.  I'd quite like to attempt to actually write on here more regularly, so new years resolution is to try and post at least a couple of times a month.  Maybe it'll be more, who knows?

Anyway, I have just got back from the cinema and seeing Into The Woods (a really rather fabulous film) with the lovely Christine and Bekah.  Friend time is something I don't get enough of, and really should try and increase instead of just spending hours at home watching Netflix... I'm terrible at staying in contact with people, so should really try and get better at doing that.

I've been struggling a little with where I am at the moment in terms of life - part time jobs, living at home with the family, not being particularly near people I know...
Bekah had some wonderful words of wisdom that I wanted to get down on paper, so figure why not use them for a post on here?

She compared life to being like watching the sunrise.  It doesn't matter what you do, the sun will rise.  Doesn't matter how hard you wish it, it won't rise any faster.  The best thing to do is to pay attention and enjoy every moment of the process of sunrise.  If you miss that particular moment, it won't come round again. If you miss that pink, or the way that cloud catches the rising sun at that moment, you won't see it again.  Yes, it's dark to begin with, yes it may be freezing cold and you may wish you were somewhere else or that it was warmer, but there is real beauty there if you watch for it.

Beautiful, right?  What a fabulous girl she is.

So that's my target for now.  Watch for the beautiful moments.  Enjoy my jobs, enjoy spending time with my family.  With a couple of illnesses at the moment, the last one feels particularly important - you never know how long you'll have with them. Stop doing the whole 'the grass is always greener' thing, and learn to be happy where you are.  It's tough, but I need to give it a go.

So there we have it.  Three targets for the year ahead.  Be better at staying in touch with people, write on here, and learn to be happy.  No biggie...