weekly reflections

6 Feb 2022 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

The week that was… weekly reflections 5

This photo was taken in Cape Town during early December 2021

Wow, that was a week. All four of us said on Friday night that we were completely and utterly exhausted.

We visited a high school expo to gather information for the application process. Yes, that is apparently the phase we’re in now. Also, for my US friends, high school in South Africa starts in grade 8. There was so much information and so many pamphlets…. and so I found that we needed to just discuss what is important to us and how we’re going to make the decisions.
I had a wonderful catch-up with two friends this week – filled my friendship tank. Confession – I completely forgot about the one plan and only realised after I heard the 15-minute reminder. You should have seen me fly into action. We still had a lovely breakfast and I was only a few minutes late.
My father was in Jhb for work and I saw him for literally 10 minutes. He is not a planner like I am otherwise we might have been able to spend more time together, but this has always been our dynamic – life on the fly!
I got my hair cut this week! It feels like such a treat to visit the hairdresser. I have been seeing her since I was pregnant with the twins. Fun fact – I was exhausted during the pregnancy that I couldn’t even lift my arms to wash my hair so I started seeing her every Sunday morning from 9 – 9:30. She is very punctual and I have continued seeing her all these years.
You all know I love yellow (I just realised the photo I chose for today’s post is also yellow!). No surprise when Instagram shows me yellow household items. I’d had my eye on some gorgeous yellow plates so I went to buy some yesterday. I got them home, washed them and they did not fit on either of our two draining racks despite me trying all my tricks. If something annoys me in the beginning, it’s going to annoy me a lot as time passes. So I returned them and bought plates without such a deep rim. Good news – these are just as lovely but also are a pleasure to use.

A coaching thought on number 5… are there things in your home that are annoying you? What can you do to fix them or at least reduce the annoyance?

How was your week?

Filed Under: Time management Tagged With: friendship, hairdressers, the week that was, tolerations, weekly reflections

30 Jan 2022 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

The week that was… weekly reflections 4

I told myself I’m not going to keep saying “can you believe it’s the end of January?” so I’ll say it now and then we’ll just move ahead 🙂

This was the last full week of January and I’m pleased that I managed to get all my work goals done that I’d set at the end of December before I took a two-week break. Look out on Wednesday for more on goals as I’m doing mine a little bit differently this year.
It’s feeling really, really good to have three exercise sessions a week again as it’s been very sporadic since mid-October when I couldn’t move between gyms again as had been the case since the onset of the pandemic.
We had our first book club of the year yesterday. The January 2021 book club was virtual but thankfully this one was in-person. We read a fantastic book called Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane. I spoke more about how much I loved it here.
I’m just over 2 hours away from finishing my 13th book of the month for January. It has been an excellent reading month with five 5-star reads: Circle of friends – Maeve Binchy, Mary Jane – Jessica Anya Blau, Untamed – Glennon Doyle, Cosy: the British art of comfort – Laura Weir and Ask Again, Yes – Mary Beth Keane.
I can’t wait to tell you about how I’m interpreting #rest22in2022 and another little project I’m working on, but those will have to wait for next week.

Are you also feeling tired?

(as I typed that sentence, I yawned!)

Have a think about the things that give you energy this week. There are the obvious things like sleep, exercise and eating well, but also consider tapping into something that brings you emotional energy. I walked a whole 300m down the street to book club but I stopped periodically to take photos of leaves, flowers and succulents, and I was on such a high from all the delight that it was energy-giving to me.

Filed Under: Time management Tagged With: the week that was, weekly reflections

16 Jan 2022 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

The week that was…weekly reflections 2

hello friends, please enjoy a photo of stationery 😉 My red Moleskine is in the middle flanked by my current bullet journal on the left and one I’ll use later in the year on the right.

Do you have a diary or a bullet journal to show me? I’d love to see!

I went back to work! It was not bad considering there was a bit of a deluge of emails as there always is after a break. Still, my word of the year for work, balance, is serving me well and I worked reasonable hours.
The kids went back to school on Wednesday. This is their last year of primary school 😮 Of course, there were books to cover but… I delegated the easy books and worked with them on the hardcovers so we were done in 40 minutes on night 1. No-one is more surprised than I am.
Speaking of back to ______, I went back to Zumba on Wednesday night too and was reminded once again why I never miss class. It’s awful getting fitness back after any time away. Thankfully, yesterday morning’s class felt much, much better so I’m hoping this Wednesday all is back to normal.
I finished reading a fantastic book this week called Mary Jane. This was the first book I read by this author and I can’t wait to dive into her backlist. If you like reading, I highly, highly recommend reading Mary Jane on audio – 5 fantastic stars. My reading goal this year is 100 and I’ve read 7 books to date. Here is my instagram post about this book.
I realised on my first morning back to work that a crick in my neck is actually from my laptop being too low on my desk. I have now raised it and bought a gorgeous wireless keyboard which I’m hoping will help.