Friday Musings - Vacuums; how exciting!

My vacuum cleaner died yesterday. Sad really, it had served me well for nearly 20 years. 

No it wasn't sad, I hated the d......mn thing. It was heavy to lug around. It refused to follow me and kept jamming itself up against the furniture. And when it did a dummy spit it turned Turtle and refused to move. I am sure it had a mind of its own!
That Vacuum I am sure hated me as much as I hated it.

Anyhow, I went off to the vacuum cleaner shop thinking that buying a new vacuum would be easy.

I was feeling rather pleased with myself as  I had looked on the internet and thought I had found one that would do the job at a price I was happy with. According to the web site the shop was open until 9 pm, so as it was only 6.45 I had plenty of time to get there and make my purchase. Wrong! On arrival I discovered that the shop was closed at 5.30 - just goes to show  you can't believe everything you read on the Internet!

So back again I went this morning. On entering the shop I found that I was surrounded by Vacuum cleaners of all shapes, sizes and colours. And of course, various prices.

A very nice man came to assist me with my purchase and this is where things started to get complicated. 

It seems that due to the regulations changing ( don't you love Government regulations? Ha!) you now have to choose a Vacuum cleaner to suit your type of floor covering. No longer does " one size fit all". So I went through a series of questions like: "Do you have mostly carpet?" "Do you have pets?" "Which colour vacuum would you like?" (Some Vacuums seem to come in a range of colour these days - I hope the colours make them work better)

The upshot of all this is that I ended up buying a Vacuum cleaner that cost me more than I had planned, came with two cleaning heads instead of one like my old monster but is a pretty purple colour! 

I think I shall call it "Violet". Then perhaps I shall feel more kindly towards it when I have to clean my floors. 

Housework has never been one of my favorite occupations but thinking about  "Violet"  helping me with the job seems nicer than just "vacuuming the floor". I am hoping that my relationship with "Violet" will be one of efficiency and co-operation and dare I say it - affection. 

Hilary Thompson
The Out and About Therapist

Weekend Musings - Take pride in your achievements

I am feeling rather pleased with myself at the moment. I have completed a number of projects lately, one very large one and some smaller ones.And I am very proud of the results. 

Now this is a turn around for me as I have always had the belief that it was wrong to be proud of my achievements and that they had little value. This is what you call a limiting belief and it has dogged me all my life, making me feel bad about myself. Is this story familiar to you?

To prove that I have changed my beliefs about my self, here are three examples of what I have been doing lately, of which I am feeling proud. 

These booklets can be found at Choralworks Inc.com

1. I have designed some book covers for my friend Val who's  booklets are soon to be published at    Choralworksinc.com I am pleased and proud of how these turned out.

Poster for Choralworks Inc. newsletter

2. I have designed a poster for Choralworks Inc. to be included in their next newsletter. This is another good result and something else for me to be proud of.










3. The largest project I have worked on is co-authoring an eBook with my friend  Fran West.  "Free Internet Marketing for Small Business" has been written to help small business owners advertise their businesses on the Internet at no cost.

 As small business people ourselves, we have had to learn how to market our businesses and we want to share what we have learned with others.

Our Pride and Joy!

Our eBook has turned out really well, we have been given some wonderful testimonials by our original readers. And; our eBook is now published! Hooray!

Our achievement here, is that not only have we written the book, we have created all the graphics including the book cover ourselves; and we have also done all the editing and marketing ourselves. So this is a project that Fran and I are really proud of.

Being proud of who you are and what you do is important for our feelings of self worth. 
We all have valuable gifts and abilities that we can offer and we are all a valuable part of life. 

So if you have doubts about your value and you have some negative beliefs that are holding you back; find a way to let go of the doubts and change your beliefs and you will change your life.


Hilary Thompson
The Out and About Therapist
Facilitator at Flourishing Relationships Retreats