Gosh my posts are getting even more random!

I have always struggled to understand what people are saying. The amount of times I have to ask people to repeat themselves is just phenomenal. Seriously, I have had (or been sent for) so many hearing tests over the years and yet I say the same thing every.single.time. It isn't the VOLUME that is the problem! The volume is fine. It is WHAT people are saying that is the problem. The way I explain it is that if feels like my brain has to translate everything into "Louise-speak" before I can understand it. It's like I know the person is speaking to me in English but it just doesn't make sense! Eventually I catch on. Now I know it sounds funny but this difficulty understanding voices makes it difficult in things like lectures at university, meetings at work and such. In fact I now dread meetings at work, especially when somebody unfamiliar is there (eventually I do learn to "tune in" to people) or when it's a teleconference. I have mentioned this difficulty to loads of people over the years and have always been met with a blank look.

You know that look? The one that suggests I'm barking mad?

And then I stumble over this article on the BBC website and it's like "aha!". The article suggests that many people with dyslexia also struggle to understand spoken voices. In my case I'd even say that I struggle more with spoken voices that reading language. Well why did nobody tell me this earlier - I thought I was nuts...or deaf LOL.

So next time I say "pardon" to you please speak clearly, not louder :)

De-stressing my life!

Recently, I have made no secret of the fact that I have felt stressed and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and deadlines my life. I have deadlines for work, deadlines for domestic stuff, deadlines for my blog designs, deadlines for my digiscrapping kit designs...In fact, I’m pretty sure that if I looked hard enough, I’d find that I had deadlines for deadlines! The trouble with deadlines is that you seem to spend a lot of mental energy remembering them and (in my case) a lot of mental energy stressing over meeting the deadline.

With soaring stress levels, it was clear that some deadlines had to go! So, I reluctantly closed (indefinitely) to all custom blog designs and decided not to do tutorial Tuesday and Freebie Friday any more. I still plan on posting tutorials and freebies, but on days that I decide I’ll post them...whatever day of the week that may be. I already feel liberated!

I’m still wondering what to do with my wonderful creative team at Adorible digital Designs. I have had a strict release schedule for ages and I know my CT members preferred that as it allowed them to plan. However, all it’s doing now is getting me stressed and I’ve realised that the deadlines need to go. I just need to find a way of releasing kits without deadlines. Hmmm..

I can’t tell you how much less stressed I am by reducing the number of deadlines in my life! Unfortunately, I have a stressful week coming up at work as I’m away on a business trip and there’s a lot of my performance being measured on it. No pressure then!

Has anyone else taken any positive steps to reduce the stress in their life? I’d be interested to know what you did. Don’t forget that if Blogger won’t let you comment you can leave an anonymous comment or use the name/url function.

More random musings

Well yesterday was the funeral and it was pretty much as you’d expect I suppose. My sister in law raised an interesting point that funerals are strange things really. Think about it...the person dies...you grieve...and then in the following days the grief gets a little more bearable...then like 10-14 days later you have the funeral and by that point you’re pretty much doing your best to move on and managing reasonably ok...then you have the funeral and it’s like...WHAM!!! Suddenly you’re back at the beginning, taken back to the most grief stricken point and having to start the grieving process again.

When you put it that way it does seem almost barbaric to put yourself through that. But yet I don’t know of a suitable alternative other than trying to get the funeral as closed to the memorial service as possible...which over here is pretty much 10-14 days. I rest my case.

For me the most difficult thing about FIL’s death is that he wasn’t a Christian (in fact he probably bordered more on being an atheist) so I find that hard to resolve. I prayed right up to the very end that in his final moments of lucidity he found God. Very few people in Andy’s family (and my own) are Christian and it does make dealing with death so much more difficult. I mean if the person who died was a Christian at least I could get some comfort from the fact that the person was in heaven.

Onto other things, I am off to the Isle of White on a business trip for 3 days next week so will be out of action most of next week. I already have a backlog of emails to respond to, but I’m simply refusing to stress about it :)

The age of innocence gone forever?

One of the things I liked when I went to Norway recently was the way that it had an old fashioned charm about it. The people were the most open and friendly people I have ever met in my life, people threw litter in the bin, people seemed more polite and caring  and everything just seemed so...innocent. In many villages we were told that people don't need to lock their doors at night!

And now this maniac Anders Breivik has gone on a killing spree...is this the end of innocence in Norway? Has he spoilt it for everyone? How many generations of parents will feel vulnerable sending their children to summer camp now? I think the consequences of this will be far reaching and to be felt for a very long time. It's so sad. My heart goes out to everyone who lost somebody, or was injured or had to witness it. May you and your loved ones find peace once again in your beautiful country.

Norway - a country of beautiful scenery and warm, welcoming people...except Anders Breivik of course

Positive post

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I've been finding it really hard to stay positive recently. I was already suffering a lack of energy before becoming completely exhausted making 130 mile trips to the hospital every day to see Andy's dad. However, I am determined to find positive things in all experiences, even the bad ones. So here's some things that my recent experiences have taught me.

1. I married into a wonderful family - a family who welcomed me with open arms and who treat me like their own daughter
2. Many of you know how I'm bit of a workaholic and how I'm always on the go. I love life and feel like I'm missing out when I don't cram in as much as possible. But this week I have realised that actually doing less will allow me to get MORE out of the things that I do do.
3. I have some wonderful readers at my blog design blog, Adori Graphics. When I recently published that I was stopping custom services for the foreseeable future I expected a bunch of hate mail - but ended up with so many messages of support it was very heart-warming.
4. I actually like peppers - anyone who knows me in real life will laugh at this one because I would almost fake death to avoid eating a pepper. I have discovered that if only lightly cooked I quite like them LOL. And most importantly...
5. I have always had a good relationship with God but with each bad thing that happens I end up being drawn closer to him. As much as I've had a horrible couple of weeks I feel that my relationship with God is stronger than ever because of it.

What good things happened to you this week?