Fear of the Unknown.

Recently I asked a Psychologist friend on Authonomy why I sabotage myself in my writing and my diet. She said that I'm scared of what will happen when I am successful in whatever endeavour I am dealing with.

Then on Webook this morning another friend said in her WTF -

"If you are not already living the life of your dreams . . . what's stopping you?

For most people, it's fear. People are afraid to do what they want to do because (a) it might piss someone off; (b) they might fall flat on their face; or (c) they don't feel empowered to make decisions for themselves.

If fear is holding you back, repeat after me, "Boats are safe in harbor, but that's not what boats are for." Then, dive into your dreams!"

So what am I scared of?

I thought hard about it, for most of my morning swim in fact, and decided that both of them were right. I'm scared of following my writing dreams because I'm scared of rejection - yet rejection is part of being a Writer. I've had a couple of short stories accepted for anthologies and e-zines but I am terrified of sending anything bigger out.

I don't know why I am scared of losing weight. I suspect that the reason is held a lot deeper than my writing fears and it will need to be addressed through counseling - thankfully I have an appointment on Friday so that should help.

Deep thoughts...

Visiting Family, Starting School and other things

I have just had my mum down for the week. It was lovely having her down the road at the Caravan Site. My kids haven't seen her since Kiah was very small so they enjoyed meeting her again and bonding with my brother.

We went out to Cardiff on two days, took in the tourist sites (we've lived here for 5 years and still haven't seen them all!) from the bus tour, visited the National Museum of Wales and walked our feet off generally!

Aaron went back to school on Thursday and Kiah started school on Friday. She dove in without a backward glance, cuddle or otherwise. She has been ready for school since Easter but I'm now wondering if the school are actually ready for her!

I am now officially out of work. My contract finished on the 31st August and I now have to find a new teaching job. If you see all the adverts advertising for people to go into teaching, you could be forgiven for thinking that there are tonnes of jobs out there. Unfortunately as a specialist teacher (I teach Design and Technology) there are so few jobs around it isn't funny.

Especially as I have to look in a specific place - the South West. Daniel works in Bridgwater, Somerset and we want to be able to move closer. The problem is that EVERYONE wants to work in the South West - Somerset, Devon, Cornwall etc - so the few jobs that come up for my specialism are hotly contested.

Ah well, something will come along eventually and in the meantime, I'll just keep on writing!

It's not for me

"When in Rome, Do as the Romans do!
As my mother used to say",
Dad said as he picked up an oyster,
and swallowed it away.

I looked at the slimy creature,
wet and looking sad,
Sat in his shell of mother of pearl,
It made me feel quite bad.

"An Oyster is a person too",
I thought I heard him say,
"I swim and eat and make pearls too,
I hope you won't eat me today."

I shook my head and said "No."
"I shall not eat this creature,
He does not deserve to die that way,
As part of a Sea Food feature."

"Not even going to try it lass?"
My father said over my shoulder,
He reached across and picked it up,
"I thought you would be bolder!"

I had to watch as my Dad,
Swallowed the creature of the sea,
I shuddered and closed my eyes,
"Sorry dad, it's not for me!"

Finding friends.

I'm lucky to have found so many friends through Webook and Authonomy. Some of them even live in the same country...

What's scary for me is that fact that I am friends with Larilie from "An orchard of oranges". She lives in the place where I grew up and is just as ditzy and clumsy as I was growing up. I sometimes wonder if we are related in any way, shape or form...

Anyway Larilie is on Webook too. She has this wonderfully rambling style to her blogs on WTF that crack me up every time. If laughter is the best medicine then Larilie is a miracle worker because she can bring me out of a funk in 20 sec flat!

Check her out on - http://an-orchard-of-oranges.blogspot.com/

She's funny!

Saturday Mornings

I like my Saturday mornings. The Kids sit upstairs in Aaron's bedroom and watch TV or play Game Cube. Daniel is still asleep - if I listen I can hear him snoring. I have a large fat purring cat sat under my chair at the desk and the other is curled up on the sofa.

No TV noise. No music (other than the purring) and I am free to write what ever I want to write. It's the closest thing to happiness for me.

I said recently that I am not a happy person. I tend to be a glass half empty and I worry far to much for my own health. But I do have happy moments. This is one of them.

If it wasn't raining I would have gone for a walk by the sea. That's one of my favourite places. We don't have a beach as such, we're across the Bristol Channel from Weston and what sand we do get is more like mud. But I was born and bred in Aldeburgh (suffolk) and waking up to seagulls and the sound of the waves is another thing that makes me happy.

I love trees. The nice thing about Aldeburgh is that the top end of Town is in the countryside. It's a bit like Rhoose. Here we're on a cliff edge and where I live is surrounded by fields filled with cows, horses and sheep. So I get the same feelings about Rhoose.

My real home town though is Plymouth. Where else in the world do you have the sea at your feet and Dartmoor at your back? To the west is the wilds of Cornwall - great for exploring, and to the East is Devon - Fudge, Cream Teas, Exeter... sigh. I love the whole of the south west and it was in Plymouth that I discovered who I really was, so I will always want to go back there.

It was in Plymouth that I discovered the joy of Saturday mornings. Before I had kids, Daniel and I would wander around town, go down to the Barbican to eat fish and chips under the Prawn then walk up to the Hoe and sit by the Lighthouse looking out at Drakes Island and watching the ferries go out.

Peace. Happiness. Its still there waiting for me to find it. I just have to look in the right place...

Insomnia Strikes Again,

I'm prone to occasional attacks of insomnia for various reasons. Tonight I can't sleep because I have a cold, despite my body's urging that I actually need to sleep to get better.

Don't worry I don't have Swine Flu... at least I don't think so.

The first thing I do to try and sleep is play Puzzle Quest on my PSP. That and Sudoku work because they are easy to play, monotonous games that lull the active part of my mind to sleep. Or at least they usually work.

If that doesn't work then I try to meditate, cocooned in the soft warmth of my cotton encased duvet. Only tonight it's hard to do with a man snoring beside me.

My next step is to get dressed in something warm, grab a mug of G & B and take some Nytol or Calms. It usually works but it tends to take a little bit of time so while I wait, I write.

That's usually where Webook comes in. I write whatever takes my fancy and post it up for my friends to shake their heads over. Only today I wrote quite a bit on Webook and I hadn't been on here yet...

I am starting to yawn now. I can feel Sleep massaging my shoulders, urging me to go back to bed and snuggle down under my duvet. I might - in a bit...

Finding my way around...or not as the case may be!

I'm having a few problems today. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I use Firefox or that I use Word but I can't seem to cut 'n' paste any of my stories across for my reader's delectation and delight.

No doubt I'll work it out sooner or later but it truly is annoying.

One good thing though - I found one of my friends from Webook... or did he find me? I pretty sure that he found me! Jimbo is in much the same boat as I - he's newish to this and so am I - so he'll probably be able to help me with my problem.

Ah yes - Webook. That cornucopia of creative... oh, flip the alliteration! Suffice it to say, I Love Webook. I have lot's of friends there and we are all writers; it's paradise. The only thing that could make it any better would be to actually meet them. Of course, Jimbo already did that (ooh am I jealous!) but you never know what's around the corner.

I'm also a member of Authonomy. It's a completely different place. More serious and more about getting your work seen than anything else. It is fun though - just more like stepping into a bar and meeting your friends for a drink.

I am addicted to both. I freely admit that - I am addicted to Writing Websites!

Now if I could just get this place to work...

Who am I today?

You're probably wondering who on Earth I actually am. Well I am a lot of things to a lot of people. I have two children under the age of ten, both of them now at primary school. To them I am Mum, Mummy, Mumma (I hate that) and anything else that takes their fancy.

To my partner, my Fiance - well he can pretty much call me what he likes (get your mind out of the gutter please) and get away with it. To him we have shared too much over the last 14 years of engagement - I'll pause while you pick your jaws off the floor - to be sticky over names.

But if he calls me "Sugar Dumpling" I will call him "Boss...

When I am working as a Teacher, I am variably "Miss, Mrs Ward, Miss Ward" and so forth. My colleagues of course know me by my first name.

When I am writing I am several different people it seems. And this is where my user name comes from - Tiger Princess. I use the same name on every writing website I join and it gets changed according to the mood of the people I am talking to.

For instance on Authonomy I am: "TP, Tiger, Tigger, The Tigger, Tigs."

Oh people do call me by my birth name, but I - and I'm truly sorry for this Dad - never really liked my name. This is why I kept reinventing myself during my teenagehood. I'd introduce myself as Lizzi or Liz or Elizabeth. But it never stuck, despite being my middle name.

So when I set this Blog up today I decided on proper Pen Name. Something I could choose for myself and make stick...

Whether it does or not is up to me!

The Tiger Princess's Guide to her particular brand of Jargon

I use a lot of acronyms and abbreviations in my journal, (sorry - it's just one of those things that Teachers do...) so I thought that I would provide a decoder for those of you who have absolutely no idea what I am going on about...

DT - Design and Technology.

Often abbreviated to Technology in long form, this is a posh name for the subject that teaches woodwork, metalwork, graphics, sewing, cooking etc. You may know it as CDT (Craft, Design and Technology) or just in its individual subject names. It also encompasses Home Economics for those who were at school in the 60's...

It's one of those subjects which go in and out of fashion according to which government is currently in power and what the state of the manufacturing and construction industries is.

ICT - Information Communication Technology.

Not to be confused with IT!

No, really, DO NOT confuse these two - the IT crowd get very annoyed if you do this, they seem to take it as an affront of some sort...

ICT teaches how to use the Software that computers use (well at my level anyway) and how to present it beautifully. The stage my pupils are at, well, they are still learning how to use the software...hence the amount of trouble that I have with their marking...

Year 7 - 11 - 12 year olds

The most loved year in the school. For the most part, Year 7's are polite, neat and tidy. They hand in their homework, don't talk back and are constantly amazed at the things that they are learning.

Year Nine - 13 - 14 year olds

The second most hated year for a teacher. This group of children, most of which who have started puberty and are all for experimenting - just not in Science or even school!

They go one of two ways - they either knuckle down and produce excellent work every time or they throw the school papers to the wind and join the Freshman year of the University of Life - usually by misbehaving in one way or another and being shunted to another school.

Nytol

These helpful little herbal tablets are supposed to "Ease you into a gentle, refreshing, natural sleep, allowing you to wake up ready to face the day!"

Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. I never know when they are going to do either so it ends up being a bit of a lottery...

G&B - Green & Blacks

For those not already in the know, G&B are the makers of some of the most gorgeous organic choc I have ever tasted. Happily they also make cocoa and hot chocolate drinks so I have a large jar of G&B's luxury hot choc in my cupboard - it takes all the blues away...

G&T - Gin and Tonic

Yes, I know you probably already knew this but, hey! I love my G&T!

CC&DC - Canadian Club and Diet Coke

This is the second of my favourite shot drinks. Canadian Club is a bourbon whisky like Jack Daniel's but I find it smoother and I can actually drink CC straight (I can't drink JD straight - makes my throat curl!)

Archers - Archers Peach Schnapps and Lemonade

This is my third favourite drink. I got hooked on this when I was eighteen and just starting out on my serious drinking years. It's a great drink in the summer but just a little too easy to drink - I have been known to go through a whole bottle by myself in one night...

Tiger, Tigger, Tig - Tiger Lager

This is the best lager in the world. Smooth, no nasty dry bite or sour aftertaste! Great with Chinese or by itself...um, sorry, I'm starting to sound like a bad commercial!

Hmm, I'm starting to get a little thirsty here...

Well that's it for now. I may well add to this as I get further in - watch out for updates!