making life nice

 why would we want to make our life "nice"?

myself, I do feel that it's better for

* our health

* our emotions

* our state of mind

* for our offspring

it's also just an easier way to live

especially in these strangest and unforeseen of times

Photo by Denis Oliveira on Unsplash

our first guru/teacher

For me, niceness goes back to Nanna (Dad's mother), and Mum. Our first guru is our Mum, and I had two gurus. Our biggest life influences from a young age. Strangely, because they were so different, it was in a similar yet totally diffent way. My life with each of them was chalk and cheese. Yet both were insistent that one behaved nicely. And trust me, both did not have easy lives. Mum more so. Her life was harder due to having had so many children and also being a working mum - but it definitely was each their own choice to be a good person.

little rituals enhance our life

One of Nanna's life lessons, which I'm quite sure she would just have regarded as "how she lived her life", was to have little rituals, or ways of doing things. It's a way of life which I know many would love to do. Living on my own, I do have to remember to have some little regular pleasures, rituals. But I have inherited some off Nanna:

• Nanna gave me a life long love of coffee. Her's was in a coffee "kettle" where it bubbled, and was so strong!! In the tiniest of coffee cups, after dinner. I doubt that I could drink it that strong again.You could almost stand a spoon up in it, it was so thick. However, the memory of this after dinner coffee ritual has now inspired me to drink black coffee when I'm at cafes, rather than have hundreds of calories in a latte or similar. 
• We had afternoon tea every day. Usually just a lovely cup of (strong) tea and a biscuit or two. Although we also had yummy bakery goods that Dad brought home from work.I am hungry every day at this time, and it does go back to happy memories.Afternoon tea is now being resumed, even in just a minor way.
• having breakfast outside in the sun on the weekend. When it's not so cold, Ratnamurti ......
• making myself look nice and tidy each day. I've always done this.
• looking after what I've got rather than getting more. 

Both Mum and Nanna had lovely gracious, clean homes. Mostly I am like this, but again - I do have my messy moments. Because of so many children, at Mum's housework was done every single morning. No getting up and dashing off for the day to be young and carefree. So, as a young Mum, I thought that all of this cleaning was just what you did, and I did it. And don't get me started on the mountains of washing at Mum's home every day when she had children at home, that we did for her in the weekends. Yep, I do washing a lot too. And so do my adult kids. 

graciousness is a form of niceness, too

I'm also looking at ways to add a bit more graciousness to my home life:

• I really want to have more flowers inside the home. I used to just go for walks and pick them from berms. But where I live now, that might not go down so well with the neighbours.
• resuming lighting evening incense. I'm really fussy about the scents that I use as I can and do get migraines from some smells.
• I'm now going to use candlelight of an evening. Because - why not? I always have only subdued lighting in the evenings. It's my feeling that it's much better for our hormones and body rhythms
• nice music playing whilst I'm cleaning. Some people, myself included, can't focus our minds when music is playing. So for writing ? No. But I can boogie along whilst cleaning.
• I need to start using perfume again. Yes, I do.

missing the family

I'm hanging out to see my great grandson who is a big boy now, what with being four and all. Because of our two lockdowns, I've only seen him once since March. I might be gatecrashing a family visit to an animal park-cafe where children are allowed to pat the birds and animals. Toby, his Mum (grand daughter), my youngest daughter and her six month old baby are going to visit there with the littlies. Toby is so fortunate, he has grown up around dogs, chickens, sheep, cows and minature ponies (who absolutely love him), at his Nannie's farm. 

an unusual nice thing to do, for moi

I'm really excited as I've found someone whom I can pass on some of my energy healing work to. I so wanted it to be someone who is deserving of it, so this is something special for me to look forward to. I used to take seminars teaching energy healing, but am not ready to resume this.

I'm putting some thought into all of this niceness and rituals thing. As it looks as though that virus is going to be with us, I'm thinking that it'll help mentally and emotionally to have some lovely things to look forward to, and little rituals, in our lives.

Does anyone have their own special things that they do to make life nice that they'd like to share?