25 lessons from a 25 year old.

It was my birthday in the weekend. I turned 25, 100 seasons, and had a fantastic party and was given classy gifts like wine and chocolate and salt lamps and health foods and plant decor.

Emma Watson also turned 25 the day before me.(The pic below is not her as a 25 yr old, but as Hermoine Granger in Harry Potter)

That combined with turning another year older and diving into my mid-late twenties has me wanting to tear my well groomed eye-brow hair out. Still, I think it is something to be celebrated. Looking back to birthdays past, I can see how much I have learnt and experienced......here's some I'm going to share with you.

1. Smiles are free.
2. You don't know what you don't know.
3. Ten cents are better than no sense.
4. Laughing and crying are best done loudly.
5. Pants are best worn on the floor.
6. Everyone is on their own journey, if you think your life is complex, don't try imagine what someone else's is like. Empathise.
7. Love hard. The lessons you learn from loving hard give you more for longer than what getting hurt from loving hard can do. 
8. Do your squats.
9. Eat your veggies, whenever you can. Capsicum, tomato and carrot in your morning fruit salad? There are worse things you can put in your mouth.
10. Your siblings are the best presents your parents gave you. Cherish. 
11. Twenty seconds of trying to meditate is better than no seconds. Breathe. 
12. Getting through a hangover requires as much planning and effort as surviving in the wild. Hydration, nutrition, and positive thoughts.
13. If you got said hangover from being at a very fun event, then the happy memories can overpower the seediness if you just get off your butt and get on with the day.
14. Allowing yourself to travel back to happy memories is as good as a holiday.
15. Sleep naked.
16. Wear red lipstick.
17. Dance and sing in the supermarket.
18. Spend your money on memories.
19. Maintain some mystery about your life.
20. Considering how much time we spend on our techno devices, take that two minutes to send that txt to tell someone how special they are.
21. Being inspirational isn't about being famous or curing diseases, it's about being authentic and honest and the best you can be. That matters.
22. Being brave isn't just about saying yes and doing the scary thing, but also about saying no and doing what you want to do.
23. Giving a compliment costs you nothing but can add so much richness to someone's day.
24. When life gets hard to swallow, just let yourself have a wallow. 
25. As long as you live, continue to learn, dream, hope and love all you can.

Jj

It's April, Fools!

April Fools day is made for us to laugh at ourselves so we don't cry about the fact that we are a quarter of the way through the year.

That's not actually true; according to Wikipedia, the custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one's neighbor is recognized everywhere, and some precursors of April Fools' Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria,^[2] the Holi festival of India,^[3] and the Medieval Feast of Fools. Back in ye olde days they used to celebrate New Year's Day in March, and April fool's day was the first day off after the holidays.

This is a 1926 prank that this was a new design of city bus. Appeals to various levels of humour I'm sure.

I don't know about you, but the fact that it is mid April has me more shook up than Elvis. 

 April fools us into a slight "we are a quarter of the way through the year, what have I achieved" depression. This I call "fourth month mania"

Symptoms of FMM include not wanting to wear winter clothing, making jokes instead of making small talk about what we have been up to, and just a general panic and unsettlement every Monday. 

At the end of this week I'm turning 25. A quarter of a century; 100 seasons, hitting the mid-twenties. I love birthdays and celebrating, but this is something I'm really struggling to come to terms with. 

So, to make myself get over it, and possibly help you deal with FMM, I have compiled a list of ideas and quotations to make us realise that whilst time might feel like it's slipping through our fingers, if you think back to last April and all you have done or experienced or learnt since then, it's not really bad enough for you to give up hope, hide under a duvet immersed in NCIS reruns.

1. January doesn't count as a month because most people are still on summer holiday, Feburary doesn't count either as it doesn't even have enough days, and March has a public holiday and another day devoted to drinking so that flies by too.

2. "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." -Einstien. 

3. "Time you enjoy wasting, is not time wasted"- John Lennon; proving that meandering around the supermarket is worthwhile after all.

4. Ancient Romans believed April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite, therefore April is sexy. We start to wear ugg boots in April, so ugg boots are also sexy from henceforth. 

5. 

 

6. You still have the amount of time it takes for a baby to be made and born until the start of next year, depending on ...you know.

7. Enrique Iglesias wants to

I. Be your hero
II. Kiss away your pain
III. Stand by you forever
Enrique Iglesias is your mother

That has nothing to do with April, it's just funny. 

8. Victoria Beckham shares the same birthday as me so you could say 17th of April is the poshest day. 

Hope that has helped your FMM (fourth month mania)

I'll be back in June to help cure your Sixth Month Sickness and in and August to rouse those Eighth Month Emotions.

Jj