September 2015 - Emily the Dodo

Home » Posts made in September, 2015

Posted by Emily Gillatt-Ball on Sep 30, 2015 in Dodo Diary |

Dodo Diary September 2015: Self-improvement challenge, Month #7

I had a bit of a shock this month.

I was at my sister’s party, and afterwards the photos were all over Facebook.

I saw one of myself, sitting in a chair, with my flab bulging over my waistline, holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Diet Coke in the other. Although it’s a party, I’m not mingling and chatting, but sitting with my partner.

“What a perfect ‘Before’ picture,” I thought. “It shows all the things I wanted to change.”

And then it hit me.

This isn’t ‘Before’. This is over HALFWAY THROUGH my Dodo to Dynamite in a Year self-improvement challenge.

Which is why I’m blushing!

Posted by Emily Gillatt-Ball on Sep 29, 2015 in Creativity, Self-Control |

Making time for creativity

You’re a creative person.

You’re full of exciting ideas – if you could only decide which to start on first.

You’ve got the skills to make something good – maybe even something amazing.

Yet somehow you never seem to have enough time to… well… create anything.

You start projects, but they never get finished.

Those brilliant ideas lose their savour halfway through, so nothing feels good enough.

You go over things in your head so many times that they’re so familiar, you have a feeling they’re not original – that you must have heard them somewhere else.

And life gets in the way, and it seems self-indulgent to waste time on your personal creative projects when there are so many more important calls on your attention.

So you end up with a handful of crumpled dreams.

Posted by Emily Gillatt-Ball on Sep 26, 2015 in Relationships | 1 comment

Gratitude and gardening: a saw point

He’s out there again.

Only this time, he’s holding a saw.

And I’m getting more anxious every time I look out of the window.

I don’t know what to do.

The thing is… I really wish my partner would stop doing the gardening.

You see, my idea of gardening is chucking a few flowers into plant pots and mowing the lawn once every spring.

Occasionally I’ll glance out of the window and see my beloved flowers hanging over the side of the pots, doing an impression of parched men crawling across a desert. Then I leap outside to water them. And then the ungrateful things die anyway.

Posted by Emily Gillatt-Ball on Sep 19, 2015 in Dodo Diary | 2 comments

Dodo Diary August 2015: Self-improvement challenge, Month #6

Wow! I’m already halfway through my Dodo to Dynamite in a Year self-improvement challenge.

If you’re wondering why I’m dressed like Scarlett O’Hara this month, it’s because the months have Gone With the Wind and I can’t believe how quickly it all happened.

The trouble with saying, “Oh, well! Tomorrow is another day!” is that you can say the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…

And nothing ever gets better.

Posted by Emily Gillatt-Ball on Sep 14, 2015 in Relationships |