doitnowceciliasmith

Ever thought of running away to the circus?

Whilst researching this years christmas pantomime at the Everyman i noticed a link to  Giffords Circus.  Imagine being paid to do this?

If there was ever a circus to run away to, this would be the one.  Must put it on my to do list for 2012... not to run away to, (for now anyway)....just to take my 9 year old to, (before he thinks he's too old).

Let's keep performing arts live!

 

do it now: check out Top Shop NYC

This is not strictly on my life's to do list, but I had to squeeze it in here somehow! 

TOP SHOP is OPENING IN NEW YORK CITY TODAY!

Why I am so excited about this? After all its not as though I am prepubescent and anticipating my first prom dress.   I'm in my forties for goodness sake!

BUT it’s TOP SHOP .. for anyone who grew up in the UK in the last 25 years, it’s the quintessential clothing store for all things knocked off from the high fashion runways; cheap and gorgeous, "throwaway ", even.

Guest designers, like Richard Nicoll and Celia Birtwell (the music on her website is hypnotic BTW), creating diffusion collections of their high end stuff.  Kate Moss and her lovely (albeit slightly over priced) collection of must haves.

Do it now: throw out fifty things - the first 10

As most of you reading this will already know, “Do it now, Cecilia Smith” was my Grandma’s mantra. But you wont know the other little ditty that often left her lips: “if in doubt, chuck it out”.  It’s a good one, and helps the procrastinator in all of us make that final decision to get rid of something for good.  It can be applied to many things, from clearing out the fridge to getting rid of a no-good boyfriend!

So, I am chanting this one today in her honor, as today would have Grandma’s 93rd birthday!  (Happy Birthday Grandma!). It’s all very appropriate, because today, (in my attempt to bring clarity and order to my life), I am starting my “50 things I will throw away” list, …. Here goes “if in doubt, chuck in out”.

The first 10:

do it now: spring clean your mind; throw out 50 things.

It's beginning to look a lot like spring out there,  but unfortunately I am not very good at spring cleaning.  Don’t get me wrong, I can clean and I do clean, I’m just not very accomplished at it. So, in lieu of the full-on house spring clean this year, I thought I’d have a go at spring cleaning my mind instead. According to life coach, Gail Blanke, there is a connection between physical clutter and mental clutter, apparently the clutter we live with, weighs us down and affects our ability to think clearly. I can certainly relate to that, and I bet Feng Shui people have a lot to say about this too.

do it now: visit the Persian kittens

How completely exquisite are these creatures?  Just $1,000 each too.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the kittens mentioned in yesterdays post are already sold.

Probably not very good "mousers" anyway!

do it now: make a vision board

I got the opportunity to check off number 35 from my to do list last Sunday, when my lovely friend Jessica invited a group of girls over to make "Vision Boards".

I started a post all about it on Monday, but it turned out to be a bit melancholy, because I kept clipping  bits about England out of magazines and realised I was missing home more than I thought.  So I decided not to publish it. For those who are unfamiliar with vision boarding, you can click this link on Jessicas Blog to learn all about it. 

The gist of it is that you spend an afternoon chatting and drinking wine with your friends, whilst trawling through magazines collating images, words and affirmations to help focus on what you want out of life.  Then you stick them on a poster board so that you can have a constant daily, visual reminder of all your hopes dreams and desires.  And, hey perhaps some of them might actually come true for you.

do it now: sell something on Ebay.

I am embarrassed to say that I really don’t “get” Ebay.  I understand that things are often cheaper there and one can pick up all kinds of everything, if one can be bothered to search for it that is. 

One friend however is an avid Ebay fan and started out many years ago with the intention of flogging some of her family heirlooms in order to restore order to her home and perhaps even make some kind of a living.  Unfortunately (as is often the case so I understand), she wound up buying more than she sold.  Not because her things weren’t saleable, (not sure that' a real word), more because she spent all her time pressing the “Buy it Now” button!

So a couple of weeks ago on one particularly wintry Sunday afternoon, she was over at my house and we got on the computer – always a bad idea, but thankfully our 6 year olds were happy with their faces buried in their Nintendo DS’s so we were kind of guilt free on that score.

To cut what could be a very long story short, we started looking up some of my husbands old and rare vinyl records, because I am convinced we have a second-home-in-the-tropics worth, amongst the quite literally, thousands of albums he has all over the house.

do it now: write my to do list

I am beginning to think Cecilia Smith was kind of dull;  show me a person who is on top of their life and has everything "done", and I will show you a very dull person indeed!

Is it time to stop beating myself up about never getting things done and admit that perhaps we never really reach the end of our to do lists, and maybe we shouldn’t?

What’s the point of having absolutely nothing to do? How boring would that be?  How weird would that be?