The Highs of Being a Freelancer

When I became a freelance writer, I had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t someone who had planned for years to become a freelancer. I had taken redundancy the previous summer and decided I wanted to do something which involved two of my biggest passions – writing and helping others.  Since then, my freelance…

Old Fashioned Romance with a Modern Day Twist

This post was originally published on 9th June 2019 and updated on 30th May 2021. I love being single, but that doesn’t stop me from looking forward to being in love again. Although I have to admit, and if you have read some of my earlier blog posts, you may have already worked out, I’m…

Love or Loyalty?

As it’s Valentines Day today, I thought I would re-visit one of my favourite blog posts. This subject really got me thinking, and it certainly caused some interesting debate in our office at the time. This post was originally published on 28th March 2019 and updated on 14th February 2021. Have you ever stopped to…

What will Happen to the Music Industry?

We’ve made it through another week, and hopefully, we find ourselves one week closer to the end of this bloody pandemic. This past week, I’ve found myself missing live music far more than I have done throughout the entire pandemic. I suspect the main reason for feeling like this is down to being in a…

Boris, Jobs and another Lockdown

What a strange month November has been. We’ve been back in national lockdown, we’ve been busy preparing for what will look like a very different Christmas this year, and I’ve been attempting to continue with my job search. And let’s not forget the exciting news of vaccinations and presidential elections! After a busy month, here’s…

Early Riser

This post was originally published on 10th November 2018 and updated on 30th August 2020 I love being the first to wake up, especially at the weekend. When I first moved in with my now ex, I was always the first to wake and would lie in bed reading or checking my social media until…

Crash and Burn

Why is it that I always crash and burn by the time my annual leave arrives? Over time, I’ve come to realise that if I don’t take a significant break from work every 12 weeks, I struggle to function. Yet, despite knowing that, I still end up feeling burnt out by the time my leave…

Valentines

This post was originally published on 14th February 2019 and reposted on 14th February 2020. Happy Valentines to you my lovely followers ❤️ Whether you’ve been celebrating today with your partners, your friends, or by yourself, I hope you’ve been kind to yourself today. This is my first single valentines for a couple of years….

Freedom

When you’ve spent much of your adult life in controlling, manipulative relationships, adjusting to ‘normal’ relationships can be challenging. As much as I found myself desperate to get away from these negative behaviours, they almost became the ‘norm’. Life away from these behaviours was unknown and it has been difficult to adjust. Thankfully, today, I…

Reflections

When I decided to book my trip to India earlier this year, I knew it was a life changing decision. I still find it hard to explain the feeling I had at the time. It was a mixture of excitment and overwhleming emotion, just knowing that this was absolutely something I had to do. I…

My Top 5 Most Viewed Blog Posts

With the one year anniversary of my first Mindful Musings of a Gingernut blog post less than one week away, I have spent the last few weeks reviewing, refreshing and re-sharing with you my top 5 most visited posts from the past year. In order of most viewed, my top 5 blog posts are: Sparkle…

Honesty

This post was originally published on 29th June 2019 and updated on 24th August 2019. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post called Love or Loyalty? For me, without love, there is no purpose. However, since writing the original post, I have found myself asking if love and loyalty are the most important things…

Sparkle

This post was originally published on 25th February 2019 and updated on 17th August 2019. How do some people in life just simply make you sparkle? ✨ We’re not just talking ordinary people. These are people who see things that other people don’t see. People who see passed your physical appearance. People who see deep…

Patience, Fate and Saying Things Out Loud

This post was originally published on 24th November 2018 and updated on 3rd August 2019. One of the reasons I created The Mindful Musings of a Gingernut, was to offload some of the things running around my mind, in the hope that it would free up some space, and in turn, help me to process…

Green Fingered Gingernut

I first fell in love with gardening when I moved into my first house. I was in my mid 20s, with my first mortgage, and my very own back garden. And it was awful. With the neighbours conifer trees blocking out all signs of sunlight, and the stickiest clay soil I had ever tried to…

Religion, Relationships and Reality

This post was originally published on 5th November 2018 and updated on 19th July 2019. I’ve never been one to take the easy route in life. God only knows why! Sometimes I long for less drama. But in reality, I would probably be bored without it. Throughout my late teenage years, into my twenties, I…

Mental Health Awareness Week

I’ve been thinking about mental health a lot this week. Particularly apt due to it being mental health awareness week. Everywhere I’ve turned there have been reminders about looking after our mental health. Social media has been full of interesting quotes and articles, and celebrities as well as us ‘normal’ folk have been talking about…

Is self care easier if you’re single?

A few weeks ago, I attended a friends hen party. The hen party was fun. But something was troubling me. I was staying in a hotel that night with another friend. While we were busy getting ready for the hen party, she started pouring her heart out to me. It appeared that her marriage was…

Wedding Season

It’s been a good few years since I last went to a wedding. They can be a bit like buses. You wait ages for one and then two come along at once! This spring, two of my closest friends are getting married to their respective partners. Whilst I have been looking forward to their weddings…

Reprioritisation

Do you ever find yourself caught up in life and realise that you’ve not quite got your priorities right? Life has been busy lately. In fact, since the new year, life has been pretty mental. Finding time to relax in the evenings and at weekends has been near on impossible, especially since my trip to…

Positivity

Have you ever stopped to consider why you attract negative people into your life? I have to admit, it’s something I have often made a habit of. Not on purpose of course. But time and time again, I would find myself attracting friends and partners who were negative and needy. No matter how hard I…

Knife crime, dirty laundry, and self care

The last couple of weeks have made me realise just how important it is to have a self care bank. If I hadn’t been able to cash in on some of my self care reserves, I definitely wouldn’t have got through it as well as I have. Most of the drama that has unfolded, has…

The path to self-discovery

Have you ever been known to choose the wrong partner at a time when you are feeling lost? Perhaps at a time when you have been suffering from low self esteem, you fall for someone who ends up making your self esteem even worse? Or equally as bad, you fall for someone who wants to…

Wobbles, Living Alone and Holidays

I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for the weekend to arrive! I had a bit of a wobbly moment midweek where I felt incredibly overwhelmed by the amount of work I need to do between now and the summer. Within the industry I work, everything seems to come at once. Deadlines galore, lot’s…

As one chapter comes to an end, another begins

I feel kinda weird writing this post, but wanted to explain my absence over the last few weeks. It’s been hard to find the right words so as not to cause any further hurt, but at the same time, since I started my blog, I have found it a really useful platform in dealing with…