Simon 😊
Monthly Archives: June 2017
Chic Style Boutique – An online clothes store with a difference
My friend Persia of blog of a mad blackwoman has started up a boutique for women who are liokung for a 1950’s style chic look. Persia never ceases to amaze me in what she achieves and this is on another level!
When I was discussing this I thought she was once again shopping online for clothes but how wrong was I and it was in fact the other way around!
Persia is launching her website and her idea has already caught the eye of fasion media in the US:
http://www.pinupindustry.com/articles/the-style-journey-of-chic-style-boutique
I realise this is not my usual blogging scene so I’m probably being a bit naff. But with a range of chic style, Chic Style Boutique is offering something a bit different and it needs to be supported.
Visit Chic Style Boutique’s website: http://chicstyleboutique.co.uk/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pg/chicstyleboutiquelondon/
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/chicstyleboutiquelondon/
Go and visit her site, look at the range and support this new idea!
Simon 😊
NASA Completes Study of Future ‘Ice Giant’ Mission Concepts
via
So far, Uranus & Neptune have only been visited briefly by one spacecraft. That could change with a future mission to these ice giants:
NASA Completes Study of Future ‘Ice Giant’ Mission Concepts | NASA
No ownership claimed on images or material – Credit: NASA
#Space #NASA #Neptune #Uranus #Voyager2
10 Quotes About Making A Difference In The World! — lifesfinewhine
From my friend Pooja – some amazing quotes!
For more inspirational posts click here. For more quotes click here. And if you enjoyed this post don’t forget to like, follow, share and comment!
via 10 Quotes About Making A Difference In The World! — lifesfinewhine
Simon 🙂
Kindness Challenge Week 7 – Grateful for Kindness
This is the 7th and the penultimate week of the kindness challenge. The challenge is being run by Niki of the richness of a simple life This week the focus of the challenge is being grateful for kindness. This is something I don’t often think about and I’m sure others are the same on this so when I started thinking about this at the beginning of the week I was wondering where I would go with it.
The previous Kindness challenges:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/kindness-challenge-week-1-self-love/
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/kindness-challenge-week-2-self-compassion/
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/kindness-challenge-week-3-self-acceptance
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/kindness-challenge-week-4-kindness-role-model
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/kindness-challenge-week-5-choosing-kindness/
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/kindness-challenge-week-6-kindness-without-expectation/
Grateful for Kindness Exercise:
As you begin your challenge for the week, write down the number of kind things you normally notice. Each day keep a tally of the kindness you notice. Do you notice more kindness when you’re looking for it? Find a way to express your gratitude for the kindness you witness and experience. It might be by saying thank you or maybe by keeping the ripple of kindness going.
Another thing you could do this week is to think of all of the kindness you experienced right before you go to bed. Replay the kindness in your mind and let those be the thoughts on your mind as you go to sleep. You could even say a prayer or send good vibes to the people you witnessed being so kind.
My thoughts on being Grateful for Kindness:
When you think about it, it’s like anything else we take for granted, food, water, the air we breathe (reader of the Martian will appreciate this). Kindness is something we take for granted and it’s often easy to loose sight of how important it is to us.
Only the other day while sorting out the spam in my comments folder I came a across an unkind comment, it was total spam and rubbish but even so it annoyed me. But surely I can do better than that?
Sure.
Last week I used the analogy of kindness while driving, if I was to go back to that scenario I think of the time that people are unkind on the road, the time where you’ve been given those special hand signs, of had someone express their displeasure with their horn. Not nice is it? I know some don’t care but you know what – I do.
But let’s go even further to where we need kindness and support most, at work and at home? I’ve normally worked with bosses that are good, kind and honest and you can talk to them without fear. The occasional one has been awkward or something, but being tolerant in the spirit of getting along you let it slide. But what about the boss that for whatever reason (known only best to them) is nasty and seeks to put you down or is just plain abusive?
You soon miss kindness then. It’s in times that we don’t have something we take for granted that we miss it, just like in this case. You trust and rely on a level of kindness when you go about your work, when you don’t get it – man it screws you. So the way I thought about this to think about the last time someone was unkind to you, if that was a while ago then people have been kind.
This is where I’m at right now, sure there are daily bumps and grind in all kind of subtle ways but generally people are being kind to me and if the world is being kind to me, then the best thing I can do to thank it is be kind back to the world!
Simon 🙂
#kindnesschallenge2017 #kindness #planetsimon
Planet Simon’s Manic Monday
What a start to the week, I can barely keep up with what’s going on! Maybe the busy weekend set me off on a run that I can’t keep up with. Anyway, to the blog – this week see’s the closing of the kindness challenge so then it’s going to be up to me alone to find something to entertain you with!
Shock! Horror! Oh no!!
Fear not – I’ll find ways to bore you, I just need a few minutes to write them! 😀
I’ve not go t much more to add apart from that, so tell me – what are you my faithful bloggies up to this week? Anything that I or everyone else should know about?
As with last week I thought I would do a little self promotion of my social empire that I’ve been building lately, come and have a look:
www.facebook.com/BlogPlanetSimon
Have a great Monday and a great week!
Simon 🙂
#bloglife #planetsimon #manicmonday #mondaymotivation
13 Years of Cassini
We’ve 13 amazing years of Cassini exploring Saturn, now the mission is coming to a close – what did we find out?
via NASA — Solar System: Things to Know This Week
No ownership claimed on images or materials – Credit NASA
Simon 🙂
Employers – The Employee / Employer Relationship
Since the last week of my job backfired a bit I’ve been thinking about the employee / employer relationship. I wanted to have a series of posts talking about my views from the way I see as like an open letter to employers about what it is that makes an employee want to work for and please their employer.
I thought for this first one it’s about the relationship and to see how things have changed a bit let’s turn the clock back to Victorian times. It was in these times that Britain was at it’s peak, technologically, economically and it’s standing int he world seemed un-movable. This Britain was built on what today we see as slave labour, workers had little to no rights. Employers would move clocks back and forward to suit themselves and get more work out of every employee. The price of disobedience or lack of performance was instant dismissal, which would lead to tough times and eventually the workhouse.
Moved on
Thankfully things have moved on a bit and there are now rights and laws in place that are always being reviewed and argued about and ultimately changed. But the world is learning that employing someone and expecting the same out of each employee isn’t as simple as paying them and expecting them to do great things.
Why is this?
Simple – everyone is different. A family person is likely to not stay as late as a single person. People have lives outside of work, but some don’t and dedicate their lives to their jobs. Comparing any one employee to another as a yardstick is as pointless as comparing a fingerprint. Everyone is aware that as job has to be done and normally every one will do their very best. Because they want to, sure they want to get paid and in nearly every case NEEDS to get paid, but using that to hold power over an employee is bad form.
Inspiring Employee’s
Pretty much every employee in every company want to be inspired to do the best job they can – they want to be seen to be doing a good job, they want to feel that their efforts and time are pleasing their employer and employee wants to please.
So when you sit in a room with your manager and they rattle on for 20 minutes about the fact that you don’t works as well or as fast as they like is that inspiring – NO! Why these managers don’t take a different angle on it I have no idea. For example I was told that I don’t work fast enough and spent 20 minutes discussing distractions and how I can work faster. When I queried them on the quality of my work the reply was “Er – I think it’s ok”
Great – you’ve just admitted that you don’t give a flying fuck about what I do – as long as it’s quick.
Turning this around it could have gone another way:
“Hey Simon, you’re doing some great work but there’s going to be a lot going on over the next few months and we need your help to get boards out faster – How can I help with this?”
The end result is still the same, I feel better because I’ve been told I do good work and the manager would feel better for having a positive conversation. Why is this so hard? Also, sometimes things take the time they take for a reason, if a manger thinks it can and should be done quicker – maybe they should show the employee how! There’s no better inspiration that a leader that actually leads.
This is the first of several posts on employers… if you like it say so – have any ideas to add, then let me know!
Simon
Where my Feet have been – Abby Ruins
The weekend weather was amazing! Visiting the Abby ruins near where I live is always interesting, normally it’s a place where children can play hide and seek or people can relax and chill out in peace.
The irony of this is the dark and violent history surrounding these ruins, peasant uprisings, power struggles, blood shed and the such. The evidence of this is only in the ruins, the Abby destroyed on one the many conflicts around this pace and time.
But here also there is history, the start of the Magna Carter and the names of Barons sent to deliver this act to King John.
This place was important, things happened here and because of this it was destroyed. Now only ruins remain and among them there are features like stairs, ornaments and shapes, made so long ago and destroyed.
Now it’s just a place to play and chill.
Simon 🙂
Kindness Challenge Week 6 – Kindness without Expectation
It’s week 6 of the kindness challenge and this week is focusing on kindness without expectation. That is to be kind without expecting anything in return. The kindness challenge is being run by Niki Meadows of Richness of a Simple life and the challenge prompt for the week is here:
https://therichnessofasimplelife.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/week-6-kindness-without-expectation/
This week’s challenge focuses on not only choosing kindness but being kind without expectation. Kindness is something that should be given freely without restriction or expectation. How others respond is on them, but how we give kindness is on us. This is might be a big step to take on our journey of making kindness a bigger part of our lifestyle. You might find that you already do some things without expectation and others without realizing expectation was there. While it’s liberating to be kind without expectation, I do encourage you to remember to uphold your healthy boundaries. Remember the kindness we focused on during the first three weeks of the challenge. Being kind starts with yourself.  Don’t deplete yourself or do things that aren’t in alignment with yourself. I can’t wait to hear about how this week goes for you!
Week 1’s Challenge is here:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/kindness-challenge-week-1-self-love/
Week 2’s Challenge is here:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/kindness-challenge-week-2-self-compassion/
Week 3’s Challenge is here:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/kindness-challenge-week-3-self-acceptance
Week 4’s Challenge is here:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/kindness-challenge-week-4-kindness-role-model
Week 5’s Challenge is here:
https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/kindness-challenge-week-5-choosing-kindness/
So how can someone be kind without expectation? I found it’s actually quite hard if I’m quite honest with myself, but then maybe I’m being too harsh and ignoring my self kindness boundaries.
The first thing I considered was kindness while driving, this is difficult at the best of times. On my daily commute to and from home I navigate narrow country roads and busy dual carriageways. Making way to be kind to your fellow driver is something I try and do all the time, it’s not often that one get’s thanks for this but on the other hand you don’t normally see the person and certainly don’t speak to them.
So what else?
Holding the door open for someone? Being friendly to a stranger or clearing up after dinner and clearing up the kitchen. All these simple things I do all the time and I don’t think about getting thanks – does that mean yay? Well done me? What a good boy I am – it kind of seems a bit trite to think like that but maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the greatest thing I can do for someone is to give a prayer or thought to a stranger I see randomly. Try and give a fellow human happiness or good wishes on their journey as they pass close.
No thanks would be given, because maybe they wouldn’t even know who to thank if anyone needed to be.
Simon 🙂
