I actually had to have a word with myself this week. I had begun to sound like a right old mardy pants. Tiredness does that to you I guess. But actually, it doesn’t give you an excuse to be a miserable whinge bag when frankly, in the grand scheme of things everything is really rather lovely. And it’s very nearly Christmas. I ruddy love Christmas!
Mabel has been really quite unwell again recently. A chesty cough, a continual cold and a nasty sickness bug. She hasn’t been sleeping and consequently neither have we. If you read my sleep deprivation feature last week and combined with your own experiences you’ll know it sends you a bit bonkers. And more often than not, somewhat grumpy.
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I have been bemoaning the lack of warm (yet fashionable) items in my wardrobe (seriously I have nothing to wear) and then harping on about how I haven’t had anytime to go shopping/surf the world wide web to resolve this superficial issue.
The central heating has been playing havoc with my epidermis, I have patches of eczema in the corners of my eyes, on the tops of my shoulders, across the backs of both hands and all the way along my rib cage. I look like I am permanently in costume. For Halloween.
As I’m so tired I feel behind with my fitness and healthy (ish) eating regime. Exercise consists of going up and down the stairs and I am quite sure I have consumed my weight in Hobnobs and cupcakes over the past few days. The brief sugar highs inevitably lead to lethargic and seemingly unremitting lows…
Blah blah blah. Woe is me.
The thing is, it’s Christmas. I have a beautiful family, amazing, loyal and supportive friends and a whole bunch of stuff to look forward to in 2015. Life for so many people, is considerably more challenging and imeasurably difficult.
Don’t worry – I’m not about to go all doom and gloom on this frosty Monday, I actually wanted to mention something incredibly generous and thoughtful that always puts a smile on my face when I think about it. By now you probably know I’m a huge fan of instagram – there are so many super communities on there.
A wee while ago whilst perusing my feed I came across a cool (and very relevant!) poster by @violetandpercy_ who sells lovely stationery and giftage items at www.violetandpercy.com
Turns out all of the proceeds from the sale of each poster are kept in a fund for a little boy called Oscar. I’ll let Flora, the founder of Violet and Percy, explain.
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Team No Sleep
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Flora: By way of a bit of background, I have been following Laura @_G3 on instagram for a while now and admire her unwavering love, strength and positivity for Oscar.
Oscar has a number of challenges which make every day life difficult. To quote Laura, “he is technically undiagnosed though the cause of his disabilities is likely a rare genetic syndrome, he has epilepsy, global development delay, hyper mobility and hypotania, sleep problems, cannot mobilise or stand independently, feed himself, use speech or communicate his need, etc.”
A number of IG parents (Laura included) with young children who don’t sleep well coined the hashtag #teamnosleep when discussing their tiredness or bad nights, so when I was thinking of ways to help Laura and Oscar, I thought a print with these words was apt and would be popular.
I sell the prints for £7.95 on my website violetandpercy.com and all profits go into a fund for Oscar’s future. The support so far has been amazing!People have been posting their photos of the prints once they’ve purchased them with the hashtag #oscarsteamnosleep.
It’s been a heartwarming experience and shows the real community spirit that exists on instagram.
The thing I notice the most about Laura’s feed is that every image is a celebration in some way, the little things, the bigger things, a ray of positivity in the face of everything adverse life may throw at you.
I am truly inspired to see the glass as half full. Always.
Please use the comments section to mention/link to anything charitable you would like the Rock My Style community to know about and feel free to get anything off your chest as it were. We are all of course allowed a good moan every now and again, just as long as you promise to follow it with thoughts of all things lovely and jolly.
Goony grin as per the header image optional.
I had a crappy day at work last Thursday – one of a few too many recently – but when I switched on my phone after the last meeting, a message came through to say that my friend had given birth to her second baby. Suddenly, work didn’t seem to matter so much. There are always more important things going on, both better and worse, so some perspective is never a bad thing. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to remember or that the things bothering you don’t matter, but it is nice to have the reminder every now and then. For me, Christmas is going to provide some quality time to spend with my husband, family and friends and really that’s what life is all about isn’t it!
Katie
Exactly Katie, it is what life is all about, I am looking forward to this Christmas more than any other as it’s Mabel’s first one x
With our first baby due in just under 4 weeks, Team No Sleep has duly been ordered for the nursery…! What a lovely cause and I’m sure will make me less grumpy when I see it at 2am, 3am, 4am etc
Super Kat! and congratulations on your impending arrival. What a brilliant 2015 you will have!
I love Laura’s IG feed and didn’t realise that this existed as a way to help Oscar’s development/look out for his future. She seems such a genuine soul (and really lovely based on a few interactions) and during my 18 months of no sleep from a challenging baby, she was always the feed I visited to put my challenges into perspective. She is so inspiring and I have loved following Oscar’s journey. I will definitely be buying this print. It’s such a wonderful idea and I think when you’re stuck in a world of sleepless nights and sometimes challenging days, to be able to look up and see this is a great reminder that you are not alone in this all consuming world and there are Mums out there that have it as hard as you and many many Mums that have it a thousand times harder.
Oh I love how Christmas brings out such beautiful generosity in people. My husband just reminded me last night that I need to keep my focus on doing the best for other people to fight against feeling so overwhelmed by all the sadness I see in the world. He’s right…and apt timing for me going back to work in the first week of the new year.
My charity had a nice little appeal in November. We decided we just wanted to be able to send out a really nice Christmas postcard out to each of the young people we’d worked with that year. It sounds so utterly basic but such a simple thing of having someone write you an encouraging and uplifting little note at Christmas, rather than just scrawling their name, is just that bit more special. Also, we felt challenged after last year, a girl who had been on one of our courses a while back, but we’d lost touch with, got in touch with us mid January – she had been pregnant just before Christmas, 15 years old, told no one apart from the boyfriend who split up with her straight away (and got a new girlfriend that day) and on New Years day had some horrible pains and suffered a miscarriage. It took her about 3 WEEKS to pluck up the courage to send Beth and I a facebook message to ask for some help and someone to go to the drs with her. 🙁 It made us feel so relieved she’d remembered us to ask, but also so very sad that she had no one else and that it had taken so long… We wished we’d written her a nice message at Christmas…we might have got her the medical and emotional support a just a few days earlier… what a sad thing to go through.
So being a very small charity we didn’t really have a budget for cards…but we worked out how much it would cost and put up a little facebook status… kind people just responded straight away and the amount was covered in just a few hours… and so we had to make it into a birthday card fund too because poeple wanted to keep giving to it still! I do feel so very fortunate that my job keeps me in constant contact with poeple’s genrous and giving spirit… it’s such a challenge to keep my attitude in check and its also just very nice 🙂
I also think I might need this poster… I’d like to be smug enough to say I don’t understand it and I dont have bags under my eyes and occasionally fall asleep at the dinner table… but its not true.
Such a lovely idea with the Christmas cards. It can really mean the world to people to receive a few kinds words. Especially at what can be a lonely time for some unfortunate people. Sounds like you have a great job that you can be proud of. Falling asleep at the dinner table is such a standard thing these days. Also whilst on rare trips to the cinema I find?! Oops.
Thanks Becky 🙂 and yes… I know that one… 7 months of planning a girlie weekend in London for one of my bestest friends birthday to see Les Mis – her absolute favourite and thanks to her cheeky non sleeping 9 month old she fell asleep in the theatre…she missed the whole of the empty chairs song!! Champagne and dark places are not the best combination for busy sleep deprived mamas!
I really feel for you, Charlotte – there is *nothing* in the world that inhibits my ability to put things perspective as much as lack of sleep does. Love this post though, it’s put me right in my place. Last week was totally mental at work and I was completely stressed – then we were meant to have our Christmas tree delivered on Saturday, right before my parents arrived from abroad on Sunday (I wanted the house all perfect for when they arrived). The tree didn’t come and it didn’t come on Sunday either, like we had were then promised.
However – my parents, who I haven’t seen since August, are in town for the next few weeks and, despite not yet having a tree, we pulled out all the old decorations and lights and had a lovely time figuring out what to put on the as-yet-non-existent tree. We then had my fiance’s parents round for a lovely dinner (which my parents had brought with them all the way from Ethiopia where they currently live – amazing!). I’m now back at work where everything is mega stressed but I’m refusing to get stressed because none of this is that important and it’s CHRISTMAS, wohoo!
Kate has your tree arrived today? It seems deliveries all over the country are delayed due to the popularity of black Friday, all of my M&S that was supposed to be delivered today is now not coming apparently. Oh well, as long as it’s here by the 24th (!)
Anyway it sounds as if everything worked out lovely, also – cuisine all the way from Ethiopia? Wow! x
Nope, still no tree although I’m at work so who knows! The delivery things are annoying but like you say – who cares as long as they’re under the tree in time. 😉
What a lovely way to help Oscar. I didn’t realise this is what the print was for and I follow Violet and Percy and love what they do!
Something I found on my travels around the blogosphere is these gorgeous concrete geometric pendants from Eden’s Closet, the proceeds from which help to combat sex trafficking. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/208506065/concrete-geometric-hexagon-pendant?ref=listing-shop-header-1 Thought you might like them!
LOVE these Kate – excellent for layering! such a good cause too x
My amazingly talented mum makes greetings cards and all the proceeds go to The Laura Crane Trust which is a charity for teenagers with cancer. She has made over £8000 for the charity doing what just started as a hobby for her. I am so proud to have her as my mum, her lovely cards can be seen at https://m.facebook.com/TotallyBespoke?_rdr
Wow, thats LOADS Claire! gosh, no wonder you are so proud of your Mum!
Awwww what a lovely thing to do.
An excessive workload and lots of blogging has made Becca a very dull person recently (poor Mr M!) but last week I managed to organise some fundraising at work and was so overwhelmed that we managed to raise just over £270 for Save the Children (this is a huge amount for our little office). Was such a fantastic feeling to know that we all got into the spirit to help those less fortunate.
LOVE that Christmas can bring out the best in people!
xx
Me too Rebecca, congratulations and raising so much for Save The Children x
Lovely post – very hard to keep perspective when you are sleep deprived, and great poster I’m going to order one – it’s a great cause xx
Oh I have also been a moody moo the last couple of days and the worst thing is there is no real reason for it except I’m tired and a bit stressed out with work. Thank you for the much needed perspective this morning xx
Charlotte I absolutely adore reading through your maternity section of the blog. Two weeks ago we welcomed our beautiful daughter Imogen Rose into the world after a 30 hour labour resulting in an emergency c-section and a 4day stay in the neo-natal unit. During this time we were in a complete bubble, getting through the days, trying to get myself recovered so we could get her home and living the hospital life without a glimpse of the outside world. I remember saying to my fiance that everything else just didn’t matter – whether we’d bought everyone Christmas presents, whether the house was a mess etc… we had our little family and everything else was irrelevant. I was also worried about what I will wear after having Imogen (after not shopping for most of the year due to my expanding stomach!), worried that my nails desperately needed doing, I hadn’t bought anyone a present for Christmas, I still hadn’t bought that mirror for the front room which just had to be done before Imogen was here (because of course babies are born with an eye for interior design!) and the list was endless. But all of that went away when we were landed in our situation and I thought to myself, nothing else matters.
We are now all at home and doing well and we couldn’t be happier and when I start to get teary or annoyed at the silliest things I take a breather and think it’s nearly Christmas!!!! And we have a lovely little family, house and a crazy puppy dog called Theo, our wedding to look forward to in May and I wouldn’t change it for the world….although yes a little more sleep would be quite nice!