Fi Phillips

Today I return to a writing challenge that I first discovered last year, the Mindful Writing Challenge  from Writing Our Way Home. Write a small stone every day of January - it's as simple as that. If you haven't come across the writing form of small stones yet, you can find an explanation here . I'll be posting my January small stones on my Tumblr blog but here's my first one. Happy New Year Children in bed. Fireworks cease. Champagne pops. My love and I.

I told you about the River of Stones writing challenge on the first day of 2012 and you'll have noticed that I've included a handful of them on this blog. Aside from one weekend, I've been writing a small stone each day and you can find all of them on my Tumblr blog, What I see, what I hear, what I am . Have you been writing small stones this month?

Last night, we took down our Christmas tree and packed all the festive decorations away. It's a task that always makes me sad because it marks the end of the holiday. The child in me loves the glitter and pretty lights but my adult self realises that we need the space and normality. My husband has returned to work, the children are back at school and the Christmas tree is in the attic. This time of year, when the decorations are down, the weather is grey and our purses are empty, life can appear drab and a chore. Many of us will have put on a few pounds over the festive break. Without the decorations, our homes may seem rather plain. It can all feel as if there's nothing within reach to look forward to, which is exactly the time when a bit of imagination can work wonders. The first thing you need to do is work out what it is you miss about the Christmas holiday. Is it the colour and sparkle? Is it the chance to dress up? Do you love the opportunity to see absent friends and...

Today I received an award from the talented writer, Kelly Hashway . The rules of this award are that I should mention the blogger who gave the award, tell you seven things that you don't know about me and pass on the award to five other bloggers. What you might not know about me I took singing lessons from an opera singer. I love singing. For years, I was involved in amateur dramatics but haven't done any acting for about eight years. I miss spending time on stage. The older I get, the more I see my father in me. When I was eight years old, I was knocked down by a car and spent six weeks in hospital - Christmas, New Year and my birthday. Those six weeks changed my outlook on life, opening my eyes to the diversity in people's lives. When I lived in a bedsit in Surrey, many years ago, I once answered the door to an old lady who asked if this house was the keycutter. I said no and unfortunately had no idea if there was a keycutter in the area. As she turned to go...

In December, my nine year old daughter told me that she no longer likes the colour pink. The word 'hate' was even used. "So what colours do you like then?" I asked, trying to calculate how much money I'd need to spend to replace the majority of her clothes and bedding. "I don't mind," she said. "Just not pink or purple." When it came to buying her a new school coat, I was faced with a dilemma. Without spending a fortune on a coat that would be dragged around and probably stood on numerous times each day, I was left with a smaller selection of shops to choose a waterproof, hooded, warm winter coat from. The only stipulation I had from my daughter was "not pink" but that is just what I found in the shops for her age group. Pink coats, pink and black, pink and grey, pink love hearts, pink roses, anything pink you could ever imagine and more. In the last shop I visited, I finally found a plain black coat which she thankfully gav...

Another year, another birthday. Today I have reached the grand age of forty six years. I am now officially nearer fifty than forty. Do I feel old? Mature? Wise and cultured? Er, no. I feel like, well, like me. That's the one thing that I've always carried with me - me. If I have to put a finger on the age I seem to relate to, then I suppose it's somewhere in my early thirties. Having said that, what exactly does it feel like to be in your early thirties? I didn't know then and I don't know now how I'm supposed to feel or behave at this age. A twenty-something Dorothy My mother's generation always seemed to know how to act at different stages in their lives. In her twenties, my mother was a dutiful daughter, the youngest child staying at home to help her parents. In my twenties, I was opinionated to the point of thinking I knew better than my parents and I dressed like Margaret Thatcher (they called it 'power dressing'). My mother's third ...

Today I'm starting the new year with a writing challenge, well, actually more of a writing treat. I've previously told you about the writing practice of small stones and the Writing Our Way Home website. To quote one of the site's creators, Fiona Robyn, "A small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment". The WOWH peeps (Fiona and Kaspa) are holding the River throughout January 2012. In essence, the challenge is to write a small stone each day of the month. You can share your small stones on the WOWH site or on your own blogs. If you'd like to find out more about the challenge and join in, you can read about it  here . Inside Inside, we wrap our hearts in this warm silence, savouring the time together before the return to normal, outside.

I was recently introduced to the writing concept of 'small stones'. It's creator Fiona Robyn, explains it in this way. "A small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment." In essence, it is a vehicle to live more in the moment, look at the world around us with writerly eyes and adopt a daily writing practice. You can find a fuller description on the Writing Our Way Home website which is run by Fiona and Kaspa. This is a great site for writers, featuring an inspirational blog, courses and a community too. Here's the small pebble I'm tossing onto the beach today. My World "I don't get it" he said. "Why do you have to live in this imaginary world of science fiction and vampires and superstition? Isn't the real world enough for you?" He didn't understand. He didn't get the point that sometimes this real world is too much.