A while back I used to do something which I blatantly stole off Louise from Sprinkle of Glitter called “Motivational Monday”. The motivational pictures from Tumblr started to dwindle pretty quickly as I found that as a person, I’m not too motivational on a Monday. This is normally me on a Monday morning:I was also pretty unenamoured with sounding like the Martha fricking Brady of Stoke-on-Trent because most of the time, I just love a good moan. If you follow me on Twitter (my handle is @misscharl) you’ll be more than aware that I like to partake in a bit of a moan, a whinge, a whine and a bitch in 95% of my tweets. In fact, Charlotte once said that she was considering unfollowing me once upon a time because I brought too much negativity upon her timeline (I like to think I bring some hilarity with my negativity so it balances itself out).

It’s with this in mind that I thought I’d adopt a more “Charl Friendly” post for a Monday : Monday Moan. I may do this every Monday, I may not. This whole feature is totally mood based and also dependent on whether I have something to moan about (lets safely assume that I’ll have something to moan about in that case).   This isn’t meant to be a negative feature, it’s more somewhere to vent, but in a funny way.  To prove that I’m not a negative Nancy I’ll begin with my first Monday Moan.

People who moan.

“Oh you’re so hypocritical!” “Girl, you’re batshit crazy!” “How can you moan about people who moan?” If any of you are asking this, then lets take a few minutes and chew the fat about it.

I moan. Everybody moans.  It’s what we do (that and judging people).  Generally, I moan about other humans because I’m really intolerant of them in general.  It’s not that I don’t like other people and I’m some big weird loner dude, I do, but on a day to day basis I just can’t deal with the stupidity and annoyances people.  I’m a consistant moaner, you’ve gotta give me that.

Of course, I have those ultra moany and needy days: they mostly come hand in hand with a packet of Tampax and stomach pain caused by the walls of my uterus being ripped away and expelled along with more hormones racing through my crippling body than your average teenage boy. This tends to send my “tolerable life stuff” threshold pretty low.

The last few days for example, I’ve been moaning that blog isn’t everything that it could be, that my body is more jiggly than I’d like, that my bank account doesn’t reflect the lifestyle I’d like to have and that I lack the weight of a man to lay on top of me. 

I’ve moaned. I’ve vented to the people who allow me to bounce my frustrations onto them and I’ve internalised my moans and spent a day burying my head in the sand and watching Netflix.  But eventually I get it out of my system and I give myself a metaphorical slap myself round my miserable little face.  I then (in my head) sit myself down like a spoilt little girl and tell myself:

Your blog isn’t what you want it to be? Make more time to write/write better posts/take better pictures/market it better/brainstorm ideas/interact more.

Your body is more jiggly than you’d like it to be? Put down that 5th cheese and cracker, stop drinking that bottle of wine and squeeze your jiggle into some gym clothes and on your way back stop off at Tesco’s and buy some healthy, nutritious food.

Your bank account doesn’t reflect the lifestyle you want? Welcome to the real world. Figure out a lifestyle that reflects your bank account, stop spending so much money on useless stuff (like alcohol and cheese – see above), get a second job or a job that pays you more money.

You lack the weight of a man laying on top of you? It may not be ideal, but you can pay for that sort of thing. Either that or lower you standards a little and stop being so damn picky.Moral? All of those moans are easily changeable when you switch a negative attitude for a positive one (paying for an escort to lay on top of me probably isn’t so positive).  After a good arse kicking of my own hiney (not sure on the logistics of how that would work) I realise that I can easily be the change that needs to happen in order to turn those moans around.  Or those frowns upside down.  After all, aren’t we each responsible for our own lives/happiness/unhappiness.  I very much live by the “if somethings broken, fix it” train of thought.   

Remember in Titanic where Cal *spits on his grave* says those words “a real man makes his own luck”?  Well that’s the train of thought which I jump on, pump my arm up and down and scream CHOO CHOO into the passing wind.  Except man can mean “woman” because, heck, its the 21st century now and all luck making should be equal.The people I moan about are the people who are habitual life moaners.  They never board the “make your own luck” train because they stand around on the platform, blaming everybody else because they were too late to catch it, or it was too full, or they forgot their ticket, or or or or…. excuse after excuse as to why they’re not responsible for the change they want to see in their own life. They forget that the time they spend moaning about how the world owes them something could be put to good use changing what it is that’s making them moan. 

Sure I’m a moaner about the little things but if I’m given lemons, no matter how small, squished and bitter, I’ll try to make lemonade out of it.

That’s my first moan out of the way, even though it’s been a bit of a moan inception (a moan within a moan with a moan). 

Moving forward?  More specific Monday Moans: 

People who talk with their mouth full, when people sit next to on the train when there’s a gazillion seats empty, people who use “your” instead of “you’re”… can you think of anymore?