Mindful Musings

Read This When “Self-Care” Makes You Want to Scream
Read this when someone suggests a bath, a candle, or “some time for yourself” and you feel an overwhelming urge to fake your own disappearance. Read this when the phrase self-care makes you feel selfish, inadequate, or like you’re failing at yet another thing. I can’t do self-care. I can do self-maintenance. That distinction matters. Why “self-care” feels wrong (and self-maintenance doesn’t) Self-care sounds optional. It sounds indulgent. A bonus. Something you earn after coping well, being calm, or holding it together convincingly enough. Self-maintenance sounds like what it is:... Read more...
Taylor Swift - TLOAS - An Album That Let Me Dance Through the Storm
Some albums meet you gently. Others give you permission to move. Taylor Swifts’s 2026 album TLOAS (the life of a showgirl) landed for me as something energetic, playful, and emotionally clever. It didn’t ask me to sit still with my feelings. It let me dance through them. The Storm in a Teacup The imagery of dancing through lightning strikes and storms in a teacup hit me immediately. Those phrases have always felt like tattoo ideas I couldn’t quite articulate. The idea that something can feel world-ending inside your own head,... Read more...
Why I Created a Maternal Mental Health Planner - and Why All Profits Go to APP
I didn’t create a maternal mental health planner alone. This planner exists because I was helped - and because the organisation that helped me chose to help shape it too. In 2021, after the birth of my second child, I experienced postpartum psychosis. It arrived suddenly, escalated quickly, and became a medical emergency. Recovery was slow, frightening at times, and completely life-altering. During that period, Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP) supported me when I didn’t believe I would ever feel well again. They provided information, understanding, and connection at a... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: September
as the light changed September became craft fair prep. Not a side project. Not a hobby. My whole being for autumn. Lists, stock, ideas, making things with my hands in a way that felt steady and absorbing. Something to pour energy into as the days quietly shortened. There was a beautiful wedding in the Wicklow Mountains. Soft light. Big skies. The kind of setting that makes everything feel a little more spacious. Love witnessed without complication. I let myself enjoy it without attaching anything heavy to it. The dips slowed... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: August
the outdoors held me August was car camping. Sleeping close to the ground. Living out of bags. Letting the day decide the shape of itself instead of the other way round. River swims. Waterfall dips. Cold, moving water that didn’t ask questions or need answers. Just immersion. Just being held by something bigger than my thoughts. Camping with found family. People who didn’t need the backstory. People who let me be quiet or feral or joyful without commentary. Shared food. Shared fires. Shared ease. I released myself to the outdoors... Read more...
The Night I Took the Kids Car Camping and Terrified Myself
In 2025, I did the biggest thing I’d ever done. I took the kids car camping on the North Coast. Just us. No backup plan. No easy exit. Looking back, I still don’t fully know what I was thinking. Fear, Loud and Immediate It felt like fear incarnate. The kind that arrives fully formed, armed with what-ifs, practical concerns, and worst-case scenarios that feel strangely convincing. The what-ifs were relentless. They tried, quite genuinely, to drown me. Everything felt amplified. Responsibility. Noise. Exhaustion. The knowledge that I was the only... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: July
starting to get there July was water and movement. Trips to the beach with the family. Chaos, sand everywhere, bags heavier on the way back than on the way there. The kind of days that leave you tired in a good way. Sea swims. Lough dips. Cold that steals your breath and then gives it back cleaner. Sunrise swims under pink skies that felt almost unreal, like the day was offering something gently instead of demanding it. I kept showing up to things that made me anxious. London trips that... Read more...
Dot Grid Notebook Ideas: Scrapbooking, Reading Trackers, and One-Off Creative Pages
If you bought a dot grid notebook and you’re wondering what to do with it next, you’re not alone. Dot grid notebooks are incredibly flexible - but that openness can make them feel intimidating. This post explores practical, low-pressure ways to use a dot grid notebook for scrapbooking, trackers, and creative pages you don’t have to maintain. Using a dot grid notebook for scrapbooking A dot grid notebook works beautifully for scrapbooking because it doesn’t force a layout. You can use the dots to: roughly align photos or text layer... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: June
two things can be true June was Lanzarote. Heat on skin. Salt air. Black volcanic ground against impossible blue. The kind of place that makes your nervous system unclench before you’ve had time to argue with it. It was our wedding anniversary. Which means it always carries something else with it. A reminder of the trip to our abroad wedding. A reminder of the moment things between me and my mum cracked for good. Somewhere between airports and wine glasses and me saying something I thought was reasonable and her... Read more...
Obsession Isn’t the Problem. Direction Is.
I’ve learned something important about myself over time. The problem was never that I care too much. It was that all that energy didn’t always have somewhere to go. Obsession Is Just Energy Without a Container When something lands in my head, it tends to take over. Ideas loop. Plans multiply. Scenarios branch endlessly. Left loose, that energy becomes exhausting. It fills every quiet moment. It makes things feel bigger and heavier than they actually are. But the obsession itself isn’t the issue. What Happens When There’s No Direction Without... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: May
apparently I’m allowed to heal out loud In May, I was discharged from mental health services. Just like that. A sentence. A goodbye. An ending I didn’t quite trust yet. I kept waiting for someone to say actually, no, not you. But they didn’t. Instead, we created a planner for Action on Postpartum Psychosis. Something practical. Something real. Something that existed because of everything I’d been through, not in spite of it. That felt strange in my body. Good, but unfamiliar. I started sharing more online. Messy footage. Unpolished thoughts. Half-formed... Read more...
Notes I wrote while trying to keep going: April
when people stop asking In April, people asked less. Not because they didn’t care. Because time had passed and grief has an expiry date for everyone except the person carrying it. The world had decided I was coping. I was back in routines. Bedtimes. Evenings. The quiet stretch at the end of the day where everything I’d held off finally showed up. I didn’t talk about it much. I didn’t want to explain that nothing had resolved just because weeks had moved on. April felt like being left alone with... Read more...

Made for moments like this

I don’t write these things to sell notebooks.
But these are the kinds of moments my notebooks were made for.
A place to document experiences, not improve them.
Forests & Rivers

Forests & Rivers

Half-Feral, Fully Fabulous

Half-Feral, Fully Fabulous

Mountains & Glens

Mountains & Glens

Seas & Sunrises

Seas & Sunrises

Cosmic Beyond

Cosmic Beyond

Half-Feral, Fully Fabulous

Half-Feral, Fully Fabulous