The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I had a lovely evening out with a great friend last night.  We went and had a meal together and then went to the cinema to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  I saw a trailer for it during half term and was drawn to it's cast of the best British actors, knowing that there are no films containing them that I have not enjoyed.

What I had not realised was how much the story was a reflection by older people on the lives of older people.  Each of the characters had their own story to tell which we were introduced to in the first 15 minutes or so of the film.  They then all end up going to India to a 'retirement' complex which they find is not finished.  I sort of expected the story to take the line of how the business was then made, however that was not the point of the story at all.  This was a really fresh way of looking at ageing for me, we so often here about younger generations not understanding or even 'liking' the older generations.  To see older characters struggling with their own views of what is expected of them as they get older was very insightful.   I will not say anymore as I would encourage everyone to watch it as God willing we might all experience getting 'old' at some point.

When Life gets too busy.

I have just been too busy the last month or so.  So busy in fact that it took me having a week off work and spending good quality time with friends to make me realise just how busy life has been in the last 3 years.  My last post was all about friendships, and I seem to have done nothing but run into story after story, blog after blog about this topic since then.  I am now trying to tackle this, it will no doubt take a little time, it may mean big changes to my working life.  However I am quite sure that if I am following the path that I believe God is leading me down then all will be well,  I just have to be patient.   Praise God!

More blessings for a Monday.

710.  Fabulous childrens Lent activity morning - I love my job!

 711.  Beauty in the hot house.

 712. Drifts of snowdrops.

 713. A small moment amongst tall trees.

 714.  Beauty even amongst that which is decomposing.

 715.  Happy dog.

 716.  A quiet moment with my friend.

 717.  Breathtaking skys.

 718.  Memory making moments.

 719.  Another crochet pot completed for a birthday girl.

Friends

I went along to my counselling session with plans that it would be my last one for a while.  Going along has enabled me to gain far more insight into the way I react to others around me.  This in turn has given me the wisdom to ascertain whether a problem is my own problem or belongs to someone else.  Having both these tools has been invaluable over the last rocky 14 weeks since my dad died and all that ensued.  The outside benefits are:

• I am far more relaxed at home.
• I consider time out for myself as a need and not a luxury.
• Family relationships are going along new pathways.
• There is more organisation/ order in my home.

It is therefore very easy to sit back and say 'that will do'.  However it seems God has a little more he wants me to deal with yet. Will I ever learn that God never wants me to just make do?  With half term approaching we got onto the topic of friendships.  I confessed that I have really not put very much effort into friendships for the last few years (or more).  There are practical reasons for this, when family life becomes chaotic it is natural for friendships to take a back seat.  However I am starting to realise that mine have been on the backseat for so long, that I have got to the point where I cannot remember and don't really feel I  have the skills to be reintroducing them into my life.

Since being a little girl I have learnt how to distance myself from things that hurt.  That is the coping mechanism that worked for me then and so it has grown up with me.  I am now recognising that I might be loosing out on something because of this distance.  With friendships it has been far easier to write a blog and keep facebook updates letting friends know what is physically going in my life.  However to avoid having to talk about it (because it all hurts so much), I have managed to stay away from the telephone and from meeting up with friends for far too long.

I believe friends are a God given gift, maybe it is the shrinking of my family (through death and other things beyond my control), that is making me realise I need to get back on track with friendships.  At the moment that feels like a really big and scary path to walk.  However I know that if I look at practically how far I have moved on since beginning my counselling in September, it should not be too painful to tackle another area.

So to any friends that are reading this, I am sorry and I will start talking again in real life and I am so grateful for your love, care and patience with me.

Decisions.

Have you ever noticed how decision making can become so difficult when you have the wrong amount of stress triggers around?  I am one of those people who need a little bit of pressure to make me get things done, if there is not enough pressure then I get so relaxed I cannot make a decision about anything.  On the other hand if there is too much stress/pressure around then I get too scared to make any decisions.

I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I had finally started a new routine with cooking for my family, this has been great, the pressure goes on at the end of the week to decide what shopping needs to be purchased for me to cook at the weekend and have healthy meals for the family all week.  This means that when it comes to tea time the pressure to suddenly think of what we are going to eat and prepare it  has gone, I usually just have to pop something into the oven. Yesterday I even managed to make some bread rolls as well!

Today's decision making has been slightly different.  I have made one decision - it is time to try and crochet a garment!  I have made another decision - I will make something for my daughter!  Other decisions  made are the design, the pattern, the yarn and the size crochet hook to use.  There is one decision left - the colour

 

I brought this Sirdar Simply Recycled yarn the other day having been wanting to use it for a while.  It is a mixture of acrylic and recycled cotton,  I set about trying the tension on my pattern and thought while I was at it I could look at how the different colour combinations work, this is the result of that:

The camera does not pick up the colour too well, starting from the bottom the colours are, green, brown, pink, green, brown, pink, green, brown, cream, pink, brown, cream, pink, brown, cream, green, pink, cream, green and pink.  I had been intending to choose three colours to use.  However I quite like the transition from the darker colours to the lighter stripes once the cream is added - now I just cannot decide!!!!  I think I shall have to just wait patiently for my dear daughter to come home and help make the decision as she will be the one wearing it.

By the way the piccie at the top of this post is a scarf I have made myself this week - just in time for the cold blast of weather we are presently experiencing.  I made it using  velour yarn I picked up in a charity shop, 6 balls for £5.00 and then finished it off with a border of some left over yarn from a hat I have made.  I am very pleased with the result, I maybe should have used a slightly larger hook for the border but I haven't got one so couldn't use one!  I most definitely won't be rushing to use this type of yarn again though, as nice as it is to have something big that grows really quickly, the mess that it made was horrendous.