Christmas crafting.

I have been having a wonderful time crafting this Christmas, if you click on the two photo's above you can see a little more of what I have been up to.

Another Year Older

Autumn has been hard.  We have had the first anniversary of my dad suddenly dying and the 4th anniversary of my little sister dying.  My mums mental health is raising serious concern, so far we have managed to keep her out of hospital this time.  My nieces troubled behaviour continues, though again Praise God she has not managed to get herself physically moved on again, except for short hospital stays.  My health has as usual been up and down.  My medication is under review and this week have the great joy of hip steroid injections to look forward to!

There are however days of loveliness usually provided by my dear long suffering husband.  My birthday this year was definitely one of them.

After a luxurious lie in we set off for a walk in the beautiful New Forest village of Beaulieu

It was so much fun watching my puppy dog Pippin getting a surprise when the water 'broke' under her feet, though she did seem to enjoy licking the ice!

I spent a long time choosing some delicious chocolate from this chocolate shop and enjoyed watching these little elves busily working away.

 We then retreated to a local hostelry for lunch.

 Pippin very quickly settled down.

Then in the evening after present opening with the children when they had returned from school I got taken for a lovely meal at a local Italian restaurant.  There was even time for some fizz and chocolate while my husband and I watched some funnies on the television afterwards while the children were out at activities.

Big Birthdays.

We had a big birthday in the house last week, my first born has finally reached his long awaited 13th birthday.  I have a teenager in the house once again.

I had to take a quick picture of this as we took him his birthday breakfast in bed, This little sign was on a birthday card from a dear friend last year saying Watch out almost a teenager, as you can see he had popped out of bed while we were downstairs and scribbled out the almost and put A teenager.

Here he is enjoying his breakfast. you might just about make out our flying puppy dog trying to get a little closer to that brekky!

We planned a quiet day, he had already been out a couple of weekends before hand to celebrate with some friends to a theme park without parental supervision for the first time!

It is very strange approaching this age with a young person again.  The last time was when we had my niece living with us, the first birthday she had with us was 13, 10 months after she arrived.  So much has happened since then.  The difference this time is that I have been been there from the beginning with my first born.  From our bed to moses basket, from moses basket to cot, from cot to child's bed, from child's bed to his current single bed.  Hopefully there will be no more beds while he is at our home but many more birthdays still to come.

I am so proud and thankful of all that he has brought into our lives and pray that he will bear with us as we try to navigate through his teenage years with him.

This is the yummy, chocolate, fudge toffee cake that my 11 year old daughter made for him

she has got a little longer to wait, though is quite desperate to get there already!  Hopefully we can help her to wait patiently and enjoy the 17 months she still has before she gets there!

Overcoats.

It has been a difficult month so far.  As a family we have just had the first anniversary of my fathers very sudden unexpected death.  It has got me thinking about grief as it has rather enveloped me more than at any other time since he died.

I was doing some reading a little while ago on the Internet (unfortunately I now cannot find what I read).  However it likened grief to wearing an old tatty overcoat.  This resonated straight away with me as it made me think of my mum.  Since my dad died she has been constantly wearing his old waterproof coat.  It is tatty, it does not do up properly, but it was his.  I did manage to persuade her to purchase herself a new one about 6 months ago however even now she seldom wears it.  However she does occasionally.

It seems to come very easy (natural?) to try and coax people out of their grief.  Just like I did with my mum and her coat.  However grief is something that we need to go through and if you use the metaphor of it being like an overcoat you can take it further.  If you don't wear your overcoat, it stays the same, if you wear it well, it slowly starts to wear out.  This might mean that it gets shabbier but this will encourage you to consider the new overcoat that might some day need to replace it.

My experience of grief is that I have not felt 'able' to wear my overcoat.  It is not attractive, it is drab, it does not make other people feel comfortable when I wear it.  However I am trying to grasp hold of the 'need' to wear it.  Hopefully with time I my overcoat might start to wear out.

It has been far too long since I have written down any blessings, but through these dark days there are still many many blessed moments.

830. Swimming a mile for the first time in one go.
831. Watching a film in a cosy warm house.
832. Sales starting to happen on my Folksy site.
833. Kissing my husband in the rain.
834. Autumn sunlight in the garden.
835. Lovely pumpkins ripening in the garden.
836. A meal with friends with dishes I had prepared and frozen so that I was not too exhausted for their company.
837. Encouraging my youngest to spread her wings and watching her fly on a band weekend away.
839. Godly blogs that bring his word and wisdom when I can't get to church.

Simple Days

Life is seems to be starting to slow down into a simpler routine than when I was working.  On the whole my days go by at a much more gentle pace.  I am managing to get to the swimming pool three times a week with my mum, and have built up to swimming 1100m each time (that's 44 lengths of our pool) which takes me between 40 and 50 minutes depending on how many lengths I do on my back.  These are the only set activities I presently have.

Tuesday and Thursday are my non swimming days, last Tuesday felt like a break through.  The first day when I felt as though I was able to do all that I wanted to do.  I spent the morning doing some crochet after a quick catch up on facebook, twitter and blogger and checking e-mails.  After lunch I made supper for me and the children (husband was working an afternoon shift) so that it could go in the oven as my daughter has her saxophone lesson from 5.30 to 6pm.  I then did some more crochet, managing to finish off a second pair of wrist warmers/fingerless mittens for one of my God-daughters and one of my nieces.  These were then ready to package up and sent through the post BEFORE their birthdays!

When my children arrived home from school there was time for a catch up with them and we then had notice that my daughters saxophone lesson had been cancelled.  The one activity I had not managed was walking the dog so this gave me the ideal opportunity to go and do that AND to go to the local shop at the same time to get milk which we were running low on and I had noticed!

Supper was ready when I got back, I put bread on to bake in the bread maker and the day was rounded off nicely with a bit of TV with the children. An early bed when my son went up meant I could read the very good book I got on my Kindle last week, you can see what it is here.  I can highly recommend the book, I have been introduced to the author on facebook via another author friend and this is the first book of hers I have read - a very gripping historical tale.

What made this day quite so perfect?  My husband coming in from work at 10.30pm, popping his head around the bedroom door and making a lovely comment about how nice the house smelt as the bread was almost ready for him to take out :o).  Sometimes it really is the simple things.

My Alter Ego

My alter ego Mrs Craftypants has been very busy this last few weeks, take a look at her latest post over on her blogspot here.

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Neglect

                                                    Hengistbury Head, Dorset, August 2012.

I haven't purposely been neglecting my blog, it's just sort of happened!  Over the summer holidays I was purposely trying to spend more time with my family doing things than sitting on my computer.  However there is another little venture that has been taking up any spare time - I have opened a shop on the folksy site - if you are interested in taking a peek you can find it by following this link.  I am still to make a sale yet but trying very hard not to get disheartened.

We did manage to have some very exciting adventures over the summer, including a trip to Paris and Switzerland!  We managed to get to the paralympics in the stadium and watched a GB wheelchair racer get a gold medal!  There have been some days at the beach despite the overall terrible weather we have had.

My niece has now finally been released from the secure forensic psychiatric unit she has been in since the end of December and seems to be settling in her new children's home.  It is about a 60 mile round trip to go and see her but we are trying to maintain regular contact.  She is going to be starting college hopefully in the next few weeks, skipping year 11 of school as she has missed so much, so that will be another great achievement for her.

My mum is still trying to decide whether she wants to stay down in the south or move back to the east midlands.  I would love to be able to help her make this decision but unfortunately it is one she has to make herself.  I will miss her if she goes back, but want her to be where she might find some happiness.

My health continues to be up and down, having all the focus on the paralympics this last few weeks has been difficult.  I find myself feeling very jealous that some people with disabilities are able to find great things to excel in, whereas for me I just see all the obstacles, not just health probs but money ones too!  IU am trying to keep up with my swimming, though this has been difficult over the summer holidays as the pool is so full of children, I have taken the opportunity to take my daughter a few times though.  At the moment I have pulled a muscle in my neck which is very very painful and restricting, probably brought on by tensing my shoulders after walking too much and getting painful legs at the weekend!

So I will try and remedy the neglect that has occurred to this poor old blog and catch up with all my fellow bloggers who I have also been neglecting!  Thanks for bearing with me!