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.

New routines.

I find the hardest thing about creating new routines is that in order for something 'new' to happen an old routine must first be disposed of.  It is easy to think that we haven't got a routine for doing something (or not doing something), until you realise there is another way than the one you have been doing (or not).  For me Saturday mornings have been transformed. For a long time I have been really struggling with cooking through the week, however have not been able to recognise any space in my week where I could do a weekly cook-up.  My husband works shifts, they are on a 10 day cycle and so no week is ever the same as the next one.  However it does seem to work (I know there is a mathematical equation that could be used to work this out but really cannot be bothered to even try) that he is often around on a certain day of the week for about 6 weeks, before then not being around at that time for 6 weeks.  Since Christmas he seems to have been around on every Saturday morning.

Saturday mornings have always been chores and laundry day for us all.  The children have their set jobs that they have to carry out before lunch time, I have usually been up to my elbows in dirty washing and then clean washing!  However with hubby home he took on the job of doing the laundry which left me free to cook.  I did have to think things through by Thursday to ensure I could do a shopping list that meant hubby could go and shop for me.  I have now managed to do it for three consecutive weeks.  This Saturday, I didn't have hubby around so managed to do washing AND cooking, admittedly I didn't do all the cooking and so finished that off on Sunday morning, but still - it is getting done. An added bonus to doing this 'cook-up' has been the children's interest in it, they have now decided they are going to take turns to do it with me.  So far they have both had a turn and we have had a great time AND they are learning some new skills to!

This has meant that I have some free time in the evenings and I have been busy with my crochet hook as you can see on my last post.  I have also been adding promises to my ripple promise blanket and doing a spot of reading to.  Here is my latest completed project made from a plastic container that once housed cakes,  along with some more blessings I have seen this week.

  

700.  An orchid given by a kind friend back in October - still flowering at the end of January.

701.  Left over beads from when my little girl was much smaller.

702.  The relief that washes over when I arrive in my car on our drive.

703.  Picture hanging for my mum.

704.  Hedge trimmers.

705.  Birds in the garden keeping the view ever changing.

706.  Using up rubbish to create something pretty.

707.  Banks of daffodils already in bloom.

708.  Crocuses appearing between paving slabs.

709.  The smell of newly bathed puppy dog.

 

A little bit of Crochet.

Inspired by Tina over at the Quiet Home by this post some weeks ago I've made myself a little case to put my crochet needles in. I decided it was as good a time as ever to teach myself a new stitch.  The yarn is left over bits from hats that I have made, I am rather pleased with it.

Can you see what I have got it laid out on?  It's a little peak of my ripple promise blanket.  All the crochet is done now, I am still slowly adding promises though.  It has been such a big job that it definitely deserves a post all of it's own sometime.

Hope

I love this description from wikipedia of what hope is:

Hope is the emotional state, the opposite of which is despair, which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life.

We went to see more of the new place that our niece is now staying at this morning.  It is a secure forensic psychiatric unit.  We were introduced to her key nurse, her occupational therapist, the family therapist (who we know from a previous placement) and her in house mental health social worker.


This is the end of the line for our niece, there is nowhere more secure that can keep her safe from harming herself.  It is a national unit and is filled with professionals who are very used to the self destructive behaviour that she is displaying.  Since going there 4 weeks ago, her behaviour has probably worsened a little more, there is certainly no improvement.  However we know now from our experiences of the last 6 months that this is because she is testing boundaries.  So far she has managed to test boundaries to the point where she has been moved on to another placement.  This time there is no where for her to move on to.  

We were asked how we were feeling about her being there.  The only response we could give was hopeful.  I certainly did not feel this while she was at the last placement.  And what else could we answer?  I do not wish to feel despair.


Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Trusting God to watch over this dear 14 year old is so difficult, however having no hope would be even more difficult.

Two days ago we had my grandma's funeral.  We were inside the crematorium for approximately 2 1/2 minutes.  Hardly time to sit down before we were standing up and leaving.  There were three of us present, my mum, my brother and me - all the 'family' that she had left.  There were no friends, no fond memories expressed, no expressions of legacy that will keep her to mind.  Maybe that is what happens when you loose hope?  You become lost in the world.

Jeremiah 29:11  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Through the Eyes of my daughter.

My 11 year old daughter has had the camera out, these pictures of hers capture some real blessings.

 690. A walk with my family.

 691. The rotten stuff in our lives being washed away.

 692.  Love that knows no boundaries.

 693.  Sunshine.

 694.  Long legged shadows.

 695.  My secure fortress.

 696.  My rock.

 697.  Blue sky and green grass.

 698.  Sea spray on our faces.

 699.  The eyes that saw it all.

15 Uneventful Days of 2012.

Well I got to 16 days of a new year before anything too negative has happened.  I am now trying to see the new negative as a positive.  Yesterday afternoon I had to go and tell my mother that her mother had died.  She was 92 years old and had been in a state of severe dementia living in a nursing home for the last 3 years.


It was not totally unexpected (92 years is a very good innings).  Personally it is something I have to confess I have been praying to happen for a while.  In one of my very early posts to this blog which you can find here is a very brief sketch of my mums early life.  Over the last three years I have heard more stories and know more facts about the life she had with her the Aunt and Uncle that adopted her.  It is not nice stuff, in fact I can not recall a single 'nice' thing that I have been told.

Mum has often said to me that she would not shed any tears when her mum went.  She didn't when her 'father' died back in 1992.  His funeral was very swift and brief attended only by my mum and her 'mother', no words, no flowers.

However I was still very nervous about delivering the news last night.  My mum was discharged last week from a local (to me) psychiatric unit after a 10 week stay preceded by a breakdown immediately after my father died back in October.  She got the keys to a lovely little detached bungalow last Wednesday.  She is renting it for 6 months to see how she feels about living in the south of England as opposed to the east midlands where she has been for the last 44 years.  Last Sunday my brother brought down most of her possessions from her old house and we spent the day setting up her new one.  There were some tears, it felt odd, a bit like bringing Dad down too (he had made most of the furniture).

You might now see where my nerves were coming from.  Mum is still very fragile, we sat for a couple of hours, not saying much.  Just a few bitter and angry words.  I have spoken with her this morning and she says she was able to sleep last night.  I knew that the coming few weeks were going to be testing for her before yesterdays events happened.  Your prayers for her, my brother and me would be much appreciated.