Gingerbread House

Thought you might like to see the collaborative gingerbread house project between myself and my boys.  Impressive hey?  A lovely rellie sent us a gingerbread kit at Christmas and we thought it was time to make it!

This is my contribution, silver sprinkles and icey icing icicles:

And this is my boys' contribution:

Bless 'em ... 

When I'm feeling blue ...

Many apologies for not writing for some time, but I have not been at my best for the past week or so.  It was only when a very intuitive friend said to me on Thursday that I looked as if I had a cloud over my head that I became aware of how bad I felt.  You see, when I'm asked to describe how depression feels, I reply that it starts with a feeling that I have a small black cloud that follows me everywhere, and no matter how fast I run, it always manages to keep up with me.  My friend had tapped into that, and all the little insiduous feelings I'd been having for a couple of weeks came together in one moment and I sat down and cried.  But at least I knew what was going on as the awareness hit me, and I could treat myself kindly with rest and not over-committing myself and I'm on the road to recovery.

Depression is a funny thing, even when you think you've got it beat, it likes to tap at the door and remind you it's there!  Even for the briefest of moments.  But the good thing is as I've 'struggled' with depression for years I finally learned not to fight or resist it anymore, but just to accept that it is a part of who I am and it seems easier to cope with.  I still have my blue moments, but I am learning to recognize them and put into play strategies that help me be present with the worst moments but not swamped by them.

It's a life-long learning curve, but the great part of my learning is that I've come to accept and love all parts of me, the good and the not so nice.  It's a good lesson to learn.

Feeling better, and promising to blog more regularly xx

Choice Collage

This quote came to my attention today, and I love it so much I'm going to use it in conjunction with my choice collage that I made the other day as one of a series.  Hope you enjoy it too. xx

"Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there.  What you choose to do with them is up to you." - Richard Bach

It's all about balance

Today amongst all the domestic chores I found some time to make a collage (a few small pages actually).  Here is one of my favourites - it's all about finding balance which I'm having a bit of trouble with recently!  I suppose overwhelment is common to us all, wearing all the different hats we have to don during the course of a day.  If anyone finds the way to fit extra time in the day to squeeze in everything we have to do, could they please tell me?  :)

This one's for my dad ...

I love my Bumble-spud - it was a Christmas present from my kids, and I felt inspired to post a pic of him after reading a comment from my dad, which I think has been lost in the blogosphere after the Blogger crash on Friday, which I didn't find out about until today; I really have been living in a cave for the past week!  But thanks for the comment dad, and you are right, I should be blogging more regularly :)

So Bumble-spud is for my dad.  I don't know quite why he reminds me of my dad, maybe it's his shape :), or more likely it's the fact that under that tough guy exterior he's really a big softie. xxx

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mums around the world, I hope you had a fantastic Mother's Day.  I was spoilt with a brekkie in bed consisting of a mix of fruit, toast and jam, and biscuits!  Then I spent a good part of the day in the garden doing crafty activities including some dry needle felting, which I haven't done for ages.  I did really enjoy it, but there isn't a photo of this as it didn't quite work out as planned.

But you can see a pic of what the family has to put up with as my creative space slowly encroaches upon the entire house ...

this is supposed to be the lamp table, but it looks more like a work table - oops.

But look at what a mum has to put up with ...

socks that are so smelly they stick to the wall - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :)

Look at that - a lovely homemade loaf of bread!  I do like making bread from scratch, but I have to admit that a breadmaking machine is a gift.  Just set and forget!  And the best thing about this machine is that it was found on a roadside collection in full working order.  Remember the old adage - one man's rubbish is another man's treasure.  This definitely gets classed as treasure - the Wombles would be proud.  

Lessons from a Dragonfly

I've not been writing in my blog as much as I've been wanting to - I always leave it until the evening, by which time I'm too tired to string a thought together (I've been warned this is what happens after hitting 40!).   So, I'm going to try and make time for blogging earlier in the day, it would be a shame to stop as I enjoy it so much.

What do you think of my delicate dragonfly?  I attended a teleclass this weekend with a friend I made on SARK's Dream Boogie last year - Mikell Worley.  She's a very talented artist and is presently finishing up an ARTbundance coaching course at Artella, and this teleclass was part of her prac.  We learned all about the characteristics of the dragonfly and what we could learn from them in our own creative life journeys.  I learned that a dragonfly can't walk, it can only fly - how awesome to be able to view life from above!  I often fly within my dreams so it's a part of the dragonfly that I really resonated with.  Mikell also used the word 'luminous' to describe them and I just love that word!  Both the sound and the meaning - I think it's going on my favourite word list right next to onomatopoeia!!  To be a creative light in this world would be wonderful ...