Getting Somewhere Nice

I am not sure how much more of my bedroom I can take.....

The floor has just received a coat of varnish, it's second, which was preceeeded by three coats of paint and a good scrubbing. The problem is, only half of the floor is finished, the other half is dirty and covered in bed still. It is soooo time consuming painting a floor.... And buying the wrong colour paint and tooing and froing with paint chips etc is time consuming too.

We have a tiny bit of gloss work to do and then it is just the other half of the floor, right from scratch. But I have to wait for the varnish to get rock hard before I am prepared to move the bed.

Not convinced that the wardrobe will go up before I go to work Tuesday.... *sigh*

Then we have four pallets to come home, sand, undercoat and paint and we shall have our new bed! yay! These pallets are very high quality ones and the slats are even and frequent and they are not a standard size being a metre by a metre. Four of them will give a platform the perfect length for our mattress but with a bit of platform sticking out on either side, perfect for putting a mat on to hold my drink and my glasses and phone overnight.

Sometime soon, F will be renamed H! Not sure if I mentioned but F and I are finally getting married. We have a day, a church and a reception venue but I can't do the invites yet because we still are not a hundred % sure of times and won't be till the vicar gets his forms back and meets up with us. So much to do and it is all good!

I am still doing 21 Secrets but doing the bedroom has put me off playing with paint this week really and not left much time either. might have a look at one of the more wordy classes.....

I had nice post today.... We have a Tesco clubcard so we get points. Recently I heard that if you go online you can find out if you lost any vouchers before you spent them. i had a few and it built up to a nice little sum. I bought a National Geographic subscription for £11 and I spent £20 on £60's of vouchers for Pizza Express, yum!.

Happy Mistakes

The reason for my uncertainty about the paint is coming clear.... This is no pale blue grey but a navy blue....

It looks lovely though! We would not have been brave enough to go for navy but it is a happy happening. Just the colour on the walls which I chose because I couldn't spot the white... Still, if we can get a pot of the proper colour, we won't complain. (just use it somewhere else in the house....)

Distractions

Reya had a great post today (she does every day) but this post linked to a really fascinating, but pretty long article about the work of a guy called Eagleman. So fascinating did I find it that I have just ordered two of his books. His third will have to wiat because I only need so much non-fiction in my life each month and it was more expensive....

So I bought Incognito which is about all the tricks of the brain 'behind the cognitive illusion we call reality'. And just reading about him, you know this is going to be a feisty, fascinating read....

The second book is called SUM and is a little different. This guy has so many interests and spreads himself thin at times. This one looks at the afterlife and different possibilities through the medium of the short story. Apparently this book has been applauded by both the spiritual and scientific worlds. And by spiritual, apparently both aetheists and different religous groups loved it.... It sounds small but fascinating....

I then went on and bought a couple of fiction books to keep be topped up with the newest works of a couple of my favourites. Charlaine Harris's latest True Blood offering and Sarah Addison Allen's The Girl Who Chased the Moon....

Then I bought second hand CDs of a couple of bands..... Underworld and Orbital. Taking me back to my younger and wilder days, although I still love the chilled mood of much of it and it makes me want to move too....

All this serves to distract me from what I should be doing. Painting. Half of the floor is ready for it's second coat. There has been delays. I had bought a paint called Blue Babe for the floor but on tuesday I started painting and was horrified. It clashed and didn't fit at all. i called F and he agreed.

Yesterday there was much messing about with paint chips, holding them here, putting them there, folding them up and propping them against the wall. All the colours we liked best for the room ended up being grey hued and gentle with hints of green, purple or blue. Because of the sea theme we went with one called Pebble Drift which is a blue / grey.

It was mixed specially for us and I slapped some on earlier, straight over the old grey paint, the horrible blue babe and the splodges of white. I know it needs another coat, but for now the coat is befuddling me cos I can't work out what colour it really is.... but I like the hue anyway, which ever of the mottled patches turn out to be it's true colour or if it has not revealed itself yet....

As much as I now love my bedroom, I will be glad when we finish and can actually use my nice new wardrobes and put clothing away.... It is all so time consuming. but now getting out of bed is harder to, because just being in bed looking at colour I love is enticing....

In theory I know colour plays a big part in our lives, but you never remember quite how big a part until you change it.

Click Your Heels

Well, the screen on my laptop has died so my time in Bloglandia is not what it was.... but hey, it is all good...

Painting is continuing with forays into the wonders of Satin Wood. Unfortunately the blue of the floor-sea was too solid (and blue) for the dreamy walls of our dream world so we have to return that particular pot of gold to the land of B&Q for someone else to find and get something special mixed up, just for us..... The powerful alchemy of colour!

It seems our walls have more of a tinge of turquoise than of blue and the blue just looked... horrific.... And the satin wood takes much much longer to dry so all is slowing up now, particularly as we can only do half of the bedroom at a time....

Will my wardrobes ever rise from their boxes?

Or will I just go quietly insane and have dreams of the poles and shelves that should have been haunting my sad dreams of a night....

Work

Today I lack the will to work. My thumb and right shoulder hurt. I had to get up in the night and take ibuprofen. I got up and was thinking of filler and things as I ate breakfast. F came down to find me on the sofa, not moving. We agreed to delay the start of work.

I never got to it though. Instead I went upstairs for a nap. I really needed it. F woke me up eventually so he could paint the ceiling and I stayed in bed for a while watching before I figured it was time I got my behind out of there and left him to it.

So what do we have left to do? Maybe another coat on the ceiling and one or two coats on the bit between the picture rail and ceiling. Another one and a half coats of the blue on the walls. All the woodwork. Filler on the top of the window alcove. The floor to be scrubbed and painted with however many coats. Putting up the wardrobes. Getting the pallets, sanding and painting them to turn them into a bed. Painting the furniture for the room, namely chair and bookcase as well as a printcase for the wall and removing rust and painting the metal trunk....

Then we have all the damp clothing to sort and wash and put away or recycle. To dress the bookcase with carefully chosen books and bits and bobs to make it look pretty. The walls to put pictures on, including some we have taken ourselves which need selecting and printing and framing. Then I have to find small objects for the print case....

I was hoping we would make it to Ikea during the week as well, not on a bank holiday or weekend though. It is a long way to our closest one so needs to be on a quiet day.... I want to getthe curtain wires, curtains and a blind....

Then I need to finish making the rugs. Make a bead mat. Make some window decorations, maybe a fake wave stained glass thingy for one of the window panes out of a shrinky dink sheet I have and a mobile.....

No way will I have all this done by the time I go back to work but as long as the bulk is done, I can slowly make the last few things.....

but to be honest, all this stuff pales into insignificance next to those walls.... They are such a blue. So pale it is almost luminous in some lights. It is the blue of an early morning sky or a sunny day sky with a haze.... And the room suddenly feels so light and free....

Breathe

Today I woke up in my bedroom and it felt.... different.

It is a mess. Patchy yellow walls with areas of bare plaster and filler, old paint some of which is stained by the remains of ancient black mould. Many colours of paint peek through all over the place and reveal the room has always been decorated in warm tones and has always been typically Cornish and suffered from damp.

The room has been patched up many times. Many layers of paint. Congealed paint in some places where it has been allowed to get very thick. The bit of wall behind the door that was replaced by a piece of board that sticks out so there is no skirting board or picture rail. The bit of skirting board that was replaced by the old front of a draw complete with keyhole and two holes where the handles once sat.

The room has a lovely shape and a huge window and so much character, even in this current pre-painted state. As I lie there and look round, I remember how much I like this room. I saw this house completely empty when I looked around and fell in love and seeing this room, like this, I start to fall in love again. It's spirit is starting to talk again.

That old furniture of my Gran's *sigh*

I believe my Gran and Grandpa bought it soon after they married and so it was well over sixty years old. It was a feature of my childhood. Beautiful, heavy wood, shiny. It sat in a huge room in a square house that went from front to back. It looked lovely. It had had a least one home before this and it moved wit my Gran after this but then it moved to the city to be with me before moving to Cornwall.

This house never suited it and it never suited me. I am sure that some of my Gran's personality must have been soaked up by that wood. She was a difficult woman and at her funeral the vicar asked us all to sit and think of a moment we were happy with her. I couldn't. My Mum admitted she couldn't either later on. No nice moment had remained free of the knowledge of her manipulation and unpleasantness.

My Dad is an only child and no woman was ever going to be good enough. I watched my Mum do so much and my Gran give only pain back. Not a good way to build happy memories. So this furniture, just dominated F and I as well as the room and did nothing we wanted it to do. It just trapped air and made friends with damp.

It has made me realise that the room I have slept in for the last six years is one I have actively disliked, and so has F. All of a sudden we like it again, before we even paint. Families give us good ties and bad and I am not sure the tie of her was something I, we, needed in our bedroom.

So now the walls are prepped and treated and as I they dry, the room is about to transform itself. It has been whispering to me all year. Paint me. Make me this colour. Change me. We will all be happier.We will all be able to breathe.

Breathe deep, from our souls. How much will this change for us all?

Progress

Today we destroyed all the furniture in my Grandma's bedroom suite. Two wardrobes, a chest of drawers and a bed frame. There was also two bedside tables but we left them next to the wood skip at the dump, hoping someone would fall in love and take them home.

F used the power of gusto with great effect.

Three trips to the tip. A trip to a local truck stop for a fry up. A shopping excursion for supplies for the next few days with no shops and our continuing efforts.

I was so tired after all this, I gave up and retreated to the bath with a book but later I felt bad at not finishing my tasks for today. I needed to scrape the flaky plaster back to healthy plaster and then fill in. Except I didn't make quite enough filler up so I need to do a little more before bed.

If I do this tonight, it might be dry enough for us to do the mould treatment tomorrow. If I don't do it tonight, then there is no chance of mould treatment tomorrow. The treatment needs to be left on for five hours and then sponged off before letting the walls dry. Given it is our bedroom, we need to do this first thing to reduce the chance of it being stinky at bedtime.

Tomorrow will be an easier day though than today. Today was tough and physical but we had no choice because the tip is not open much over Easter. But we are on track. Tomorrow I might have some time and energy for some art.

A Start

F eventually woke up.

He insisted on a cup of coffee with the computer before he would join me. So I worked and moved stuff. Not culling it at the moment. All this clothing needs washing first and then it can be recycled if we don't want it..... So it is piled high in the spare room.

He did eventually join me *laugh*

We hovered to and the room already looks so much better.

Tomorrow the furniture goes to the tip and we do some quick wall prep / repair. Then Sunday, first thing, we will do the mould treatment. This needs brushing on, leaving, then washing off and leaving to dry. Then Monday we paint.

At least, this my plan

Frustration

I am sat downstairs, watching TV. I have had my breakfast and I am currently at the most energetic and motivated I will be all day. I want to start clearing out my bedroom, moving, emptying, cleaning....

...but I can't.

There is a man asleep in my bed with a snuggling dog in attendance.

He has not got much longer till I wake him up and he will be given a talking to regarding getting on and setting alarms etc.

If he wants more sleep, he can come to bed early for a few nights till we get it done. I go to bed and he stays up and plays on the computer. By the time he gets up and has eaten breakfast, I will be slowly losing motivation. By the time he is ready to go, my day of working hours will be nearly over. This is how we end up doing nothing.

What makes it worse is that he has only worked two days in the last two weeks... and still he sleeps! He has hours and hours of computer time!

We have a huge task ahead of us, there is so much junk in our bedroom. If he carries on like this, we will not get it all done, for sure. I will not let this happen.

The First Step

This week is the week of the wardrobe. F and I have eleven days to empty out our bedroom, paint it and erect our new wardrobe. It would be good to get the other furniture painted as well and to get the pallets and sand and paint them to.

F and I can be a laid back, a bit lazy if the truth be told. I really hope we get this all done. I am desperate for my wardrobes to be up and ready for filling. All chosen so the air can circulate and to fit our needs and our space. So we can stop keeping our clothes in plastic bags.

I bought paint on the way home. White and pale blue satinwood for the woodwork and the floors and the furniture. Near white bathroom paint for the walls called Jade white which has a slight hint of blue. I also bought some mould killer / remover to treat the walls before we paint. I chose the bathroom paint because of it's anti-mould properties and because it will be easier to wipe clean if it does start to get a bit musty behind the wardrobes. Cornwall and granite equals damp.

Hopefully this will enable us too start sorting ourselves out. Like a domino, these wardrobes will enable us to clear away the clothing, to sort through and remove what we don't want. This will make space in our lounge. Then we can clean up the sideboard and make some holes in the back to feed cables through. I figure the holes are better than getting rid of it..... Then we can decorate and move the lounge around.

Moving the sideboard makes space in the dining room. We also need to get rid of a piece of furniture we have been storing for a decade for someone.... Then the computer desks can come out of S's room, we can sort through his childhood stuff and turn it back into a room where someone could actually sleep....

This will probably take us years *laugh* One step at a time...

Space

I am coming to realise just how important this is to me. Space.

In so many ways.

F works shifts. His shifts are all over the place but I get weekends to myself sometimes. Sometimes I get evenings and entire nights. F has been on holiday this last week and a bit and I have found myself missing my times of space. I don't miss it most of the time, just when things have built up inside a little somehow. Space. I so need it every so often. To be alone. Time.

F decided to tidy the spare room while he was off. He moved stuff to clear space for all the things we need to move out of the bedroom. He did a good job. But he violated my space during that time. Half of the spare room is my creative space and I walked out leaving things drying, drawers open, tissue papers unfolded. If I had known, I would have put things away. But I didn't so things ended up not quite as I wanted. And I realised that this is my space and it had been violated.

Creatively I think we need to have a place we can make a mess, leave them out, not pack away, just walk away and leave it mid-flow so we can come back and pick it right up. Our space and our creations are very important.

Some time ago I had been sorting papers from a course and F went to look for something. Instead of asking, he riffled through the papers I had sorted. Stuff ended up everywhere. I didn't use that space again for months. I couldn't bare to sort out the mess, not there....

I think as adults we need need a room of our own just as much as children do. It is why husbands have their attics, basements and garden sheds.... Why men often feel uncomfortable in their wife's kitchen. When you share a bedroom with someone that becomes a joint space.

I hope we always live somewhere big enough for us both to have our own rooms, but we probably won't if we have children. But space is very important and i will ensire I have it. I need it.

Peace At Last

So some days don't go to plan.

F decided to amend some plans I had been working on and this did not go down well. I was almost there, after weeks and weeks. Why change it now? Why not weeks ago? I got very angry and upset and fumed all afternoon. Of course it was all there waiting for him when I came home....

We sorted it out. We talked. I expressed myself. We moved on.

We went and bought chips and headed out in to the sunset with Little Dog. A glorious day was followed by a beautiful evening. Flat calm sea, interspersed with looooong parralel waves, identifiable as they headed in across the bay and dark lines, so clear.

The sun set in a purple haze.

We peered over the cliff, at the barriers above the seal haul out cove. And there they were. Lounging. Playing in the waves. Playing with each other. At least twelve. but they were hard to count... they kept moving. They were lovely to watch.

It turned into a lovely evening. It just took a bit of time.

Ruler

A while back, when I was being a good little dreamer and recording all my dreams and analysing them to, I had a dream (*laugh*). Before sleeping I had asked the question why my energy levels are so bad, which I had always assumed was linked to my glandular fever and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome of earlier years. I was a bit bemused to get the answer back as something along the lines as, 'we didn't realise, we hadn't noticed, we shall sort it out'. very bemused.

This sort of response poses some interesting questions to me as well.... Are the beings that answered, my higher conscious, my spirit guides, spirits that surround me, some part of the universal spirit or what? How can they have access to all that information but not know everything?

But anyway, this was months and months ago and I kind of discounted it because I have been tired for so long and all the other things that go with it.....

But the thing is, change has been creeping in, slowly, oh so slowly.... Around the time of Christmas and the Solstice, something clicked over in my head and the depression, malaise, feeling of slight sorrow, that has often dogged my heals, just seemed to dissapate. Something changed in there and I am free. Not that it was a strong depression, although at bad times in my life it had been but it gently lingered but now... *shrug*

Then there is the way I always feel cold, always. I would be wearing a jumper in the middle of Summer (almost). This year I have been too hot most nights to wear anything for weeks and at work I find myself sitting there wearing a t-shirt under my works top or a vest, but no jumper most of the time. I bought thick wooly arm warmers to wear to keep my arms warm a couple of years back and here I am with bare arms and not feeling cold most of the time. I have felt cold for years.

Then there is sleep. I would religously go to bed at ten. Have done for years. Always needed to and ten has been a compromise between living enough life and getting enough sleep. but recently I have found that F is spending more time chatting to me at bed time and my sleep time is slipping and it doesn't matter. Last night it got to ten and I said to him, I don't want to go to bed, so he said well don't then. So i didn't and I still woke before seven this mornig without my alarm.

One of the first symptoms I got, before things got really bad was aching knees and sometimes other joints. I had it for a few years and then it mostly went away. But now that symptom is back. The same feeling. Same places.

I am sure I read somewhere that as a body releases a virus it runs backwards through the acquisition of symptoms. So the first symptoms you gained are the last you lose. Does this mean that the insidious virus that has ruled my body and so much of my life is leaving, packing it's bags up and truly going?

Change is creeping in. Slow. Gradual. But changes are occuring within my body.....

Books and the collating of a colelction of things has been taking my time and energy. Plus eating out. We had a meal at the restaurant we want to use as a wedding reception venue and we visited the church we want to get wed in and we had takeout for F's birthday and I was a bit poorly and and and.... Been having too much fun *laugh*

All good though.

Now I am going to retreat elsewhere with my book..... Probably to the bath, I like it there....

Pathways

I find myself reading three books in particular at the moment. They are sitting tigether in a celtic knot, weaving through each other.... Supernatural by Graham Hancock, Dancing the Dream by Jamie Sams and Art is a Spiritual Path by Pat B Allen.

Strange how things like this happen.

Sometimes I have to ask myself, just how honest do I wish to be. How many of those bones am I prepared to show here. The lines of my old live(s). They diverge from the life I lead now, a million miles, somehow I jumped tracks and got here instead and I like it better.

I am not sure if it is shame exactly. Maybe it is the law abiding part of me, not wishing to get into trouble, not wishing to admit the things I did.

So I am reading Supernatural and so far, he is talking about the shamans use of drugs to enter other realities. Some of this speaks to me. Once upon a time I used to step up to that door. I used to enjoy it. Of all the dabbling I did, all those years ago, I enjoyed the same sorts of the things shaman use most of all.

I loved the ever moving patterns. I loved the playing with my head. I loved the colours. The simplest thing became beautiful and could attract hours of attention. Things lived and were alive and moving, even as they stayed still.

For all my dabbling though, that is as far as I remember it going. I never stepped through the gate to other worlds.

I was pretty disturbed at the time though. It was shortly before my breakdown really. It was avoidance. trying to retreat elsewhere to avoid the way my world was crumbling. Dodging the bullet.

This is a path I shall not walk again, in all likelihood (never say never because then things tend to happen) but I do wonder, sitting here reading this book. but there are other paths that lead to similar places. trancework. Not sure those worlds are for me though. Not sure.

I am taking web strings from shamanism. Still trying to decide how many exactly. We shall just have to see what sticks

World Web

I have been gessoing and gluing and creating pages all set for one of the 21 Secrets classes. All this effort and I am really only just on the prep part.... And I am still not a 110% sure how I feel about journaling but I love learning technique - how I use it is up to me.

I think there is a thing or two about me and life here. I love to learn anthing and everything but I will use it how I please. Rip it up and put it back together in some new form that suits me.

I did that when I read and read after my nervous breakdown well over a decade ago. I read and read and took bits from here and there and constructed for myself a world that would not break around me as it got proved untrue. My Christian world of childhood broke irreparably under the pressure of the real world, as I stepped out of my family home as an adult. One event and it started to all unravel.

My new world view has the benefit of being more web like. If one thread unravels others take the strain and the web grows new strings, better suited to the world all the time.

I am trying to grow strings that take towards where I wish to go. I know there is success in this. I have been striving for happiness and contentment and I have grown many strings that have helped me get better at this. Happiness and contentment are things we need to practice.

I know where a lot of my early strings came from, Scott M Peck, Gill Edwards' Living magically, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, Carlos Castaneda, Paulo Coelho, Sheri S Tepper, Sharon Shinn, Charles de Lint, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet. And a hundred references i picked from people, TV, film that I can not remember. My web grows, flexs, repairs. *sigh* The Tibetan buddhist monk I tried to chat up in town one day because he was rather cute, and as it turned out, rather interesting *laugh*.

In my view any dogmatic world view just can not do that. By saying this is the way it is, you take away a practices ability to change. Everything needs change and influx. My brain and my world web thrive on it. This is also what the internet it is..... the web of us that use it, coming together, changing, growing, learning. There is more to the internet, so much more. I am sure someone must have studied the spiritual ramifications of the internet?

I read a new idea (to me) yesterday. That the Goddess has her own cycles and her disappearance from the world is part of her own cycle, her dark part, her new moon. I am still pondering this. How and in what way it may or may not become part of my web.....

I am a sponge, soaking up the world and information and reformating it. I still have no idea what to do with it all..... Except live. As best I can.

Love

This is one of those posts that I really, really hope F does not read. Not because there is anything dreadful here, there are just some things he does not need to know. But if he did read this then, well, that is how it was meant to be *laugh*

Way back when. When I first started this job I have now, I had a dream. A pretty raunchy one. Everyone has them from time to time but this one featured a work colleague. It was something I just ignored. I had no desire to make the dream reality. I barely knew the guy. In fact, at that time, i didn't know him.

As I got to know him, the dream was doomed never to be repeated and certainly not ever become reality. He is an extremely good looking chap with a body he has put a lot of effort in to. I have seen a lot of ladies flirt with him and I don't believe I ever have and I think he appreciates that. He is happily married.

As I got to know him, that surface attraction vanished and was replaced with friendship. I never wanted him, but what hot blooded woman is not going to recognise a rather fine specimen when they see one? But as soon as he became more than a pinup, all gone. The dream was nothing. And that was soooo long ago. Like I say, it didn't worry me.

However, last nights dream did.

With all that has happened at work over the last while, I have become very close to two of my work colleagues. I know and like both of their ladies. I don't fancy either of them. I don't want to do the dirty with them. I don't want to live with them. I just want to work with them and be friends with them.

In this dream, all of strange stuff was going on, including zombies. I was in my parents house and it was now mine. One of my colleagues was there and we were very close in the dream. He stroked my hair. I knew that I loved him.

I woke up knowing that I love him and this absolutely terrified me.

I love F. I loved him the moment I met his eyes. I love living with him. I don't want to ever not be with him. What the hell does realizing you love another man do to that whole thing?

Nothing as it turns out. Becuase as I thought about it, it became very clear that I do not want him to leave his missus for me, or sneak around behind her back. I don't want to live with him. I don't want to kiss him. So why should loving him be a problem?

And then I remembered about how the Romans had several different types of love and words for each.

The first colleague I dreamt about was all lust, no substance. The second colleague is all friendly, brotherly love. F is.... well I love him as I should love the man I am going to marry, the man I want to live with for the rest of my life, my soul mate.

There isn't enough love in the world. I realise I love another man and it terrifies me. Why? Why? Why?

Why are we so focused on eros? Why is our entire society focused towards passion and romance? Why do we have these rammed down our throats?

So I decided that the dream was not a problem, just as I decided the first one was not a problem. It changes nothing. Love should be celebrated. I accept that I feel it, I shall not chase it away, but that feeling changes nothing really. It was there before I realised it was. We should love all our friends, not just the ones that our sexual disposition allows us to love without causing 'complications' due to our societies obsession with romance and passion......

Love you all! *hugs*

Digging

Last night, I pulled two cards before bed and got otter and squirrel, both contrary. So this is what they said....

I am running from one idea to another, lacking focus. Maybe because I am avoiding a gift from the Universe. Fear of being rejected. I need to play and not be scared! I am hoarding, scared of the worst and stuck waiting. Waiting for something to happen is a trap. More erratic energy....

So erratic focus, hoarding, fear... hmmmm

maybe

I want to sort our bedroom and make things for in there, including a rag rug or two. The floor needs painting and so does everything else....

I want to learn crochet more... so I can actually start granny squares by myself.

I want to complete Sparkles

I want to complete all 21 workshops in 21 Secrets.

I want to read.... Dancing the Dream, Art is a Spiritual Path, The Magpies, Supernatural along with all sorts of light fiction....

I want to cook more and learn about kitchen witchery more

I want to plan my wedding

I want to do some more Happy Book

I want to get fitter....

I want to walk and visit all sorts of places.

A lot to do..... So what have I been avoiding? Two things - planning a wedding (only taken me five years to get to this point) and dreaming.

I got a bit over.... something... by my dreaming. I was spending so much of each night dreaming, and remembering. Analysing was getting quite heavy. I am not sure how much I really wish to know sometimes about my life. How much can one person handle downloading at one time? I am not that brave. I got scared. I got over-awed. I got flustered by the demands on time it was making....

And the wedding.... much the same. I have been so overawed and scared of it, I just have not done anything. Hello.... I organised conferences with exhibitions in the past..... For hundreds of people. A little wedding..... Why is that so scary?

And then earlier, I was sat at work, happily day dreaming the details of the preparations to be and then I start thinking about not being Miss Me any more and being Mrs Him. Ouch.

So not much that I am being erratic about. Not much I am being feaful of.

and yes I am hoarding..... I have a house full of stuff I need to let go of - including every single piece of furniture currently in my bedroom except for the trunk a great great uncle took to India. I collected my teaching books together to get rid of, but they are still there....

So here I am....

Ode to a Storyteller

Sometimes you have a shock. A moment of loss.

20 years ago, probably with a few added on, I bought a book. Howl's Moving Castle. It became an instant favourite and I kept it. I have read that book many times. A real comfort book. A little treasure.

Years later I was reminded of it when I heard mention of the film. The film could never live up to that precious book for me.

Then tonight I suddenly discovered sequels I had no idea existed.....

So I looked her up on Amazon, Diana Wynne Jones. Many, many books for me to read..... And now for the loss. She died. About ten days ago from lung cancer. What a shame. I hope she knows wherever she is now, that her gift was appreciated far and wide, by many many people. So recent....

The author of much teen comfor to me, gone.

Release

I am not sure what to say at the moment. My mind is pretty blank. But I always feel bad when I don't write here for any length of time. I know there is always SOMETHING rumbling under the surface. SOMETHING fermenting. Things are always on the move, even if we can not see it. And writing is how I find it, how I put my finger on that pulse.

F and I have watched some good stories of late. I read a Celia Ahern book at the weekend as well as making art. I would love to make art now, but I know that I need to eat and by the time I do, I will be too tired. The weekend will be soon enough.

I am still reading both Art is a Spiritual Path and Dancing the Dream. In my lunch break I watch the magpies inbetween reading the National Geographic. Soon it will turn in to Cornwall Today. And then there will be a lunchtime book - maybe my magpie book. I have enjoyed what I have read very much but I have not been able to devote much time to it.....

I read blogs and my emails. I look at the 21 Secrets ning site. I plot my activities for the weekend. I look at the things around me and wonder how I can use them.... I got some foam from work - from the bin. Going to turn it into stamps.... Working where I do gives me access to all sorts of lovely things that would otherwise just be chucked, and normally are....

To be honest, I could crawl off to bed again right now. I seem to be a bit low on energy this week. Maybe something else is zapping it? Who knows. Maybe, all the things that came bubbling up last Thursday have had an effect..... When a big bubble splurges to the surface, there is a release of pressure.... no more bubbles for a bit....

Not much else splurging out right now. I desire my pillow and my duvet.....

Tee hee, thank you lovely people for your comments! It is all in the techniques..... and the teachers.

Tonight I had no time for any such artistic endeavours. I shopped, cooked tea for F and I and we watched a film as we ate. Then I spoke to my Mum. Followed by a hurried rush through the internet doing th things I needed to do....

It's part of the reason I crammed so much in over the weekend.....

I have to wait two weeks for another secret weekend while F works to cover myself in paint.... I will do things before then but they will be minutes here and there and possibly not an entire day. *laugh*

I want to buy more stamps..... Maybe I shall look round the house and see what I can find.... or make some more stencils.... What can I make?

Anyway, tired now. Time to sleep....

21 Secrets: Playing with Pattern

So next, I played with pattern with the help of Debra Cooper. And I just love this class soooo much. I like geometry and shape and line and pattern very much. I think it is the science geek / maths geek in me. I remember once I bought some beautiful cloth for a project that was made using batik I think but the patterns were just so lovely and so layered and looked so tricky. It never occurred to me that I could do this, or how.

Now I know....

SO I guess the thing I love most about this, next to how wonderful the results are, is just how many ways you can use it.... A real versatile technique and now I want to buy some medium stuf you can mix with acrylics to turn them in to fabric paints.... and I want more chunky stamps and more stencils........ and spray paints.....

21 Secrets: Becoming Brave

So this weekend saw the beginning of 21 Secrets and I decided to go for it. With 21 classes, it is kinda hard picking what to do first... So I signed up for all of them. Except I managed to miss one. So I decided that I would do that one first and it was a class called Becoming Brave by Erin Kenepp.


The end product of this class is a journal with a cover and four dividers to act as a jumping off point for Becoming bravE. I enjoyed doing this class because it is lovely to see how other people work and create their effects. It was great to look at this because it helped me understand what I should be doing with some of the things in my art stash....


The other great thing is that it helped me become unstuck.....


A while ago I had an idea. I don't much like being fat. Fat is not pretty or healthy so it is sometimes hard for me to love my body. But as I look at myself naked I have begun to see that some of the lines of my body are beautiful in their symmetry. I had the idea of photographing myself and using those lines as the basis for abstract colourful pieces of art. But I never got round to doing it....


I signed up for Jamie Ridler's Sparkles as well and unfortunately the first prompt was to take a photo of yourself. It just didn't happen. And it got me stuck on the whole Sparkles thing too....

So in Becoming Brave, when I got to the Body tab I groaned. Photo's of myself. oh dear..... but I eventually went and took them - sometimes you just have to give in when life is kicking you to do something. So I took F's camera and went to the bedroom and discovered a fun setting that allows you to create blurry photos.


I had a bit of fun and I chose to use a photo F took of me at Watergate Bay after visiting Fifteen and a blurry photo of my face. I also got a stack of photos that I can use for my other project. Plus a few that will definitely NEVER see the light of day! I am so glad that the days of sending film to the developer are gone!


Anyway, I remembered as I was off to bed that I might have just closed my laptop rather than switching it off. So I asked F to check it for me. Before he went to work this morning we were chatting and it seems I had left one of the photos open on my desktop, which caused him to go exploring all of them *blush*

*laugh*
So a good class for me and combined with other things, all good. Got me moving in sooo many ways!