So far I am taking the heat but the fire is roaring away mightily before it burns itself out in a couple of days time!
I have a little respite this evening. My family want to drag me off to the beach to have chips and chill but I sent them all off so I could carry on beavering away. This gives me the added bonus of a few minutes to blog! Yay! Writing is something I find I have to do these days, it builds up until i put those little letters on the screen.
So no teenagers with their constant questions and self-focused chatter, no Aunts who don't like dogs getting frustrated at Little Dog, no nobody. And it is bliss! With just F and I living together and odd days here and there when laidback S comes to stay, I am not used to all this. Getting things done with others there can be tricky.
So I just have a tiny amount of paper to chop and trim, the readings to fix on their cards and to put borders on the cards, a wishtree to make and glass and candles to clean and assign to window ledges and I am done. Apart from the visits to places and dropping off of things of course.... oh and the bouquet! No idea what to do with that! oh well!
I am moving too fast, I shall surely need to sleep for several days after the wedding..... All good though! May be a few days yet before I get back here!
To good friends only (which means all the readers of this blog I actually know about), I shall email photos to eventually and give you all the low down details. My hen night was amazing! Anyway! Wish me luck!
Monday 29 August 2011
Sunday 21 August 2011
Meet the Ancestors
I thought I ought to post all the ancestral wedding photos, just in the sake of fairness! There is quite a gap in time between some of the photos....
If / when Fand I are lucky enough to have kids, these will be their ancestors
Flow
So just before I woke I had a dream. Thick black water had flooded across some very flat land, miles and miles of arable land with barely a tree. The water might have been full of black soil or oil or anything. It was a news segment as part of a documentary and was some foreign country with lots of oriental writing on the screen etc. The thing was though as the black water flowed across the land in some paces, the water would flow clean, a little stream of purity through the black like a vein, or just a spot of purity in one place.
I rewound the documentary to show someone and we talked about it a bit. I realised that those spots of purity of energy had to be helped to become stronger. Anchored. Maybe with a tree, or an artwork like a sculpture. Or even a cairn.
Strangely this morning, one of the blog posts I read was all about a community art project where they placed cairns of hope and inspiration within a park. This is a beautiful thing. Such projects don't appear to have a real effect to convince scientists and bankers and politicians and the like, but they do..... so powerful! I have been racking my brain to try and think of somewhere I could build a cairn....
I rewound the documentary to show someone and we talked about it a bit. I realised that those spots of purity of energy had to be helped to become stronger. Anchored. Maybe with a tree, or an artwork like a sculpture. Or even a cairn.
Strangely this morning, one of the blog posts I read was all about a community art project where they placed cairns of hope and inspiration within a park. This is a beautiful thing. Such projects don't appear to have a real effect to convince scientists and bankers and politicians and the like, but they do..... so powerful! I have been racking my brain to try and think of somewhere I could build a cairn....
Saturday 20 August 2011
F and I have a very good relationship but sometimes things simmer under the surface, refusing to go away, for a while at least. We have different styles of doing things and sometimes this causes conflict.
I appear lacksidaiscal sometimes, with things appearing at the lastish moment, fully completed, but chances are I have put a lot of thought in to them and given myself exactly enough time. Doing my degree, I never missed an assignment and I never worked past ten at night, not even before an exam.
F does not like to think about things, he likes to do them, nut only if they interest him. If they don't interest him, he will ignore them and leave them until the very last moment, sometimes beyond the last moment. In my opinion he often leaves himself too little time. He is often late... He often had to pop home to pick things up when he was on a series of shifts. This does not stress him out. It stresses me out a lot.
So we made a deal, i would organise the wedding and he would make our house habitable.
I set to thinking and doing. Often gluing or painting of an evening after work if I could face it. Giving myself a little time off to read etc, but not much. My Games of Thrones reading has dribbled to a halt. My personal art is zilch right now.
F set to playing computer games as normal. Sometimes he would do a few things to keep me happy. The task was too big for him to be able to split it down into bite size chunks, and it was boring and there were lots of very good reasons why things could not be done and when they were going to be done. Many of the tasks have been underestimated. Un-necessary tasks have been done (like painting the hall, very nice added bonus but somewhere for my parents to sleep is a higher priority). Some tasks were done badly and then had to be redone (the coat rack put up with short screws, no rawl plugs and lots of glue....).
So here we are with less than a week till my family descend and F is now working like a trooper to get it all done. I am too exhausted to help having just pulled a 12 day stretch of work, 99 hours in total and having a hen night tonight and having my own wedding related things to do. And yet, I still feel guilty.... Even though I did everything I could to persuade him to start earlier. I tried every tactic I could think of, nagging, leaving him alone, writing lists, crying..... I will do some stuff to help, I have to and a part of me resents that, that I have had to help because he could not get his act into gear.... He has had a couple of days of my time already plus help for many two person jobs. I just want it all done now, I want to be at the wedding. I want everything to turn out right. I am stressed but not about my side of the deal, he knows that he is the one who has made me stressed and he feels bad.... He has promised never to leave things like this again.
There is a fine line between having faith in someone and being honest and knowing them. He will do this again, he will push it but hopefully next time he will listen to me sooner maybe... But then I don't love him for his organisational abilities, I love him for the way he is with people, the way he is with me. He is a trier, so utterly genuine and so charming and cheeky. He adores me and I adore him and it is not very often our differences make me stressed.
We will be fine.... He may be exhausted by next weekend, but we will be fine.... And the wedding will be beautiful and not many people will see the house..... Hopefully...
I appear lacksidaiscal sometimes, with things appearing at the lastish moment, fully completed, but chances are I have put a lot of thought in to them and given myself exactly enough time. Doing my degree, I never missed an assignment and I never worked past ten at night, not even before an exam.
F does not like to think about things, he likes to do them, nut only if they interest him. If they don't interest him, he will ignore them and leave them until the very last moment, sometimes beyond the last moment. In my opinion he often leaves himself too little time. He is often late... He often had to pop home to pick things up when he was on a series of shifts. This does not stress him out. It stresses me out a lot.
So we made a deal, i would organise the wedding and he would make our house habitable.
I set to thinking and doing. Often gluing or painting of an evening after work if I could face it. Giving myself a little time off to read etc, but not much. My Games of Thrones reading has dribbled to a halt. My personal art is zilch right now.
F set to playing computer games as normal. Sometimes he would do a few things to keep me happy. The task was too big for him to be able to split it down into bite size chunks, and it was boring and there were lots of very good reasons why things could not be done and when they were going to be done. Many of the tasks have been underestimated. Un-necessary tasks have been done (like painting the hall, very nice added bonus but somewhere for my parents to sleep is a higher priority). Some tasks were done badly and then had to be redone (the coat rack put up with short screws, no rawl plugs and lots of glue....).
So here we are with less than a week till my family descend and F is now working like a trooper to get it all done. I am too exhausted to help having just pulled a 12 day stretch of work, 99 hours in total and having a hen night tonight and having my own wedding related things to do. And yet, I still feel guilty.... Even though I did everything I could to persuade him to start earlier. I tried every tactic I could think of, nagging, leaving him alone, writing lists, crying..... I will do some stuff to help, I have to and a part of me resents that, that I have had to help because he could not get his act into gear.... He has had a couple of days of my time already plus help for many two person jobs. I just want it all done now, I want to be at the wedding. I want everything to turn out right. I am stressed but not about my side of the deal, he knows that he is the one who has made me stressed and he feels bad.... He has promised never to leave things like this again.
There is a fine line between having faith in someone and being honest and knowing them. He will do this again, he will push it but hopefully next time he will listen to me sooner maybe... But then I don't love him for his organisational abilities, I love him for the way he is with people, the way he is with me. He is a trier, so utterly genuine and so charming and cheeky. He adores me and I adore him and it is not very often our differences make me stressed.
We will be fine.... He may be exhausted by next weekend, but we will be fine.... And the wedding will be beautiful and not many people will see the house..... Hopefully...
Thursday 18 August 2011
Dream Thrills
I am sure I must have said before, but some of my dreams feel like adventure stories, films, entertainment put on at night just for me. Recent readings have made me wonder about these dreams some more. So rather than just enjoy the dream, I spent a lot of time thinking about it today. The insight that in our dreams you can travel to other places, who is to say this story has no meaning? even if it is just a story, it is a story that has been choosen just for me.....
There was a teenage girl, she lived in a dark hovel and wanted to get out. I was talking to a handsome bearded man (just in case F ever reads this, please do not grow a beard, in waking life, I can't stand them *laugh*). He was a farmery type and we were talking and he was leaning over his gate. I left him to visit the girl and found she had died of a mysterious virus. This virus was the scourge of my society and it turned the body of the victim into a strange thing, like a tunnel with teeth and thorns all the way down. Kinda of nasty fleshy pink tunnel, disgusting in so many ways.
I was very upset, not just for the death of the girl but because I had failed her. I had not helped her. She had wanted a placement and I could have arranged something for her, the beardy man would have been able to give her the break she wanted but I didn't make the connection in time. But.... there was something off about her change into the flesh tunnel thing. I began to wonder about things.
I and some others decided to investigate, beardy man may well have been one of them, but the rest of the dream was very fast flowing action and I can only remember the gist of it all now, and the people with me, were not the focus of the dream at all.
In this society, dead bodies were stored in buildings where they decomposed before being removed. We broke into one of these buildings and were horrified to discover that every dead body had been transferred into a being that was a younger version of tunnels. They looked sort of like a tree stump, with the heart of the tree removed and as they would develop in time, they would grow outwards making a bigger hole in the middle and opening the tunnel. How could it be a virus if it could consume dead bodies like that as well as kill people? This was something that ate people inside out and then once it grew, it couls suck away any passing person who got to close, down that noxious tunnel to who knows where....
We had discovered a dangerous truth and the authorities of the planet pursued us. Finally we were cornered by the army and they readied their defences. They aimed their guns to hold us in place, fully kitted up in their haz mat gear, and then they blew a powder at us. Whatever the powder was, it was supposed to turn us into flesh tunnels to. Except that I was something rare, I was immune. To be immune to the flesh tunnels was a rare thing in this society. Anyone who was proven to be, was elevated to a highly priviledged and reverred position.
The army personnel facing me were faced suddenly faced with a horrific choice, to kill me as per their orders, despite that fact that it went against everything they had been trained to do or to disobey all their training and everything they had worked towards in life to keep me alive. I could see their eyes and I stood their in shock as the guns did not waiver and nothing happened. And then with pinpoint precision, the alarm went off....
I imagine one of those people would have listened to their training and shot me. It would only have taken one. I was placed in such a position that I would have destroyed all their society was built upon....
So I mentioned that there is something of the story teller right? I think my stories are more images than words... But those flesh tunnels. Do they ring any bells with anyone?
There was a teenage girl, she lived in a dark hovel and wanted to get out. I was talking to a handsome bearded man (just in case F ever reads this, please do not grow a beard, in waking life, I can't stand them *laugh*). He was a farmery type and we were talking and he was leaning over his gate. I left him to visit the girl and found she had died of a mysterious virus. This virus was the scourge of my society and it turned the body of the victim into a strange thing, like a tunnel with teeth and thorns all the way down. Kinda of nasty fleshy pink tunnel, disgusting in so many ways.
I was very upset, not just for the death of the girl but because I had failed her. I had not helped her. She had wanted a placement and I could have arranged something for her, the beardy man would have been able to give her the break she wanted but I didn't make the connection in time. But.... there was something off about her change into the flesh tunnel thing. I began to wonder about things.
I and some others decided to investigate, beardy man may well have been one of them, but the rest of the dream was very fast flowing action and I can only remember the gist of it all now, and the people with me, were not the focus of the dream at all.
In this society, dead bodies were stored in buildings where they decomposed before being removed. We broke into one of these buildings and were horrified to discover that every dead body had been transferred into a being that was a younger version of tunnels. They looked sort of like a tree stump, with the heart of the tree removed and as they would develop in time, they would grow outwards making a bigger hole in the middle and opening the tunnel. How could it be a virus if it could consume dead bodies like that as well as kill people? This was something that ate people inside out and then once it grew, it couls suck away any passing person who got to close, down that noxious tunnel to who knows where....
We had discovered a dangerous truth and the authorities of the planet pursued us. Finally we were cornered by the army and they readied their defences. They aimed their guns to hold us in place, fully kitted up in their haz mat gear, and then they blew a powder at us. Whatever the powder was, it was supposed to turn us into flesh tunnels to. Except that I was something rare, I was immune. To be immune to the flesh tunnels was a rare thing in this society. Anyone who was proven to be, was elevated to a highly priviledged and reverred position.
The army personnel facing me were faced suddenly faced with a horrific choice, to kill me as per their orders, despite that fact that it went against everything they had been trained to do or to disobey all their training and everything they had worked towards in life to keep me alive. I could see their eyes and I stood their in shock as the guns did not waiver and nothing happened. And then with pinpoint precision, the alarm went off....
I imagine one of those people would have listened to their training and shot me. It would only have taken one. I was placed in such a position that I would have destroyed all their society was built upon....
So I mentioned that there is something of the story teller right? I think my stories are more images than words... But those flesh tunnels. Do they ring any bells with anyone?
Monday 15 August 2011
Dreaming into Life
Well, as you know, I am pursuing my dreams. The lovely Suzi recommended a most fabulous book - Dreamways of the Iroquois. I ordered my copy when I could finally afford it, secondhand, and it took a while to get here. Now it has I am trying to inhale it....
I love it and I am going to be sad when I get to the end. I find his stories so fascinating. I know I am going to have to read more. I have not even gotten to the technique section yet....
There have been a few snippets that were beyond fascinating....
In passing he mentioned that goose bumps indicate truth and I know that feeling. That shiver that runs up your spine when something happens, a thought, an event, an anything, but something true and powerful..... I had the most powerful rush of this when I realised the watch strap was a gift from my Gran. i often get them. I often have no idea what to do with the agreement they give though!
He also says that following synchronicity is what dreamers do to follow the dreams in their waking life. I like this. i like this idea of connection between the two. I like synchronicity. I had some this weekend....
A friend was talking about a ghost film he had watched and we all got to talking about ghost experiences we had had. I added mine, my one and only really.... Big Dog and Little Dog used to greet F and I with a canine chorus. Big Dog would lead with great loud howls and Little Dog used to fill in with yips and a real high pitch yowl. I loved it. It always brought a smile to my face. Only the three of us were ever greeted in this way, F, S and me. Big Dog died and the chorus died with him, Little Dog had no one to lead her in it. But every so often for a little while after he died she would sing the chorus by herself, and we would all be in the house already, so there was no reason for her to sing.... I believe Big Dog was there saying hello and singing with her.
That night I lay in the bath, clasping my new copy of Dreamways. I could hear F in the lounge talking via Xbox to a mate. Little Dog could not decide where to be and the friend had not realised we even had a dog.... So F told him about Big Dog too. What made the synchronicity even stronger was that I was reading about the author's dog, Kipling, who had stuck around after he died and when he had moved on, he began a guide.....
But what does that mean to me? Is Big Dog a spirit guide to me now? I like to think so....
The book also talked about listening to your dreams and bringing things from them into your life.
I dreamt of lots of boxes and one of them was supposed to go on..... I had been witholding the buttonholes from f m-i-l (only since Friday) and I realised I needed to send them over, so i did. Then last night I dreamt about coffee and left over things from my Gran. I talked about coffee today....
Life is for living and advice is for trying out. Why buy books if you are just going to read and not do? well, maybe cos I like understanding *laugh* but this year has sure been a year of growth for me.... long may it continue...
I love it and I am going to be sad when I get to the end. I find his stories so fascinating. I know I am going to have to read more. I have not even gotten to the technique section yet....
There have been a few snippets that were beyond fascinating....
In passing he mentioned that goose bumps indicate truth and I know that feeling. That shiver that runs up your spine when something happens, a thought, an event, an anything, but something true and powerful..... I had the most powerful rush of this when I realised the watch strap was a gift from my Gran. i often get them. I often have no idea what to do with the agreement they give though!
He also says that following synchronicity is what dreamers do to follow the dreams in their waking life. I like this. i like this idea of connection between the two. I like synchronicity. I had some this weekend....
A friend was talking about a ghost film he had watched and we all got to talking about ghost experiences we had had. I added mine, my one and only really.... Big Dog and Little Dog used to greet F and I with a canine chorus. Big Dog would lead with great loud howls and Little Dog used to fill in with yips and a real high pitch yowl. I loved it. It always brought a smile to my face. Only the three of us were ever greeted in this way, F, S and me. Big Dog died and the chorus died with him, Little Dog had no one to lead her in it. But every so often for a little while after he died she would sing the chorus by herself, and we would all be in the house already, so there was no reason for her to sing.... I believe Big Dog was there saying hello and singing with her.
That night I lay in the bath, clasping my new copy of Dreamways. I could hear F in the lounge talking via Xbox to a mate. Little Dog could not decide where to be and the friend had not realised we even had a dog.... So F told him about Big Dog too. What made the synchronicity even stronger was that I was reading about the author's dog, Kipling, who had stuck around after he died and when he had moved on, he began a guide.....
But what does that mean to me? Is Big Dog a spirit guide to me now? I like to think so....
The book also talked about listening to your dreams and bringing things from them into your life.
I dreamt of lots of boxes and one of them was supposed to go on..... I had been witholding the buttonholes from f m-i-l (only since Friday) and I realised I needed to send them over, so i did. Then last night I dreamt about coffee and left over things from my Gran. I talked about coffee today....
Life is for living and advice is for trying out. Why buy books if you are just going to read and not do? well, maybe cos I like understanding *laugh* but this year has sure been a year of growth for me.... long may it continue...
Friday 12 August 2011
Memory 2
I meant to write some more about memory this morning but I forgot! (mostly cos I had to dash out to pick up a parcel before work....
Anyway, it seems these memory techniques were in use in ancient civilizations. Greece and Rome for sure but I suspect they were more widely known than that. I think we knew them too, up until pretty recently.
Think of those little number rhymes.... Little picture hooks to hange word images on.
I think this stuff was handed down from parent to child until school and writing made us think we had no use for it. We like to think we are so advanced! Not really. I think we have gone backwards in a lot of ways, including how much we use our brains. We are like at ant colony, advanced due to the million steps in colony building made by our ancestors, but reaping the rewards.
Still. I think time is turning. The more I learn the more I realise what I want to teach my kids when I have them. They shall know memory tricks and they shall learn to type. I shall do my best to give them the tools they need to function well and live free and fruitful lives in what ever way makes them happy.....
I have so much more to learn! Sometimes it is knowing where to look though....
Anyway, it seems these memory techniques were in use in ancient civilizations. Greece and Rome for sure but I suspect they were more widely known than that. I think we knew them too, up until pretty recently.
Think of those little number rhymes.... Little picture hooks to hange word images on.
I think this stuff was handed down from parent to child until school and writing made us think we had no use for it. We like to think we are so advanced! Not really. I think we have gone backwards in a lot of ways, including how much we use our brains. We are like at ant colony, advanced due to the million steps in colony building made by our ancestors, but reaping the rewards.
Still. I think time is turning. The more I learn the more I realise what I want to teach my kids when I have them. They shall know memory tricks and they shall learn to type. I shall do my best to give them the tools they need to function well and live free and fruitful lives in what ever way makes them happy.....
I have so much more to learn! Sometimes it is knowing where to look though....
Filing
OK, any good admin person, or even any person vaguely related to admin knows that every filinf system needs some order to it. If you don't know how to retrieve things then it doesn't matter how hard to try, finding that one piece of paper you are after is just kinda unlikely.
So in order to have a filing system
You set it up with files and drawers and decide how you want the names to run, whether to file family stuff under family or Sea.....
You determinedly put things in, making sure they go in the right place.
You maintain your filing system - sorting through for obsolete stuff, adding news files and making sure all is working well.
The memory is just a a great big filing system and if we never set it up properly, then it is not going to work properly. Putting the stuff in is easy, automatic, but we file such vast quantities of stuff that finding that one little fact say for instance who had the number 11 single on your fifth birthday.... not a chance!
Filing is not so very interesting but it is extremely important. At the moment I am working at setting up my filing system. I am creating hooks upon which to 'hang' words. I have set up hooks to remember lists of up to twenty words, in order so far. Give me a number and I can recall the word that goes with that number. I can recall the words forward, backward, and out of order. But I can only have one set of words at a time. Once I put something else on those hooks, the old thing gets knocked off.
I am just begininning really and I ams till hoping that my general memory will really improve too as I start to work my memory harder and harder.... And of course I will have to maintain it and use it to keep it all going.....
At the moment it is along the lines of a neat party trick. I don't very often need to remember lists. There is a chapter on remembering phone numbers though - I can't even remember my own mobile number! and remembering names and faces as well.....
I might have to watch some conveyor belts from the Generation Game and see if I can win all the prizes!
So in order to have a filing system
You set it up with files and drawers and decide how you want the names to run, whether to file family stuff under family or Sea.....
You determinedly put things in, making sure they go in the right place.
You maintain your filing system - sorting through for obsolete stuff, adding news files and making sure all is working well.
The memory is just a a great big filing system and if we never set it up properly, then it is not going to work properly. Putting the stuff in is easy, automatic, but we file such vast quantities of stuff that finding that one little fact say for instance who had the number 11 single on your fifth birthday.... not a chance!
Filing is not so very interesting but it is extremely important. At the moment I am working at setting up my filing system. I am creating hooks upon which to 'hang' words. I have set up hooks to remember lists of up to twenty words, in order so far. Give me a number and I can recall the word that goes with that number. I can recall the words forward, backward, and out of order. But I can only have one set of words at a time. Once I put something else on those hooks, the old thing gets knocked off.
I am just begininning really and I ams till hoping that my general memory will really improve too as I start to work my memory harder and harder.... And of course I will have to maintain it and use it to keep it all going.....
At the moment it is along the lines of a neat party trick. I don't very often need to remember lists. There is a chapter on remembering phone numbers though - I can't even remember my own mobile number! and remembering names and faces as well.....
I might have to watch some conveyor belts from the Generation Game and see if I can win all the prizes!
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Help!
I am starting to get very unhappy. I feel like I am haemorhaging money. That I have no time and too much to do. All of sudden, the whole process which I had been enjoying is just TOO MUCH.
I think those people who are resisting and delaying giving me the details I require are just not really helping at all.... It means there are jobs I just can not finish. Jobs that are so close to completion can not get ticked off. Having to work this weekend, and long hours at that, just is not helping my feelings.....
I also suspect that stress is delaying my moontime and I also suspect that my delayed moontime is not helping my stress.....
I should probably go and have a bath and give myself the rest of the evening off, but I can't quite do it..... I am sure I would achieve more if I did.
Maybe writing a list of everything left to do was a bad idea.... maybe I should colour things that are being done at particular times so the list is not quite so scary.....
Maybe, maybe, maybe
I am sure this feeling will pass - I just need to get to that point now.... I really do.
I think those people who are resisting and delaying giving me the details I require are just not really helping at all.... It means there are jobs I just can not finish. Jobs that are so close to completion can not get ticked off. Having to work this weekend, and long hours at that, just is not helping my feelings.....
I also suspect that stress is delaying my moontime and I also suspect that my delayed moontime is not helping my stress.....
I should probably go and have a bath and give myself the rest of the evening off, but I can't quite do it..... I am sure I would achieve more if I did.
Maybe writing a list of everything left to do was a bad idea.... maybe I should colour things that are being done at particular times so the list is not quite so scary.....
Maybe, maybe, maybe
I am sure this feeling will pass - I just need to get to that point now.... I really do.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
Gran
My Gran was a difficult lady. A widow for many years. Mother of one son. She was old fashioned. Strong willed. She reinvented events within her mind - ran over them and over them, little changes crept in and by the next day she would be convinced they had happened as she had decided and nothing could convince her other wise. nothing.
Class was more important in her day. My Dad took on the family business and married a nurse. But my Mum was never, ever good enough for Gran. Gran would snipe at Mum, despite all that Mum did for her, shopping and general running around.... Dad was not much help in this, he is definitely a man who is happy to leave the emotional stuff to others and going against his Mum was never easy. I think that lake of support did affect my parents relationship, I think it did lessen my Mum's respect for my Dad just a little.
My Mum found little tactics to get her own back. For instance the barbed comments she would pretend not to have noticed and then watch my Gran getting more and more frustrated.
It was me however that caused the huge family row. In my younger days I was a bit of a warrior for truth and justice. I stuck my nose out a few times as a teen and learnt that it is not always a good idea!
My Gran insisted on going to the supermarket for her shop. Her walking was getting bad as her double hip replacement declined. She had the old fashioned style of scrimping - all the prices had to be considered, so just buying a pack of porridge oats could take minutes. And she had a whole list of items.
Mum would send us girls off to help Gran while she did our shopping. On this day, Mum had long finished and was getting royally fed up. So she came and joined us and chivvied Gran along and with a slight lack of diplomacy, got the shop finished in just a few minutes.
The next day I was at my Grans with my Dad and my Gran, very unwisely she decided to complain about my Mum and the shopping trip. I couldn't keep my mouth shut and replied that that was not how things had happened exactly and that we had been in the shop for nearly two hours.
Kids will generally side with their Mums, because their Mums are the ones they spend the most time with, the ones most dedicated to them. What was my Gran thinking? It rumbled on for some time but in the aftermath, changes came about - Gran agreed to go to the little supermarket instead.
It became a kind of thing in my family, not said too loudly infront of my Dad, or really in front of my sister.... The Grandma blood.... My Dad has a lot of it - he can be grumpy and quick tempered for sure. My Sister got more of it than me, but I have my share too. What I did get from somewhere though that my Sister got a little less of was introspection. The quick temper I ruthlessly over-controlled in my teens and now, well anger comes out in other ways.... There is a tendancy to depression I think as well that runs with all this, and the more introspective, the more depressive.... At least until things start to come together as I think they are for me....
Needless to say, once the scales were off my eyes about my Grans treatment of my beloved Mum, nothing was ever the same between us. I stayed away a lot. I went home one time, she was in a nursing home by this point and as far as I was concerned she would live their for years. I wouldn't have gone to see her but Mum made me.
It was the last time I saw her.
She was so pleased to see me, so very, very proud.
At her funeral, the church was full. She was never the same with friends as she was with family. The vicar urged us to find a happy memory of us with this person. I couldn't think of one. I sat there and despaired.
So what has brought all this out?
Well, the wedding.
I decided to do a little wedding family tree - A photo of my parents at their wedding, one of Jay's aprents at theirs, and then one of the four sets of Grandparents at theirs to. This quiet opening of the doors to the ancestors. Acceptance. It can be a very powerful thing.
On my 18th, I was given my Gran's watch - her second best watch as my sister was older and got the best one. It was a lovely long sort of oval in an art deco style. It had been given to my Gran by her Mother on her 21st birthday. My parents had taken it to the jewellers to get a new strap as the old one had decayed but the new strap was a poor replacement. The style of the fittings and their size made it hard to get a decent strap.
I had been thinking about the something old for the wedding and remembered the watch. It felt right but when I tried it on the bracelet style strap that had always been tight would not even go over my hand. The jeweller doing our rings, makes things and is helpful, so I took him in the watch. He started talking about ostrich leather straps matching the watch and it's time etc.
not hearing anything from in a while, I spoke to him to see how he was getting on. He was having the same problem with fittings for the staps - the watch has bars rather than pins, so the strap has to be fastened around the bars as they do not come off. I could hear his frustration and his reluctance to tell me, but it seems he had a strap that would match the watch and fit. It was scrap metal and would be somewhat expensive....
I rang my Dad and he said go for it if it means you can wear it. So off I went to have a look and it was obvious straight away. Years at that shop, doing what he does and he had never, ever had a strap of this style sold to him before. It fit the watches fittings perfectly. It was long enough to fit my wrist beautifully. It matched the watch perfectly, same era, same style. It makes it look a million dollars.....
It bought a tear to my eye. And as I realised how unlikely it was that this strap would arrive at the same place as my watch, I realised I was meant to have it and my spine tingled. My ancestors are walking with me and stand by me as I go forth into married life (not that it will be much different to my current life!)
And writing all this, I realise that all the bad is over betwen my Gran and I and I am crying. And now I can remember the good that has eluded me for so long....
Memories....
Playing in her garden and climbing the cherry tree....
Walking the dog up her road, playing pooh sticks in the rivers and feeding the donkey....
Going to the shop for a sugar mouse....
Playing gin rummy....
Looking through the old encyclopedias....
Her giving me her favourite book - East Lynne...
The toys she kept in the bench in the hall....
The noddy books (oh how politically incorrect!)....
Sleeping in her box room (my sister got the grown up spare room with the pink bedspread) with my glass of lemonade next to the bed and a biscuit on top....
Malteasers and glacier mints....
Mince and napkin rings and fish finger sandwiches....
Playing with the snap dragons in her garden and picking beans....
Going to visit the other people at her club....
Going and seeing her in the spare room on Christmas morning where she would always have a snack and show her what Santa had brought...
Watching her embroider ladies on the tablecloth I have kept, hidden away in my sideboard....
The look of pride and happiness on her face that last time I saw her....
Love you Gran, rest in peace.
Sunday 7 August 2011
Well... S has gone. his home has called him back and i don't know if we will see him much before the wedding at all.... I am going to miss him.
It has been a tiring weekend but a worthwhile one. My guest book is all but done - I just need to do the name tags for each page. It is wonderfully over the top and the inspiration came from Suzi! I did the photo album all ready to put photos in as well. Then I finished off the bridesmaids red set of jewellery, so that's another thing ready..... I am getting there.
I need to take some photos.....
Then I helped F do some sorting and broke the back of the spare room tidying, so we are getting there. i am limited as to what else I can do to help him as I have a lot coming up from now on.... but then I have crafted this wedding!
Anyway, tired now....
Night night!
It has been a tiring weekend but a worthwhile one. My guest book is all but done - I just need to do the name tags for each page. It is wonderfully over the top and the inspiration came from Suzi! I did the photo album all ready to put photos in as well. Then I finished off the bridesmaids red set of jewellery, so that's another thing ready..... I am getting there.
I need to take some photos.....
Then I helped F do some sorting and broke the back of the spare room tidying, so we are getting there. i am limited as to what else I can do to help him as I have a lot coming up from now on.... but then I have crafted this wedding!
Anyway, tired now....
Night night!
Saturday 6 August 2011
Join-in-g
It's that weekend - that D-Day. I have overtime next wwkend, and then things start to get busy for the wedding build up... This weekend is the weekend I want to finish stuff off. Plus I have Monday and Tuesday off. Monday I meet with the caterers and I do not want to have to keep going back to them.
All outstanding invitees have been prompted last week and well, some of them are still outstanding. I need their info! It isn't enough to just know they are coming!
I know the whole thing of asking them to give a song and a fact about themselves may be seen as lame, overly personal, embarassing whatever - but I want that info! It is my wedding and if they wish to come then they should abide by the rules of the event. If I didn't want it, I would not ask for it.....
Being left out of all the fun, being the one who didn't, wouldn't, down right refused to get involved with the fun has got to be worse... right?
Being at a wedding where no one taks to other people - how can that be good? Surely a little informal ice breaker to get people mingling can't be so bad?
Being at wedding which plays music you hate all night is always horrid.... being at a wedding where they play music all night that no one loves or hates..... Getting one song - just especially for you - how that can that be bad?
It will all get there I know - but it shouldn't have to be this much work and effort. people should not make the bride run around at the last minute because they can not be organised enough to get their invites back, even after prompting.....
OK. Rant over! Not feeling stressed at all! Honest!
All outstanding invitees have been prompted last week and well, some of them are still outstanding. I need their info! It isn't enough to just know they are coming!
I know the whole thing of asking them to give a song and a fact about themselves may be seen as lame, overly personal, embarassing whatever - but I want that info! It is my wedding and if they wish to come then they should abide by the rules of the event. If I didn't want it, I would not ask for it.....
Being left out of all the fun, being the one who didn't, wouldn't, down right refused to get involved with the fun has got to be worse... right?
Being at a wedding where no one taks to other people - how can that be good? Surely a little informal ice breaker to get people mingling can't be so bad?
Being at wedding which plays music you hate all night is always horrid.... being at a wedding where they play music all night that no one loves or hates..... Getting one song - just especially for you - how that can that be bad?
It will all get there I know - but it shouldn't have to be this much work and effort. people should not make the bride run around at the last minute because they can not be organised enough to get their invites back, even after prompting.....
OK. Rant over! Not feeling stressed at all! Honest!
Monday 1 August 2011
Faith
I thought maybe I would describe my faith, my belief. I think I believe in possibilities. I believe the truth, the fundamental is so vast it has room for everything within it. It is hard to pin such things down then, because what I actually believe, the details, changes from day to day, year to year, with the wind, with my mood....
It all began with that utterly beautiful moment I had as a teenager, stood watching the Summer sun rise through a field of tall grasses, gone to seed. The empty seed pods caught that light and they glowed. It was so beautiful.... such a moment - and it probably happened on many, many days, just so early in the morning that rarely was there anyone there to see it.
Before this moment I had been hunting for a home in Christianity. Christianity was the religion of my home village and my school. Back then, in the country it was the tadition, the way. I tried very hard to make it mine, but it just didn't fit me. I had no trouble with ethics of the New Testament and I guess really, not a problem with Jesus. I just could not accept the religion.
After the moment though, I discovered I had something else. Faith. I began to realise that this was different to religion in many cases. Some people had faith, but not religion while others had religion but not faith....
So what did I believe? Fundamentally I decided that there was something in everything, some energy and it was all connected somehow. And it was strongest in nature. And nature made me feel at peace. This was my faith. I didn't believe that this made the world a good place, or a bad place, just that it was.
Around this time I wrote a story about Father Sun and Mother Earth. There was no place in my upbringing that such a story could have come from. It didn't come from me. It came out as one story, complete.
After my breakdown I began searching for religion, for a label, for a tribe. i took bits from all sorts of religions, whatever fitted. Witchiness fit quite strongly at that time, at least the hedgewitchery side of it. but then, that makes sense because the witch and the druid are the two oldest pagan archetypes in my homeland that remain. Wicca never felt quite right.
So I struggled on with these labels. I believe in Gods and Goddesses as archetypes, collections of energy within the web of energy, partly conjured up by us maybe? I don't know. But I couldn't follow a God or Goddess either.
And then I started to get further back, I began to see that both the Druid and Witch were derived from an even older faith, that of the shaman. Even better, this faith survived in some places. It even seems to be a common, first religion. The worlds it explored were explored by people who were separate in space and time.
So am I shaman? No, that is a term for a special person within the tribes of those who held these believes. I am not sure what the name for someone of this set of believes is exactly....
It is almost as if religion is a tree.... the faith of the shaman is the roots, buried deep, almost forgotten, but there above ground in places so you can see it flourishing, but much lost in time.... The leaves on the tree are all our current cults and sects. I feel as if I have been traveling from leave to root all my life......
So what do I believe? About what exactly? I am not sure I have a religion. I have faith.
I still believe we are made of energy. I still believe we are all connected. I believe there are other dimensions. I believe our brains are capable of doing incredible things. What there would science disagree with?
Do I believe in prophets and gods and miracles - well..... I wasn't there.... Was that prophet a strong and powerful shaman who came back with knowledge from other worlds or someone who communed with God? I don't know - how much difference is there really - if you can let go of a certain world view, a certain religious superiority and separateness.... How much of our religious texts is propaganda - altered by religous bodies over time and how much is fact of what actually happened back then, interpreted in the same way as a person of my time and culture would interpret it if they were there to?
So yes, i believe in possibilities but I know very little (or a lot depending on how you look at it). I have not experienced this directly myself to a huge degree. I believe there are whole worlds to explore and anything is possible out there in the multi-dream-verse. I have no religion. i do have faith and I do have tribe....
I am learning and I shall learn more. but gently. there are dangers in unknown worlds maybe? I am open to listen and learn. I believe.
It all began with that utterly beautiful moment I had as a teenager, stood watching the Summer sun rise through a field of tall grasses, gone to seed. The empty seed pods caught that light and they glowed. It was so beautiful.... such a moment - and it probably happened on many, many days, just so early in the morning that rarely was there anyone there to see it.
Before this moment I had been hunting for a home in Christianity. Christianity was the religion of my home village and my school. Back then, in the country it was the tadition, the way. I tried very hard to make it mine, but it just didn't fit me. I had no trouble with ethics of the New Testament and I guess really, not a problem with Jesus. I just could not accept the religion.
After the moment though, I discovered I had something else. Faith. I began to realise that this was different to religion in many cases. Some people had faith, but not religion while others had religion but not faith....
So what did I believe? Fundamentally I decided that there was something in everything, some energy and it was all connected somehow. And it was strongest in nature. And nature made me feel at peace. This was my faith. I didn't believe that this made the world a good place, or a bad place, just that it was.
Around this time I wrote a story about Father Sun and Mother Earth. There was no place in my upbringing that such a story could have come from. It didn't come from me. It came out as one story, complete.
After my breakdown I began searching for religion, for a label, for a tribe. i took bits from all sorts of religions, whatever fitted. Witchiness fit quite strongly at that time, at least the hedgewitchery side of it. but then, that makes sense because the witch and the druid are the two oldest pagan archetypes in my homeland that remain. Wicca never felt quite right.
So I struggled on with these labels. I believe in Gods and Goddesses as archetypes, collections of energy within the web of energy, partly conjured up by us maybe? I don't know. But I couldn't follow a God or Goddess either.
And then I started to get further back, I began to see that both the Druid and Witch were derived from an even older faith, that of the shaman. Even better, this faith survived in some places. It even seems to be a common, first religion. The worlds it explored were explored by people who were separate in space and time.
So am I shaman? No, that is a term for a special person within the tribes of those who held these believes. I am not sure what the name for someone of this set of believes is exactly....
It is almost as if religion is a tree.... the faith of the shaman is the roots, buried deep, almost forgotten, but there above ground in places so you can see it flourishing, but much lost in time.... The leaves on the tree are all our current cults and sects. I feel as if I have been traveling from leave to root all my life......
So what do I believe? About what exactly? I am not sure I have a religion. I have faith.
I still believe we are made of energy. I still believe we are all connected. I believe there are other dimensions. I believe our brains are capable of doing incredible things. What there would science disagree with?
Do I believe in prophets and gods and miracles - well..... I wasn't there.... Was that prophet a strong and powerful shaman who came back with knowledge from other worlds or someone who communed with God? I don't know - how much difference is there really - if you can let go of a certain world view, a certain religious superiority and separateness.... How much of our religious texts is propaganda - altered by religous bodies over time and how much is fact of what actually happened back then, interpreted in the same way as a person of my time and culture would interpret it if they were there to?
So yes, i believe in possibilities but I know very little (or a lot depending on how you look at it). I have not experienced this directly myself to a huge degree. I believe there are whole worlds to explore and anything is possible out there in the multi-dream-verse. I have no religion. i do have faith and I do have tribe....
I am learning and I shall learn more. but gently. there are dangers in unknown worlds maybe? I am open to listen and learn. I believe.
Pathways in the Brain
OK - so yesterday I was grumpy and I wrote on here to let off steam.... I love him no matter if sometimes I do feel like he needs a bit of a kick. And he always does spring in to action, he just likes to leave things a bit later and take advantage of that manic energy.....
Anyway, enough grumping about that (at least for now..... *laugh*)
So life does like to give you little pushes every so often. hints. paths glimpsed through the trees.... So here is a pathway through my wood....
This one began with Reya, of the Golden Puppy posting about an article she had read.
I read the article by one David Eagleman.
I was inspired to buy and read two of his books, but this pathway refers to Incognito.
I am quietly wowed by how bizarre and powerful our brains are and their many quirks....
I start a correspondence with Wapeyit, which so far consists of suggestions and questions. The suggestion being that I develop my memory.
I buy a book called the Memory Book by Tony Buzan and tentatively begin delving. I am now able to wow people with my ability to remember ten unrelated words and repeat them back according to their number in a sequence - this is a short term memory trick though)
A colleague has been enthusing, repeatedly about Dynamo, the magician. Go here, here and here to see some wonders....
I watch an episode and am completely wowed by him. I wonder if his abilities would be any less astounding if you know how he does his tricks - I don't think just anybody could do what he does, even if they knew how.
A couple of days later I am catching up on ancient stored programmes on my sky box. I want a programme about the human body that focuses on the brain. Dynamo appears on it. It seems he has focused on improving things - his dexterity is so great, the brain can not quite keep up, his sense of touch in his fingers so refined he can tell how many cards he is holding, and as for his memory.....
Life is defintely saying to me right now that I should develop my brain but that the brain can do stuff, with discipline, at such high levels that it looks like magic. And who is to say where the line that is magic should really lie? So I wonder, what realms my brain might be capable of taking me too and where this path might lead me..... maybe..... if I work hard enough....
What do you think?
Anyway, enough grumping about that (at least for now..... *laugh*)
So life does like to give you little pushes every so often. hints. paths glimpsed through the trees.... So here is a pathway through my wood....
This one began with Reya, of the Golden Puppy posting about an article she had read.
I read the article by one David Eagleman.
I was inspired to buy and read two of his books, but this pathway refers to Incognito.
I am quietly wowed by how bizarre and powerful our brains are and their many quirks....
**** the path meanders off quietly****
I start a correspondence with Wapeyit, which so far consists of suggestions and questions. The suggestion being that I develop my memory.
I buy a book called the Memory Book by Tony Buzan and tentatively begin delving. I am now able to wow people with my ability to remember ten unrelated words and repeat them back according to their number in a sequence - this is a short term memory trick though)
**** the path continues****
A colleague has been enthusing, repeatedly about Dynamo, the magician. Go here, here and here to see some wonders....
I watch an episode and am completely wowed by him. I wonder if his abilities would be any less astounding if you know how he does his tricks - I don't think just anybody could do what he does, even if they knew how.
A couple of days later I am catching up on ancient stored programmes on my sky box. I want a programme about the human body that focuses on the brain. Dynamo appears on it. It seems he has focused on improving things - his dexterity is so great, the brain can not quite keep up, his sense of touch in his fingers so refined he can tell how many cards he is holding, and as for his memory.....
****the paths start to twine together****
Life is defintely saying to me right now that I should develop my brain but that the brain can do stuff, with discipline, at such high levels that it looks like magic. And who is to say where the line that is magic should really lie? So I wonder, what realms my brain might be capable of taking me too and where this path might lead me..... maybe..... if I work hard enough....
****peers down the path with interest****
What do you think?
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