Here and There: Christmas Collage

weekend update: lots of leaves

slump week.

i don't have any photos today myself.  i took a limited amount at the party Saturday, but was too busy playing host, as it should be.  some weeks i pick up the camera and take lots of photos around the house but this week i've just not felt like it.  i'm in this weird sort of slump.  no energy, no enthusiasm, general lack of caring really about doing anything around here.

i can't pinpoint it.  partly recovery after the busy weekend with the party. partly because i've not been sleeping well. partly because i'm pre-menstrual.  partly, because i'm still trying to process the end of this relationship that has had no closure, partly because he cut off contact with me and now I with him. partly because i'm thinking of taking on writing this novel that both thrills and scares the hell out of me, fear of failure, yes.

it's in these times that i, like you, think about de-cluttering, making simple.  but the thought of that is always easier than the actual action, which can seem overwhelming.  if you are anything like me the actual weight of too many things on my mind, can feel more burdensome than any physical strain.  unfortunately, i know my friend you sometimes have the burden of both.

in truth, i've been neglecting the very things that would make me more whole.  i've not been on the yoga mat the past week which has left me with this nervous energy at night, my eating has fallen by the wayside into comfort food overload which leaves me sluggish, and when i should be embracing the wisdom i usually find in Buddhist truths on change and fear, this morning was the first morning i dared sit with a loving kindness meditation and that was driving down the road to work.

it's one of those, oh no, things are a bit burdensome right now kind of weeks.  i'm hoping a quiet weekend and returning to the yoga mat will help.  i may have to pick up the book of my old friend when i'm down, pema chodron.

hope you are feeling better.  cheers to a finer week next week.

right now: 10/19/11

jennifer - i tried the spooky sounds CD out on the girls Sunday during breakfast.  I think this might mean it's a NO for Saturday night. Maybe next year.

weekend update: sunday breakfast, october style

it's officially fall now, the date having changed almost a month ago, but really feeling it now.  this morning i tried a new recipe for baked oatmeal.  i used thawed frozen blueberries and fresh apples, but you could actually make it with any combination of amazing fruits.  it got a triple thumbs up, the girls having devoured two great big platefuls this morning fresh from the oven.  even emily's friend "witchy cat" newly found from the basement with the halloween decorations seemed to agree.  next sunday will be the morning after the girl's halloween party.  do you do all the halloween shenanigans and trick-or-treating there in England?  I imagine after entertaining a dozen young girls for the evening Saturday, we will be having a very easy breakfast next weekend.

right now: 10.11.11

jennifer- emily took these of me on my grandmother's porch during our visit this weekend, i do need more photos of myself for them.

one step at a time

(a moment at home)

I loved your last post.  I had actually never heard that quote before, probably given my fondness for elephants and all, but no, really how much sense does that make.

It seems that to me everything is best taken one step at a time.  I have found it so much easier to not think too far ahead.  We are very similiar in very different ways.  Though I do not have your medical issues that keep me from doing everything I would like, I do have some major time constraints.  Somedays I get disheartened by what has not been done and forget to look at all that has been done which in themselves seem like mundane things but are really a lot of littles that add up to a lot.  Tonight I patted myself on the back because I cleaned the cat bin, cooked dinner, did the dishes, made sure homework was done, signed off on school papers, got library books in the backpacks for school tomorrow, made tea and picked up for my parent's visit tonight and got Karelyn in and out of the bath. To think that I was up at 6:00 a.m. packed lunches, made breakfast and got us all ready to go out the door and worked a full day, makes me quite proud.

But about the home.  Yes, I know.  I have been in my current home now, three years.  I have absolutely nothing on my walls except a lone calendar.  I still have no furniture in my bedroom, just a bed and a file cabinet holding my lamp and alarm clock.  The basement still holds a mass of clutter that dates back to the move from the divorce.  And then there is the dog that is leaving masses of hair everywhere she walks and lays.

I did get some furniture for the living room with a lump sum child support settlement and we painted last year, the girls getting pretty pink and purple rooms and a beautiful spring green for my bathroom.  It's amazing what a little color can do.

I think you are doing the right thing, doing one bit.  Now I operate in a very simple manner.  I try very hard not to multi-task anymore, it usually ends up in disaster.  If I had started the day looking at that long paragraph above here I would have fallen in to panic or perhaps (as I'm prone to do) frozen and not done anything.  In fact for a moment this morning when the girls were bickering non-stop, I almost contemplated calling work and crawling back into bed.  (Obviously, I didn't).  So now it is this.

Now I am cooking.  (Don't look at dishes in sink).  Now we are going to do homework.  Now we are packing lunches.   Now I am going to go upstairs and take a hot bath.  Sometimes things get forgotten, emails to friends, piles of papers on the stairs, a form that needed filled out in the kitchen.  But oh well.

I hope you continue on this little homemaking journey and manage great success one corner, one stack one (literal) step at a time.

I hope to somehow get there myself.  And remember when all else fails, if the people who fill up your home are smiling, then it is a happy one, and that's all that counts.

P.S.  I remember you had a photo one day of your kitchen with a lemon shaped timer in it.  I just went all the way through this blog and realized perhaps I saw it on your personal blog.  I am a great believer in setting the timer for fifteen to twenty minutes and having a go at it.

eating the elephant

the photograph that prompted me to paint the doorstep!

My house is an old house and I never had any money, so it is pretty decrepit. Everything needs decorating, there is no storage, the garden fence is falling down, the carpet belonged to the previous residents and is horrible (good quality actually, but hideous). I was a broke single parent for years, so beyond a lick of paint here and there, I didn't manage to do much to improve things. Shortly after the Prof and I got together he was made redundant from his job and he was out of work for over a year, when he found work we got engaged and then had a wedding to save for, so it's only now with the wedding behind us that we can now start to work our way through the tasks that need doing. It's quite overwhelming to me at the moment, and honestly, the more overwhelmed I feel the more likely I am to suggest that we get in the car and go on one of our drives on the weekends.  We drive for miles and can be out for several hours. Whether it is town or country there is always lots to see and take photographs of, and in this way I have been neatly avoiding what needs doing. But enough is enough. We have been married six months now and it's about time we stopped avoiding things and started making this house into the lovely home we want it to be.

This weekend we took a different approach. Taking advantage of the Indian summer we are getting here at the moment, we worked in the garden both days, there were a lot of shrubs that needed cutting back and pots full of dead plants to be emptied out, cleaned and put away.  On both days we stopped work in time to take a carload of stuff to the tip before 4pm when it closes, and then we went for a drive. I felt so much better on Sunday evening, knowing we had achieved a lot as well as had fun. Today I painted the front doorstep, which is another job that has needed doing since forever. Tomorrow I will paint the garden bench. We are going to try to tackle some chore every weekend, which will more of a challenge soon as the Prof starts university again next week, but we will try. In addition, I have some serious decluttering to do, which I am going to try and work my way through a little each day, on my better days anyway. Even 15 minutes a day has to get me there in the end, right? The best way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. 

weekend update: weekend at home

I usually enjoy having Saturday afternoons/evenings to myself when the girl's visit with their father (my one day solo) but this weekend his family was away so I had them all weekend long.  It was a rare treat for us to have the whole weekend together.  I felt as if I wasn't trying to squeeze everything into one day.

It was truly our first fall weekend.  A blustery crisp day on Saturday and we trekked out to the far part of the lot by the edge of the woods and built teepees.  Last year I was surprised to find they had built a teepee by themselves, but they built it in the middle of the yard and we had to take it down for mowing.  This time we built one each, Karelyn's in a mossy spot at the edge of the woods, and Emily's in a little section off to the left side in a little grouping of trees.

The tropical storms we had a month ago had left us a multitude of fallen branches so we lugged as many as we could from around the back path, looking for the perfectly pronged first branch to get the whole thing started.  Nothing fancy here, no canvas, no string, just a nice collection of branches forming out a little secret spot for each of them.

Karelyn of course couldn't keep shoes on her feet (she never can) and had her toes nestled in the cushioning moss.  While they finished up I went inside to bake the oatmeal cookies Emily had made up earlier in the day and there was no better feeling than taking three of the first cookies out of the oven out to sit in the teepee and eat, warm and cinnamon tasting, sitting on the soft moss.

Later we went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, and we were in luck they had a fire going and we got a prime seat in front of it.  So after a light dinner we filled up on dessert (chocolate cake for them pumpkin cheesecake for me) and headed home to curl up on the couch together and watch a movie.

Today I realized something.  My life is pretty amazing.  This IS the life I have always wanted for my girls and they are happy.  Happy to spend the day scouring the woods, happy to bury their feet in starry night moss, happy to stir up a batch of cookies in the kitchen, happy to run leftover cookies, and chili and cornbread up the path to my grandparents next door, happy to spend time in my grandparents living room, Karelyn dancing in my grandfather's hat, Emily lying across the couch her head on my grandmother's lap her feet in mine.

Perhaps I should not always be thinking of the future, perhaps the best thing is to just enjoy the here and the now.  I have the rest of my life to become.  Right now I think I am content to just be.

journeys...

I loved your post about Alice and I'm glad you sent her my way to so I could experience her blog.  This post and having read about Alice's situation makes me think about us as individuals and the roads we must travel.  This young girl with all her honesty and bravery really moved me, that at such a young age she can speak so openly about her dreams and honestly about her terminal disease and what that means to her.


One of my favorite musicians, Xavier Rudd, uses the same word over and over in his songs and when he speaks, a word I've come to embrace.  He uses the word "journey" for life, saying on my journey.  I've heard it said about my journey or your journey or someone else's journey.  When you think about it that truly is what life is.


I see things a lot clearer when I accept that my life is a journey.  The word itself seems to indicate not knowing what is ahead on the path.  That you can guess and try to direct yourself but that you don't know what is coming up on the way.  The word journey to me represents that you can expect to encounter hardships along the way, and see those as obstacles to be overcome.  It also, at least to me, allows for the fact that I am going to make mistakes along the way and have to move back on track.


When I first started blogging three years ago, I was very sad and angry.  It was right when I was trying to pick up the pieces of my life after my divorce.  It was when I was trying to understand who I was and trying to acclimate to raising two children alone.  One day someone made a comment on that blog that said essentially that my life was not so hard compared to other single mothers out there and I should quit whining.  I never published that comment and it hurt me dearly.  I know that there are people out there that are suffering more than I am, I know there are people suffering less and I know that there are people suffering differently.  My thought was you don't know me, how can you judge me.


Everyone is on their own journey, Alice, you, me, the woman who posted on my blog three years ago.  Our lives are full of great beauty and great travails.  I think that is what brought me into blogging in the first place, the ability to see and document my journey and to be able to reflect back on it.


I will keep up with Alice, she is a dear soul to have come to know, and I will look into the bone marrow registry here in the States.  I wish Alice a beautiful journey and you too my friend.


Everyone has hopes and dreams.  Everyone has ups and downs.  When you are lucky you find a few kindred spirits along the way.

monday morning blues

the weekend was a full blast of homemaking tedium, multiple loads of laundry and an illusionist show thrown in for a bit of fun.  i can't believe it's monday morning already and i'm in work clothes with a bowl of oatmeal and fruit.  it's picture day at school today, so we are having hair drama.  happy monday!!

Here And There: Pocketbooks and Handbags

Here we are our first comparative post.  Handbags, or pocketbooks as we call them.

Here is mine.  You see how big it is.  

I was surprised usually it is filled more with the girl's stuff as well but today it was all, all mine.  

(except the lollipop)

So here you go:

wallet

second wallet for discount and membership cards

checkbook

ipod (dead) in case

four handkerchiefs from the movies

bottle of ibuprofen

dental floss

cell phone

the book i'm reading for lunchtime at work

3 pens, 3 markers, 1 highlighter

tweezers

a paperclip

blue raspberry lollipop (K's)

Harry Potter movie ticket from 8/7/11

heart shaped shell from the beach

3 old grocery lists

school volunteer handbook

i.d. badge for work

tag my sister gave me last Christmas using as bookmark

a dime

Emily's notepad for writing grocery list on the go

orthodontist business card

5 store receipts

3 grocery coupons

1/2 pack chocolate peanut chews

this week's pay stub

Right Now 9.14.11

jennifer - after-school snacks

Weekend Update: Dressing Up Rooms

happy monday!

It seems strange to be writing words here again.  As always the weekend has gone by too fast, back to school and work today.  Sunday we finished cleaning up the girls rooms.  Karelyn got these really amazing decals for her walls.  Owls, birds, hedgehogs and leaves and flowers over all her walls.  A new lamp that matches.  She wants to put a sign on her door that says "Welcome to the Enchanted Forest".


So I'm hoping it brings her the peace she needs to start sleeping again in her own bed.  We've been struggling every night and most nights I've been putting her in with me because I'm too tired to fight it anymore.  She spent some time in there herself Sunday afternoon.  I snuck a shot of her watching Prince Caspian on her bed.   We are all slightly in love with Prince Caspian, but as she says "too young for you, too old for me".  She loves The Chronicles of Narnia almost as much as Harry Potter.  I'm re-reading them right now, only on book two, but she is in bed now (because I'm writing this Sunday night) with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on at her bedside but closed so she can listen to it as she goes to sleep.  "Too scary"?  I asked, but she said, "No".


I guess we'll see.  Good to be back with you my friend.  

8.30.11

jennifer-waiting for the hurricane

8.22.11

Jennifer- The Way I Travel

(Smithwicks Irish Ale, the novel Chocolat, an Italian Recipe Magazine, Cell Phone to Colorado)

8.15.11

Jennifer-A Rainy Weekend

8.3.11

Jennifer - Porch Sitting

I'm so sorry you are having a rough spell.  There is a book both I and my girls read called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; he resolves to move to Australia.  After my terrible, horrible, no good very bad day yesterday I resolved to move to an island off the coast of Maine or Florida.  Anywhere far from everyday life.

Everyday life can get you down sometimes can't it.  Last night I just couldn't take the responsibilities of work and having a home and family anymore.  It sounds childish and selfish, but I just wanted to be a child again.  Or in the case of another favorite children's book of mine, Mrs. Biddlebox, (you would like her) she takes her bad day and mops it up and bakes it into a cake.

If only we could do such things, what say you?

I didn't write this last night, like I usually do.   I was spent.  So I am writing this morning before I go to work today (please let it be better, or as my co-workers might say, please let her be better).  I'm sitting here early with a bowl of oatmeal and fresh blueberries and a warm cup of tea.  I'm hoping to have a better day today, mind shift please. 

I hope you will upswing soon.

I took my very bad mood to the library last night.  Moved up and down the stacks with no book in mind, just seeing a title or a photo and pulled it down off the shelf to peruse.  I spent about an hour there, winding back and forth.  There was an odd woman in the next aisle talking and laughing to herself which made me feel a little better about myself as cranky as I was. The library and all those books made me start to feel better and so I picked and took home this one, about an American woman who goes to care for her 8-year old Goddaughter after her best friend dies in  London.  I'm about forty pages in and really liking it.  It's a lighter style of writing given the situation compared to the book I just read and it references another book I loved growing up The Secret Garden. 

I promised to put a book page here, I will no doubt eventually get to it.

So what are you reading?

Be well, my friend.

Fourth Of July and Furniture

Well, here I am on Monday, it's the 4th of July here which means Independence Day, or the day we declared our Independence from you Brits.  I guess I may be unpatriotic because my Grandfather asked this morning why I didn't have my flag out and I thought that the only flag I do have is a Canadian one the girls brought back from vacation last year.  So what of the 4th of July?  I am escaping the madness of heading to the beach or smooshing in for the fireworks and enjoying a bonus day.  I don't have to go to work and the children are still away at the ocean so for me it means I get to sit here in the back corner at the bakery and write this with a toasted bagel and a fresh orange juice.

You asked if I got my desk?  I did though it's not visible in this photo, it's actually behind me.  Nothing more than a table with a drawer really, but at least I am not crumpled up anymore at the computer on a stand with nowhere for my feet.   But you can see what else I did.  I hadn't expected to go furniture shopping and rearrange my living room this three day weekend, but I had a little bit of a windfall and decided it was about time I put together my living space and stop looking like I was living in a university dorm room. 

When I first moved into this house after my divorce I had the this and that's leftover from the marriage.  It looked fine and I've added and updated along the way.  In fact, perhaps the openness, the white and the sparse and the simple was what I needed at that time.  My old home, like the marriage was a mess.  The house was falling down (literally) around us.  I am lucky to have found this place to rest and be welcomed.

Like I said there was nothing wrong with the place before, but the mismatched dregs of furniture have been an annoyance to me.  So this weekend, I bought some actual matching furniture, mind you from the department store and we had to put it all together (my father and I), but it matches.  It brings a certain continuity and homeliness to this place.  I'm sure the neatness won't last much once the girls get home, but for now I will enjoy it.

So for the last two days it's been loading, unloading, assembling and taking out the old dilapidated bookshelf and piling books and toys and everything else up in the hallway.  Truly as of yesterday it looked as if a tornado had blown through and still this morning some of that remains.  Today after I leave here I will pop back to get a second bookcase to mirror the one you see here.

It's been a lot of work, and not much of anything else has happened, but it makes me happy.  It makes me contented and when I walk in I smile.  Saturday night I turned on that lamp and sat down with my book and a cup of tea and read by lamplight.  We only had the overhead before, no place for a lamp, so that in itself was a delight.

It hasn't been all work, I have taken your advice and read and I watched a movie every night this weekend before bed. And right now I am taking the time to write this from the bakery.

So I have been off the grid and I hope you haven't thought I have disappeared altogether.  It's almost 11:30 am here which means you are headed to evening before I even get this post up.  I panicked when I woke up and realized it was Monday and I hadn't written my post yet, but then I gave myself a thump on the head and realized it's your own blog, just take your time.  This is supposed to be the week to slow down and take things easy (HA!)  Perhaps I just don't know how to do that.

Look forward to hearing back from you.  Reading your posts is the first thing I do in the morning before I even get out of bed and start the chaos of the day.

And in the spirit of indulgence, I have gone back for a pumpkin muffin and a cafe mocha before I head out.