Long time no blog

Oh dear, my friends. I am rather rubbish at this blogging thing, aren't I? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. No need to answer and make me feel worse. In my defence, if there can be such a thing, I managed to blog more in 2013 than 2012. By one post. That's something, I suppose.

The last months of 2013 were a whirlwind of activity, and there was a definite sense of trying to reach the end of the year 'intact' - physically, mentally and emotionally. It wasn't easy, and I'm forever grateful to the people who held me together while times were tough.

The decision to go on holiday wasn't that difficult, really. Spend new year somewhere warm and sunny, with the chance to see amazing wildlife and scenery? See - not difficult at all. And so we flew off just after Christmas and spent two and a half weeks in South Africa. My first time on the other side of the equator, and I loved every minute of it.

2013 was the year of the sketchbook for me. I drew more and documented more days than I have ever done in my life. In some ways I can't believe it took me till I was 30 to discover how to do this, but like everything it needed the right time and the right circumstances. Something clicked last year, and my collection of books and journals is proof of that. Our holiday was the perfect way to end a creative year, travelling with my sketchbook and using it to help me record some magical moments.

I know better than to make resolutions for 2014. Making lists of things I want to achieve and rushing headlong into a million activities is a sure-fire way to give myself a meltdown by Spring. Instead, I have learned to take things easy and be kind to myself, and be open to opportunities as they come up. I want to keep sketching, and scrapbooking, and generally being creative. By the end of the year I'd like some more sketchbooks on my shelf, each one filled with stories of the adventures and everyday moments that make our lives special. I'll blog when I feel like it, and I hope you pop in every now and then too. Thank you.

Preservation tactics

Life doesn't get easier. But if I have learned anything at all, it is that focusing on gratitude and action helps me through. So despite wanting to hide under the duvet most of the time, I am keeping going. Things that I am grateful for right now?

• Wonderful love and support.
• Small fluffy animals who depend on me.
• Making things (both the jam and the chutney were delicious).
• A sketchbook. I've just started a new one.
• Cosy blankets on the sofa.
• Autumn picnics after work.
• Scrapbooking. There are still lots of happy memories to record.

Opposite extreme

From the largest size photo to the smallest: a 4x4 print using one of my many photos from Instagram. There are various services out there that will print your Instagram pics, but I've found the best results when I upload them into Photobox on a standard size print and trim off the edges when they arrive. Simples.

Having a smaller photo leaves me more room for embellishment, and in this case also more room for the story of our second date. It's quite a long story, and involves me getting heatstroke and passing out in the middle of a field. Fortunately for me, it didn't put him off :)

I'm all out of enamel dots at the moment, so in a moment of inspiration decided to make my own using Liquid Pearls. This is the White Opal version, and I've discovered that if you put a good fat blob on the page and then flick the back of the paper really hard, the blob flattens out to become a lovely dimensional dot. Perfect for some subtle embellishment layers.

I haven't done so much scrapbooking lately as I've been busy filling my sketchbooks. Those photos aren't going to go anywhere, though!

A few of my favourite things

Polka dots. Watercolour. Handwriting. Glitter and sparkle. Scenic walks with my love. These things make me very happy indeed. I have stacks of photos waiting to be scrapped, and that makes me happy too.

I seem to get every bug going lately, most recently a kidney infection which has left me lying on the sofa again. I get very frustrated and cross when I am unwell, I think because it reminds me how flippin' fragile I am. I hate being weak and unable to do things. I hate relying on other people. Ugh. All the lessons I have learned over the last three and a half years are forgotten as I wallow in feeling sorry for myself. Maybe it's just a reminder that it is ok to lean on other people. Time still feels like the most precious thing, and I have to remind myself that I don't have to spend every minute in crazy activity. Rest. Relax. It is ok. 

Busy little bees

Things have gone quiet here on the blog front lately, and as usual it isn't for the lack of anything to write about, but because life has suddenly become so busy that there hasn't been time to sit down and put some words + photos together.

When I first met Chris and he told me he kept bees, I didn't really have any concept of what it meant. He became known as 'bee-man' when I talked about him to my friends, and it was one of those things that sounded interesting in a vague sort of way. Mostly I loved his enthusiasm for it, the way that he made bees sound so engaging and his plans for a bee empire. I helped with the honey collection at the end of last summer, but didn't really get involved apart from that. 

Bee-keeping season rolled around in the spring, and it was time to start inspecting hives again. Chris decided to do it at the weekend and invited me along to watch (with my camera, of course). I borrowed a bee suit and away we went. 

Bees are amazing. They are surprisingly calm when you lift the lid and start having a look, and many of them will just carry on with their work while you do yours. I watched Chris doing his inspections and took lots of photos.

Chris pointed things out to me (can you see the queen in the picture below?) and after a while I stopped taking so many photos and started to hold a frame, or help by using the smoker. I started to pick up the terminology, and understand what we were looking for. It was a very proud moment when Chris asked me to lift out a frame by myself and check it, before carefully lowering it back in. These bees are his babies, and I was honoured to be trusted with them.

Since those early inspections, it has been a steep learning curve as our original four hives started showing signs of wanting to expand, so Chris carried out some 'artificial swarms'. This left a queen egg in the old hive, and took the old queen and half of the bees into a new hive. Four became seven, and all was looking promising. Then the swarms began! And this is what has kept us so busy over the last few weeks:

Sometimes bees decide to swarm by themselves, and they will cluster on a tree or post while they look for a new home. When this happens - and someone spots it - Chris gets a phonecall and we drop everything and rock into action. The theory behind swarm collection is simple - the bees follow the scent of the queen, so get as many as you can into your basket and hopefully if the queen is in there, all the other bees will go in too. In practice we rarely seem to get the queen first time, and not all of them have been in such convenient locations as this tree. 'All of them', you ask? Our original four hives, with artificial swarms and 'incomers', are now a total of 17. Not all of them will produce honey this year, and we are braced for one or two to do less well, but even so - I keep having to pinch myself. 17 hives?!

I confirmed my status as bee-keeper rather than bee-photographer last weekend. Chris got a call for a swarm, and he couldn't go. The only way for us to get it was for me to go by myself - so I did. With a bit of help from Chris' mum (also a bee-keeper) who kept a close eye on me, I did it! These bees (above) are now safely in their new home. Their queen isn't laying yet, but there is still time and we are hopeful that they will do well.

In the midst of all this excitement, I totally missed that June 6th was the third anniversary of my most major surgery. As we sat on the Downs earlier, enjoying a picnic lunch after a morning of bee-inspecting, I couldn't help but reflect on how far I have come and how much my life has changed. Even this time last year, if you had told me how I would be spending my time and how good I would be feeling, I would have thought you were being ridiculous. I count my blessings every day, and there are many.

Have a little faith

 It felt like Spring was never going to arrive. I should have had more faith, really.

Nature is doing its thing. Slowly, but it's coming.

 Every little flower, every little bird...it's all beautiful and makes me quite emotional, actually.

There is still lots of grey and brown. Lots of bare branches. But in between there are green leaves, tiny flowers, and splashes of colour.

 The wind brought with it some beautiful blue skies and clouds that left wispy, frothy trails.

I am SO going to sketch that shed. I took more than 90 photos on this walk and any one of them would make a lovely picture.

I'm thinking maybe a large-scale canvas/ I've been in this house for two years and there still isn't anything on the walls, so these photos might be the prompt I need to change that.

Don't get me wrong, it's still cold. There was a fresh, biting wind that made my eyes water and my nose run. I was very glad to get back into the warmth of the car and eat our picnic.

But Spring is a promise. A promise of sunny days and warmth that reaches your bones. A promise of new growth, renewal and opportunity. 

Life is good.

Happy

Things that make me happy right now:

• Creating scrapbook pages.
• Walking in the crisp autumn sunshine.
• Singing cheesy Christmas classics.
• Wearing warm boots.
• Chatting on the phone to Gran every night.
• Shopping for Christmas presents.
• Snuggling under a crochet blanket.
• Eating packed lunches made especially for me.
• Planning things I am going to make.

I rarely scrap 8.5 x 11. In truth, this wasn't either until I tried to put it in the album and realised that I had cut the page to 8.5 x 11.75, which was no good at all. Thankfully, I managed to rescue this and the other pages I had done in the same format without too much trouble. That big journal card is a new thing, too. Lately I am just trying to make my pages look different. I can make page after page with bright colours and layered paper and they are always square with one or two photos...it is easy to get stuck in a rut. And so I am trying to use new papers and different embellishments and change the layouts of my pages. I think they might always have butterflies on, though. 

Blue skies and happiness

This is my favourite time of year. Bright sunny skies, crisp clear air, and a total lack of tourists. We went on an impromptu trek around Shanklin Chine yesterday, and the beautiful views made it worth the 150-something steps up. As we reached the top, a whole row of benches greeted us. I needed a sit down by then! And just around the corner...a monument to the life and music of Elvis Presley. Just when you think this place couldn't get any more random.

It's all too easy to fill my weekend with chores and household tasks and supermarket shopping...so I am all the more thankful for moments like this. Take a deep breath and carry on...

The sweetest feeling

Oh, it feels so good to be back. 

I took a long break from choir earlier this year, and walking through the door to my first rehearsal in months? Very hard. But after about five minutes it was like I'd never been away, and as soon as we start singing I remember why I love it so.

As I write this, I've just got back from our big summer performance. The photos on this page are from a rehearsal earlier in the week, when everything came together and we realised that it was going to be ok. And tonight it was more than 'ok'. Honestly, nothing beats singing in a big group of people when you can hear the harmonies blend and you know that your voice is joining with everyone else to make a sound that is bigger and richer than anything you can do on your own. And when you know a piece really well, and can sing your line with confidence (I'm still working on that bit) so that instead of concentrating on the notes, you can just feel the joy of singing...that is the feeling that I strive for, and it is sweet indeed.

In celebration of an ordinary week

In many ways, this week in early May was pretty ordinary. Work. Study. Housework. Shopping. Dinner with friends. Choir. Nothing unusual in any of that.

What was unusual was the fact that this was the first time in a long time that I have felt properly happy, relaxed and in control of my life. I had energy to do more than just survive the week. I was busy, productive and sociable. Nothing unusual, but it's been a long time coming.

When I was so sick, all I wanted was to get back to 'normal'. I think this might be it.

JYC :: 16 :: Thankful

This one gets a post all of its own.

It is so easy to be thankful this year. 2009/10 has been without a doubt the hardest year of my life. I keep thinking 'this time last year I was'...and it's all negative. I was being told I had cancer. I was starting chemotherapy. I was in hospital. I was having major surgery. I didn't know what the future held except that it wasn't going to be very good for a long time.

I am so thankful to be writing this post from a place of health and contentment. I am so blessed with my family and friends and all their support. In between sickness and surgery, I have still managed to have some really good times this year and I am so thankful for everything. One little page doesn't say it enough.

Home's best

It's taken nearly a year but I am back in my own home.

I am endlessly, eternally grateful to my family: for letting me stay with them, for looking after me, for making me cups of tea, for putting up with my stuff all over the place, for coming back to my house to feed my cat when I couldn't.

But it is such a wonderful feeling to be back in my own home.

I have always liked this house, but lately it has been making me smile every time I come through the door. I walk into my craft room (studio, I mean) and my heart lifts a little bit. I sit at my desk surrounded by paper, paint and glue, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling that makes me giggle. I work at the computer and I am joined by my boy who is so pleased to have me back.

I am living my life again. And it is so very good to be home.

Thankful

Thankful for a cat who still loves me (even after I've left him alone so much this year).
Thankful for friends who make me smile.
Thankful for a warm house and waterproof wellies.
Thankful for creativity and time to use it.
Thankful for the Willow Foundation.
Thankful for good health. More than ever.