Keeping up with the ...

Jones' challenges!

When I was younger the phrase keeping up with the Jones' was an often heard one.  It means to keep up with those around you in terms of things  such as getting a car/new curtains/new clothes etc.

In these days of recycling and upcycling it would be frowned upon, these days the challenge seems to be to have less and spend less, much as I was brought up to do.  We never really considered ourselves as less well off than others though because where we lived it was just what was done.  My mother being one of five girls helped because everything that had life left in it was passed on to someone and I still try to do that today.  I think during the 80's and 90's there was almost a stigma attached to having something that wasn't new which was a great shame.  I was watching last Sunday's episode of Call the Midwife earlier and a young dad whose children were not thriving was talking about his younger brother who had died and he said 'things have improved since then' and they had and some things continue to do so.

I would be lost without my internet connection.  I use the internet all the time, to find out things, to share things, to keep track of things yet for young people, and sometimes not so young, it can be a dangerous place.  I like to share my scrapbook pages, some of the things I knot or crochet, some of my photos, my thoughts but I also like to keep many things to myself.  It is all about finding a balance, something I am still working on in terms of my health.  Recently I have been using a walking stick as my left ankle has been really bad and i have found it helped a great deal.  The stick I was using had been loaned to me by the hospital when I had previously torn the ligament in my knee and was barely able to walk.  As it had made such a big difference to the amount of pain I was in and my ability to walk I decided I would try and buy myself one.  The hospital one has a rounded top and isn't always comfortable to lean on so I opted for a flat handle and thanks to the internet I am now the proud owner of not one, but 2 snazzy walking sticks.

I have also been busy with the many challenges I have set for myself.  I have finished Truth Lies Bleeding by Tony Martin, my 3rd book of the year and my 2nd for my Scottish book challenge.  This one was definitely a challenge and as I got to the end and reflected back I couldn't say I enjoyed it much.  It did keep me reading and keen to find out more of the story and some of the characterisation was excellent.  Sadly though I felt I was none the wiser about the main character and I actually didn't like many of the characteristics he was given in the book.  I may or may not read another of this author's books but if I do it won't be for a while.

I have also been keeping up with my scrapbooking and have completed 3 pages recently, including 2 at a crop.  It is a long time since I was so productive at a crop so I am hoping that this is the start of an upturn in my desire to scrap.

The week 2 challenge on UKS was to choose 3 of the following and make a page -
1. hot tropical or warm summer colours
2. ribbons or flowers
3. birds or butterflies
4. sparkle and bling
5. break open your new stash after the holidays
6. use your favourite photo from last year (2013)
7. ice cream
8. sand or water
9. frame the photo
10. scraplift from someone else's work and please do credit them when you post your LO picture

I went for numbers 2,3,4,5,6 and 9 for the first ever 12x12 page I have made using only Webster's Pages paper.  Normally these papers scare me and much as I find them pretty, I never quite know what to do with them.  However just before Christmas I bought the Postcards from Paris collection pack from my friend Angela and I am determined to use the whole pack!  1 page down and a few more to go.

This week's challenge is to use at least 3 of the colours shown.
Use a photograph taken outdoors.
Add some triangles, at least 2, and create some layers or a cluster of embellies.

I had volunteered to make a page for Maggie to show as an interpretation of the challenge, which I loved.

These were taken on one of our many trips down by the river where Sean was climbing trees and showing the kids how to do it, which I found a bit stressful.  Needless to say the kids thought it was great fun!  I hope I can find the balance in how far and how well I can walk so that we can spend time by the river again.  Fingers crossed.

It's the little things

Sometimes it is hard to remember the little things that make life a wee bit happier or easier.  I know there is a strong trend among scrapbookers to have a 'nice things' jar into which they put notes of the nice things that happen to them throughout the year to look back on when times are not so great, or at the end of the year.  It is something that I have thought of but, like many things I start full of enthusiasm for, I have let lapse by March for one reason or another.  I have set myself a few challenges this year and have made them public, which isn't something I tend to do, but this means that others will be aware of it if I let them lapse and I am hoping that this will motivate me to maintain them.  If by March I am still going strong I can start a jar then and add the little things I have posted here to it.

My last post was a bit of a rant and more of one than I had initially intended.  It is hard being in pain all the time and it does get me down.  I am still finding adaptations to things I used to take for granted.  I love stamps and use them a lot in my scrapbooking however my hands are now often too shaky or too weak to stamp as well as I used to.  I have discovered though that if I put the foam mat that I bought with my We R Memory Keepers sewing tool under the page I am stamping on, I get a far better result.  I have downsized my desk tote to a tiny wee thing with not much more than my essential tools, glue runner, wipes and my favourite journalling pens.  More than this I cannot carry.  I am now paying more attention to what I am using and always looking for an easier alternative given that things are likely to get worse rather than better.

A good friend of mine has just become and aunt for the first time and I am frantically knitting a couple of sets of cardigan, mitts and bootees for her in white and baby blue.  I know she and her sister will appreciate them and it makes a nice wee change from dolls clothes for Sharlitt who has now become Charlotte.  I think Katy has been reading Charlotte's Web perhaps.  I like knitting little things in between the big things and have decided that I will knot some premature baby stuff over the year to give into our local hospital.  My daughter had both her children there and as I though she was likely to have small babies, because I did, and because of the scan results, I had knitted some prem size things for her which was just as well as the hospital had nothing suitable.  Once her children had outgrown them she handed them into the hospital for others to use.

Katy at 2 days old and wearing prem size knitwear

Logan at 1 day old in an incubator in the special baby unit, lying on a heat pad because he was small and cold and wearing prem size knitwear.

The best little thing that happened in the past week was on my departure from the occupational health doctor I was tired and sore and making my way, very slowly, down the ramp back to the car park.  There was a young lady with a baby in a buggy and another child of about 3.  As he saw me coming down the ramp he stood across the bottom of it with his arms outstretched and said 'you have to wait mummy there is a lady with a stick' and as I approached the end of the ramp he swung to the side to let me past.  It was such a lovely thing for a young child to do.  I thanked him profusely and made a point of telling his mum what a lovely young man he was, it fair cheered me up and has made me smile every time I think of it.

What was your 'little thing' this week?  I bet it wasn't nicer than mine.

Hurry up and wait

I consider myself to be a fairly conscientious person and I hate to agree to do something then find I can't do it for whatever reason, I absolutely hate letting people down.  On the other hand I get very frustrated when someone tells me they are going to do something then don't.  I have also met many teachers who profess to have a bit of difficulty with things they have no control over and I would be the first to admit I am like that so my current health situation is driving me nuts.

 I have seen countless GPs, an occupational health nurse, a practice nurse and a lymphoedema nurse.  Today was a new one, an occupational health doctor.  Thankfully he was really nice and very sympathetic to my current health problems.  My own GP is still of the firm belief that I will improve, probably not to what I once was, but certainly significantly better than I am now.  The trouble is none can tell me when or how much better I will be.  I have to simply accept this fact but it is frustrating.  On a slightly more positive note - today the process to decide if I can continue to teach or whether I am unlikely to ever be fit to teach again was started.  I say positive but only because I will have some idea of what my future holds, not because I no longer wish to work or because I dislike my job.  When retirement was first put forward I was devastated and it has taken many weeks for me to begin to look on the prospect differently.  Unfortunately I have little idea of how the process works from here on in, apart from the fact that it involves lots of paper detailing what I can and cannot do.  I had contacted my union representative for advice who pointed me in the direction of someone who would be able to help.  That person has so far not done what they have promised so I am having to chase them up.  I feel like my head is going to burst at times.

OK rant over for today.  I finished the Ian Rankin book Saints of the Shadow Bible I was reading and it was a delight to have John Rebus back as a policeman and causing chaos with his blatant disregard for most of the rules.  I did enjoy it and it kept me guessing to the end of the book, as a good who dunnit should.  I did feel that it was not quite as good as some of the earlier Rebus books but it was very enjoyable.  So that is 1 book from my hopeful 50 and 1 of my Scottish books.  I am currently reading Truth Lies Bleeding by Tony Black which is considerably darker than the Rebus book with some very unpleasant characters.  It was recommended by someone else taking part in the Scottish Book Challenge so I will see how I find it.

So far, so good

This is going to be my year for achieving goals and challenges I have set myself.  So far I have recorded 3 challenges for myself.
1) To read 50 books in 2014
2) To read 13 or more books that are either written by Scottish authors or are set in Scotland
3) To take more photos, make more scrapbook pages and record more stories

To help me with challenge 3 I have set myself a goal of completing 40 of the weekly challenges set on UK Scrappers.  I have bemoaned the fact that it is very quiet and that posts aren't moving as fast as they used to but I haven't helped that by visiting infrequently and not posting when I do visit so with a combination of completing challenges on UKS and using story swoop on Get it scrapped I am hoping to achieve this goal.

The week 1 challenge on UKS was to use the following sketch -

and combine it with inks, paints and sprays and lots of journalling.

Here is the page I made as a result -

  

I don't think I have ever used as many different multi coloured papers on one layout but I found this just came together so easily and quickly.  It was great fun to make.  I do love my doily stamps.  I find stamping can be a bit hit or miss these days, due to my shaky hands.  I find I get the best results by putting a soft mat under whatever I am stamping onto.  I am having to find all sorts of tricks to get the same results I used to get but things could be worse.

For challenge 1 I completed a book called The Lavender Keeper set in France during WW2.  The first half of the book was really good and it was clear that the author had done a lot of research.  Sadly the second half of the book was a let down with an unbelievable main character and a pretty predictable romance.  At the moment I am reading Ian Rankin's Saints of the Shadow Bible featuring John Rebus.  So far, so good as they say.  It will be interesting to see how things pan out for John Rebus, I hope Mr Rankin has a few surprises for his readers.  Time will tell.

Challenge Number 3

Last year I hardly made any scrap book pages and I took far fewer photos.  In fact I took less photos last year than at any time since I had bought my first digital camera about 11 years ago.  What's almost worse is I did nothing with the photos I did take.  I ended up getting some prints of photos I had taken between June and December last year in the week before Christmas and I still haven't integrated any of these photos into my file system.

Much of this was because of the problems I have with my hands, I simply couldn't hold my dslr camera and my phone takes awful photos unless the light is really good.  I do have a small point and shoot camera but it is just so slow to take a photo that I found myself missing most of the shots I wanted.

In some ways being part of things rather than being the observer behind the lens was quite nice but the fact that so many memories have not been captured bugged me.  As a result I have bought myself a Nikon 1 camera and I love it.  It is so small and light but so much better than my wee point and shoot.  I am still working out what it can do but so far so good.

My third challenge for myself this year is to take more photos, capture more memories and get more stories recorded on pages.  I think that my scrapbook style is changing but I am not sure in what way yet.  I am finding myself drawn to things I have previously ignored and moving away from things I previously liked.  I know I need to get creating pages to work out what I am comfortable with and that is part of this third challenge.  I am between feeling anxious and curious about my way forward but I cannot put it off any longer.  The last 6 months of last year saw me scrapping only at crops and not always at that.  One crop I simply took my knitting and another I was so busy organising and selling my dear friend Heather's scrap stuff, I barely had time to think, let alone scrap.

I also barely looked at UKS, which was once a daily must, so I am aiming to be more active on there as well.  I seem to be a bad luck charm for any team I am in as they always break up a few months later.  I have put myself forward to join a new team so fingers crossed this one works out.  I find being in a team encourages me to scrap more to gain points and join in with the different challenges.  I am part of a scrap a sketch group where a sketch is uploaded on the 5th of each month and the participants have till the 4th of the next month to make and upload their pages.  I chose December's sketch and this is the page I made using it . . .

I also uploaded a page I had made at the last crop I was at using some very sparkly and pretty ancient Bo Bunny papers.

I find it almost impossible to get a straight photo of a scrapbook page from above, as you see.  I do need to find the best spot to take photos of pages as I am hoping to have many more to show over the year.  For now I am off to clear my craft desk ready for the next page.

Challenges number 1 and 2

Sometimes I feel I start every January with several challenges in mind but by the end of the month at least one of them has fallen by the wayside.  I am not renowned for my staying power.  This year will be different in that I am likely to have a bit more time on my hands and I will need to find a balance between the things I do and the times when I need to rest.

I am having real problems with my hands and there are times when they are too sore to knit or crochet or too shaky to scrapbook or sew so I need to do other things.  I have bought myself some puzzle books and some jigsaws, though it is many years since I had the luxury of time to do either.  I have also set myself 2 reading challenges.

The first is via Goodreads and it is to read 50 books over the year. 

It isn't that I am a slow reader but I often don't have a lot of time to read, though this is changing.  I didn't want to set myself too unrealistic a target so I am hoping to beat this one easily.  It will also encourage me to keep a record of what I do read.  I have found that choosing my books for monthly ebook club has already widened my reading horizons and I am hoping that my 2nd challenge will also widen them even more.

I have committed myself to read 13+ books over the year that are either set in Scotland or are written by Scottish born authors.  Details of the challenge can be found here.  I have many books on my to be read list that would fit this challenge so I am hoping to be able to fulfil both challenges by the end of December 2013.  All I need to do now is get them in my planner!

Happy New Year!

I hope that 2014 will be a Happy New Year for all my friends and family.  2013 was a hard year with many downturns and much sadness.  I attended far too many funerals and shed way too many tears.  I lost my godmother, my cousin, my best friend and a wonderful colleague.

Both my best friend and my cousin were younger than me and my colleague passed away just 4 short months after she retired having taught in the same school for 41 years.  Her death saw another colleague, who was also a close friend, take early retirement to enjoy her grandchildren.

This year it may be me taking early retirement, on medical grounds.  My health has not improved and I am still finding the simplest of things difficult.  By the time I have showered, got dried and dressed I am exhausted added to that the fact that if I lived alone I would really struggle to manage.  I can't open milk cartons or most bottles and jars, some days I can't even fasten buttons.  Add to that the cramps I get in my back and down my legs when I am on my feet for too long and my horizons are shrinking as I type.  Trying to explain to someone that you need to sit down because you have cramp in your bum is not easy, but it is extremely painful :-)

So what does 2014 hold?  Hopefully a reduction in my daily pain, possibly retirement from work completely or from teaching with a view to finding alternative employment.  Lots of family time and an increase in the amount of exercise I do daily, with a view to being a little bit lighter by the end of the year.  I bought myself a wonderful planner which I hope will keep me organised but also will give me things to aim for such as 1 scrapbook page a week (or more) or keep track of my works in progress between knitting, crochet and cross stitch.  I am a terrible procrastinator and put things off for the longest time then have to rush to get them done or completed so I am hoping to change that even a little this year. 

For now it is enough to know that I am at the start of a new year and some new possibilities, it is up to me to choose positivity over negativity and hope over despair.  Here's to me and a positively wonderful 2014.