Divinely Crafty

The Toy Society. I got wind of them from Danielle a bit ago.  I love how it really is starting to catch on, and if I ever get my sewing and crafty stuff unpacked (No, it still sits in front of me in boxes.  I should take a picture. It is really sad. ) I would love to do something like this.  It would make a fun project for me to do with Anja and then wait to see who finds it.

Let me know if and of you are inspired to give it a try and be sure to pass the word on!

Tags: community, fun, giving, sewing, softie, Toys

It’s been a month since we moved into the new house, and even though we had internet access after a week or so I have not been posting.  The move really threw me and stuck me in a big stew of self examination.  And the deeply buried and oh so frustrated clean freak (which does exist despite my best efforts to kill her off completely) has been tip toeing (with my lovely walking stick) around the house and busting my butt to clean and unpack.  A month in and we are so much further along than I imagined on the day we moved in but I can’t imagine when we will be done.  The kitchen and living areas are functional.  We still need to do lots of cleaning and work on the house itself before we can really unpack the rest.  All of which will require time and effort.  We will get it done.  When exactly that will happen is up for grabs.

Never fear - I am still finding time to bead and knit.  I accidentally made the first of my monkey socks 5 extra rows longer which is cool because I like long socks.  It may mean that I will need to buy more yarn to get a pair.  They are going to be really nice when they are done.  I hope soon.  I am on the foot of the first one and then it’s a speed through the second one.  I don’t get second sock syndrome too badly.  I beaded these key chains for the keys to my scooter, which I have dubbed my “clown car”. They are done on double stranded thin wire in hopes that they are fleixble but long lasting. I made them with bead my mother bought for me while I was in the US this summer. Thanks mom! My mother reads this blog - so wave hello to her. I hope she is resting and feeling well.

It hasn’t been all roses and honeymoon for me and my scooter, but I’m coming along with it.  We had a lovely event in the village yesterday and I was full on scooter girl.  More about that at Beneath Our Feet later this week.

Today I am resting with the curtains wide open, lying in the spot that the sun hits my bed.  We have had the most beautiful sunny days recently.  Each one makes me thankful.  This weekend was simple pleasure in the countryside and I put my all into it.  I am really happy that I did what I could and am going to be equally as grateful that I can rest for a few hours today before I go get my youngest from school.  On my little clown car.  I am grateful for that too.

I nearly forgot to mention.  I registered for French language course at the Open University.  I won’t go deep into why right now but I am quite motivated to learn.  A dishwasher won over a weekend in Paris recently, so as you can imagine it would have to be something really big to get me go back to school for the first time in many many (I think this merits another many) years.   And proves that I am crazy.  Which of course was not really in question for some time now.

It looks like I have been on a bit of a Summer break from blogging.  First with the trip to the US for a month and then back home where a few days of resting turned into a few weeks.  The weather here has been decidely un-summer like which means that I have been laid flat by the cold and damp.  My body simply rebels in this weather. Last week my oldest had surgery on her foot, which is the continuation of a saga that started back in June.  A trip to the doctor today tells us that it isn’t over quite yet.  We are a matched set of hobblers now.  I hope that soon I will be the only one in the family to lay claim to that title.  It bites seeing your kid in pain.

School starts in a week so it is now time to start looking back on the summer and sharing some highlights.  It started off quite wonderfully with my youngest brother’s wedding.  It was so much fun to see friends and family that I have not seen in a long time  (some since I was a child) and to meet new people that I am lucky to now call family.   My family  - the one for which I call myself mother - stood still in the same place long enough to get our picture taken.  A feat that has not been accomplished in a very very long time.  It makes my heart swell to see how my daughters are all growing so much.  Even my baby is no longer a baby. And it’s good to know that we all clean up nicely.  Living rurally like we do that is also a rare occurence.

Once back from the trip, as I mentioned earlier, I have been pretty much sidelined by my health.  It is something that I am still coming to grips with.  I have come a long way in the past several months in accepting where things are, but it still is quite raw with me.  One thing that I have had to accept is that walking more than a few meters at a time is a thing of the past for me.  This has meant that I have been more or less housebound for some time, and when I did venture out it meant days of pain for having over done it.  On our holiday we rented a wheelchair and it opened back up parts of life that I had not seen for such a long time.  So it was decided that I needed to get some wheels of my own in an effort to get out more. Since I don’t have the energy to be wheeling myself around I chose to get a mobility scooter so that I could get out without needing an attendant.  My new wheels arrived on what was lucky enough to be a sunny day.

My maiden voyage on it was to the park with my youngest who has been trapped at home with me.  We took a side trip further into the village to our local yarn shop and I treated myself to a skein of sock yarn.  I cast on Monkey from Knitty Winter 06 a couple nights ago and have been joyously rediscovering the fun of sock knitting.  I had been jonesing for a good sock knit for quite some time and am thrilled to have finally given in to the urge.

This weekend we are moving into a new house, which is something we are all looking forward to.  The new house has a real kitchen, unlike our current house which has a closet masquerading as one.  We just moved into this house 6 months ago and were less than thrilled to learn that the landlord was selling so soon afterwards, but it has turned out for the best and we have been looking forward to the move all summer.  Unfortunately we will be without internet for a week minium, so I will be AWOL again.  But when it is back up I promise - for real promise - that I will be back and posting regularly again. I promise!

I am back from my month long visit to the Pacific Northwest in the US, which was highlighted by the wedding of my youngest brother.   It was filled with family,friends, and loads of fun.  Not much resting or relaxing went on but nonetheless it was rejuvenating. Now that I am back home I am looking forward to sorting through the hundreds of pictures I took, reliving the tales of our adventures and taking a nap.  Lots of naps as a matter of fact.

I did get some knitting accomplished during the last week of the trip. Before then it was just too busy and I was too fragmented to be able to give enough brain power to my project.  On the last day, on the trip up to Seattle where I was flying home from, we stopped at Shipwreck Beads (which proudly hails itself as the largest bead store in the country) and my mother generously bought me way more beads and tools than I had intended on getting.  I am now stocked up and ready to play.  Beading and making jewelry is a relatively new pursuit to me so I am looking forward to exploring what I can create.  Watch this space for what comes out of my dabbling.

I’m not quite ready to really start writing much so this is going to just be a short post.  My returning home routine seems to include taking a few days or weeks to settle back in before I am up for much in the lines of writing.  Much in the same way that it is difficult for me to write whilst on holiday (you will have noticed that my best intentions to write while away fell by the wayside) writing when I come home is a bit of a challenge.  Those first few days are spent reacquainting myself with the familiar surroundings of my home and everyday life with my eyes still in visitor mode. I even woke up the second night back and didn’t know where I was.  I wandered around the house trying to sort it out and at last I remembered that this was MY home, it is in England, and that my pillow was waiting on my bed for me to lie my head on it.  Having figured this out I returned to said bed and proceeded to sleep for many long hours, lost in the comfort that you can only get in your own bed.

Its good to be back home.