shapeshifting

I'm taking some time to be still. To slowly process the stuff that has happened and is happening to us. To find a way forward by listening not pushing. Too tired to push. It's a good practice and it's working. Slowly. We've moved on to one step forward and only one step back at least for a while. I am anxious and stressed and oh jesus h christ I miss Casey so much that it's a constant wound in my heart. But I know I have so much to be grateful for and so little to grumble about really.

To prove it, yesterday I was lovebombed by the sweetest of women.

From @SasLockey came sweet potions for my ritual of bathtime meditation and seeking of guidance. Perfect and so typical of her loving and practical self. Thank you Sas xx

From @mckinleyrodgers came The Wishing Year, a book I read some years ago when life was quite different and now...as soon as I saw it I knew that now is the perfect time for me to read it again. Perfect. Thank you Pen xx

From @creatingwings came Shamanic Reiki, a book that's been sitting in my wishlist for a long time. I read half of it last night and it's with me here now. Awesome, just awesome. And wait...the healing methods they describe...THAT'S WHAT I DO! Perfect. Thank you Meg xx

From @chestnutsfarm came an Amazon gift certificate. She knows I'd've spent cash on petrol or food. She knows that I usually have something bizarre that I really neeeeeeed right now. She knows me better than about anyone. She knows the freedom of choice is gold to me. She knows I now have - delivered today! - a desk easel and a hard copy of Do The Work. Perfect. Thank you Jackie xx

From @postcardsfrom came a tantalising email clue and some words that prove she sees in me what I am almost always afraid to see. Perfect. Thank you Leonie xx

From all my peeps and tweeps came such kind, sweet words for my birthday on Tuesday that I was overwhelmed. In a good way. My heart closed when Casey died. Not permanently but it needed to curl up and heal. You all helped speed that healing a millionfold.

I have some quiet but powerful wishes inside me for this next year. So powerful they're struggling to be contained. I feel, foolishly, that I have to get my ducks (chickens?) in a row before I hit the big Hawaii Five-O in two years. I mean WTF? How did that come around so fast? Still, I always did work well under pressure. I guess it just took more pressure than I could've imagined in order to get me to work. Yup.

Another long weekend for us this week: royal wedding and May bank holiday. The sun is here and I'm wishing for it to stay.

Enjoy yourselves this weekend.

x

Before

99p thrift find

After

Jackdaw, wolf, horse, chickens, woodpecker, owl, jay, my bbc coven, badger.

Magic.

So I completely dropped the ball on the August Break. How predictable was that? If I felt the need to defend myself I'd say I got sick, cos I did but I don't. Heh.

Luckily, although my lungs nearly leapt out of my chest via my incredibly sore throat and I was incapable of speech for several days (yes, thanks for the cheering, @WiltsNature, revenge will be mine)I was able to get stuck into getting copy up on my new site.

I get the feeling that those of you who know me beyond this blog are sick to the back teeth of me and my new sites and I wouldn't blame you for that. It's true, there's been a few of them. But I'm a great believer in trying things out. I believed I didn't like tomatoes until I actually tried one, aged eight, and it taught me a lesson I've never forgotten - how do you know until you try? Lessons Learnt From Vegetables That Are Actually Fruit....hmmm, could be a blog...

I've gone on and on and oooooon about how much life has changed in the last year, how much we've changed, how it wasn't the change we I semi-planned, the stresses it's put on us and the work we've done to grow from the experiences blah blah and indeed...blah. Not to belittle that  process, which has been intense, but I'm done with writing about it. I'm almost done with living it. We're ready for Phase II. Us 2.0 if you will.

The lovely Leonie Wise was at my kitchen table for reals yesterday (sigh) and we talked about Those Days. The Ones With The Fear. The feeling of not being enough or worthy or useful or 'as good as'. All that shit. And how it seems sometimes that they get more intense, more frightening and convincing the closer you get to your truth. I know that's not a new concept but as ever, it feels more real once you've had personal experience.

I have big old butterflies right now about my plans but I also know that on the other side of the wall o'fear is the place I've glimpsed recently. The place that allowed me to visit for long enough to know that it is my element. I want to be back there permanently, professionally, with commitment and plans and love.

With this commitment in mind I've been practicing daily reiki meditations which are powerful things! Not really thinking it through (moi???), I've been doing them just before bed as that's when I tend to have some quiet time. Big mistake, as Julia Roberts once said. Huge. I get so reiki-ed up that I can't sleep until 2 AM. Yeah I'm properly smart, me. Bring me your animals. At 3 in the morning.

Insomnia aside, all is good. There's a bank holiday weekend ahead and then my baby girl gets ready to start school on Thursday. Somewhere between the two, the new site goes public, I send out my press release and start putting the word out.

There go those butterflies...

Yesterday it was hard to wipe the smile off my face and of course, as the world spins, so does life.

The person who wanted to be my first client, cancelled. But at least it showed me how excited I got over it and now I have to replace her. HAVE to.

My big plans to beautify my home in time for weekend visitors (families with girls from Evie's orphanage) aren't getting off the ground. I can't be bothered. And, to be honest, I'm secretly quite proud of that fact. not long ago I'd've been up all night scrubbing skirting boards and repainting walls. No really. I am slightly irked that the kitchen garden looks like no one's lived here for years (and it really does) but hey, it's been raining. I can't mow grass and weed weeds in the rain. Well I could...but I'm not gonna.

I'll give the kitchen, bathroom and Evie's room (NO! DON'T MAKE ME! MY EYES!!!) a once-over tomorrow. Lick a tissue and give the dogs' faces a quick clean. I know, I know...I'm a domestic goddess.

I ate half a bag of jelly beans and now I feel like slipping into a coma. But at least I don't have a headache today and no those two things aren't correlated.

AND! My new 44" hoop arrived today and although it's only 4" wider than the one I made, it's a lot easier to spin. And thanks to HoopGirl I can just about recover a plummeting hoop before it cracks my ankles. Again.

AND.2! Someone I know and love (and who is a born hooper in my amateur opinion) met HoopGirl at the weekend and tells me she's wonderful. I feel like a teenager - two degrees of separation!

Now look. I've only gone and got all smiley again. And I haven't even started writing about my hair colour removal adventure yet.

No housework for me, I'll just point them at the view through our front door.

Quick. Not much time. Bath running. Stuff waiting. Here we go...

Unchocolating: it was filmed as a TV show by film and sound production degree students. V amusing and distracting. The closest I'll ever get to being on Oprah. I sat on the sofa in front of a huge table of chocolate goodies while the thoughts of 50 teenagers yelled,"Sad old woman who can't resist fattening food. Poor cow." Whatever.

Tessa, she was the therapist, waved a lot of Galaxy chocolate under my nose, we chatted and then she hypnotised me. It worked. I don't know how long it'll last but I have no desire for chocolate. It's not a strong, nauseous anti-chocolate thing. I just don't want it. The weird thing...the strongest feeling is that I don't want to touch it. She asked me to hold a bar of Galaxy and I couldn't. I was going to buy some for Charlie today but couldn't bring myself to pick any up. I hope it lasts.

I've been experimenting with spray varnish on the stones I painted. It's not really working. I think I'll have to brush clear varnish on to them but I'm scared it'll smudge. I've used acrylic paint on the pebbles. What can you experienced arts and crafts types advise?

I also played with carving stamps to brand the little bags I have for the stone sets. Don't like it. So I'm going with Plan A on that.

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for Love Thursday

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Glove puppies. Oh yeah, they're back. I'm warming up my puppy muscles on a birthday present for Evie's best friend. She (the friend) is very fond of Jonesy, who goes to nursery with Evie three times a week, so hopefully it'll be a hit.

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The Threadgoodes are proving to be prolific layers.

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Paypal is not my friend.

Lisa is. Please support her if she can. She's wonderful, she's talented and she's doing this for all the right reasons.

Laters, taters.

I think I'm the only one of us who hasn't posted about the weekend. They said it all.

It's insane but I feel changed. Always a bit of a lone she-wolf, suddenly I'm craving the company of my female pack. That's huge for me. Huge.

Thank you my lovelies. I really do love you all.

Retreating - morning from Jo H. on Vimeo.

The glow lingers after time spent with Susannah, Lisa, Emma, Megg, Leonie and Penny.

In the meantime I'll just say that I had a very splendid Sunday with some of the BBCers. Pen, Sas (whose home is like something out of a design magazine), Susannah and LeonieWise were as inspiring and hilarious and kind and generally gorgeous as ever and even though two of our magnificent seven were absent, we managed to whip up some magic that hopefully will whisk all of us into 2010 with a big smile on our collective face. I love my girls.

I've been living in my head most of the last week or so which has meant that everything requiring a practical touch has suffered from neglect. But it's been good work. Worthwhile. I've learnt a lot about my self and where I want to go next.

Ain't it the truth? The minute you say to yourself,"I've got a good idea of who I am and where I'm going and I understand where I've been" then you realise that you've just unwrapped another layer. You may technically be nearer the prize but there's a few rounds left in the game yet.

Next!

Happy Friday.

Autumn is really here. I can feel my brain doing the Autumn Thing, which is far less absurd and manic and fun than the Spring Thing but possibly, if I can stay out of the doldrums, far more useful.

I feel as if I'm stripping down thought patterns - prompted no doubt by the rewriting of rules by the wonderful Megg at creatingwings.com, the general feel of 'Okay let's bring in the harvest and see what we've got for all our hard work' and also the feeling that we are finally home, here in this little house. And then there's a whole new year on the horizon to plan for. I want to be off to a good start.

I've also made full use of the amazing resources available from Fabeku Fatunmise. I know I'm sounding like an evangelist for his work but it's remarkable. I'm very sensitive to sound anyway, but this works on some other level. I swear I can feel the old, dead, useless and obsolete stuff I carry around with me being vibrated out into the ether and dispersed. I know...sounds crazy...but it's true. And it continues into my dreams. A venue that was central to a very unhappy phase of my life, that crops up in dreams again and again, appeared in last night's dream. Only it had burned to the ground. Gone. Never to be rebuilt. Download the freebie and the CD, put it on a loop on your iPod/Walkman, stick in your earphones and drift off.

I read Rachelle's post that felt as if she'd been reading my mind. I can't stop thinking about the issues she raises. Such as story-telling. My story. All I need to do for me is tell my story, forget the rest. We should all be able to tell our story regardless of who is reading or listening. We should help each other in our story-telling.

I read this beautiful post from my friend, Sas who writes her story 'properly good' (xx to you, my lovely).

"Real and true", she says. Real and true. There's so much loveliness out in the 'nets that it's easy to overdose and wind up feeling a little bit queasy and befuddled but wanting more after ten minutes or you fall into the glooms. And, continuing the chocolate analogy, there's some really good stuff out there. High quality. Makes you feel wonderful. Soothes you in times of confusion. The rest...meh. Not so healthy. And I consume the stuff like a starving animal. Insane.

I've been thinking about my real and true. And how I think I've been a bit out of focus with my real and true.

And I know why. Thanks to Fabeku the sludge has worked its way to the top and now I have to deal with it. Make it positive. So that will be my next post. You may want to skip it when it pops up in your reader - it's not exactly world-changing - but I need to write it. Maybe later.

Happy Thursday.