Hello again...

Hello again... don't the months roll by? We were having this beautiful soft autumn and now there are only the last few leaves remaining, and it's cold, cold, cold. Winter is here. It felt quick didn't it? I've put grit on my drive-way and come eight in the evening I'm wondering whether it's bedtime.

I just wish I could remember what it was I wanted to say....I was so caught up in the photos.

Oh yes. I read a piece of good advice lately, from Tammy of Rowdy Kittens, Tammy wrote a 40 things to do before 40, and number 40 was 'stay in my lane'. To me that means, don't get too caught up in what everyone else is doing, trust in your own path. Sometimes, though, I'm not sure what is happening in my own lane.

I know I love to take photos and I've got a few things to say. I continue to look around me and wonder which part of my life needs my attention next. I like to be creative. I still harbour handmade dreams. I feel like I am beginning to come out of the fog of motherhood. Sometimes I think years may have gone by and nothing changed. I find myself trying to think backwards to try and remind myself of how I got to now. What were the things, that took up those chunks of time? Could I have done more? I tell myself to just be happy I landed here, now, somehow. It doesn't matter how I got here, only that I am here in one piece. Albeit, still a work in progress.

I stepped away from instagram a few days ago. I don't know how long for. I found myself trying to explain myself in increasing long posts, some changes I was trying to make with my shop and eventually I realised that I just needed to blog.

My teenager had been away several weekends ago and I had time to gather my thoughts enough to decide, that a name change or two, was imminent, a new shop name was happening, new/old ideas were about to fall perfectly into place. It all seemed so good.

I felt driven by the whole thing, then I felt uncertain. My self-care practices slipped away. I lost the alignment I had felt that weekend. Some kind of fierce momentum took over. Only instagram felt important. How does this happen? I think I may be someone who can't use social media, I'm not active on facebook either. Everything else falls away. What my own personal aims are. Whatever else I'm doing. The time to just look around me and see where I'm at. All gone.

So for now I closed the boxes. I will only use my phone for contact. A few days on and my mind is starting to feel expansive again, but I can feel it's pull. My awareness of what's happening around me is beginning to open up. I have some more time to think. I'm more available.

Perhaps it's just me, but I kept noticing how exhausted and driven some seemed as they felt compelled to post everyday. Some days ecstatic, and others vulnerable as they held on. A story of mulitiple accounts and scrolling at night while their family slept. It reminds me of one of those films where the hamster spins faster and faster on the wheel and you wonder if they're loving it or they just can't get off.....It's an addiction for sure. It's also a distraction.

I just need to remember that most creativity happens off-line, and if you are never off-line, it might not happen!

So we'll see what I will do about it. I yearn for simpler, for my own thoughts again. Also many people do have a website or blog, or newsletter so I can follow them in other ways.

So friends, be kindly, kindly, kind to yourself. Put down your phone. Take a deep breath. Do something else :-)

Heather

    ♥      

hello again

outside my front door - leaves in the sunlight

It's nice to post a new picture here. It's a relief, I kept popping in and seeing the same picture, and you know what they say, that change is good. I  hope I'm emerging now with the spring. When I go away from my blog, it's like going on a journey, even if only virtually. I take my little suitcase and explore high and low until I discover new things, and new inspirations. I find something new in myself. Probably something which has always been there, but I often need to see it in the mirror outside first. Sometimes it's something I don't like and often it arrives at the same time as a new and shiny impulse. Like being shown the new and the old at the same time. The urge to jump ship is huge. Other continents wave at me like sunny, beckoning friends. To find the new perfect life which surely awaits, just over there. The one where I don't have to try to untangle myself and burst out from places where I feel suffocated. I think we often arrive at the new, still dragging our old and worn out patterns and behaviours behind, like crazy tin cans on a 'just married' car. As we try and shake and kick them off, we realize that they were the vehicle that brought us here, and should probably be honoured. Indeed.

 Happy spring friends,

♥     

december reflections

Hello again.

I'm going to be following Susannah Conway's 'december reflections'. Sharing a photo everyday during december.

I am going to follow along. Hopefully. Or going off on my own crazy tangent. But I think following the prompts is what I need I need right now.

See if I can find my flow again. I miss the visual pictures and landscape of my life as I record it here.

I've been flitting around at the edges, looking for way to begin again, just quietly. See where it leads me. I'm quite excited really. I'll begin tomorrow and catch up on today. Famous last words of course! See you then.

Sending you smiles and waves.