Bristol harbour on a Sunday and some thoughts.

I love this image of balance and touch.

Portishead Harbour

boat traffic signals

I wonder what it would be like to live on the harbourside?

Nice to have a yellow front door

I like watching the lifeboat go through their manoeuvers.

A hopeful February stand, outside the RNLI shop

An interesting beach here on the estuary when the tide goes out. Lots of pottery and glass.

All the old buildings have been converted into houses.

They do like their pastels here.

I took these a few weeks ago. It seemed a shame not to share. I do love a day out. Takes me out of my normal way of thinking. I must do more. I love exploring. I'm enjoying my camera again. I haven't taken a single shot on my phone hardly this year.

I think I'm re-connecting with myself again. I'm blogging, taking photos, making things. Listing on etsy. I'm really enjoying flickr. It's so nice to see pictures again in landscape and portrait, I find so much inspiration there. My ideas of what I want to to do are beginning to crystalize.

I'd like to say it's because I'm not going on instagram. But I think that would be giving it too much credit. I've been cutting out a lot of other distractions as well. I'm trying to maintain a focus, which I didn't have before, or if I did it was constantly diluted by everything else. Sometimes I think I am just being solitary, but deep down I know I need this to touch on something in myself.

There is still so much inspiration out there. It doesn't go away, because your not scrolling daily through feeds. It reaches you anyway, and in other ways. I think it strengthens your intention. Now I scroll through a little list in my head of things which I have decided I want to make/do/learn and decide what needs to happen next to move me towards that.

I feel like I'm starting to follow my own path. And I have to weigh that up as more important than knowing what's happening else where. The important stuff finds you anyway. That's what I think. Sometimes I just get a prompt to go somewhere and there is something I was glad I didn't miss.

So I think I need to trust that what I need and what inspires me is going to cross my path anyway, and there has been so much inspiration over the last few years, I feel like it's time to assimulate some of it.

Some life stuff happened here over the last week or so, which threatened to tip me off down a slippery slope. Just some sad things which happen in our lives now and again. Without my new found structure of daily stretching and clearer thinking, I think I would have toppled into a kind of crisis. But I'm happy to say that I was able to see the warning signs and adjust my thinking accordingly, and make some decisions to hold steady in what's right for me, and what I can do. We don't have to be heroes. We don't need to feel guilty about what we can't do. We just need to find that place where we can be okay in our selves and all that radiates out from that point. I read a good quote this week: 'draw in to be able to beam out your light more further', by Lindsay Mack on Alana Hellbig's Podcast, Untangled. I like that. 

So here we are at the weekend. I hope you do some nice things. I will be out another teenage 'airsoft' mission this Sunday. In a new place, yay! Well a new old place, nearer to the outskirts of London, where I am from. So I'll see what that brings. I've got some lovely new wool too, so it could be lots of crochet somewhere. I'm kind of hoping :-) Enjoy.

♥

New year thoughts

the dog-walkers christmas tree

Today I have the feeling I am ready to step into the new year. I've spent a few days clearing up at home and have been thinking about some changes, and new paths that call me.

Last year, the word I chose for the year was 'value'. Now I have to confess this was a word which I struggled with, perhaps because of it's usual use out in the world. I know that's not it's only use though. Over time I forgot which word I chose. Maybe re-evaluate would have been a better word, as I sorted and cleared. But that might imply some answers, and to some bigger questions, which I don't have yet! Everything could change.

So my loved ones, some treasured belongings, a few things I spend time doing. It's simple really. Some parts of myself I found again. I found out there is room for more.

My aims for this year:-

Life

* To keep encouraging and supporting my son and building on our relationship.

 * To honour his boundaries as a young adult, whilst looking after my own.

 * To keep practising my own self-care and trusting in my own life.

 * To model healthy eating.

 * To stretch everyday. This is so good for me.

 * To do some decorating and repairs.

 * To finish the de-cluttering, especially photos!

 * To think about how I want to live, what other options there might be.

Creativity

 * To add things to my etsy shop.

 * What's happened to Conchetta Conchetta?!

 * To take more photos with my real camera.

 * To creatively repair and make more of my clothes.

Inspiration

 * To keep researching and exploring the whole tiny house, simple living ideas. (inspiration)

 * To try and source more ethically made and produced clothes where possible.

 * To share my inspirations where I can.

***

My word for this year is 'Truth'. It only came to me yesterday, so I hope it's right. I want to be able to stand in my truth. To follow my truth and to let people know, how I want to live in this life of mine and what's worth standing up for :-)

so a HAPPY NEW YEAR! to all.

♥♥♥  

  

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,

♥