Peace every day...

peaceful reflections of town

It's been too long without photos...

Right now life has been full of family stuff... time taken up over the past weeks with aunts and uncles who have been over visiting. Somehow it always sends my head into a spin, it fills up until it's about to burst, I stop being able to think logically and because you can't please everyone I end up pleasing noone.
Somehow it's all too easy to fall short of the expectations other people have of you, aswell as keeping up with the important bits in our lives - the kids and R and all the related activities and evening classes.

Seems that even when we're too tired or the brain is too full to think, there is still a capacity to feel and life has been full of feelings...

childhood feelings and adult feelings, and hundreds of different feelings, all mixed up together... till it's hard to say how you feel, because you just feel.... and to untangle them all sometimes seems almost pointless, because they change so often, and maybe just to go with the flow... focus on what can be done, and hope they untangle on their own, is all we can do...

So often food and meals have helped... even the good old cup of tea comes to the rescue.... an answer to many things... offerings of food and drink, time and company, are healing I guess....

so I'm off to shop and cook in anticipation of family visitors tomorrow...
and to search out peace in the every day...

Testosterone and stardust

He was cute, flirtatious, fun and had the most gorgeous blue eyes.... a passing encounter that lifted the day, made me walk taller and lighter, and couldn't help but make me smile... even now....

It's good when something / someone makes the world sparkle...

And so onwards to home...

and preadolescent emotional outbursts creating havoc, which send me to calm down, and try to find a reason, some explanation, for the erratic, illogical workings, of an eleven year old boy's brain...

Steve Biddulph tells me that somewhere between the ages of eleven and thirteen, testosterone levels will increase by over eight hundred percent. This results in sudden growth, and as a consequence the nervous system has to almost rewire itself.
Whats more, this reorganisation of the brain makes boys dopey and disorganised for many months and parents have to act as a substitute brain for a while.

He says far more than this - and all the time I'm nodding in agreement with virtually every word...

In fact he sounds about spot on... although I fear we may have a whole lot more to come... but perhaps I'll be so used to it by then I'll relax and it'll just wash over me...
Steve reassures me that by his mid twenties things settle down....! so we have a long time to enjoy this hormonal roller coaster....

A cunning little hormone - powerful and seductive... should come with a public health warning...
at work in two very different ways ~ in one still grappling with it, yet to be tamed, and channelled, understood and calmed, and in another, working at it's very best...
bringing magical stardust to the world....

It survived...

Shamefully it has taken until today for us all to go on a family bike ride since S passed her cycling proficiency before the Summer - there were so many things we wanted and planned to do - and only ever achieved a fraction of them...

However, we landed up for an icecream at the beach we were at the other day...and just for fun searched to see what, if anything, remained of our art work...

seems not only has it survived the tide and sea, but someone else has found it and progressed it... the children loved it - I loved it... time for another photo - though only my phone with me to take it...

and time to add more ourselves...

aswell as starting a race to the sea in stones...R told me the tide was coming in - in fact it was on it's way out and we couldn't work fast enough to catch it without us all joining in....

interesting people's reactions - we had been putting stones in place for a while when a toddler came and took one from higher up. The lady with him was so apologetic, making him put it back and almost telling him off... we were only playing - a game almost - it wasn't important - yet somehow like a sandcastle, this line of stones had taken on an importance beyond what it was...

I wonder how long it will stay, will anyone add to it, will I see it grow or will it just return to the sea and the beach...

Don't tell me....

Please don't tell me that I grieve too much
And I won't tell you that you grieve too much
Please don't tell me that I grieve too little
And I won't tell you that you grieve too little
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong place
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong place
Please don't tell me that I grieve at the wrong time
And I won't tell you that you grieve at the wrong time
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong way
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong way

I may get it wrong
I will get it wrong
I have got it wrong
But please please don't tell me.

by Michael Rosen (adapted)

Some days, some times, not necessarily grief related, I just want to shout this from the rooftops...
things happen, we all have things, some of them in the past, some going on now, that we deal with, daily, or don't deal with.
Things we try to forget, try to put aside, to live life for today ~ in the moment.
We all try our best, and struggle... in so many areas of life.
We all get it wrong, but do we always need to be told...?

We do all get it wrong... but NO, we don't need to be told - chances are we already know.... or if not we'll work it out soon enough without needing someone to point it out...

Half term, holidays, yet more dentists, still there's jobs to do...

if life could go on hold.. but it can't it won't...

and then I think - perhaps it should, perhaps it can.. perhaps I can make it... perhaps I am so caught up with what needs, and should, and has to happen...
all I would do if the kids were at school - but they're not - and that maybe we should just forget everything that's sitting there and go out and have fun... do something, anything... how many people wish they could live by the beach.. could just pop down to the ocean when they feel like it?

How easily I can slip into a mind set of doing what needs to be done and being all the things I promised myself I wouldn't be when I got older - and I have to shake myself and remember why I had said I didn't want to be like that when I was a Mum - why I wanted to stay spontaneous and fun, and sod the things that can and will wait - while I enjoy the holidays - remember what it really felt like to be on the FIRST day of the holiday... it's their's why not make it mine too?
Getting to a point where I can have the same free time as them on their holidays has taken much thought and effort and now finally I can choose to live it if I want to...

so, snatched moments from today as we headed out...

And so the day progressed...

The morning was off to a brilliant start.... the sky was beautiful and the world was glowing...

I spent the morning at work and then made my way back home.
Time for a cup of tea and contemplate what to do with the rest of the afternoon until I had to collect the children... It felt unusually relaxed and peaceful for a weekday... it being Tuesday...

so I was thinking "what do I usually do on Tuesdays?" I don't usually have time to come home and drink tea...
I usually go to Yoga straight from work...
which was when I remembered that this week I had cancelled Yoga because of my son's Harvest Festival... which started at 2pm...
and the time at that exact moment was...2pm...

Ok so I'd miss most of it, but at least I could still be there to collect him at the end...

I arrive and as usual there is nowhere to park, so I leave the car at daughter's school and take the path round the back to appear less blatant about it... get to the church, say hello to the head teacher from the junior school and sit in a seat just at the back...
Just as I sit down everyone else starts to stand up...and I've missed it...

There was a moment of realisation that I could only see quite small boys...
and then I was wondering...as I registered that in fact they were ALL small boys...there were NO bigger ones...and the people I knew who were there all have at least one child in the junior school... but R is now in senior school... we left this behind last year...

Yes, I had both just made it to, and missed, the wrong Harvest Festival, and missed Yoga... much to the general amusement of my friends who were at the right Harvest festival....and very keen to point out the fact!!

there was nothing for it but to go out for tea and wait until it was time to collect S from school...

and hope my brain made it's way home from wherever I left it that morning... presumably lost looking at the sky!

Relief

Initial appearances can be deceptive...
and sometimes we are granted a lucky escape..
today was one of those times -

I thought I wanted it after the interview... till later that night when questions started to arise from information not disclosed until half way through the interview....
and questions have continued to surface like bubbles during the week, while I waited to hear - they said they were interviewing in odd lunch hours...

there were sufficient question marks for me to be concerned about what I would say if I was actually offered the job...

Call me old fashioned but I was brought up to think, and experience would lead me to believe, that it is only courteous to let applicants know by telephone if they have been successful or not...

so I took a mental step back when I found an e mail tonight telling me they had offered it to someone else - apparently a standard e mail in which they had even got my name wrong...

the equivalent I guess of being dumped by text...

rejection is never easy... but that aside, my inner feeling is one of relief... and of a whole heap of positives...

how come charities that deal with people, look after people, communicate and promote and aim to facillitate communication... are so bad at it...? Last time I found this out I was in the middle of working for one, and was hurt terribly in the process...

An interesting and worthwhile avenue to explore...however, inner feelings have to be listened to....
I've never been rejected by a prospective employer before...
which is strange for me...
my heart wasn't in it totally...
but failure doesn't come easy...
so relief wasn't the feeling I expected..

odd how things work out....

in essence the day is good...

One day, every four weeks or so, it is predictable that I would be kinder to myself and to anyone who wanders, either by intent or by chance into my world, if I just stayed huddled inside, preferably under the duvet with a good book or a good film and a constant supply of hot drinks and something warm to cuddle...

On this particular day.... it is possibly not the wisest thing to sandwich a job interview, for a job I have now decided I really would like, and would I think, find challenging and rewarding, inbetween two other exciting and productive meetings, which in itself requires a degree of mental dexterity which is lacking today more than most....

However, should I choose to focus on the upside of the meetings, which were exciting,
and that S has her photo in the local paper for her swimming at the weekend, albeit with the wrong name under it,
and that we now appear to have what I assume are tits in our box - I only saw a tail earlier, but it made me stupidly happy to think they would make a home in our box..

I would see that the day is actually quite good....

it doesn't earn me any money, and has generated lots more work in the process.... but given the fact there was little I could have done to organise things differently, it is possibly an appropriate time for that quite irritating phrase "Que Sera Sera"

* I thought it an odd time to see birds go into the box - it would seem they were only popping in and out...perhaps they check their home out for next year in advance...I'm hoping anyway :) *

Just thoughts...

Several things combined today, and initially but not solely, prompted by a beautiful e mail from one of my best friends who I haven't talked to or seen for some time, left me thinking how
a little kindness, or even just niceness,
and a little communication
can drastically change one's perspective on life...

It really isn't the big things at all...

Indulgence

Anticipation only made the desire stronger... however, my patience was rewarded and I eventually made it to town to find the boots were still there...
but not before I had spotted some other, higher, all black, leather boots that called out and asked to be bought - they are perhaps, though I'm sure I can work on it, a little impractical, but sometimes desire deserves to be indulged, and has to override practicality... a girl deserves at least one pair of 'kinky boots' in her wardrobe that make her walk taller, even if they are bad for your feet!

In fact, starved of shopping for some time now, though I haven't either missed it or had the impulsive urge to, until this week that is, I quickly found my stride... it proved to be a day where most things I tried on both fitted and looked good... and as thats a combination that doesn't often happen, it made perfect sense to take advantage of it.

Some winter shoes, a couple of jumpers and a few tops later, together with both pairs of boots, I made it back to the car just in time to collect S from school - all in all, a good day's work :)

These are the boots that sparked off this trip.... and the photo above is the rather wonderful box they came in....exquisitely packaged... AND they were reduced in the sale....

Right here, right now...

Excited, anxious, nervous, anticipating, buzzing butterflies... 5 words for today... well 5 words right now....
Five words - something Pip made me conscious of... thanks :)

should be rewriting my cv....

want to go to town in case the boots I saw have been sold and I miss out....

R is away playing football today - returns tonight, I hope he had fun, hope he was a part of a team... yesterday he played and the team didn't work - it was a two man team of nine players... I was disheartened, he wasn't. He has so many lovely qualities, and loyalty and understanding are just two of them...

The skip has just arrived, can't wait to get clearing big time...

Back to jewellery class tonight...

Too much going on - life is full again...

I like life being full, I hate asking people for references....
and I really don't enjoy it when it spills over to writing out application forms at gone midnight...
coffee is keeping my numb brain in slow motion, but at least some motion.... Those boots are stupidly becoming more and more important the later it gets...!