Friday, October 26, 2012

Saturday, October 06, 2012

My trip to Efteling in pictures

My trip to Efteling in pictures

Finished awesome socks


Crazy joy days 5 and 6

Day 5: 3 Gifts returned

In some ways, as I sit down pulling words from my brain, I feel like I have to write about things that happenned today only. And when your day has been filled with spasms of searing pain because you were stupid enough to fall down the stairs and bruise your coccyx, there's not much in the memory banks but the pain. 

So I'll give thanks today for past gifts.

1. Jenni reaching out over cyberspace to send me shoes, just because, returning gifts I've sent out to others over the years. Just because. She got married today. I hope her married life is filled with happy just because moments.

2.

Day 6: 3 Gifts redeemed

 

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Crazy joy days 3 and 4

Day 3:

A Gift caught, let go, midway

If I let this sentence trickle throught my mind, I see a leaf caught in the hand on a walk and then set on its tumbling way again in the breeze.

Caught, let go, midway

The half light in the middle of the night coming through curtains from LED streetlights. An arm slung over a waist. Caught in the middle, in the middle of the bed. Then released as both turn over in their half sleep, midway to dawn.

Day 4:

Three gifts reaped

For gifts to be reaped, I suppose they must have been planted once. What gifts have I planted? Hopefully many over the years. Hopefully tiny gifts I didn't notice I was giving. Isn't that the way it is supposed to be?

I can't think of anything specific at the moment. So let's be general. I am reaping the gifts I sewed of the most prosaic of things. Two new chances to help people with their online marketing, reaped from a seed sown when I worked freelance. The chance to knit with delicious alpaca reaped from the seed sown from offering to knit for others. There. That's three things.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

31 days to joy

I seem to write better when I have a prompt - so in preparation for NaBloPoMo, I'm going to follow along the 31 days to joy prompts put together by the lovely Ann Voskamp, taken from her October Joy Dare PDF

Here's what we've got so far:

Day 1 - Three gifts falling

I don't often think of gifts falling. We hope for things that would fall from the sky for us. Those life turn around moments.

I think I will go pragmatic for a moment. I fell down the stairs on Sunday with a hard, hard, hard bump on my coccyx. It hurts. A lot. I never realised how much we use the muscles in our bottoms for standing still, sitting up, lying down. I am waking in the middle of the night with searing pain.

How is this a gift? Well. It's a reminder of what a good nurse Tom is. He's fetched hot water bottles, ice packs, painkillers. He's settled me into chairs, brought snacks and drinks and checked me all over to make sure I wasn't seriously broken. He is a gift. So that's gift 1.

There's other little gifts I suppose that make my heart fall out from under me, light late night chats about what genetic mix our future offspring may or may not have. Let's make that gift 2.

And 3? I will give thanks for falling leaves as autumn starts in earnest. I love this season of soft falling change, crisp airs, evenings in and the need for warm textiles and hats.

Day 2 - Three gifts orange

I am grateful for the wild orange colour in my current sock yarn. I am so close to finishing them, and I can't wait to wear them. Sometimes it is nice to knit a little something just for yourself.

There's a spicy wafting smell coming from the kitchen, that in my head smells like it should be orange coloured. Turns out to be spicy couscous with halloumi and chicken, and mainly green and red. Oh well!

My last orange gift is the chocolate covered orange rind that was in the epic box of chocolates that Sandy gave me for my birthday. They were deliciously sweet and bitter. Sandy knows my taste for a little luxury well, and the rest of the box is giving up extremely varied delights.