Friday, May 28, 2010

Day 09 — A photo you took

At one point I thought of taking on photography as a hobby, but in reality it has remained just a way of capturing the moment.  And in truth, there is nothing wrong with that.  Enjoying something doesn't necessarily mean having to break it down into each little component and then building it all up again.  Instead, I prefer to just point and click and hope it turns out okay...or even more than okay would be better.

I like where my crafting is going.  Cross-stitching is so easy, taking it to the next step of embroidery is turning out some great results.  These are the kind of things I wish I had tried earlier.  I want to do more, my whole love of art is coming back after so long of doing nothing with it and it is so heart-warmingly wonderful.  Sketching is an old friend I am happy to welcome back.  The photography will act as inspiration and I will take it from there and on to other medium.

Wouldn't this photo of Linlithgow Loch look amazing with fabric and stitching?

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad

I don't have a copy to put on here, I don't have any of them left.

Because, of course and considering the nature of the other blog it should be no surprise that the photo that could make me both angry and sad would be one from my wedding day.  Gosh, I can barely even type it without feeling a shot in my stomach.

What can I say that I haven't already torn a strip off the internet from saying?

I know I shouldn't say it was the biggest mistake of my life because I have the boys from that train wreck of a marriage but I can't help it.

The deluded fool in the blue dress (light blue because if you "wear blue your love with be true", perhaps making him wear it as well might have been an idea.)   Smiles that were nothing more than a farce when all was said and done.  If I could go back, a la Doctor Who, then I'd head back, tell that idiot to do what she had originally planned and to take the consequences.  I would have still had the boys, some things are tattooed onto your future, mine and their lives have always been set.

Like the guy on the t'internet who is blogging about his 101 uses for his ex-wife's wedding dress I took great pleasure in destroying the evidence of that day.  Because it was all based on lies, and I hate that I was too damn stupid to see it.  So both angry and sad, and I've had enough of feeling either way.

Signs

I really thought I had understood the sign, but it turned out to be another false promise.  I could build a house out of the amount of those I've had of late.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy

Remembering times gone by, back when the Hobbits were learning to feed themselves with varying results.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy

Well I can honestly say that, considering my current circumstances, that there's nothing tickling my fancy these days.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Day 05 — A favourite quote

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2

Says it all really doesn't it.

Beware the person, male or female who bears ambition or envy like a weapon, skulking like a wolf at the edge of the forest.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Day 04 — A favourite book

Another choice from many. It is ever thus for the indecisive.

Before the film came out (and to be honest even after I had seen it) I adored Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg. Here was a female protagonist unlike any I had read about before. She was tough, straightforward, socially inadequate and knowledgeable about every type of snow. Presumably as a reader I am one of many who could see something of themselves in a character. I wished I could be like that however the only aspect that rang completely true was the socially awkward part.

I lost myself in reading, the only truth I have ever had was in books. Delving in to the story as the reality of what my life was about vanished for those few chapters. To get such a heroine as Smilla Jasperson was a gift. I haven't read it in some time so perhaps it is time, while the weather is so hot, to once again experience my own feeling for snow.

Wait, was that last line too cheesy?

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Day 03 — A favourite television program

That should really be spelled as programme however it is now evident where this thing originated then!

I presume people who live in cold climates are more prone to watching TV than those who have sunshine in which to enjoy life outdoors. Strangely, although I cannot remember much of what I learned at school I can recall, with amazing clarity, things that happened on shows that were on when I was very young.

Not to dwell on the past again, as I am wont to do, there are plenty of programmes around now and all I can say is thank god for Sky+ because I do get to watch things in my own time. At the moment two programmes that I make time for are The Pacific and Wallander. As it is *a* favourite programme and not *a few* favourite programmes (see I'm pointing out the obvious again) then I'll choose the Swedish series of Wallander - series two is on just now. It may be an idea to think on the suicide of the original Linda but not yet.

I've always been fascinated by my fellow Europeans, I adored any programme that showed life in another European country whether it was factual or fiction. The 1970s German version of Heidi was wonderful. Actually on thinking on it, I wish I had gone ahead and worked my way around Europe but I got married instead - wasn't that such a great swap as well.

Crime stories are fair enough, I don't watch any of the UK ones, haven't seen Taggart since the early 90s. Wallander though has caught my attention and part of it is this obsession with European based programmes. What can I say? I'm a fairly boring person. But I like Wallander's saggy Bagpuss face, the taciturn Swedes and yes, a good old nosey inside the houses. IKEA is the mother-ship calling me home.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Day 02 - A Favourite Movie

Now this one is harder, but strangely the first one that came to mind was An American In Paris. There are so many films I love, so many I can watch time and time and time again, but this film made me wish so very hard that I could dance.

As a story in itself it works fine, boy meets girl, girl has weird relationship with other boy, girl decides first boy is much better option.

But then, at the very end of the film, there is 17 minutes of sheer bliss. Their story, the whole ideal of their relationship, is told in one long, delicious ballet. And my god, for the most clumsy, lump of a girl watching it, it was sheer heaven. (The Red Shoes almost had the same effect, almost but not quite.)

Sure I did the childhood thing of dance. Attended ballet but in its most basic form. I left when it became apparent that I just was absolutely no good at all, although as a hobby I would have liked to continue it was the shows that were excruciating. I am someone who needed everyone in the room to shut their eyes before I could comfortably play a tune on the piano (the Laurel and Hardy theme as well, it isn't even ironic.)

I wanted to be Leslie Caron though. I wanted, ached to be able to do that dance, to have such a talent that it looked almost effortless (but it took a month to film, you know there were some serious blisters going on there.)

So, for today at least, this is my choice of a favourite movie.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Day 01 — A favourite song

Here we go...

I have lots of favourite everything so I'm personally relieved that the idea for this is to choose a favourite rather than the favourite.

That being said there is one song that has constantly been mine.  I first heard it when I was about 12, sold as a sort of Christmassy song from those people who had that dirty song banned.  (Naive as I am it took a while to sink in why Relax had been considered so polluting to our little ears.)  Anyway, the first time I heard it I completely fell in love with it, every time I hear it I get a sense of calm and of course it has great meaning for me.

I have songs to make me happy, make me dance, make me cry, make my heart warm. This one song can do all three, I get tears welling up by listening to the opening bars alone.

Without further ado and crap from me - here it is...


An Attempt To Do Things Better...

Let's start right here, with a little project I found on another blog.  You see although I rarely venture mediocre thoughts on to mine I do frequent other people's musings.  So here is a little bit of fun, and a more serious attempt by me to start doing something as a regular occurrence.


Here is the list up for discussion over the next 30 days.  I amuse myself, it is the only way forward.


Day 01 — A favourite song
Day 02 — A favourite movie
Day 03 — A favourite television program
Day 04 — A favourite book
Day 05 — A favourite quote
Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 — A photo you took
Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 — A fictional book
Day 14 — A non-fictional book
Day 15 — A fanfic
Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 — A talent of yours
Day 20 — A hobby of yours
Day 21 — A recipe
Day 22 — A website
Day 23 — A YouTube video
Day 24 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 — Your day, in great detail
Day 26 — Your week, in great detail
Day 27 — This month, in great detail
Day 28 — This year, in great detail
Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 — Whatever tickles your fancy

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Falling Apart At The Seams

What more can I do?  I've tried everything, tried to do everything I possibly can to make the situation right.  But now, I just don't know what to do.

I make plans, you can be assured that they won't come to fruition. Every single detailed that is mapped and organised and all by one person - me.  Yet it is all falling apart.  Should I take this as a sign of incompetence, that I just am not up to the job?

In a perfect world I could be in a home I loved with my boys, looking after my boys and writing nonsense until something worked out.  No mistake, I enjoy my work, I like being there and having adult conversations that do not solely involve the subject of children and matters of.  My heart though, constantly tugs me back.  But home is not a place of comfort now.  Memories of what my childhood was like, when my dad wasn't around to keep my mother in check.

I've let them down.  I had thought it was me.  I had hoped that she would understand that to live together we would need to work together to make it all cohesive.  Things have returned to the way it was when I was young. The constant grumpy mood swings, the shouting and smacking rather than reasoning and discipline.  It wasn't how I had hoped things would go but there we have it.

It feels lonely like this, with no one to share my burden or, as I would prefer, to take my mind off it completely.  Incredibly lonely.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Frustration

Have you ever wanted something or someone so badly that you could just burst?  What I mean is that all the feelings boil up inside until there is no where to go but to release them out?

It is how it is.

I don't try to be esoteric, that is how things are.  I can try and explain myself, or try and put into words exactly what I feel but the reality is so absurd that I dare not.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Heart Skipping

Is it wrong to want to embrace totally the traditional female role?  You know, the one we are supposed to despise and resent.  Home-maker, stay-at-home-mother, the little hausfrau.

Because if there is one time in my life when I was truly happy and content it was when I was in that situation.  Oh, fair enough it all ended badly with Evil X turning out like he did.  But back then, when I was blissfully ignorant of anything being too far wrong I loved my simple life.

It would be even better if I could do it again.

There was nothing more heart warming than baking on a Sunday, painting or making plasticine models with the boys, those family days out.  Yes, simple, yes it was ultimately all fake but had it been real, had it continued I'd have been more satisfied than a cat with all the cream it can handle.

Where is this going?  I don't know.  I do all those things and more now but it is all fraught - everything has changed.  Having the time to do things right, that slightly OCD happiness of a fresh pile of laundry neatly folded to put away.  It is all much more complicated now.  I run here and there...to and fro...nothing is quite finished...nothing is completed to satisfaction...I have no time to settle back and enjoy what I have done.

Maybe I'm going slightly mad - I'm £40k away from what I wish for, a home to finally bring everything together in.