just this - tuesday morning

I sat in the sun this morning, after dropping the kids at school, and rolled this yarn into a ball. I drank my tea (bancha), and listened to the birds calling and the bees buzzing. And I soaked up that warm morning late Winter sunshine.
And it felt good on my body and my soul.
{and Sam took some photos of me, to email for print. And I felt self conscious and a bit old and tired. And decided that I need to tone up, and freshen up, and see the beauty in me in again}.
What did you do today?
How do you see the beauty in yourself? Do you look or do you ignore?

A week

Last week was long and tiring and pushed me further than I wanted to be pushed in terms of energy and stress and health. Just a little too much. In reality I think I must be the one who does the pushing of myself. But my body pushed back and said 'no'. Hence I've been feeling tired and sick and grumpy and haven't been able to relax. Sam has been feeling much the same. We've both had anxious tight feelings around our chest - something that keeps holding onto us.

I did not have any quiet moments of just being and not having to rush off somewhere else or other. Always something happening. On Friday I drove into town three times (each trip to town is a 40minute round trip). And yet, I still didn't get the grocery shopping done, so had to go in on Saturday afternoon, after a morning at a kids birthday party (which was thankfully sitting in the sun talking).

Ah well. I think I just need to keep learning that I feel best, more motivated and uplifted when I have some moments of quiet.

I feel the need to write myself an important list of things I need:

To drink a cup of tea in peace and quiet, and if there's a spot of sunshine that always helps.
To do some making of some sort - stitching, sewing, crochet, screen printing, drawing, painting.....
To stop and look around quietly.
To breathe deeply and soak up the good air around me.
To keep the house tidy, and the kitchen table clear - less clutter makes us all happier and able to breathe easier.
To do baking, cooking.
To do some writing; a letter to a friend, in my journal, or my gratitude diary, or perhaps even here.
To spend time with my man just talking and being truly together.

What are you doing this week?
Are you feeling stressed or relaxed?
Did you bake or sew or draw or make?

have a lovely week, my friends xx

tuesdays moments

+ i'm listening to Tiny Ruins - beautiful voice, music and sounds (especially for the head space i'm in right now)

+ i'm enjoying another cup of gen mai tea
+ i'm at my dads house, in the cold afternoon air
+ i'm looking forward to going down the hill to my house and lighting the fire and curling in for the night
+ i've been doing a little rejigging on my blog - do you read this in some reader form, head on over and check out the new set-up + pretty header image
+ i'm enjoying the quiet, slow, soft moments of the past few days with my family away and just the cat and me at home
+ the weather is continuing to be gloriously beautiful with clear clear blue skies and cold nights
+ the moon is slowly moving back to full again
+ i've been doing some small starts of some solar dyeing - some pieces of fabric folded into jars with assortments of things

i'm exploring experimenting adventuring and enjoying in a quiet way. i'm feeling a creativity slowly start back again, and learning to fit that into the quiet slow (busy) of the rest of my life. to work within what i have. i'm being inspired and encouraged that i'm not the only one.
*photos are an assortment from the past few days - from the proper big camera and the phone camera (including instagram images)

more words?

I don't have more words today. 

There are more words from other days, other years, other memories, other..... lives. Some years I've written lots of words. That was good. At that moment. {this, this, this or this one if you feel like having a little sob about your own losses}.

But right now. On this overcast, rainy day (the sun is trying trying trying to peek out), with the birds around me as company. Not so many words. 

eight years. a long time. a blink of an eye.

I do think that being here, on this land. Her land. Is good. For me, right now. It's good. Of course, there's moments when really it's not good either. When the what ifs, the not fairs, the what abouts come bursting forth in my mind. Trying to make a different reality. Can't be done. This is the reality. 

Living here. On this land. Without her. With thoughts, and memories, and dreams, and wishes. But without her.

there is much loss in the world, today, as every day. there is grief, and heartwrenching pain, there is throbbing endurance, there is understanding and knowledge, there is mis-understanding. there are wishes, dreams, what ifs, perhapses. and there is knowing that this is just the way. on this day. this day of my days. 

i send my love to my dear ones, my family. my long big wide laughing crying crazy beautiful family. all of those of you who are my family. my close, my far, my near, my distant family. those i've had connections with.

i am thinking also of others who are feeling loss today. shared loss. personal loss. 

there are many of us who have a moment in our lives.life where something happens and we are forced onto that other existence. to become our parallel being. to not be ourselves anymore. to be the other person that we are. i am myself, but not myself.

in my mind and heart right now. dear friends who are facing.have faced moments of becoming a different person.woman.daughter.mother.father.son.lover.man my love to you today, for today, but also for the future, for the strength, the courage. i am naming you in my heart, my mind, my soul, my love.

"How can we compare sufferings?

Each person's suffering is the most important.

But what enables us to go on?

Only sound, which comes and goes

like water amongst the stones."

Goran Tunstrom 

(found in the book "The Mark of the Angel" by Nancy Huston)

happy sunday

Sam + I are off to our little piece of little house in the bush. To clean, and write lists, and determine what we need to do before we can all move in in a few short weeks. 

The kids are staying with Grandma + Aunty Sylv & Cousin Ashey. And will be good and have a lovely time. And we will have a quiet time without them. Listening to the birds. And to our own thoughts.

*These photos are from the Sydney Botanic Gardens, when Sylv + I went there, was it last year?

still life {moments}

I should be washing up the breakfast dishes. And then rushing to the studio to cut some more fabric to send to my machinist. (Cute little camisole-style tops in soft flowing hemp / organic cotton. I still have to find just the right buttons to make the finishing details right).

I just wanted to show you this collection of flowers. Still life. Mishi picks them on her way home from the school walk each morning. Plucking them from the tree, or plant (or directing Sam or me to do it for the hard to reach ones). This is her collection from this week. She adds to it each day, as she brings more home. 

The white bottle brush have just started flowering. And the red ones are near the ending of their flowering. Both from trees on the street - council planted trees. The yellows are sweet little dandelion weeds - so pretty and cheery. The little daisy is right from our front steps, a tiny little plant that sprouts up these happy little flowers, and Mishi loves to pick them. All in a little Turkish tea glass (we have lots of them, for our water drinking glasses), in our bathroom.

Little moments of still life. And pretty things to look at while I brush my teeth or put on my moisturiser. Moments to still my mind. To focus on something for one moment longer than the fleeting craziness that is happening at the moment. 

I hope you are having a lovely day and week. That you, too, are finding tiny moments of quiet and still in your life.

{now back to the craziness of organising two workshops this weekend, and then The Finders Keepers market next weekend. I do like to do everything at once, don't I?}.

at the moment

WREN handmade

I should be doing things.

the things list includes (but is not at all limited to):

cleaning house

washing up

hanging clothes on the line (even though it will probably rain again later on)

 Urban Clothes Line

getting the paperwork done

playing with my kids

putting clothes away

doing grocery shopping (when you run out of toilet paper, that's the final last excuse, for my family at least)

writing patterns

working on to-do lists for the BIDM in only a few short weeks

...............................(feel free to include any other regular things that would normally go on a daily list of a work-at-home mum).

{i'm sorry, i thought i had the link saved for this one - but don't.

if you know where it came from, please do let me know}

instead I am:

drinking my morning coffee (yes, late I know - I got up early and went to the gym, and then haven't been ready to make my coffee until now)

enjoying how the chitter chatter of my two little ones as they make their games and play around my feet

dreaming of things I could make (but know I never will)

researching for inspirational things that make me happy.

trying to work out how we can afford the land we visited yesterday (it has no house, just beautiful forest)

{these photos are taken from the real estate website.

it was rainy rainy rainy yesterday, so there were no views like this

- only mist and fog. but beautiful trees to look at}.

researching* things that my sister could make (cause you know, she has all the spare time in the world, but doesn't know how to blog-hop like me! sarcasm doesn't translate to words so well, does it....)

promising my kids that we'll make little cakes, after I finish my coffee

wishing I had a cleaner, or a maid, or better still a servant. Isn't that what the kids were meant for?!

wasting time writing silly lists, when I should be preparing lists as organised as this lady.

 organised - Edward and Lilly

*we all know what researching means - don't we.

** all photos used with thanks from original source. click on photo to be taken to site.
*** i just remembered - I found the cloud mobile on here, which links over to here.

the remains of the day

today is ari's birthday.
5.
big boy. my baby boy.
we were talking about the day he was born. how we almost didn't make it to the hospital (which was only 3 minutes down the road from our house), because i didn't recognise the 'pushing' sensation. we did get there, with 45minutes to spare, though fully dilated. just enough time for sam to park the car and get back to the birthing room!
for parents, you know that feeling as if you've known your children for your whole life, they are so ingrained your every day and essence. you can barely remember time before them. yet you can also not quite believe that they are now old enough to..... make jokes, back chat, get themselves dressed, feed themselves... any number of every day activities.
we had a party yesterday.
so lovely. family and friends in the backyard. a Japanese theme dress-up party - so fun to see everyone pull out their kimonos. and the 'party activity' was sushi rolling - seemed most kids quite enjoyed it, and also meant i wasn't in the kitchen for hours on end rolling sushi (was in the kitchen for hours on end doing other stuff!).
and today, a quiet day. with brother + nephew and my sister + nephew.
and this afternoon. the end of a long weekend. two sleeping kids (sam at work). a quiet house. with the breeze outside bringing snippets of kids playing and birds calling and cars driving.
and me tired too. but many things heavy in my mind, things needing to be done. work to be ready for next weekend.
yet one small quiet moment to stop and observe and remember.

just had to...

I just received an email from a family person, in response to an email I sent him.

I just had to pass on these words, which he wrote (you don't mind, do you Roo?). Check out this post for reference to what Roo is talking about. 

"Nice to see the photo of the little table loom. Your mother was a weaver, too, you know. She had a couple of looms like that and also an Inkle loom (I made it, I think) which is a frame with dowels sticking out that the wool goes round and round.

The building search is interesting. Love the Moreton Rubber Works. Nice photos.

Didn't realise skateboards were laminated in colours like that. Clever idea to make jewellery out of them - there is a use for skateboards after all!"

I have a little photo of my mother, at her potting wheel, when she was much much younger (before I was born). Given to me by Roo, after my mum died.

Every time I think of who I am; why I craft and make and do and draw and create and stitch and crochet and cook and dream and arrange and feed and think and feel and care. Every time I think of my mother. That's why I am. {Dad, I'm why I am because of you too}

hail in the dark

we've had a lovely day of sprinkles of rain.
threatens of thunderstorms.
double rainbows outside our windows.
replanting some of our pot plants (well, Sam + the kids did that, while I was inside researching and writing and planning a very exciting project that I'll reveal soon soon soon, lots more writing and researching to go).
enjoying a brief visit with friends.
and a very special farewell-just-about-to-hit-the-road visit from my dad + brother (who arrived home, yesterday, from 3 months walking the mountains in India), and my sister + nephew who were driving them back to their homes in the bush.
and the kids jumping the fence to play sandpits and kick the ball around with our new next door neighbour kids.
and having afternoon tea parties on our back deck
and lunch
and coffee
and chasing the hail that fell tonight.
directly as soon as the kids were out of the shower
so we had to let them watch the small blocks of ice fall
while still in their towels.
and Ari + me watching the last remains of the lightning from across the other side of the city, across the ocean.
and reading new stories, that Sam brought home the other day
about dinosaurs and bees.
and settling two little creatures into bed.
and a quiet house, with the quietish city noises.
and more writing and figures waiting for me at the dining room table.

I hope you had a lovely day.

*************

I also want to say a very big thank you to all of you who have given me such beautiful and warm comments and words over the past weeks. Moving house has been more intense than I imagined, and it's been wonderful to have you all so caring and thoughtful about us. I do so appreciate each and every comment and thought from you all.

Also, I'm planning a giveaway tomorrow (or Friday), so please come back to visit then.

today I am...

looking out at the rain
thinking about the washing on the line
listening to new music, linked from a newly found blog
writing patterns
tidying up my sewing corner
enjoying the thought of some sewing tonight, once the little ones go to bed
ordering more fabric
researching more fabric options
organising orders from the Craft Show
updating mailing list - thank you to all our new red seed studio friends
sitting at a tidy desk (thank you Sam)
thinking about what I'll make for dinner; again
enjoying these photos from my camera, that surely Ari took one random evening - see the rest here
drinking hot cocoa in my favourite mug