Give a gr an inch

My 'weekend starts here' feelings a little premature, it seems. Quiet a sting in the tail of this one, that will be smarting for a few days yet. Oh well, give me a challenge to think of things to be grateful for...can't have you lot thinking I have a charmed life and and it's easy for me to look on the bright side because nothing dark ever happens in my world, eh?

It's particularly good when you are glum to practice NOT adding 'woe is me' clauses to any slightly positive thoughts you may have, or sentences you might speak...because the negative elves will grab those and grow them into a grotto of grot before you know it! It so easily starts with just a 'but...' or an 'if only' or 'I should think so too after...'

OK, first gratitude then is for knowing what I mean even if no one else does! Yup, feel better already!

Second for getting a few deckies up.

Third for Dr Chowdrey ringing before I started cooking an already very late brunch and being both sympathetic and helpful.

Fourth for yummy pancakes with lemon and sugar for that brunch...

Fifth, for realising after writing the above and not even allowing myself to think the things that I could have added that weren't so cheery and upbeat I actually do feel better. Bit of physical energy, but of mental get up and go...PLUS, the sky outside has cleared and there's some more light to do some stuff now I'm up and runnign again... which is always a bonus this time of year

Alchemy

Sun rays breaking through early cloud and making patches of gold on the silver sea, the first thing I saw today...

And talking of gold...Stunning Hun horse jewelry and tableware (On the BBC4 Dark Ages documentary)....Visigoth architecture too...

Phoning Volunteering in Health to say I couldn't get the crafts I'd made them to them...and finding they had moved premises and I could! Appreciation and a hug always welcome too...

Great acupuncture and much mirth with Rachel (and more hugs!)...and some of her yummy chocolates too! Exchanging gifts and cards... I now have two cards from humans (as opposed to companies) and something to put 'under the tree'...

A sense of weekend after several days run in with inanimate objects and people...Oven chips and fish finger sandwiches are called for methinks...

Supernumerary

Happy waking up warm two mornings in a row
Happy slice of sunrise above the sea...ditto
Happy freezer, with happy hot cross bun inside it
Happy cooker to cook it, and scrap of foil to wrap around and keep it from burning or going dry
Happy date. I know dates are arbitrary but I still get the same delight in repetitive or palindromic ones I first did on 6/6/66 (eight years old and rather disappointed to work out I'd be 'quite old' when the next one when the numbers that matched came along!)

Writing that I just twigged that it's double the first one that I saw and
Writing that in Swype I twigged what a feeble dictionary it has...'palindromic' and 'twigged' are in common usage, aren't they surely? (She says sounding like Leslie Neilson in Airplane...) What? Oh, well never mind, I never aspired to common!

Unless we live to be very old, or they change the way this calendar works, we won't get another day/month/year one for a while so it'd please me if I could hit 'publish' nearish to twelve minutes past twelve (nearish is AT LEAST as much of a word as Swype, Swype!). That would be five twelves in a row and five twelves is thought rather highly of by some. I was in Thailand when the king celebrated his sixtieth birthday and as this meant he had passed through each of their possible years (twelve animals, five elements) there were celebrations indeed with massive processions through the land. I wasn't invited specially you understand, but I was invited to watch some of them on the TV of a policeman there... nothing to do with a crime but because he was a friend of a friend who had given us a letter to take and say hello. 

Actually I suspect that a lot of internet users might have the same idea and the systems may jam...like when you try to send a Happy New Year text at one second past midnight. I once saw the new year in with someone who worked at a major mobile network and up until midnight she was telling us about the new process they had in place to stop this happening. It happened. The second sentence she spoke on that particular 1st of January was 'this shouldn't be happening!'...

Writing the above two paragraphs has made me feel I have had a life less ordinary and I like that. All of us have of course, but some of us like the feeling more than others. Is that ordinary or extraordinary, I wonder?

Roughly right

Today I give thanks to myself for negotiating a long journey from damage limitation to opportunity central so well. During the bumpy ride I saw some amusing and uplifting cards in Oxfam when looking for one for a friend's birthday today, and this is ME so I bought it for me!

Also for...the clear skies and stunning stars on Sunday night. Enjoyed them, keep remembering them and keep forgetting to say... And the glory of going out this morning in the crisp cold air, frost in the shadows, sun on my face and the sea ice blue haze with sparkles as the mist rose off it. Caught my breath with the beauty of it, brought tears to my eyes and a skip to my step...

Lush Reincarnate henna shampoo...ooh, lovely smells of...hmm, well, henna actually...and I'm a bit of a ginger again for Christmas!

Getting the going-in-the-post cards written. My hand was pleased it didn't have to hold the pen for long and if anyone gets a card and thinks 'who on earth is that?' it may be from me! I'm grateful I remembered to take them out with me...it would have been even better if I'd remembered to go to the PO but hey ho I forgot to take the rubbish out as well so there was a double reason for a trip down the stairs again.

For being ho ho ho home again and ready for tasty freezer fare to heat up and the sofa cushions to give me a hug...Remembering a big snuggly hand knitted sweater in the back of my bottom drawer. Mmm...warm...

For the cheery folk at the medical supplies company I'm currently dealing with. I'm talking to them a lot lately as there've been a few problems to solve...would prefer not to have the problems but getting to talk to cheery people is always a bonus!

And finally for John Suchet saying of reporting on the troubles in Ireland  'if you've upset both sides so you know you've got it roughly right'...Yep, I can relate to that!

Pick a card

Pick a card, any card, don't tell me what it is...I shall use my telepathic powers to read your thought and send you that very one! Pause for spooky music...

Only winding you up...you know telepathy is a load of twaddle, right? So you're not getting a card, right? Well, definitely not if you don’t believe it! At least not the one you picked...Unless... Unless what?  Yep, still winding you up!  It's interesting to me what a variety of chords were struck or alarm bells rang when you read the word 'telepathy', but your experience and interpretation of life is your business...What you know, how you know, how sure you that are someone else is wrong...

One of the (many) things people find exasperating about me is my disinterest in taking sides. Why would I want to take sides? If we take sides do we have to take a bottom and a top as well? Sounds a lot like a box to me...or a cage... It seems to me if we limit what is true for us to what others tell us is so we are limiting ourselves indeed. If we're ‘scientific’ there'd be nothing for us to find out, if we're ‘spiritual’ we'd have no enlightenment of our own. I'm always taken aback by the vehemence of the polarity between these two conceptual stamping grounds, their reluctance to see anything ‘otherwise’...I know that millions are expended and millions have expired attempting to enforce various forms of rightness, so I understand it is of tremendous importance to many that they are on the side of ‘right’ and that every one left is wrong...but I’m sorry guys. you still mystify me! Oops, now all I can think of is INXS!

The point is that I got some stuff and turned it onto some other stuff to give to some other people I know. Love and creativity were involved...notoriously difficult to quantify, classify, pin down and stamp out by commandment or creed. As far as I can tell in some way they touch us all wherever we think they come from and whatever we think they are for. That’s good enough for me..
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Have a splendid day/week/life folks...May none of your wonder and wonderfulness be curtailed by men in lab coats or robes! Or women for that matter, especially women with pointy noses and unbrushed hair! Can anyone else smell burning?

Give thanks for all that feels good, and all that feels right, for all that you know, and all that you have yet to learn...and all that you don’t know yet you have to learn! Step back from the warzone of other peoples’ words and worse as often as you are able, and love and create and play.

Hug is all you need

Yesterday I was pleased and so proud of myself getting the laundry and ironing done and the sheets changed on my bed...these tasks require grip function as well as stamina and, being short on both, took two days to complete.  My delight was somewhat marred by a mid-night technical malfunction just a few hours later but hey ho back to the wash board eh? I didn't feel quite so philosophical in the night, damp and shivering and losing my grip in other ways. I tried reminding myself how lucky I am not to have someone warm and loving to share my bed...and be disturbed by these occasional night time dramas...but my heart wasn't in it somehow. Sometimes hug is all you need!

I was on better form this morning. I chuckled when I spilt the pancake batter, and was particularly chuffed a) there was some left in the jug and b) what wasn't in the jug was on the wipe clean work surface. I revised my angst of the night to gratitude for the modernities such as ostomy equipment that works most of the time, waterproof sheets that don't double as saunas, washing machines, Febreze...oh, and the wherewithal to buy an extra set of spares, I think it would be less of a trauma if I had a drawer full of clean dry things always waiting so a trip to ebay is on the agenda for later today. I also considered what it would be like sharing the bed with someone NOT warm and loving. We leaky people have enough trouble negotiating the association between incontinence and incompetence to maintain our sense of self esteem, and better to deal with it alone than with someone accusatory, selfish or unkind. See, my life is a bed of thornless roses looked at that this way!

This afternoon I've been making cards again. Heavens it's a struggle...but this did mean that for once I was rather grateful I haven't many friends...

I give thanks for the fleet of little pink space ships after the sun went down yesterday and the rich blue evening sky. What do you mean they weren't little pink space ships?  

Faith moves

My Saturday superstore of thankfulness includes...

Fire ants making a raft of themselves to cross water, and the miraculous properties of Gotchscuarded sand. Yep, been watching QIXL again!

Sleep...restorative, soul releasing sleep!

Not sleep...if pain or noise or some other discomfort seems to be keeping you from it, you can often let it go and simply rest in 'not sleep'. I'm grateful I know how!

The smell of toast, the taste of toast and butter!

A really well thought out 'corporate card' from the medical supply company...A photo of all the staff lined up holding balloons spelling the message with a key on the back so you can see who you've been talking to. And the inside printed with signed greetings from some of them like in an 'office' card for birthdays. It's also very l-o-n-g so ideal for those of us who don't have many to put on our mantelpieces!

The Human Writes charity for ensuring every prisoner on death row gets a card as well as their penfriends.

New to me books from Amazon...

And finally a plea...

This time of year as mid winter approaches I long to be out in the deepest countryside, away from concrete and tarmac and the tinsel trail. A hill would be good, a mountain would be marvellous...The yearning is thankfully less intense now I mostly only glimpse the seasonal stresses and celebrations virtually, and can look out at bare trees and sea even when going out. But it doesn't go away and I'm not sure if I'm grateful I can remember what I'm missing or not! Would anyone who feels moved to do so like to join me in creating the wish for mountains to come to me? Thank you so much!