Cosy toes!

Been still struggling with this nasty virus/tonsillitis/thingey. It's a bit sneaky cos you go to docs, get tablets, start to feel better, and think yay I'm on the mend. So you go to work. You come home and are exhausted and start feeling rotten again, throat gets sore so you go to docs ... hhhmmmm. So to cheer yourself up you go online order cheery wool and knit socks! This is the first pair I've actually finished. I started a pair in January (when I had flu...) but they were on thin needles and I never finished the second one) These ones are lovely - the wool is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted and is gorgeous though a bit extravagant ... and the pattern came out of the One Skein book. I've fancied doing this pattern for ages and now love it so much I'm knitting another pair with stash wool (Falkland Islands). And my feet are warm!

Strength and roundabouts

This week's art journal card from Emily Falconbridge's prompts was STRENGTH. Hhhm quite a hard one, til I realised I had this photo of an elephant's trunk, which I'd printed off to use in the elephant task lesson lo but it didn't fit. So I cropped it, and wrote all over it! Journalling reads: "is gentleness, will, discipline, wisdom, compassion, love, fairness, belief, sharing, quiet, loud, ongoing, hard won, is from within, and without". And today's lesson lo from Shimelle's online class came from a comment my sister made to me on the phone this morning, while talking about my life....

Eat that elephant!

A time management lesson here - if keep working away at something in small bit, every day, then big tasks get done without panic and stress. So how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You can ignore those big old elephants when they're way out on the horizon, but they get real intimidating as they loom closer, so just keep on biting away at them before it becomes too stressful or urgent. Hhhmmmm, how long will it take me to really put this into practice.....

Grumpy teenagers grow up!

When you teach teenagers (among others) they can be quite intimidating sometimes, all that sullen grumpiness that you feel is just there to challenge you.... and then a few years later, you work with the same kids, but they're adults, they're colleagues, they're good company, they're good at what they do, and though you'd never have thought it a few years ago, you're happy to work with them! It's a wonder. So my lesson is to let forget all that teenage attitude, and just judge them as they are now on their own merits, and give them the chance.

Revisit old stuff - it's still good!

Revisit old material, have faith in what you did before - it's still good, still worth sharing and working on - not everything needs to be new. I learned this last week when I was meant to be arranging trio material, but was so ill I couldn't look for new stuff, so I went back to solo material I played years ago. And guess what? Everyone loved it and I remembered how good those tunes were, and realised that I can still use them, develop them further, why throw everything away?

Just do it!

Just start, somewhere, with something, doesn't really matter what, cos there's no point in waiting til everthing's perfect and the time is right - we all know that ain't gonna happen! That's my lesson for the day.

Learning for Life!

This September, I'm going back to school. In my own little world. I've got a book and a pen and I'm going to record what I learn from life. I believe I really can learn something new every day. I'll share what I'm learning in the form of pages from my book, posted right here on my blog. I'm not alone: lots of crafty ladies are learning and recording right along with me. See their work here and here. Learn more about our project here.

Laugh? I could have cried ...

This week's art journal prompt from Emily Falconbridge - was funny ha ha - what makes you laugh? Well, sometimes, for no apparent reason, I get a bit hysterical, you start laughing so hard the tears roll down your face, and then everyone else laughs cos they have no idea what you're laughing at! The last time this happened was posing for my birthday piccies with the Gingy cake my sis made for me. Ah well, where would be if we couldn't laugh! Mind you, laughing is not a great idea for me at the mo, while I am on the mend, and even had a lovely birthday walk along the canal to the pub for lunch with OH yesterday, the tonsils still aren't seeing the funny side of life quite yet. But I did get to play with the new Adirondack paint dabbers the nephews gave me - that was fun!

The mind boggles...

That's me caught up now on all of our UKS team challenges too - and hey, I even cleaned my kitchen floor today ... I'm either on the mend, or going seriously stir crazy. Perhaps the latter as there isn't even a photo on this lo! The challenge was to scrap your favourite game, and to draw something on the lo .... well, it seemed like a fun thing to do when I set the challenge, but er, got a bit harder when I had to sit down and actually do something. The game, now, that was a hard choice between my two loves, Boggle and Scrabble. But I probably play boggle more often, as I have it on the computer, so plumped for that. I've loved this game for years, and will play it til I die. I like it best when I win though.