Whatever happened, happened well

the Bhagavad Gita

“Whatever happened, happened well. Whatever is happening, is happening well. Whatever will happen, will also happen well. For what are you crying? What did you bring with you, for you to lose? What did you create, for it to be wasted or destroyed? Whatever you took, it was taken from here. Whatever you gave, it was given from here. Whatever is yours today, will belong to someone else tomorrow. On another day, it will belong to yet another”.

Make it Home

Hi everyone, we’re going through such an exciting time here so I haven’t been on the blog much. This year has been crazy, it’s made me crazy, and I’m only half way through it. So far we have unpacked half the boxes after the move as we only got heat a couple of days before Christmas (we still have loads of stuff in boxes). We battled through snow that eventually ended up coming up to my waist (sliding off the road is never how I want to start my day). We had power cuts and broken ovens, broken showers and disconnections, a wrecked garden and a bump to the car.

TH and I have been to the Doctors over stress and infertility. I took over the budgeting, stressed some more and then got things in order. We started to save, and boy have we saved (on average 60% of our take home pay!) but this has been hard.

My goal was to get out of the place we were renting. We wanted an actual contract and to feel safe and secure. We started to like where we lived more. It was about freedom to move about the beautiful countryside which we are surrounded by. I felt so alone not having neighbours, but I started to enjoy our home in a different way. We started to deal with stress and we felt better that we had medical professionals to help us through the infertility. We planned ahead. I booked a weekend away in Edinburgh for Christmas, we started to make more money by selling things and doing odd jobs. TH has taken up a bit of photography and I have a second job with getting And now it’s all change again.

I am changing the blog title to ‘Make it Home’. This is going to reflect the change that I’m no longer a homemaker full time and as a result I have less time to do the homemaking things I used to take for granted. It will also reflect the change to the type of home we will have in the near future. We have lived in a flat, a coastal cottage and a little house in the middle of a field in the time that I’ve been writing this blog. Now we’re moving again. I want every house we have to feel like home, to make it our home. I want this blog to chronicle our journey to our eventual home.

What I want this space to convey is the journey to the place you feel safe, I want this space to be about making things that make me feel like I have a proper home.

I said that we are moving, and we should be leaving our current house within the next three months. We are leaving the UK as The Husband has been told he has the job in Singapore. They want us out there for the beginning of November. We are getting a relocation agent to help us get organised and we will either get a house out there that is already owned or we will have to find a place to rent ourselves. TH will be working in the D10 area, so we are hoping to live around there. So far we have looked into taking Daisy Dog over, but that seems like a long process because of the wait to get air conditioned carriage for her.

So we are having an even bigger ebay clearout and more car boot sales, things are starting to get put back into boxes and packaged up. I am starting to get my CV organised and find out about banks and credit cards abroad. We have a super busy 3 months ahead of us, but we will get there.

The Happiness Project Part 2

I am still in the middle of reading the wonderful Happiness Project and have felt that this book more than any other book of this kind has got me asking really important questions of myself. I said in the last blog post that I was going to read the whole book and then re-read it again slowly. I said this because it is one of those books that I love in which the sections are divided into months with an aim for each. It begins in January and January is all about aiming to get the most energy, then each month has a new aim added to the past months aims. This means that little by little things will change.

The book isn’t about a certain path being followed but shows the writers experience as well as asking lots of questions of the reader. I was reading the book in our back garden last night when I started to think about how my own happiness project would go. What things would I want to work on? What would my aims be? This is from the Happiness Project website and shows you how to get started (I’ve written my own answers next to each of the questions):

“Identify your aims
The First Splendid Truth will help you identify areas to tackle in your Happiness Project.
Ask yourself:
▪ What makes you feel good? What gives you joy, energy, fun?
Going for a walk. Reading. Chatting for hours over delicious food. Making others happy.
▪ What makes you feel bad? What brings you anger, guilt, boredom, dread?
Rudeness, unfairness and cruelty in others. Being unmotivated and lazy makes me cross at myself.
▪ What makes you feel right? What values do you want your life to reflect?
I want to be someone who is fair and helpful. I want to be able to look after children in my life. I want to show that education is important and that working hard is how to get what you want from life.
▪ How can you build an atmosphere of growth—where you learn, explore, build, teach, help?”
This is a much more difficult question and the reason that I am trying to read up a lot on this subject.

The author also made up 8 Splendid Truths and wrote little notes beside them:

1. To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
2. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
3. The days are long, but the years are short.
4. You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
(Many argue the opposite case. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” I disagree.)
5. I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.
6. The only person I can change is myself.
7. Happy people make people happy, but I can’t make someone be happy, and no one else can make me happy.
8. Now is now.
So far all that I know in my own project is that I need to start in the same way. I really want to start generating some energy within myself. I need to do things and eat things that make me more energised so that I can take more on and squeeze as much out of life as I can.

I hope this gives you a little insight into the book or at least gives you some questions you maybe feel you should be able to answer. Now get to the library!

Getting There

The ISA was opened earlier this month and it felt so good putting money away into it and knowing that this is the start of really taking control of things. Not only have we been blessed with great weather recently, it feels like things are finally all falling into place. Although I love Autumn and Winter I love it when we get a bout of sunshine that really cheers everyone up. Eating supper outside is such a simple pleasure, but such a treat. We’ve had great news too and are waiting for our first appointment at the fertility clinic. There are so few in the country that I can’t help but be grateful for the chance to attend one so easily. I know some people have to travel from the Highlands and Islands just to attend, so I really shouldn’t complain about my lot in life. I’m so happy that we are getting to visit this amazing establishment and are getting closer to real help. The help might be medical or counselling or anything they see fit, but I am so happy that we can now get over all of the confusion and sadness. I can celebrate that these things were never in my hands in the first place. There is a plan, and if there’s another person on earth to help show me what I can and can’t achieve then I can accept it and get on.

I guess there was a point when we really thought about babies or thought about money and saving and all it brought was unhappiness. We’re not supposed to overthink these things, most of what we worry about isn’t anything we can control. The money thing I could deal with, for too long I’d blamed others, but as soon as I copied my Mother and got myself a little note book it made sense. The baby thing was so far from being in my control that no wonder I drove myself crazy trying to ‘fix’ it. It seems like the moment I noticed that although I loved my job in a library, I couldn’t be with people who were so rude, nasty and deceitful to each other. I remember when I left and I spoke with my new colleagues, I was shocked that they weren’t horrible to me. The fog cleared and I could see that it was a good thing I got out of there. I could see no amount of money or job prospects mattered if I was deeply unhappy.

I feel like we’re slowly getting to where we should be. Not getting somewhere in a monetary or benchmark sense, but where we should be IN OURSELVES. Where TH and I were meant to be with regard to being calm, happy and settled. Not striving for more, just doing what people have always done and I am so thankful that we have that chance. We might get some treatments and they might be difficult, but we sure aren’t sitting hunched over trying to figure it out between us. I am so grateful that on Tuesday it’ll be us, waiting in a queue…and you know what? It might be the start of something really, really good.

Gone a bit AWOL

Eeeek, gads! I’ve been missing for a little while now. There’s been a fair amount of stress and horridness floating around for a little while now, but it seems like I’ve got all the facts and things are getting better.

The other day we found out that a possible reason we haven’t had a little one after four and a bit years of marriage is that I’ve got PCOS. I felt a bit gloomy after it, but then we got to thinking that it’s been there this whole time and nothing has changed, we might as well have a name for what’s going on.

We are having an argument with our old energy supplier who is just awful and continues to say that we owe them money without issuing an actual bill with dates on it. However we have contacted them to get their final say on the grievance, and if that doesn’t go well we’ll get the Ombudsman and I guess that’s out of our hands for a little while too.

The final straw the other day was when I heard of a horrible case of animal cruelty. I’d been trying to stay positive with lots of little stresses floating around and when I heard about it I just couldn’t bottle it up any longer. Although I can’t stop these people TH suggested we ‘adopt a pony’ or something similar and get money to a charity that helps animals.

I can’t think of anything worse than having a whole string of negative thoughts in your head at once that you just can’t seem to shake off. I went to bed incredibly early on Wednesday for a mope and a moan and after a very big cuddle from TH we started to get things in perspective.

I think I stayed away for a little while as I didn’t have anything good or happy to say. I didn’t have a nice story or a happy tale. We’d had anger and frustration, disappointment and disbelief. I hope now we’re getting a handle on these things and starting to get them sorted out at least in our own heads.

A little of what you need

Saturday was one of those perfect days.  Not because it is actually perfect, but because you feel it is perfect deep, deep down inside.  It was one of those days that the sun was shining, we actually got out of the house and everything seemed to be going well-I needed a day like that.  You couldn’t ever put your finger on it, you knew that it wasn’t just because there was a farmers market in town.  I knew I didn’t feel that way because I got to go on a big walk with Daisy Dog. It wasn’t just because we made a fuss and had a yummy tea.  It wasn’t just down to the fact we added to the wood pile.  It was exactly what we needed, and that alone had the power to heal.

I hope you had a great weekend, we're in the middle of the week now, not long to go until the next one!

Drip, Drip, Drop (inside and out)

Little April showers.. Oh dear, rainy outside and im a wee bit gloomy on the inside too im afraid. Life here seems to move at a million miles an hour and although I love that I have a full time job now (well I enjoy the pennies) I really miss those afternoons I had to myself. When I first started this blog I would have whole days and then later on, mornings or afternoons to myself at home with Daisy Dog. She would force me outside onto some walk through a field or hills or at the beach. I loved that I had a couple of hours while the sun was shining and I had the energy to just get out and walk. She’d be off her lead and we’d just set off together. The sun would be shining and I’d leave all the windows open to cool the house and get some freshness into every corner.


I think I am missing the old house too much. I miss the sea and I miss the sunshine. I miss having more time throughout the day. I miss sandy soil. I am grateful that we are closer to relatives, but it certainly was a step too far for me to now be outwith a village. We’ve had so much rain that the soil is boggy and soggy. I forgot what tree’s did and how damp and mossy they are. We had no tree’s in the village as the wind bent them til they broke or they would grow sideways.

We always wanted to stay at the bottom of Bennachie just outside of a village in a house with more room. We always hoped that if we rented it would be unfurnished so we could buy our own things. We always wanted to put our own stamp on a place and decorate it. I always wanted a study, we always wanted a dining room, a big garden…oh my goodness, this could go on sometime. We have all of these things, but I don’t seem to have time or the sea-which I miss so, so much.

I think I am just trying to figure out what’s important. What I can do without and what feeds my soul. When we lived in Cruden Bay and I was having a bad day I would walk to the beach or the cliffs, then I’d just sit. Everything faded away, the powerful crashing waves put it in perspective. The wild sea and the howling gales were sublime in the truest sense of the word.

I am aiming to not spend the weekend sleeping. I have done that a lot recenlty. I need to realise that this situation may get better within the time-limit we have given ourselves to save or it will get better after it, but it will get better. I aim to go for a walk up Bennachie this weekend. I will drag myself out of whatever mood I am in, and force myself to put one step infront of the other until I reach the top. The climb won’t be difficult, getting out of the door will be.

I’m sorry this post isn’t jolly or pretty. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to actually post it, but I do keep this blog for myself and everything flows and this too shall pass.

Oh Dear

Things are never perfect. Things never go exactly as we would like them to. Sometimes we get so much thrown at us, that when something really quite incidental happens we find ourselves totally floored by it. I don’t think I could come over as having a perfect life anyway…I think there are too many pictures taken of our home that have piles of laundry or some inexplicable mess in them to put you off the scent that really we’re all in a bit of a muddle some of the time.


Home right now is still a haven, but when we find things difficult we still have to come back and try to lift our spirits. We’re still tired at the end of the day and forcing ourselves to deal with things we wish we didn’t have to. We are still being weighed down and still trying to lift each other up. Things still seem ‘unfair’, as if there was a plan in the world that I was privy to and my life wasn’t going along with it. It is ‘unfair’ because I eat well, or try to be kind or double check sums. I know even when I am in the midst of my melancholic mood that it doesn’t work like this. I know it, but I still have a moment where I get under the duvet and hide there. We are hoping to get out for a walk this weekend. I hope we have a nice time and can have fun and not think about the big outside world.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

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While browsing through pintrest...

I love this so much

Don't let yesterday take up too much of today

25 Things About Me

I read a blog a little while ago that had a 25 Things About Me part of it which I thought was really fun and cool. I guess when you blog all the time people get some sort of fragmented idea of you. I love the Cherry Menlove website and vividly remember that she posted some pictures of a pheasant she was about to cook which caused some uproar. I remember thinking that it is certainly odd what you may or may not feel passionately about when finding out that another person likes or deems it acceptable. Hence the 25 Things About Me….


1. I am passionate about Irish history.
2. I chat to my dog incessantly and make up and sing songs about her when wondering around the house.
3. I got married when I was 23.
4. My first holiday when I was little was sailing around the Greek Isles for six weeks.
5. I love bitter and sour flavours.
6. I got a degree in History after moving from Politics, I also studied Divinity for a short while.
7. I moved house four times in one year when I was little.
8. My favourite perfume and song is Amazing Grace.
9. I love going to Church and feel truly happy there.
10. Pink is my favourite colour and I only became girly when I turned 16, before then I went through a bit of a grungy faze.
11. I am a tea fiend and abhor coffee.
12. I have an incredibly dry sense of humour.
13. I love University Challenge and do a lap of honour if I get 10 points.
14. I love make up counters.
15. Christmas Eve is infinitely better than Christmas Day in my mind.
16. I hate the taste of all alcohol.
17. I was in the Air Training Corps when was 13, and made it to Cadet Warrant Officer before becoming an Adult Sergeant.
18. I loved cross country running when I was younger and competed for the country.
19. I am a ‘Blue Person’, which means I love evidence, knowledge and order.
20. I can’t watch Strictly Come Dancing without shouting SEVEN.
21. My favourite meal would involve lasagne.
22. My favourite books include Mere Christianity and How to be a Woman.
23. I love gummy sweets.
24. I learnt to swim because I decided to one day while on holiday in Portugal when I was 8. I got into the pool not being about to and left 10 hours later with a lot of confidence.
25. I adore getting The Guardian on a Saturday and spending the whole day pouring over every inch of it with a cup of tea.

Needing a break

This weekend has been so mixed up and very tiring-physically, emotionally and mentally. There were some unpleasant things on Thursday which meant that TH and I had no Valentines to speak of, and spent Saturday driving to Edinburgh in a bid to sort ‘things’ out. We have hopefully done as much as we can, and the rest is completely out of our hands. I hope I don’t seem like I’m speaking in riddles or trying to be very cryptic, I just wouldn’t want to say things about my family, yet I really need to get some things out.


All of the bad, sad, scary and infuriating things aside we did have a drive to the capital and we did go the long, lazy coastal route which made an awful journey a little better. We stopped off at half a dozen coastal villages and spent lunch time at St Andrews which I love unequivocally. I don’t know if it because it is a University town and I always feel better as soon as I am at my own alma mater. It was time well spent as we almost forgot what was going on and it was nice to look into all of the different charity shops and boutiques. It made me think back to the time we took The Nephew down to St Andrews as an impromptu trip due to it being a nice day outside. Being there reminded me of nicer times and although I can neither will myself out of these trials or study my way to a solution, I feel like one way or another it will have to be gotten through and so I had better hold tight and get to that point.

When we finally got home it was a little after one, so due to an early start on Sunday when we sat down in the afternoon we collapsed into the sofa with cups of tea and were dead to the world in ten minutes. I hope better weekends were had by all!

A Book to Inspire

Have you read The Book of Idle Pleasures? It is one of my favourites at the moment. I first read it about a year and a half ago and it was exactly my kind of read. I first read it when The Husband and I were in Edinburgh in early Spring. I’d been going through a tough time at work and was loosing my way and my priorities. We had an amazing time in Edinburgh and I spent a lot of time walking around with Daisy Dog and thinking about this book. It is full of short pages on ways to spend free time-or more importantly things that don’t cost very much and should be put into every day-to make each day better.

This book is certainly a ‘getting into the cosy seasons’ book and certainly makes me want to take a couple of days off to get into the garden and potter.

Anyone who has even spent 5 minutes on this blog will know I’m a cosy season’s sort of girl. And when the calendar rolled onto Saturday the first of September-certainly autumn in my opinion-The Husband and I decided to have the laziest of lazy days.

Pottering should be held with more regard, it should be thought of not as a bad thing, but a very, very good one. We were clearing up the back bedroom making it a calm and beautiful room again, letting the wonderful amber autumn light pour in through the windows. We plumped cushions, and picked up bits of treats Daisy Dog had long since discarded. We did what we wanted and what came naturally. It was a good day.

Forever and ever

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.”


Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

This is what we do

This is what we do...

when it gets too warm inside, when we wish to feel the crisp air on our noses.

when we want to go for a walk, when we want to see something other than the inside of the fridge.

when we want to feel healthier, when the dog starts to feel restless. 

when the sun is starting to give into twilight, when the warmth seems so far away. 

when we need to feel the harsh winds from the North Sea, when we want to see wildlife. 

when we need to feel small and the weight needs lifted from our shoulders. 

when we are tired from doing nothing,  

 when we need to get out of the house,

when we want another view of the village, 

another view of the things we always see and need,

We get the dog on a leash and taken 'em for a long, long walk.  We come back dirty, rosey in the nosey, happy, and very, very sleepy.

It has all been..

I think 2011 is the year of being an awfully lax and lethargic blogger. There have been, in my defence, many changes. One of which is the fact that I’ve got a new job. It’s very exciting and I love the new challenges involved. I love working with kids and its keeping me busy, very busy!

However it leaves me really tired at the end of the day. Its also a completely different shift pattern-I’ve actually got weekends and evening to myself-something I don’t think I’ve had since I was a teenager! So I should really feel like I’ve got more energy, but for now its something I have to get used to, and my sleepy body is only slowly going that way.
This year has been difficult in places and very, very good in some others. Something that I personally think has been a massive achievement is that I have lost four stone. I wish I kept a better diary of it on here like I said I would do. There is still things I need to get a hold of, so I'm still a bit far away from my original plan of putting up a before and after picture-yup, I was that bad ‘before’. I would ideally like to lose another three stone, but my main goal is to be healthier throughout…maybe I should make it a better and more defined resolution.

Three years ago today

Three years ago today I was woken up bright and early by a text from my fiancé. He told me he loved me and he couldn’t wait for later.

Three years ago today I crept through the hotel suite and woke my best friends. I jumped into the shower and welcomed the beautician and hairdresser. Three years ago today I sat in the middle of the suite feeling very happy and pampered.
My best friends gave me some little presents, first from themselves, and then from my Husband to be.
I was helped to dress and helped down the stairs of the hotel. I was helped into the car and waved to everyone who came to take a peek.

Three years ago today I walked into Church and down the aisle towards the man I love, adore and call The Husband.
When we walked back up the aisle I felt like I could breathe again.

Ode to bloggyness

I love that within this blog I can write about things this family does. I love that it, over time, captures what we’re up to and what’s going on. I like that last year I wrote about wanting to move to the country, and then, by the end of the year we had done so. I love that I was so enthusiastic at this time last year. I saw the dark nights as something to escape into. I wrote so very much, and yet this year….

I haven’t found ‘it’ so far. I'm not particularly looking forward to those snugly dark nights. I didn’t really blog about the Summer, or the Spring, or anything at all. And every so often I think…”well, what would be the point of having a glum blog?”, because nothing seems to have had me very excited.

This seems to have plodded along and I haven’t really done much about this. Sometimes we’ve been up to things and I’ve just not had the time to blog about it, but mostly I haven’t got much done at all. I've plodded along feeling like this and its only now that I look back at last year I see that I'm so different.

 

While I'm finishing up at work-because of the new job-its still quite stressful, and I think that the moment I leave it’ll get better, however why wait until then? That’s like bumping your head first thing in the morning and then being grumpy all day long…well NO more.

The camera is coming out, and I'm finding beauty in everything. It’s that or eternal gloom, so I'm making a stand!

Autumn in the country

Rolling fields and mellow sunlight.  Clear sky and flocking geese.  Autumn is about renewal to me. 

I know that Spring should be that time, but Autumn always seems to bring something new to me.  Its the start of the academic year and i guess I've been institutionalised, but that's not all.  All the animals are busy, they are making ready for Winter and getting their homes cosy.  I'm busy doing the same thing here. 

The big blankets, throws and cushions are all coming out.  Wellies are constantly at the front door, as well as the dogs towel.  The changes in the home are being echoed through-out.  I have got a new job...very exciting!

The environment was previously working in wasn't really any good, so i have finally packed in the part time jobs, in the library and in the shop, and got myself a full time position in a school office.  It means that for the first time in ages I've got weekends to myself...and you know what weekends are going to be packed with shortly?  Christmas Fairs!  Yeah, i think I'm finally heading in the right direction and i couldn't be happier!

Its all a bit different, isn't it?

Can you believe that it’s September already? Where did summer go? I know that I was looking forward to it...

...I know that I was planning some activities and I do remember getting excited about the caravan. I know that work was hard before summer…

...I know that I knew things would have to change for me to be happy, and then summer passed.

Things are slowly in the process of changing. I felt so down about work before our holiday, but seeing my family and having time to think and remember what its like not to be worried or sad about work got me thinking no amount of money could be worth this.

So with renewed vigour I came back and decided to set change in motion.  This summer was a wash-out up this way. We apparently had summer in April, May and early June…then the heavens well and truly opened.

I feel so bad when I think of all the farmers, we’ve been hearing the tractors and trucks go up and down the roads all day and night whenever we’ve been clear of rain for a couple of days. I do hope things have worked out all right for them.

Autumnal sunlight wakes us when its not raining, and its quite nice to take the morning cup of tea out into the garden first thing and wake up in the cold morning, clear and bright, casting the most beautiful shadows over our messy borders.

I look forward to the changes happening, personally and with the seasons. I just keep reminding myself its character building…its character building…