Two months

As WordPress informs me in their prompt for today, I have now done this every day for two months. They ask how I feel. Worn out! Although to be fair, that is presumably not the fault of blogging but of other stuff going on in my life… 🙂

How has my blog evolved? Well, it started out vague and amorphous, made a brief struggle to find a focus and then reverted to even blobbier vaguer amorphousness. In other words, it struggled, tried valiantly to evolve, gave up and flopped with relief back into the bacterial goop it came from, content to wallow round the blogosphere in its amoeba-like pointlessness for a while longer.

Have my posting strategies changed? Hmm, probably for the worse! When I started I was full of enthusiasm. I made notes, plans, long happy posts in the afternoon. Now it often gets left until last thing at night when I am too tired to say more than argle blargle bluuur mfff.

I had planned to make a backlog of sparkling posts saved in draft form which could be posted on days I lack inspiration, but I never yet found time so it is still a fight against last-minute-itis as with so much in my life.

As for changes I ought to implement, I think going for shorter posts might help. And FutureTom made a helpful suggestion to start some draft posts with a beginning which I can finish on those lacklustre days. I should try that.

What am I most proud of achieving? Well, sticking it out is the obvious response! I’m happy with my stats: 1621 views so far in that two months and 151 comments (although some of those were by me. I’d rather WordPress gave a stat that didn’t include your own comments, the way it doesn’t count your own hits!)

I am also happy my stats have picked back up from the all time low of 6 on Feb 10th to 52 so far today! I suspect I owe that more to joining stuff like the Random Blog Challenge than to my own efforts though.

I was surprised to find that I’m subscribed to 33 blogs too! Reading other blogs has been probably more a part of this foray into the blogosphere than my own contributions in a lot of ways. It has always been the interactivity of the web that appealed, right from the early nineties when I used to go on newsgroups a lot.

There are so many different people blogging from all over the world, I feel like I’m in a global community. People I’d never meet in any other way. It’s a strange kind of relationship, isn’t it? Do we discuss stuff here that we never would in person? I expect so simply because we might never get on to those topics. Even my sister has said she has found out stuff about me from here that she didn’t know! Not private stuff, just things you don’t get round to discussing.

I suppose if we sat together on a long flight we might end up discussing some of the things shared on our blogs, but we might not. Also I love the variety! From what not to crochet to cheese via loads of personal blogs. This post is getting too long to list all the blogs I read, but I shall make a note to post a list soon.

What are your thoughts on the blogosphere, blogging, blog reading?

Not Again

My inspiration and motivation have gone on holiday together and I’m not invited. I feel like I’ve been this way for a long time now, probably because I have! On and off since some time in the middle of January and I can’t believe it’s almost March!

I have thoughts, but they are rarely coherent enough to make a post from, or they would take too much effort or maybe bare just a bit too much soul. Now I’m comparing that to baring too much cleavage or something. I don’t mind sharing, but I don’t want a shockingly low cut blog that distracts readers into trying to spot that bit of metaphorical nipple. Er, I think I took that metaphor a little too far…

This is why it is a bad idea to blog when you’re this tired. I think I’d better stop before it gets too odd! I like odd, but there’s good odd and the kind that makes people back away carefully before they turn and flee screaming.

I want to delete everything I’ve written and start again, but then I’d have that horrible blank page thing again.

Choices, choices… if I delete then who knows if I will write something even worse, or just give up. If I post this crap, well, that is a risk too! I’m not good at choices, not when I’m this tired. I guess I’ll just post it and then I can go to bed 🙂

Please feel free to write a random response, the more random the better! It might make me feel better about my bloggy inadequacy if I get some really bizarre random comments 😀

Busy Crafternoon today

This afternoon I shall be busy crafting dolls house doll clothes, medieval or Viking, with my Mum and a friend. It should be fun 🙂 but I have to get my stuff together and will be too busy to blog later, so I am doing a short one now. They will probably make more normal doll outfits, but not me 🙂

If I make anything worth sharing I’ll post a pic some time.

Have a nice Saturday! Do you have any fun plans?

Pivotal Moments

A choice that affects the course of your life need not be profound. That question whose answer will determine the ultimate course of your life might be quite unexpected. Like, you missed the bus – do you give up, go home and do the field trip next year instead or catch the train at your own expense to get there?

I got it wrong. I caught the train.

Or did I?

I mean, I know I caught the train, but was it really the wrong choice?

I guess I’d better back up a little and fill in some blanks. This is back when I was a healthy undergrad doing Geology. I missed the bus because I had misjudged my packing and had way too much stuff in enormous bags, but I was just in time if the bus had been where we were told it would be.

If I had gone looking for the bus, I might have found it, but instead I went to the department to ask and by the time I had done that it had gone. Not impressed! And that’s when I get asked possibly the most important question of my life. Upset, puffed out, hot and bothered, trying to make a good impression, not wanting to let my parents down.

The train didn’t even go until the next day, and I had given back the key to my room, so I had to sleep on a pile of old fur coats in a cupboard under the student union building! Three trains later I got there a day late, having missed the basic instructions, I did not do well. Also I sprained my ankle and got tennis elbow from carrying the heavy bags.

I also managed to scare off my friend by collecting scary skulls. I got a really cool ram with horns and a deer with antlers. The ram still had fur on. I think she was a bit freaked out.

I was in a group of 3. We had to measure rocks and make a geological map. My friend and I were not very good at it, but the other girl got the top mark of the whole group, so there was nothing wrong with our measurements, just our interpretation of them. We got the worst marks of the whole group 😦

My friend swapped to Archaeology at the end of that year.

That ankle never got better. Nor did the elbow really.

If I had not gone, I would have stayed friends with her and switched to Archaeology, which I would have been better at as it has less maths. I would not have wrecked two of my joints. Even had I not switched courses, it would not have been so bad going in my second year.

It is entirely possible I would not have got arthritis at all and my life would be totally different.

But would I be a runologist?

Would I have lived for half a year in Norway?

Would I now be stuck in a dead end job I hated?

I can’t know whether my life would have been better, worse or pretty similar.

Only God knows that.

Who would have thought such a decision would have the potential to alter my life so much? Not me for sure.

We give a lot of thought to the decisions we know will affect the course of our lives. Of course, if I had picked Archaeology in the first place, things would be different too. But how can we know when such a minor thing will be such a butterfly wing?

I don’t know how useful it is to ponder such things. I am not at all sure it is helpful at all. What do you think?

Blogging when you don’t want to

Why do we do it? Why every day? What is going to happen if I miss a day? I’m not getting paid for it; there are no Daily Blog Police to come round and arrest me if I miss a post; there is no prize for managing to post every single day for a whole year (is there? Seriously, is there? :D)

It’s not even as bad as missing brushing your teeth! Or is it? Do you grow a furry scum round your brain overnight and have to go get cavities in your mind filled by a scary person brandishing a whiny drill?

I’m stubborn. Those of my lovely readers who know me in person will not faint with amazement at this revelation. It is one of my major defining qualities, which I prefer to call determination, but at heart I know that stubbornness is the more appropriate term. So that’s the main reason why I plug away at this, day after day, even when I am not in the mood or am too tired to write a proper post.

Maybe I should give myself a break and switch to PostAWeek, but that would feel like giving up, admitting defeat. I don’t want to be defeated by a little blog! It’s not as if I have committed to being profound every day! (Or even ever…)

A hard lesson I have continually failed to learn through life is when to quit. Starting with my A-levels, when I was doing one more than I needed, and lost the thread of Maths totally when we got to algebraic long division. Things I should have done include:

1) admit that I had forgotten how to do simple long division (I felt like such an idiot! That was something we had learned back in Junior School and here I was unable to do it! But I had used a calculator for years, so hadn’t needed it. There was no real shame in admitting it, but it felt like there was. I should at least have asked my Mum for help!)

2) failing that, drop out of the class so I could have more time for other subjects, or bumming around.

Instead, I tried to discover just how small I could make my notes. It turns out I can write such tiny writing that I can get five lines of writing on one ruled line of normal lined paper! Also I looked out of the window at the trees and chatted to my friend. Calculus was not going to happen.

When my results came through, I was more chuffed with my grade C for Physics than either of my other two better grades, because I had managed it with almost no mathematical ability.

But I didn’t learn from that when it is time to quit!

Both in my studies and in my hobbies I have this stubborn streak a mile wide that stops me quitting even when I need to. I am not sure how you tell when to quit, before the faecal matter hits the rotating aeration device!

If you know, please share.

Too tired to blog

So the title says it all really. I can barely string a sentence together. Time for bed and sleeeep zzzzzzzzzz.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Refuge

God is my Strength and Refuge

Detail from above the entrance to Gol stavechurch, now in Oslo.

That’s my most obvious choice for this topic, representing both my faith and my love of stavechurches. I wrote about this one earlier 🙂

On the Edge

This little cave is at Curbar Edge in Derbyshire.

Also in Derbyshire, also blogged about in an earlier post, Scarthin Books, one of my favourite refuges. This shot represents both the shop itself, a nice warm shelter from the weather, its cafe a pleasant spot to recharge after a stroll and the refuge to be found within the pages of a good book.

Book Refuge

This nook is a good place to hide. I have more photos which could fit this theme, but I think that’s enough for today.

The Plastic-Bag Nesting Dog-Poo Bird

I have begun to notice the nests of this peculiar creature as I perambulate the countryside. It seems to like nesting in bushes, choosing a range of different colour nesting materials, but always favouring the neatly tied plastic bag. Some prefer the bag to be sufficiently thin and translucent that the eggs may be observed without disturbing them by opening the bag.

The Bush-Nesting Egg-Watching Dog-Poo Bird

Others are more secretive in nature, favouring the opaque nest.

The Bush-Nesting Secretive Dog-Poo Bird

Other species seem to prefer crevices in rocks, such as dry stone walls.

The Secretive Wall-Nesting Poo-Bird

If a crevice is unavailable, they may huddle beside a solitary rock, half buried in the soil.

The Frustrated Wall-Nester

How much better it would be if these were indeed the natural life-cycle processes of relatively innocuous, if rather unpleasantly named, little birds. Why can’t dog owners realise that this does not count!

OK the poo is in a bag. Big Deal! If you don’t actually put it in a bin as well, it lingers like this for goodness knows how long, prevented from biodegrading back into the soil, festering foully.

If you can be bothered to put the thing in a bag, why stop there? The little nests of the dog-poo bird are not pretty little adornments of the countryside, they are ugly pollution! Please put them in the bin where they belong.

The Ideal Home for the Dog-Poo Bird, a few hundred yards, if that, away from the Frustrated Wall-Nest. Poor little bird, it was so near, yet so far from where it would have been happiest.

I have never observed the birds laying these little brown eggs. I believe them to be secretive creatures, who might be shamed into finding a better home for their eggs were they to be noticed.

Have you seen any?

I feel like this

Spinning Tunnel

At least there is light at the end of the spinning tunnel…

My help comes from the Lord, He will not let my foot slip. Psalm 121.

I will make it to the end of the tunnel. One tiny step at a time, with rests.

A Tribute to Cinnamon Cat

Last year I lost my beloved cat, Cinnamon. Writing this will make me cry, even though I have a new cat who I love dearly. Here is a pic of Cinnamon, sunning herself in the garden.

Cinnamon in the sun

She loved the garden. For most of her life she was an indoor cat, so it was nice for her to spend her last few years in a home where the garden was safely enclosed.

We got her from the RSPCA, where she had had kittens. She had been a stray, found roaming, pregnant and nameless. When we went to choose a cat, she was the one who always came running up to the bars in her cage when I called her, even if she had been outside in the run. She rubbed herself on my fingers between the bars. She came home with me (and my ex).

She always came when I called (except if I tried to demonstrate this to visitors 🙂 of course). She liked to sit near me, but was never a lap cat. She never liked to be picked up and would wriggle and struggle. It was years before she would let me rub her tummy, but when she discovered how nice that was, she wanted it twenty times a day.

Tummy rubs

But only for ten minutes max! Sometimes she would have her ten minute cuddle, get up, stretch, turn around and settle down for another ten minutes, occasionally three times 🙂 but I could count on one hand the few times she fell asleep and had a longer cuddle.

She had a delicate digestion. It was a rare month which did not involve at least one small pile of reconstituted cat biscuits, or a hairball. I could recognise that sound at 100 paces! You know, the one with that posture which means imminent regurgitation. I have no photos of that! It was just enough early warning for me to make sure she was not on anything too uncleanable. As long as I was in of course…

I had to have her teeth removed. That upset me, but what can you do? I had switched her diet to the crunchy biscuits as advised by my vet – how was he to know she would just swallow them whole? At least I didn’t have to change her diet after the op. And how did I know? See the previous paragraph!

It also didn’t stop her hunting and eating moths, butterflies, daddy long legs and other bugs, which was very helpful of her. She also killed spiders, those horrid brown ones with long gangly legs that move so fast it’s as if they’ve teleported. I used to be plagued with those. She wouldn’t eat them though.

She hated her feet being touched, which was a shame as I love cat feet 🙂 although she sometimes tolerated it in her last couple of years. She would always want to sit on my right side, so if she came and asked for cuddles, I would have to rearrange myself to make a space for her.

Beautiful Cinnamon

I loved her so much and she loved me. She had to have pills for the last few years of her life, for hyperthyroidism. These were small round pills with, for some stupid reason, a pink sugar coating which she, and most other cats, found objectionable. Why they could not use fish flavour coating is beyond me! I tried disguising them in various kinds of food, but eventually realised that the best way was just to grab her and shove it down her throat, which she graciously allowed me to do, out of love.

Them last December, she started getting very thin. She was already thin from the hyperthyroid, but this was worse. She was getting kidney failure. That meant more pills, special food, frequent blood tests and more weight loss unless she felt like a bag of bones. She stayed with me for half a year, slowly dying. She still had enough quality of life to keep her going. Cuddles, the garden. But it was so hard for me. I wrote this poem:

Bright Shadow Fading

Bright shadow,

You are leaving me

Slowly, gradually, painfully.

Don’t go!

Eyes glow huge

Polished pebbles

Looking into mine

Leaking love.

Warm fur

Eternal purr

Not today

But sometime soon.

I know.

Each night I fall asleep

Unsure if you’ll still be here when I wake.

Each morning I wake with joy to find you still with me

Wanting love, sharing love.

How long can I bear this?

As long as it takes.

Eventually the end came, more suddenly that I had been expecting. I had to have her put down, which was seriously the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I still feel like I killed her, even though I know it was for the best. She died in my arms, trusting me. I held her eyes closed and they stayed closed. The vet had said they would be open, but they stayed shut.

Oh, I am in floods as I write this. I knew I would be. My new cat came up to me and meowed for cuddles, knowing I was upset. She is lovely, I will post about her soon.

I buried Cinnamon in the garden, under the catmint. I’ve hardly been in the garden since. I’m going to have to face it soon.

She was a little furry angel, lent to me by God her Creator and now back with Him.

Thank You, God, for Cinnamon.

Cinnamon