Being My True Self

Starting today I take 100% responsibility for my PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.....

Today I REJOICE and prepare for the NEW..... 

I am LETTING go of what HURTS and I welcome in what's RIGHT.....

From NOW on MY life will be SIMPLE.....

Wednesday Yarn Along

Morning fellow bloggers,

I really enjoy this time of day, after all the hustle and bustle of the morning rush and dropping the monkey's off at school.

Especially when it looks like this outside. It's very wet and windy out there today.

So coming home to cuddle up on the sofa with a lovely hot mug of tea, my knitting and journal is an absolute pleasure.

So while its blowing a gale outside and the monkey's are at school I'm joining Ginny over at Small Things for Wednesday Yarn Along.

31 day's or 744 Hours

I was sat in my car earlier, knitting, waiting for Flynn to come out of school, it was pouring with rain (again), Taylor Swift was playing quietly. I was thinking about the weekend and how Lily and I were going to spend our boy free time. Then it dawned on me not only were the weekends coming around super fast but today was the last day of month one, The month of new beginnings.

January!

And now let us welcome the New Year

full of things that that have never been.

                                       Rainer Maria Rilke

That's 31 days or 744 hours of my life over.

Did I make the most of them.?

Did I live in the moments, and not in the past or in the future?

I'm not sure that I did.

I do believe that life around here, especial my life is lived very haphazardly. It's not that I'm really busy, I'm probably one of the luckiest ladies in the world when it comes to free time. I don't work, I don't have a husband, and I live in a new house that doesn't really get that dirty. However I can not help but think that the house is a reflection of how my days are passing it's pretty chaotic around here, it's rather untidy and nothing seems to be very organised. I was always such a tidy person almost to the point of having OCD before my life was turned upside down. Now one day just seems to merge into the next. Hours, days, weeks just seem to happen. 

Then this happens, I have one small moment when I remember to stop, I mean really stop and take a deep breath and it's then I realize another 31 new beginnings have passed and I can barely remember any of what has happened in these passed days. 

So I need to change, I want to change. 

I want to start living consciously, being awake with intention. 

Being mindful every day.

I'm not sure how I'm going to do this, so if anyone is reading this and has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Anyway I'm going to do this and it starts tomorrow.

This weekend I'm going to make the moments count.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend

Joanne x

Welcome

Hello I just wanted to say a very warm welcome to you all 

and a big thank you for all the lovely comments left on my Grow Your Blog post.

I do hope that you will come and visit often.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

Joanne x

GROW YOUR BLOG !

Blogland,

What a wonderful place to spend hours floating around in the lives

 of some of the most talented and gifted people. 

There's so much colour and creativity.

I've spent many hours drinking tea and entering the homes

of these lovely people.

For me this year is all about the journey not the destination, and new beginnings.

I wanted to record this new and exciting journey.

I keep a personal journal where I write pages and pages of my deepest feelings and emotions.

However, I don't know about you but I find that life is racing by and it's amazing that all the

stuff that happened last week quickly becomes the past and all the little things that are said and done

get lost somewhere out there so I wanted to record the lighter moments of my journey.

so here I am my own little space in blogland.

This is probably your first visit to my blog,

so why don't I tell you a little bit about myself and a little of what I'll be blogging about.

Hi, I'm Joanne, a forty something, single parent of three,

 living with the ups and downs of Bi-Polar disorder.

 The four of us live in modest home, in a small town in the beautiful county of Somerset.

I (We) love to create.

Knitting, Cross Stitch, Sewing, Card making, Scrap Booking, Baking, Photography

 you name it I've probably had a go at it.

Just today I took a crash course in crochet and am doing a more in-depth course on Sunday.

I also loving spending time in the garden, this is a fairly new pass time. 

I spent the summer last year learning all about gardening

 and giving my garden a make over.

The garden at the start of the Summer

Progress

Next stage

All done

Life's roller coaster can be rough around here at times, when I 

 was diagnosed with Bi-Polar two years ago 

it did give us some answers to why life had been so up and down, 

 this has played a big part in the separation of myself and the children's dad.

 so I may on occasions have a little rant about it

but like I said before I've started this blog to 

record the lighter moments of my (our) journey

I love spending quality time with my little monkeys.

We love to go bowling, catch the latest movie at the cinema, 

take a walk around the gardens at Stourhead or take a wind swept walk along the beach

 or may be it will be spent filling the pages 

of family scrap book.

(Tallon, Lily &Flynn)

So there you go that's me

I hope you enjoyed your visit and will come back soon.

 Joanne x

Yarn along

~ Two of my favourite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.  I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us! ~ Ginny 

This is my first week to join Ginny and lots of others for the Wednesday Yarn along

 The aim is to share what you are knitting and what you are reading.

On my needles is the start of a dress for a knitting toy I've made and I am reading Simple Abundance. 

There's an entry for each day of the year but I love to just dip in and out of it, it's always on the bedside table or on the table downstairs with my knitting.

Gratitude 22/365

Today I'm grateful for,

For the beautiful sunny afternoon,

Enjoying a cup of tea sat outside,

All the green shoots coming up in the garden,

Spending the day with Tallon and Lily (inset day),

Enjoying a peaceful evening of blogging and knitting.

Confessions

Blogger it has been a week since my last confession post.

It hasn't been the greatest week lots of emotional downs. I believe that the lows felt worse than they have done before because it felt like such a fall after having such a good week the week before.

This is partly down to the break up of my marriage and partly down to living with Bi-Polar

of which I was diagnosed as having two years ago.

When living with Bi-Polar your behaviour can be so irrational that building good relationships with colleagues, friends, and families can be hard. However rebuilding them is so much harder, you can do so much damage to these relationships during your highs and lows. Real friends are always there for you but unfortunately it is just to much for others, they just find it to hard to live through it with you. It's not surprising really considering some of the behaviour that can accompany this disease.

You can feel very lonely and very out of control at times. I tend to hurt and push the people I love the most away rather than ask them for help. This weekend was one of those times. So much damage can be done in a very short time.

However, I have been to see the Mental Health team at the local hospital today and I'm going to have a review of my meds and hopefully get into talking therapies as soon as possible.

Right that's enough of that

Here's a selection of photo's from one of my favourite places. I love to walk  around these gardens whatever the weather.

Gratitude 21/365

Today I'm grateful for,

The chance to wake up and enjoy another day,
For the love of my children,
For good friends
For new friends 

Joanne x