I want...

WHEW!! Happy New Year!!

Muffin, Puppy, and I just spent the last several days disconnected from the world at the ocean and it was a lovely feeling. We spent several days reflecting on our past year and the year to come with no distractions or even any wifi (I DIDN'T EVEN TURN ON MY COMPUTER!!). It was super nice and helped us to recharge and come into this new year with all the excitement and voracity that we could generate. I spent a lot of time reading books about making myself more beautiful from the inside out by eating better, being kind, and understanding other people's needs. It was much needed and very enlightening.

During our off time, I came to recall that I was perusing Facebook the other week in a bit of a sleepy coma. We had spent the day with Molly, laughing, prancing, and eating festive foods. It was a day full of love and delight that was being wound down in my snuggly bed with the puppy nestled between my gorgeous husband and me. In my sleepy haze I found an article that made me a little weepy. It was an article that I immediately had to read to Muffin and share with everyone I could. It is a beautiful article that is encouraging, uplifting, and that stuck with me for weeks.

I prompted me to almost instantly begin a list of things that I want. It is a list filled with things that I want, things I've been craving and searching for for years. Things that I would like to see come beginning this year, this new year. Things that I will push for to make not only my own life better, but that of the people around me that I care so much about. This is a bit of a resolution list, but more of a list of things, tangible changes, that I would like to see in my life. Things that will make my life better and more magical than it already is.


I want for Molly to be comfortable and happy. To not feel alienated or like she has to fight to please or justify her parents. It isn't fair for her to feel embarrassed because she loves her father, mother, or step-parents and I want to cultivate it within her to have the strength to love whomever she wants without having to feel shameful. I want for her and Muffin to build a relationship so strong and beautiful that it cannot be chipped away by anybody. They deserve to have a safe and enriching relationship that will grow into something of trust and happiness as they both get older, and nobody is entitled to try and take that away. Not me, not her friends, and not her maternal family. Nobody.

I want for all the adults in her life to start acting like normal people who can act like the respectable adults she will look up to for guidance on how to act with their loved ones (or even enemies). I want for us to be able to communicate and talk and endeavor to make these two houses fluid and open so that Molly will grow up with more good memories than bad surrounding family. I wish that she grow up to be someone who respects people and knows the right and wrong way to treat people to avoid breaking hearts or disappointment. I don't want for her to grow up thinking she can just ignore issues or spread lies about them to make them disappear. I want for her to be accountable, realistic, and empathetic. All of this so that she could live an abundantly blessed life filled with love and happiness.

But I want her to see some disappointment. Not debilitating disappointment, but just knowing that people don't always need to win and that they can learn something about themselves, other people, and the world by losing. She is smart and that will get her so far in life, so long as she knows how to distinguish between broken and bent. Things can be fixed. Arguments can resolve. And we can move on without having to harbour guilt and shame. It is okay to cry, so long as we pick ourselves back up, forgive, and move on with life. Make decisions that are not going to hurt the people who love you, make decisions that will make you a better person.

I want to be kind. Kinder. Warm and loving even to those who do not offer me the same courtesy. Because those are the people who need it most. I want the people in my life to feel valued and appreciated. Loved. I want to validate feelings and concerns whilst still preserving valuation for my own feelings and needs. Those are just as important, and need to be contained, but not at the expense of other people. It is not my position to alienate or hurt other people, I am not God and cannot punish people. People will be hit by the karma that they are entitled, so I need to love and provide kindness in an effort to realign people who maybe just lost their path.

But I also want to be kinder to myself. My body hurts an indescribable amount pretty much constantly, and I want to find out why and make changes to stop that pain. I want to begin training to run no less than three 5k's in the next year. In that training, I want to begin eating healthier, smarter, and at home more. I want to put things in my body more for fuel rather than to stifle emotions or out of boredom. I want to begin creating a body that I can enjoy and feel proud to live in. I also want to cultivate a healthier mind. I want to focus less on negative shit and more on the abundance of beautiful things I have to smile about. I want to stop taking on the shame that others try to bestow upon me because of their own insecurities or issues and validate my own feelings and needs as often as I can.

I want to let go of the people in my life who seem to not care about having a place in it anymore. I try so hard to make people love me and please everyone. Much of the time, at the expense of my own sanity. I need to let it go, move on, and rebuild without those individuals in my life. Their exit from my life was not my fault and I did everything in my power to keep their position in my world, but their mysterious needs prevailed, and it is not my place to try to change that. Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to one day have them back in my life, and if not, I have so many other beautiful people in my world to keep my soul bright.

I want Muffin to feel secure, in every way possible. I want him to feel secure in his job, his marriage, and his self image. I want for him to see himself through my eyes. Eyes that love him more every single day because of the things I've seen him do, not just with me, but in his life. His history is rich and has made him the person he is today. A person who, like everyone, wants to fix things that they've done or could have done better. He has that ability but it is scary, and I want to be strong enough to help shine a light when he needs it and be his rock when he may only need someone to lean on.

I want to learn to be grateful of the many things we have. To be less petulant and actually appreciate my bounty of stuff. I have limitless love, countless things, and enough. I need to focus on the enough that I have and not need to get more, which has the tendency to lead to disappointment. Muffin and I are getting better, but we really do have a tendency to not budget well and over-spend, leaving us with too much junk and too little money. We always seem to make it through by the kindness of others and some sweet bargains, but I want to do more. I want to live consciously with delight in the things that I have. I literally have eight hundred books on my Kindle. Have I read them all? Nope. Not even an eighth of them. I want to read more voraciously, consume information, and spend more time in worlds crafted by other people's imaginations.

Finally, I want to craft more often. I want to journal, draw, paint, crochet, bake, and generally create. The tail-end of 2014 saw me make a lot of wonderful things, and I want this year to mark the re-ignition of my love affair with crafts. I plan to create things with Muffin, Molly, and anybody else who I can rope into it.

Hopefully, this will be a year of abundance, gorgeousness, and glee. I hope that my days are filled with more happies than sad, and that I can fix some things that are broken. It's as promising as I make it! 

2011: the resolutions

i began the year with no real desire to actually lay out any kind of resolutions for myself, concerned that the uncertainty that i live my life with would hinder me from achieving anything that i would ever be able to set as a promise to myself, but over the last couple of days i have really been feeling like there are things that i want to do. maybe not promise i will absolutely do, but that i would like to try to do, without a fear of failure. i want to go forward with these small promises to myself with an open mind and know that if i don't achieve them, i don't have to be too terribly hard on myself, but really, just be happy that i at least tried.

so, with that in mind, i shall just get on with it. there's not many, but they are things i feel will benefit me greatly in the next year.

bake... i love baking and am feeling more and more lately that i am not THAT great at churning out confections. i don't know why, but i just feel so much like the things i make are very much less than adequate. i want to work on making the things i already know how to make better and learn to be less scared to try new recipes. i have countless books and magazines that are heaving with bookmarks and dog-ears and notes and i want to finally take action on all of those by way of endeavoring to bake something every week.
draw... i love to draw. i didn't know it until last year when i started scribbling on pieces of paper and notebooks. since moving from england i had nearly forgotten that i love to draw and resorted to contacting janey when i thought of something i really wanted to see drawn. it was only just the other day that i realized that i could totally draw. maybe not as well as her, but i can and i should give it a bit more of a shot. so i will!
craft... crocheting, embroidering, casting things in resin. i want to practice as many things crafty as possible.
work out... just to feel like i have some discipline and structure. i've lost that structure in the last few weeks and i need to get i back.
be more positive... i'm finding myself losing the excited little positive bubble that i typically live in. i mean, it's still there, but much smaller and infinitely harder to catch without it bursting. i need to remember to stop and remember all the good little things that are in the situations that could otherwise be seen as horrible.
have more compassion for myself... i'm severely struggling with my self esteem at the moment. i am terribly hard on myself and my personal sanity and relationship are suffering as a result. i need to be less hard on myself. i need to stop passing such harsh judgment over my actions and feelings. i'm allowed to feel and talk and be myself and should have to make myself feel terrible because it doesn't necessarily make everyone happy. sometimes the truth hurts and i need to learn to be more open to the possibility that the things i'm doing or subjecting myself to aren't always worth the pain.
write... letters. blogs. recipes. patterns. anything. i just need to write more.
take photos... today, just this morning i was inspired by this woman's story and the photos that have been discovered since her death. i want to take more photos of the little moments. the ones that i am terrified i might forget. i want to remember as many small things as possible, so i shall attempt to do so.

and reflecting...

so, another year is nearly gone and here i am, with a life completely altered since the original post from below. everything has changed for me since December 30th 2009.


i have make a lot of sweeping shifts in the way i exist and have returned to this post regularly to remind myself that there are things i need to do to make my life better and more memorable in a time when i am liable to forget or lose myself and the important things in my life.


please, see my list of reflections from this last year.

• spend as much time as possible with the important people in my life... i did this and have been doing this in abundance. this particular resolution was originally written with my british favourites in mind, but i have carried this little resolution across the ocean and have been living by it as much as possible, spending time with my family, old friends and new friends alike. i need people in my life right now. wonderful friends that offer me a support they most likely don't know that they do. i love them and look forward to embracing this for several years to come.
• be more open-minded... i have mostly achieved this. i went to gigs i didn't REALLY want to and saw people i was reluctant to at first thought. i seized as many opportunities as i could and am really, unbelievably happy with the amount of memories i have made as a result of it.
• downsize my life...eh. i did a bit. i could have done better, but when it came down to the wire of me packing up my old house i just became terrified and choked. i brought more than i wanted to when i moved out, with some guidance from friends. i tried to be ruthless, but i need these memories and can't wait to get them back as soon as i get a job.
• take really good care of my health... overall, my health is fairly fabulous. i've lost a substantial amount of weight and have been caring for my teeth and mental health very carefully. i can see a difference and i am overall happy with all i have achieved. there's still a lot more to accomplish, but i will and when i do, i will absolutely not regret it.
• finish all my projects! no. this did not happen at all. instead, i started more projects and more lists of things that needed to get done and failed miserably at this resolution.
• save at least £150 a month... again, no. i spent too much time cooking huge meals and baking hundreds of cupcakes and drinking to be able to save much of anything prior to my moving. i'm not awful with money, but i'm also not great.
• get my washing-up done in a more timely manner... oh yes. this is my favourite. i did this like woah. i love doing the dishes and have been incredible at getting all dishes out of the sink within a day about 89% of the time.
• listen to more music... and lots more music! Pow helped with this because he listened to music almost constantly and i have carried that habit over to america and have music playing well more than nine tenths of the day. it's stimulating and inspiring.
• watch more films... like woah. i have watched well over two hundred films since this post, new ones and old ones.
• blog more... well, so far, 127 blogs this year compared to like, 57 last year, so yes. done and done.
• bake more often... good bejesus yes! i bake at least two or three times a week. cookies, bread, cakes, anything and everything.
• be more reliable... overall, yes. i have my lame days, but mostly, i am fairly reliable and feel this year has been a good display of that.
• write people more... i feel i have done this well enough. i tend to get myself wrapped up in little adolescent tizzies where i stop writing people until they write me first and am still practicing this with a couple of people, but overall, i have been fairly consistent at writing people and sticking to it.
• get at LEAST ten more tattoos... ohhh... let's see. ten on the dot, from my estimation. dani filth, kevin's portrait, vagina rose, puffin, cupcake with scissors, tiny cupcake, jewflake, scissorflake, Caribbean Queen and the ducks. that's ten! yay!
• have my stuff picked up from my house for shipment to america by September 12th... yeah, no. well, maybe? my stuff was out of MY house by september 15th, but it's still in england and waiting for me to get a job to send for it. sigh.
• be back on american soil on september 15th **squee**... oh yes. done and done. 

overall, i am satisfied. i feel i've done fairly well. check back later for a new list of resolutions. it should be fun. 

i resolve...

2010... here we are. another year, another series of events that will shape the rest of my life.

this year is going to be massive for me for so, SO many reasons. i am looking onwards toward this year with excitement, fear and love and we are only two days in.

i plan to make some definite resolutions, as a result of the roaring success of last year's resolutions. please see below and enjoy!

• spend as much time as possible with the important people in my life... i am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that i will be leaving soon and i need to make sure that i spend as many hours as possible cuddling all the special people in my life. i have let far too many people slip away in my time here and i hate myself for that. there are clear 'big ones' that i REALLY need to cuddle (janeyface, pow pow, hannah, goncalves, tree, jaacqy, charlie) but i really need to make sure that i pull out all the stops with my love and make sure EVERYONE knows how important they are to me. 
• be more open-minded... like, clearly, i am not THAT closed-minded anyways, but i tend to let myself get carried away if i am hesitant or scared of something. i will more often than not go without rather than go out on a limb... this can pertain to going out to a gig, trying a new food or meeting new people... i need to drop that mentality and REALLY embrace my life. love the things that surround me limitlessly. i need to allow myself to completely seize everything for what it is, a new, exciting experience with the potential to change my life.
• downsize my life... obviously, because i am moving to america in a mere nine months, it is important that i make sure it is as stress-free as possible. originally, i was going to take ALL. MY. STUFF. back with me, but i decided that was probably not for the best... this is for two reasons: cost and ease of moving when the muffin and i shift to wherever it is we do. so, i will be going through my stuff over the next seven months and making sure that i deplete my stocks of crap, wool and clothes. 
• take really good care of my health... in the last three months or so i have really gotten myself together health-wise... my mental health is fairly wonderful and my physical health, while okay, could be better. i want to get a better grasp on my health. i have gotten a taste for what it is like to lose weight and feel better about myself, and i want to feel BETTER, so i want to lose more weight, tone and eat even healthier. i suspect this will be easy enough until i move back to america, so i need to make sure i hold tightest to this one in september.
• finish all my projects! yes, this needs to be done for MULTIPLE reasons... the most important projects are the ones for johnny, which need to be finished by like, the middle of march. other than that, i have like a billion blankets i need to finish, scarves, toys, jumpers... everything. i just need to get it done. on top of these projects, i want to get OTHER projects done that i have been thinking about for a while. essentially, i want to deplete my wool as much as possible before my move. 
• save at least £150 a month... i want to do this for multiple reasons. obviously, the biggie is to aid me in moving back to america, but also, i want to make sure i have enough money saved up by the time i move to allow me to not have to work for a short period. i want to be able to scoot back to america and just take time to relish in the fact that i am back home with my family and friends again. i would ideally like to be able to have a couple of months off when i return, so i can envelope myself in my beast's wedding and then perhaps visit the muffin, but, well, we'll see. 
• get my washing-up done in a more timely manner... oh yes, this is one thing that i struggle with the most. as much as i adore DOING the washing-up, i just never, ever seem to find myself getting around to doing it. now though, in 2010, i plan to ensure i get my dishes done within two days of using them... that's a good timeframe, yes? 

other things i resolve to do in 2010 WITHOUT blurbs:

• listen to more music
• watch more films
• blog more
• bake more often
• be more reliable
• write people more
• remember every, single birthday AND send out cards!
• get at LEAST ten more tattoos
• have my stuff picked up from my house for shipment to america by September 12th. 
• be back on american soil on september 15th **squee**

 and there you have it, a list of things i resolve to do this year. wish me luck! 

New Year and all that jazz...

well, here we are... all a part of this new year, waiting spectators of any doom, gloom or joy that may or may not come our way in the coming 358 days. it is all very exciting and i seem to have been swept up into the whirlwind of excitement.

never have i really felt the need, inclination or desire to set myself a series of resolutions... rules to stick to and feel bad about if i don't end up doing them (as, odds are, i will not end up doing most of them, as i am a bit of a lazy piglet). this year though, i really feel like i need to take hold of my life. not just for myself, but for husband and our lives together.

things between husband and i have been much better. christmas was full of delight and i got several fabulous gifts... they included, but are not limited to a cupcake stand, a sewing box, the most precious glockenspiel ever, some bath sheets, yorkshire pudding tins (which i promptly used on christmas evening to successfully make the best yorkshire puddings ever!), some home made spiced rum, some eraseable gel pens and a sexy star robe, which is the most fluffy, splendid thing ever.

husband, on the other hand, got a stupendous espresso/coffee machine that has turned our house into a starbucks... only better.

all gifts aside, things have really been alright. i have been quite out of sorts lately because i ran out of my medication over christmas and was off of them for two weeks as a result. i am back on them now and everthing is calming down.

anyways, back to the good of our relationship and resolutions... i guess all i can really do now is just get on with them.... here goes!

• become better with money... i have two credit cards. i SHOULDN'T, but i do. i want to get these sorted out. i plan to pay the smaller of the two off entirely and pay at least half of the other off, by the end of the year. not only that, but i want to change my pattern of behaviour which makes me live from paycheck to paycheck. i want to have money left over in my bank account every month.
• cut down on cola products... so then, like many people in the world, i have a cola problem. i usually have one with my breakfast at work, one at lunch and one or two each night when i get home. i am aware this is not good for my teeth OR my general health, so i want to cut back massively. yesterday i started by NOT having a coke with breakfast and only having one to celebrate the beginning of celebrity big brother last night. ideally, i want to cut back to one a day and then from there, just a couple a week.
• sort out my health... and not just physical. i want to get my mental health into a good place as well. obviously, i do want to get myself into a better physical state. i need to hydrate myself more, eat more sensibly, lose some weight... these are all things i am going to do. i also want to look into joining the gym. husband and i could have a stupendous time going to the gym together... i want to lose at least fifty pounds. i know it sounds like a lot, but i am becoming more and more aware of the history of health problems in my family and i really don't want to end up diabetic, blind and osteoperosis-ridden. so, i am going to get my physical health under control along with my mental health.
• crochet more... i REALLY want to crochet more. i have so many projects i have started and not finished or have REALLY wanted to do and just haven't gotten around to. i plan to get on the ball with my crochetting and deplete my wool stock dramatically.
• finish all my started projects... it came to my attention the other day that i have the most stupidly shocking amount of projects just sitting around that need to be finished. at least four blankets, several sheeps, dolls, paintings, collages... i could go on. i just need to get on the ball and finish all this stuff.
• write people more... i realised this year that a lot of people in my life have come and gone, some of which i miss hugely. i am going to make sure i don't lose any more and try to get back into contact with some of the people i have lost. not only that, but i have started hanging out in a community that is generally for pen-pals and stuff, so i have started writing several NEW people as well. i have really fallen off the friend train lately and i need to get back.
• tidy more and better... since chris and i have been together i have have tended to be much less than house-proud, which has really gotten him down because he loves having a tidy house. i do enjoy it, but i enjoy being lazy more, but i want that to change. i want to help him create a place that will make him happy and less embarassed to be in.
  

other things i want to work on, without the blurbs are...

• blog more
• learn to bake the perfect cake... not cupcake... PROPER cake.
• watch more films
• collect more lists
• go out more
• spend more time with husband DOING stuff.
• take more photos
• read more
• BE IN AMERICA FOR CHRISTMAS 2009!

yay!