Oh Happy Days

Exactly 69 days ago, I joined an online challenge called 100 Happy Days. From what I remember about reading the 'blurb' when I googled it, the idea is simply to photograph and publish (via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram) a photo a day for 100 days depicting something that makes you happy. According to the blurb, 71% of people who embark on the challenge, do not complete it, and state lack of time as the culprit. Who doesn't have time to be happy? 

These were the apparent benefits of completing the challenge....

I now declare to you good people that I have LOVED this daily routine. Even on a day when I've thought I could find nothing that made me happy, not a jot, I've been forced to look hard, saviour the small stuff, and find happiness all around me. It might be a physical reminder of time spent with my daughter making paper hearts....

Or that my other daughter made my lunch that day.....

Every day can contain happiness. If you look for it. Here's a few of my 69 days....

Finding Spring has sprung.....

Watching TV on the bed with my Monkey

Stopping for cake and tea in the Church coffee bar and feeling the sun

Making a bag out of long forgotten Granny squares

Or trying in silly hats with a real true friend and laughing till I it hurt a bit

When my 100 days are over....I'm gonna start another 100

Look Into My Eyes

I wouldn't very much like to meet a mind reader. I'm not sure I'd like them to 'hear' the disjointed ramblings that course through my head during the minutes of the day....

Do you ever wonder....if you started digging a hole beneath your feet at home, and could keep on digging, right through the centre of the earth and out the other side....who is sharing the exact spot of the earth underneath your feet? Maybe its ocean and there lives a menacing sharp toothed shark. Maybe there's a woman, swaddling her baby every night just as you're getting up and popping the kettle on. Is she happy? I'm sure, that if I was a bit cleverer and had some patience, I could find out what was right below my feet when I'm layering up a vegetable lasagne. There's coordinates and google earth and all that jazz. If there lived a lady, underneath, I'd write to her. I'd tell her about my life and my day and my family and my routine....and when I slammed a door or jumped up and down, I'd think of her and wonder if she heard it or felt a little shuddering. 

It's pretty special to think you actually HAVE a little piece of the earth. Just for a while mind. My patch of the world pulls me, I gravitate to home.

Do you ever look at a cooling bath full of water whilst you're wrapping your hair in a towel, and suddenly feel so very wasteful and lucky. Maybe 'underneath', someone is walking a long long way for the luxury of water to drink, and mine is gurgling down the plug hole with the remnants of a Henna Conditioner and some fancy sugar body scrub I got for Christmas.

Think about the hours and days and months collectively spent beautifying our homes, plumping cushions and dusting treasures....all for the pleasure on the eye. What perhaps more meaningful pursuits would we endeavour to conquer if we had no sight, just touch and smell and sound and love.

Messing With The Witches Brew

Sometimes, you need to be your own best friend. You know? You're the only one sitting within your head, and really you're the only one capable of making a change, of understanding....and a good look in the mirror is needed, and a strict talking to.

I have done this.

For 12 years, I've had a bit if an issue with January. It's not the sweetest of months for most of us is it! Along with the post Christmas blues, and the drained finances, the skies are dark, the rain persists.....

....and we are forced to settle back in to life without mince pies and Nat King Cole. 

January for me, also brings the anniversary of the very saddest day of my life. Understandably, in the early days, the date would approach and I'd be consumed with memories and sadness, and dread the date. The date would arrive and I'd be inconsolable, and then it would pass and the weight would be somewhat lifted for another 11 months. January was a looming storm for me always since then. 

I'd tell people....."oh I'm no good in January"....."I'm best left alone in January", and then I wondered if in fact I was talking myself in to these feelings of glum. Perhaps I was conjuring up stormy skies and howling winds and terrible black days with my witches wand.....adding long ago memories and hurt to the cauldron with a splash of tears and a dollop of grief, stirring the pot and convincing the world and myself that nothing but bad and evil would be derived from my concoction.

So I had a word. I decided to be my own best friend, and throw a different perspective on this 'thing'. I didn't have to make it this way. I could find good things to do in January, I could find a reason to be thankful and excited. I could busy myself, so that there was no time for spell making and cauldron stirring. 

I've made moves on a few things.....

I hopped on the #crochetmoodblanket2014 bandwagon, and I'm making a crocheted square a day for the whole of 2014.....

....colour according to mood, and it's good therapy! 

I went wool shopping, drew up a colour mood chart in a new notebook....

....(a new notebook is happiness in itself), trying to incorporate all the moods in my moody spectrum. 

Every night, I have to evaluate my day, decide what my overriding mood was, and although my family teased that it would be dominated by black, I've yet to stitch a black day! 

This is good! It's rhythmic, it's calming, and it's reflective. I like it.

I'm also attempting to complete a '100 Happy Days' project, photographing something that made me happy and sharing it on Instagram every day for 100 days. 

I struggled a little yesterday, but then realised there was happiness all around me. Just being home makes me happy...

Time spent with my eldest daughter...

Walking in new shoes....

Reading in the evening...

Hand written letters....

Time to bake bread....

It again is reflective, it's a focus on positives, not on the rolling clouds of thunder and doom.

So in summary, I'm really good! This is the sweetest January I've known in a very long time. I know the date I've loathed is approaching, and that's ok. I don't HAVE to follow the traditions I manufactured all by myself....I can make new ones. It just takes a little effort, and thought, and planning, and perspective. It's January. I am happy! 

And I remember, as always, my son Elliot. 

Put On The Red Light?

I, Josephine......am avoiding ironing the school uniform needed for tomorrow morning. I already know that in an hour, I will decide that I'll get up a bit earlier in the morning and do it then, and that I will then also snooze my alarm and get up at the very last minute, moaning and a grumbling about the ironing. I might try to talk man into doing it tonight, as some kind of balancing of the partnership scales, because I made him a lovely dinner and I always take the bins out....and give him his due, he'll happily agree, and then forget. Oh how I love traditions.

Lets talk about morning alarms shall we, now it's been mentioned? I set my phone alarm instead of an alarm clock....like a lot of people I guess, as it charges overnight next to the bed, fully ready for Instagram feed checks and weather reports in the morning. I've tried out the usual pre-programmed noises....a gribbitting frog, a car horn, a cheesy guitar riff, and they all infuriate me! Then my phone allowed me to use a music track that I had stored within its brain as an alarm. I'd had to clear 90% of my stored music to allow the update that made this possible, and the only album I had left was Sting and The Police. Every morning, Roxanne would wake me up. It was dark, it was cold, and the day threatened routine and work, and so I began to truly resent Roxanne....I mean I really developed an issue with this woman. There's no slow introduction to her, she just bolshes in without warning. Does she not have to put on that red light??? Really? Cos I've got to put on MY light, and get my arse out of bed and let the cat in, let the dog out, feed the cat, let the dog back in, feed the dog, get the rugrats up, make the tea....ETCETERA!!! And I like Sting! I saw him at the Isle Of Wight Festival when I was a smouldering single 27 year old......I closed my eyes when he sang 'So Lonely' and let the vodka and his voice carry me off. This Roxanne was getting right in the way and totally ruining a perfectly good memory! 

I had to let Roxanne go. We'd been friends, and I wanted to still smile when I heard her name. This alarm was endangering our relationship.

She's been relegated in favour of 'Every Breath You Take'. 6:20am..... I'll be watching you.....

On A Countdown

It has been a beautiful Autumn don't you think? I know we can all be guilty of having a good grumble and moan......  "oooo hasn't it turned cold", but it is a glorious sight for the eyes with its almost unnatural vibrant colours. I have however had a bit of a panic set in when I realised that there is one more payday before Father Christmas visits! My fabulous daughter, Emily Monkey Socks, installed a fabulous app on my phone (said with a dose of sarcasm) about 2 months ago, which kindly ticks down the days, hours, minutes and seconds till Christmas. I think we started off at 118 days. I hate to break it to you, but this is today's reading.......

It is my very favourite time of year. This year, I have vowed to buy from small independent businesses and to support the little man rather than the multimillionaire monopolies....so please leave me a link to websites if loveliness if you have any to recommend. I just purchased this beautiful brooch from Hens Teeth....

It is completely beautiful and I'd quite like to keep it for myself.

I've also purchased a couple of these from Tilly Designs

What have you been planning???

And something else that's been going on at Chez Josephine, is a spot more patchwork obsession of the wallpaper variety. Yep. Had to do another wall. Couldn't help it. I hit the bathroom because it's tiny and hopefully isn't too overwhelming.

I love this little chap who flies just above my toothbrush holder!

I also hit the inside of my rather rickety bathroom cupboard, nailed together by the previous occupant. This is a before.....

And this is the after....

I used paper napkins to cover the inside of the doors, and although I don't like the overlap effect, I much prefer it to the before. And that is it for any revamping pre-Santa. We decorated in December last year, and I'm still not fully recovered! 

Enjoy Autum lovely friends x

It Won't Fit The Kitchen Sink In.....

It seems like a bit of an age since I made it on here. Last week we were both off work for half term with the girls, and ended up having rather a roller coaster ride. Of course, I had planned one of those idyllic weeks that just never come to fruition. You know the kind.....where you imagine yourself with a bluebird on your shoulder whilst you bake a pie, with the sweet smell of fresh laundry lingering in your home, the sound of loving laughter from your children who are playing monopoly together, hot tea by a roaring fire.....get the idea? This did not happen. No. Man went fishing and dragged home lots of wet smelly fishing stuff, the girls are 11 and 15 and not speaking to each other, and the dog got ill, really really emergency surgery kind of ill. The Moo is absolutely fine thank goodness, and that is the most important thing. I didn't realise quite how much I loved her and all her muddy paw prints until I nearly lost her.

What I did achieve, was this.

I made an actual bag! 

I have wanted to try patchwork for forever! It looked a bit intricate, and like precision and patience was pretty important, and I was unsure just where to start. I met with my cousin and my sewing friend, and we talked it through.....

It ended up being not as scary as I thought, and so I went home, gathered up my favourite pieces of fabric, and I made a template.

I think the thing I found most difficult, was getting the fabric neatly folded around the paper templates. I'm sure that this would quickly become much easier with practise.

When my panel was complete, I started to contemplate what it should be. A cushion? Should I keep adding and try out a quilt? A bag? I wanted a small project really so that I could make my mistakes and learn my lessons, and not attempt something too big and get cross and out myself off. I settled on a bag, and spent a while admiring my tiny stitchery, and planning how I would line it, and working up to getting the sewing machine out.

I'm so SO pleased with ow it turned out, as needle and thread is not in my comfort zone, and I didn't quite believe I'd manage anything as well as this as an impatient novice. So the sewing machine and I have started to get to know each other, and The Moo is fighting fit and back on doggy form....so all in all, a terrifically rollercoastery week!