Pic from Ikea

What I Did Today

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I went to Ikea, is what I did today.

Pic from Ikea

I bought a few things.

On that cart are various bits and pieces, table tops and legs, chairs and storage to be turned into my ‘studio’.

I put studio in quotes because it isn’t going to be an actual room in the house, but an area of our dining room, against our back wall, which is glass and looks out over our back garden.

Our dining table will have to move just a tiny bit out and down (it’s hard to explain) but I have measure twice and shopped once (heh) and I’m sure it will all fit!

So tomorrow the nice Ikea delivery people will be bringing the table top, the legs, two storage units (Kallax, 4 cubes each) and a new comfy chair (in deep pink!) and I shall turn that end of our dining room into my studio.

I’ll still probably knit sitting on the sofa. And I definitely still use our dining table for laying out patterns.

But I soon will have 200cm long and 60 cm wide for my sewing machine and my yarn winder and really? Anything else that strikes my fancy.

More pictures when it’s done!

Introvert

ARGH!

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For the last time; being an introvert is not the same as being anti-social.

I like it in here. It’s quiet and I can still drink my tea.

I am an introvert.

I am very social.

But when I’m done being social I need to lie down in a dark room for awhile.

Or at least sit on the sofa with Simon on the other side of the room while I type furiously and he plays XBox.

Introvert: Someone who needs quiet to recharge their batteries.

Extrovert: Someone who needs to be social to recharge their batteries.

So stop saying ‘I can’t be an introvert, I love being social. But then I do need to have some quiet time.’

That is an introvert you big doily!

 

I’m warning you now…

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I am about to start messing with this site.

I am bringing together all my knitting, design, blogs, social media etc etc under one brand design.

Starting with this site. This site will become the Tee The Brand (heh, anyone see The Apprentice?).

There will even be a small shop here along with the Etsy one.

Did you know there was an Etsy one?

Knitted By A Tee

So stick around. See what’s coming.

It’s going to be an interesting ride…

Living The Road Not Taken

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I was currently on holiday in Northern California. My brother has lived there for over 20 years and my sister in law, Simon’s sister, moved there late last year.

I also lived there for about 10 years and was living there when I met Simon and moved to Belfast.

When I emigrated, the hard part wasn’t leaving my country, it was leaving my family. My oldest niece was three, her sister just a baby, and I had been a part of their lives since they were born. I more or less saw them everyday. In fact, it was the elder who named me Tee!

And then I was 5,000 miles away.

And now the three year old is 15 and taller than me and the baby is 12 and my height.

And every two years or so I get to experience the road not taken as I come to visit with my family and my mom hires us a house (with her and my step dad) and for a week or two I’m a local.

This year the house is right around the corner from theirs and so there has been a lot of tooing and froing and friends of nieces’ to be fed and engaged with.

And things like this text conversation between the eldest, her mom, her dad and me, as she was coming to our house for dinner after Ballet:

 

conversation

 

Do I have regrets? A few.

I would love to be part of more text messages like that. Having my nieces, either, both, I don’t care, over for dinner because Mom and Dad are out. Have them over after school because they don’t feel like going home and have a key. Have them babysit Adam occasionally, pick him up from school, maybe, on their way to mine.

Have monthly or so R and Tee days and S and Tee days rather than every two years.

And have, as my brother said, our kids know each other rather than know of each other.

As I was hugging her good-bye, our typical so long, don’t want to let go hug, my niece said ‘Are you sure you don’t want to move back?’

She knows the answer, really. It’s not a want. It’s a fact. We can’t afford the Bay Area. And our lives are here in Belfast.

For the first time I was missing my Belfast friends almost as much as I miss my family when I was there. Adam’s mates mum’s were putting all sorts of things up on Facebook and I was sad he missed A’s birthday and the Superhero day at the park and all that.

Even though I ache to see more of this:

Sara and AdamI made my choice 12 years ago.

And I’m usually  okay with it.

 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KnittedByATee

The Winter of My Disconnect…(Too good to pass up. Sorry. Not sorry.)

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About two months ago I suddenly realized I had no idea what I’d been doing all winter. I mean, my son was alive and happy, my husband likewise, and there were a few knitting bits around. But I remembered very little of it. I had been black in the Land Of The Black Dog and didn’t even realize it.

It had, indeed, been the winter of my disconnect. I can remember days, weeks even, of seeming to be looking out of my own eyes. Of being someone else inside me, watching me go through my life.

When I finally ‘confessed’ to Simon, he said he knew something was wrong. That I had spent whole weekends in bed, asleep. He didn’t say anything because he knows me and knows I would deny it, even bury it, until I was ready to say ‘It’s bad again.’

So I saw a GP at our practice and we switched me to a new medicine that worked for a bit. And then didn’t. And then I saw another GP and actually had an anxiety attack right in front of him and he switched me again. This time to Venlafaxine. Which has not only helped my anxiety, it’s helped my fibro.

To the point that I am nearly pain free. I am still tired a lot and my brain is constantly leaking out of my ears, but I can deal with that so long as I’m not in pain!

I mean, I still have pain. I’m not cured or anything. But I am so much better.

So…what have I been doing?

This:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KnittedByATee

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KnittedByATee

Yup, I launched my shop. And immediately had two custom orders with a third happening soon.

I also sold one item from the shop directly.

I’ve also been doing this:

Yes. That’s a sewing machine. I’ve got the two Great British Sewing Bee books and I’ve started sewing from a pattern. My first shirt is nearly done and I am so chuffed with myself!

So I am feeling more connected to my life and my husband and my son and my craft. I’m imagining studio space through out my house as the dining room table is a bit inconvenient.

And, as the icing on the cake? In one week from tomorrow? I’ll be in Berkeley loving on my first two babies.

I may acknowledge their parents and my parents as well. 😀

Creating Community

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As I’ve pulled myself out of my winter of illness (and discontent) (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.) I’ve taken a deep breathe and looked around at my life.

And discovered that I suddenly have several groups of really good women friends.

Some of them are actually local to me, such as Adam’s friend’s mums. As was remarked upon at Sports Day last week, it really is awesome the way we all clicked at the pre-school gate. We’ve been hanging, helping, drinking, coffeeing and cheering each other and our kids on ever since.

Then there are two of my ‘left-over from Mumsnet’ local friends. One is also a client and great at giving me advice about what to wear, since she’s a fashion blogger. The other is my craft enabler who took me to buy my sewing machine a few weeks ago.

Then I have my online communities.

There is, forever and always, the hussies. We don’t talk as often as we used to, but we are still connected in various ways. And we all know if we vaugebook something? The rest will coming running to find out if we’re okay.

Then there’s a newer group, also acquired through Mumsnet, who are on a Facebook group now. We don’t talk all the time, but we are there for each other.

There’s the new group, as part of Jump! Parents. We are creating a lovely Facebook community of parents there as well. And I’m writing for the site, just as I’ve written for Jump! Mag. We have good discussions about parenting. And Ikea. And sometimes other stuff.

Finally there’s my best online friends, of which there is a group of four of us. We met on Mumsnet, carried on over at Twitter and Facebook. They are really the ones I wish lived down the street. That would be hard, as one of them lives in Greece, but we are talking about creating a commune at some point. 😀

Borrowed from http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-beach-homes-blue-sky-background-image614913

Our future homes. Really.

And altogether, they make my community. Maybe I can’t ring most of them for a cup of sugar or a quick coffee meet or child pick up. But I know I can rely on them to be an ear and a cheer on the other end of the ‘net.

And sometimes? That’s really all I need.

So Much For A Blog A Week!

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I have spent much of this past winter hibernating and feeling crap. I may write about it later, but that’s not what has brought me back.

What has brought me back is MacMillan’s Brave The Shave campaign and their horrible response to objections to the campaign.

It is a campaign asking people to donate money to other people who shave their heads in supposed solidarity with people losing their hair to chemo.

Let me state, for the record, that one of my oldest friends in the U.S. does this every year for St Baldrick’s. The issue I have is not the shaving.

The issue I have is the encouraging of happy smiling pictures of people shaving their heads shared all over social media. Have a think for a minute; imagine you have lost your hair to chemo or love someone who did. Maybe that person also lost their life to cancer.

Do you want to see picture after picture of happy smiling shaven head people on your Facebook feed? When you or your loved one cried their eyes out as they lost their hair? And when you cried yours out again when cancer took them from you?

Shaving your head in supposed solidarity to those who have lost it due to illness should not be entertaining.

I posted on their Facebook page telling them why I think this is a terrible idea. Their response? Pretty much pat me on the head and send me on my way.

And if you read down the page? You’ll see the same sort of response to people with and without cancer who feel as I do.

Macmillan claim to be about making lives easier when you have cancer.

Well, they aren’t. They are making it so very much harder.