This Moment..

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

 (Inspired by Soulemama). 

The Simple Woman's Daybook

I'm loving this-find out more about The Simple Woman's Daybook here :)

FOR TODAY

Outside my window ... it is sunny, beautiful clear blue sky, but oh-so chilly! Winter hasn't had any snow up here since November, but it has been in the minuses for a long time.

I am thinking... of my Dad, who is going through a rough time, after a rough 2011 as well. I hope he can hold up.

I am thankful... for my home, my husband and children, our health.

In the kitchen... there are vitamin/mineral supplements for me, as I have embarked on my road to healing, lots of yummies for the others.

I am wearing... my nicest dark jeans and a top that is in all reality not warm enough for this weather. I need to go get some layers on. I crave wool!!!

I am creating... on the needles is my baby girl's new pinky/reddy scarf (she chose her own wool). I'm a new knitter so am really pleased!

I am going... out with my small daughters today. Mr D is doing 'car stuff' so we are bailing out. Shopping, lunch and whatever else we find on our way :)

I am wondering... if I'll ever crack this optimum health thing.

I am reading... a lot of books, both on Kindle and hard copies. I have 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest', 'Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies', 'Last Child In The Woods' and a good few more on the go!

I am hoping... to find relaxation time in my day as well as fun.

I am looking forward to... the cinema tomorrow with an old friend I've not seen in ages.

I am learning... to not take it all to heart, to chillll, to prioritise and put 'us' first. 
 
Around the house... work-week dust settling, and the house is starting to feel relaxed, cosy and ours again :)

I am pondering.... how the week ahead will pan out. Babies off school, so the options are endless. I need to be productive as well as enjoy our time off!
 
A favorite quote for today... "The time to relax is when you don't have time for it"-Jim Goodman/Sidney J. Harris

One of my favorite things... is my husband in his chunky-knit, moss green Monsoon jumper. So lovely. And huggable.

A few plans for the rest of the week... clearing out rooms, paying bills, getting a new routine sorted for work.

A peek into my day... shopping, lunch, knitting, good tv, good coffee, hugs :)

Milkshake Baby!

This Moment..

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

 (Inspired by Soulemama). 

Phases of Childhood

"Toward the end of the child's first seven years, various changes take place. Teachers in Waldorf Education consider the most prominent physical change being the loss of the milk teeth. It is a fact well known by biologists that it takes seven years for the transformation of every inherited cell in the body. Now, for the first time in her life, the child is wholly herself. This is manifest as the child develops: on the one hand, a new and vivid life of imagination, and on the other, a readiness for more formal learning. She both expresses and experiences life through finely tuned and delicate feelings.

As the child moves through these years, the faculty for more sequential and logical thought begins to unfold. Yet careful handling is necessary, for while this faculty needs nurturing, the ability to be fully at home in the world of imagination remains the child's most vital asset."-www.whywaldorfworks.org

I have been looking into the different stages of childhood. Particularly from my child development font of knowledge, Rudolf Steiner's viewpoint (see above quote). This is because it has been increasingly obvious that my 6 year old is..changing. She has become more prone to an "it's not fair!" or an outburst, more thoughtful, inquisitive, sensitive about things. 

As if her emotions are trying to sort themselves out, sifting through the big chunks and teeny grains of thought and feeling to come out with the finely tilled, soft residue that is to become part of who she will turn in to.

The reason, amongst other things, that I have been pondering Steiner's words and theories is that us mothers of 6-7 year olds seem to be in a united place right now with difficult child behaviour. The playground is awash with bleary eyed Primary 2 mothers at their wits end-myself very much included! But we are not alone. It is most definitely to be expected at this stage, and these otherwise adorable, clever, loving little people are just doing what their bodies are telling them to do. Kind of like the struggle and effort it takes a caterpillar to transform and then make its way out of the cocoon. It is no small effort! And very dramatic.

By no means am I saying we should just shrug and say "It's to be expected-leave them to it", because more than ever they need our guidance, our steadying approach and our love. Whilst this is helluva hard when you have a sudden screaming banshee for a daughter (like tonight..I am drained), if we can withdraw afterwards knowing, okay, I may have lost the rag, but I did my Darned Best, that is all we need.

And yes, this too shall pass!!

Time..

..waits for no man, the quote says. And so it seems to be true. It has been 7 whole months since I last posted on here. I have, admittedly, posted more on my work blog but this, my personal blog, has suffered. It may be because I had been finding it harder to write about the non-work, the internal, the real.
My amazing mother in law, Beatrice Dartnall Duffy (aka Granny Binky, to my smalls) passed away in March of this year. She had cancer, and spent the last 6 weeks of her life in a Nursing Home, refusing to budge from her home til she really deemed it necessary. Mum was a Blitz survivor. She drove ambulances and lorries across occupied Germany. A retired police sargeant. Cancer wasn't going to push her out of her 50-year home.
The picture at the title of my blog is of my (now 5 year old) daughter hunting for Easter eggs with Gran in 2007. This was the kind of Gran she was. Dedicated to her grandchildren and family, never tiring of watching their goings on, hearing about them, doing things for them. An example of this was when my husband and I went to the house 2 days after she died. We were supposed to be looking for things we wanted placed in the coffin with Mum, a hard enough task already.
As my husband chose two of her much-used knitting needles I spotted a half-knitted grey school cardigan on needles in a basket. It would've been the last item Mum attempted to knit. Amid her pain, suffering and emotional turmoil, she was working on something for our daughter. Both of us cried rivers in that week, and even in the weeks since, there are days when things occur to us and we smile, laugh..and sometimes cry, for there is no Mum, no Granny Binky to talk to about things with. No Mum to give us her non-judgmental opinions on things, to astound us with her humility, her patience, her resoluteness.
This is hard to write about, as there was-and is-so much more to Mum than I can compact into a few paragraphs. Let it be enough to say, she was Mum to me, not just my 'Mother In Law'. She took me in as her own when I was in a strange country with no family but my husband-to-be. My husband and I both realise it will be a difficult Christmas without her, eating lots (after saying she 'couldn't possibly manage that amount!'), watching the smalls with wonder and obvious delight, expressing her gratitude for even the most trivial gift..and drinking endless cups of tea :-) I hope she will still sit with us at the table on that day. Still doing what she used to do. Being our amazing Mum.

This moment..

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. (Inspired by Soulemama).

February 2nd-Candlemas/Imbolc

"When candlemas day is bright with sun
then the winter has just begun
When candlemas day is dark with rain
then winter's power is on the wane."

The wheel of the year turns once more and the end of winter is in sight. Imbolc, most commonly observed on February 2nd, marks the beginning of the end of winter's grasp. It is now that we start making our plans for this springs' garden, we tend to our animals' young, and we start to feel stirrings of new life just beneath the snow's surface.

Imbolc is one of the great fire festivals ~ to celebrate the birth of spring and warmth. It's tradition for pagans to light copious amounts of candles and incense around the home. It is the perfect time of year to recommit yourself to your faith, goals, and dreams.

Candlemas is a very old holiday with a Christian-Pagan history. Its Christian version is called the Purification of the Virgin and is the end/culmination of the forty day period after Mary had her baby on December 25.  (Women had to wait forty days after childbirth before entering a church or Temple again due to "uncleanliness"). This waiting period is still observed in Eastern Orthodox Christian churches today, and all Christian churches schedule the Christening for forty days after the birth in keeping with this ancient purification practice. Therefore today is Jesus's Christening or Naming Day when an exorcism is performed and the baby formally enters the Church.

Candlemas is the Christianized name for Imbolc, but the two are used almost interchangeably by many earth-based groups such as Wiccans today. Groundhog Day is a secularized term, but it draws from a Pagan tradition.

Imbolc is closely associated with the Celtic-Irish goddess Brigid. Imbolc is sacred to Brigid because she is a goddess of fire, of poetry, and of healing, all things that go along with the creative powers of the onset of spring. She is a powerful representation of the Maiden Goddess, and she has been almost perfectly preserved for us today by none other than the Roman Catholic Church. Rather than call her demon and risk the displeasure of all Ireland, they canonized Brigid and made her the patron saint of poetry and healing. This appeased the Irish, who at the time probably saw the Catholic saints as being very similar to gods.

*Information derived from here and here and well, here too :)