A month of changes

I cant believe that we are at the end of another month. The end of the first month of this new year actually.

I thought that today i would document some of the changes that have happend over January.

* The biggest one was yesterdays post.
* I am moved out of our house and found myself a flat. I moved in on Sunday and am just finishing unpacking the last few boxes. Hoping to take photos to share on here over the weekend.
* I got to speak to my best friends last night. She called out of the blue, all the way from the U.S and it did me a world of good to just talk and laugh with her. Thank you Rayo
* I received confirmation that i have been accepted to write my Chartered accountancy exams in June
* I have managed to get rid a lot of my junk while moving
* I have also found a nice church which i might start going to.
* I no longer have internet at home. My flat doesnt have a phone line and they want to charge me £125 to put one in. I cant afford that so for the moment i have got no internet connection at home.

Exactly a month

So it has been a month today since Stu and i split up. The past 30 days have been a whirlwind of emotions. So much has happened and so much has changed. It feels like it has been a lot longer than 30 days but at the same time it feels like it was just yesterday that we sat down and had a talk.

Six and a half years together feels like a life time. I miss a lot of things including the simple things like comfort and normality. When you go through something like this you realise what your comfort zone really is. Even though this is difficult for both of us we are trying to stay friends. I know that if i need something i can call him and if he needs anything he can do the same.

This is a journey for me. I am learning to close one chapter of my life and open up another. Some days are ok and i manage to get through them and other days are really really difficult. Today is one of the difficult days.

Part of the healing process for me is documenting. Writing in my diary, doing some work in my art journal, spending time just talking with the Lord. This morning while reading todays devotional they had this prayer as todays prayer:

Dear Father, I give my troubles to you. Please give me the strength and wisdom to trust in Your will. I pray I will react in a way that brings glory to You. Help me to be still and know that you are God. I know You are always with me and I ask for the patience to do things according to Your plan and Your timetable.

In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.

This is exactly what i needed this morning and probably for every morning for many months to come. It is easy to become impatient and to worry - it takes more effort and thought to simply trust. Today i am choosing to take the one that doesnt necessarly feel like the easier option - today i am trusting in Gods plan and his timing.

Today

* I need to get down to the bank before 1pm
* I need to pick up the moving van by 3:30pm
* I need to wash all the bedding
* I am hoping to finish packing everything
* I need to call everyone to change my address details
* I need to write a letter to the Council
* Must remember to post my letter to granny
* Pick up some much needed Shampoo and Conditioner and while i am there pick up some application forms
* Make a trip to the post office to send off an eBay item
* I am feeling the need for some fresh flowers to make things a little more beautiful
* I wish i had my paints out so i could paint - i have so many ideas swimming round my head
* I woke up with a headache

Hope that you have a great weekend everyone. I might be away from blog land for a few days.

All you can do

Some days all that you can do is just hold on. When your heart is breaking, when your dreams and hopes feel shattered. When your tired and feel like giving up against the struggle - sometimes all that you can do is hang on.

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Freeing yourself

Being honest with yourself is one of the most difficult things to do at times. You can be honest when your friend asks what you think about an outfit, or when your boss asks what you suggest should be done about a certain situation but honesty with yourself is hard. I think its because at times it is easier to kid yourself. Perhaps its because you don’t want to believe something, because you know that by getting honest about yourself and the situation, that it is going to hurt. Your afraid of how it is going to change everything that you have become so comfortable with.

Sometimes being honest with yourself is going to be painful….not only for you but for someone else as well. Its tough, making those sort of decisions but you get to a point where you just have to.

This weeks challenge was to set yourself free. Free from something small or something big. I am still dealing with a life changing decision on a day to day basis, so i decided to do my journal entry on that decision rather than a brand new one. We all know what our limits are and at the moment i am totally at mine....

Setting yourself free can be very difficult. Getting up the courage to actually take that first step is difficult all by itself - never mind having to deal with the aftermath of it all. At times my heart feels like it has broken into a hundred thousand pieces but as each day goes by I know that one by one I am picking up those pieces and putting them back together.

My entry for this challenge is focused mainly on the journaling. My journaling is honest and open and i have really tried to put my feelings and my situation out there. At the start of 2009 i am hoping to be able to sit down with my Best me Challenge journal and go through it. Looking over the decisions that i have made, the way that it has affected my life and the changes that it has brought around.

Writing about what is going on at the moment has been good for me. I now have two and a half pages full of feelings, ideas, fears, insecurities and hopes. I have manged to document a little more about my life and who i am.

The flat of my dreams.....

Well not exactly but it is still fantastic. I got confirmation today that the flat is mine and that i can move in next weekend. I am going down tomorrow to put the deposit down on the flat and sign the contract and that will be that. I am so pleased that i got this one. It is one bedroom with a modern built in kitchen, gorgeous bathroom, huge bedroom and a huge lounge. Its all nicely decorated in neutral colours and carpeted throughout.

Photos to follow as soon as i have moved in and unpacked!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Its over - Thank goodness

And by that i mean yesterday....yesterday is over!

You know how they say that things tend to come in three's? Well, this was definitely true yesterday. Tuesday night i came home from work with a sore throat. No big deal right - have a little extra vitamin C, head off to bed a little early and hopefully wake up feeling ton's better.....
this didn't happen.

I woke up on Wednesday and my sore throat was still there only ten times worse than the night before. But.....me being the hard worker that i am i decided to go into work anyway because i felt silly calling in sick for a "sore throat". By 11am my body ached all over, my nose was doing its only little personal marathon and my eyes were so teary i felt like i needed little windscreen wipers. At this point, i decided enough was enough and i was going home. (This is 1 of 3)

Then, while driving home i decided to stop at the shops to pick up some flu tablets. As i pulled up into the parking space the woman in front of me stuck her in reverse and came hurtling towards my nice, new, expensive Feebie and hit her full force on her front! Not only did she hit my car but she then put her car in first and sped off leaving me feeling very sorry for myself. Luckily, she hasn't done too much damage. But still - not a nice thing to happen. (This is 2 of 3)

And finally to top off an already lovely day about half hour after getting home i got a phone call from the flat that i went to go look at on Saturday telling me that they had narrowed it down to two people and decided to give the flat to the other guy. Just fantastic!! (This is 3 of 3)

So here i sit this morning, hoping and praying that today will be a better day. I am still sick but have decided it will be better for me to stay at home. I am going to watch some daytime tv. Take some things to the post office and if i feel like it a little packing.

Things can only get better from here!

I really should be packing

Ok, so i really should be packing or studying but after a long day at work and a difficult few hours at home my heart is feeling very fragile. So, instead of doing what i should be doing i have spent the evening creating.

I made a start on my Best Me journal. I painted the cover and did week ones challenge. I have also started week two's challenge but i am waiting for a LOT of glue to dry before i am able to carry on with it. So here is a peek at the cover And (if blogger stops giving me a hard time tonight) here is my week one page. I was going to tell you a bit behind the page tonight but i am just not in the mood....Perhaps another night, hey?

A quick update on the flat hunting.......the flat i had a look at on Saturday is a two bedroom, 2nd floor flat. It has decent sized rooms but not a very nice kitchen or bathroom. Plus as it is a 2nd floor it is going to be mega difficult to get my furniture up the steep narrow stairs. But is is cheap.

Then i am hoping to go have a look at a 2 bedroom flat, with a modernised fitted kitchen and a lovely bathroom. This flat is a little more expensive.

So my question to you is......do i take the 2 bedroom, cheaper more difficult to move in flat or do i pay that little bit more, lose 1 bedroom and have a nice kitchen and bathroom?

I have put a little poll on my sidebar so please tell me which you would rather have?

Best Me Challenge

This year is about me. 2008 is my year. My year to discover who I am again. To challenge myself academically, financially, personally and socially. I have a lot of hopes for this upcoming year but above all - I am hoping to get to know myself again. I want to become the Best me possible. I want to figure out what it is that makes me happy, that makes me truly happy on the inside. I need to figure out all sorts of things. By the end of 2008 I am hoping to be someone who is confident in her own skin, who has found out what she likes and what she needs from this life. I want to be one of those people who likes themselves and who is proud of themselves.

I used to be like that. I used to be the person that I so badly want to become again. I don’t know what happened to her.I am not sure when exactly she started to fade away into who I am today but I do know that I miss her and I do know that this journey that I have started is probably the best thing that I will ever do for me.

So this year, as I take the time to get to know myself better, as I try different things and challenge myself in different ways - I hope that you will hang around to get to know me. The beautiful confident woman with a big heart and lots of friends. Part of what I am going to do to help me along this journey is to follow Sarah's Best Me challenge on her blog. I have dug out an old art journal and as each weeks prompt is revealed I am going to work on that area. I am going to record my journey so that this time next year I can take a look back and see the process that I have taken. I can see the changes that I have made and I can enjoy the person that I have become.

I'm off to have a look at my *fingers crossed* new flat so please say a little prayer that if this is meant to be that it will all work out. Have a great Saturday!

Sometimes you just need some colour in your life

1. Growth, 2. Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn, 3. safari tote, 4. red teapot, 5. Prenet un Bany. Taking a Bath., 6. Too Beautiful to Eat?, 7. *compensate*embellish*, 8. Hotline, 9. Hotline, 10. candy pop land, 11. we can be heroes, 12. he loves me/he loves me not., 13. My eye, 14. theory vs senyol sneakers for sneaker pimps, 15. Best things in life are free, 16. my favorite., 17. The Long Walk, 18. ~~Uphill Journey~~, 19. done!, 20. broken strings

January Goal

I know that this year is going to be a busy year for me. A year that is going to include a lot of difficult times and uncertain moments but at the same time a year that is going to be filled with potentially new opportunities, new friends and new challenges.

It is because of these facts that i have decided that instead of setting goals that i want to achieve throughout the year i am going to set monthly goals. Some months it will be only 2 goals but others there might be 3 or 4.

This year I am writing my first set of exams for my Chartered accounting course. I haven't written exams for almost four years now and let me tell you,it is one scary thought....lol. So every month one of my goals is going to be a study goal so that i can keep on top of all that needs to be done in this area.

So my January goals are as follows and are in no particular order:

* Find a new apartment/flat

* Study 6 chapters in book 3

* Get rid of all my junk

* Move in to the new flat

* Read one book

* Find a new church and get involved

Not too bad considering we are ten days into the month already.

On a final note, look what arrived in the post from Tiennie. Thank you so much - it is lovely. I already have a lovely pattern in mind for this yarn.

Completed

Ok, so i think my blog is pretty much back to normal. I definitely want to add more to the sidebars but for now this is good. I am soooo happy that i finally have a 3 colum blog. I know your probably saying, "Well its not that big a deal" but i love it!

In other news..... I haven't really been doing much of anything lately. No new knitting. No sewing and no painting. Not even any studying has been done. I have some things going on at the moment (they call it Life from what i have heard) and well, it is keeping me rather pre -occupied.

I am also planning on moving at the end of January. I have called up about a nice roomy flat that is a little closer to town and on Saturday morning i am going to go and view it. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly and that we both like each other.

That's it for tonight so snuggle up and take care

Just doing some redecorating

Hopefully my blog will be back up and running by Wednesday evening.
Thanks to Leigh-Ann for showing me how to do this to my blog!

Some inspiration for the Soul

I came across this website today and thought i would share it with everyone.

One Month To live

Wow, there is so much to say on this topic but for now i will let you just have a wonder around the website and see for yourself what it is all about.

Looking back over 2007

I wasn't going to do this - sit down and go through 2007 to see everything that had happened. It seemed like an average year for me so why review it? But then i started thinking and the more i thought the more i remember about things that happened or experiences that i had and i realised that i actually do have a lot to look back on for 2007. So here are some of my high lights and low moments....

* My word for 2007 was Choices and boy oh boy did that word have meaning for me.

* I got to see some family that i hadn't seen in nearly 10 years.

* I came across this poem on what it means to wait upon the Lord

* I got a new, very girly, very lovely mobile phone

* I finished my first knitted project

* I went to my first ever craft show

* Stu turned 30

* I lost boy

* I did my first photo shoot

* I went back to school - so to speak

* Bob passed away

* I started sewing

* We got a new gorgeous printer

* We went to a wedding

* We had a visitor from Sunny South Africa

* I got to welcome a new car

* I made my first wall quilt

* South Africa won the Rugby World Cup

* I did my first real canvas and start art journaling

2007 i did a lot of firsts, i learnt a lot, i gave up a lot and i made some big decisions.

Looking forward to 2008 and all that it has to offer me.

Happy 2008

Wow, its difficult to believe that i am having to get ready to go back to work tomorrow. I waited so long for this little break that now that its been i wonder where it has all gone to. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and are going to have a blessed 2008. These last few days have been a real whirlwind for me. I have made some life altering decisions and although i am not yet ready to share them with you i just wanted to put it out there.

In between Christmas and family and all the other things i seem to have found a lot of time paint and to work on my art journal. Here are two canvas that i painted.

" Home"OK, so this one doesn't have a name yet but it is hanging in my lounge and looks very nice there. Not the normal things that i have been painting but i am pleased with the end result.

Then here are some pages from my art journal. I think they speak for themselves really.

The honesty page on the right has a little hidden pocket in it which i have put my journaling in.

I got lots of cool Christmas gifts but this one is definitely the coolest i have seen in a while..

And then i also bought myself a U Curl. The photo is not the nicest but it gets a good shot of the curls. It really does do what it says it does.

I had hope to get more sewing done than what i did do. I did however manage to make a start on a patchwork tote bag. This is what i have done so far. Hoping to get it finished next weekend.
And finally on the knitting front. I knitted a hat but my camera battery has died on me so i will take a photo later and then i have also made a start on my first pair of socks. These suckers are difficult but a lot of fun. And the magic loop method is so much easier and dpns - at least for me.