I used to be creative....

I used to make lots of things. And people used to buy them. Here's a few photos.

I'd like to get back into sewing as I love the feel and look of fabric and embroidery with a country style. These are nearly all bible based as I was catering for a particular customer base.

An evening out

Last night, my other half an I went on a rare night out. We went to see a local singer/songwriter called Joe Brooks. Although my claustrophobia, caused by being squashed into a venue built for about 200 and containing about 400 (mostly) 20ish year olds, threatened to ruin my night, I really enjoyed this young lad's music. Moreover, he came across as not only talented, but a nice chap too. I was glad that we'd made the effort and I wonder if, in years to come, I'll be telling everyone that I saw the now very famous Joe Brooks when he was just starting out. You can hear some of his songs on his Myspace page here.

Signposts

I realised this week that my list of blogs that I follow is a signpost for me. A great big obvious signpost that, although I have noticed it, I hadn't taken steps to follow.

What I mean is that pretty much every blog I enjoy is about creating. Creating delicious food, growing fruit and veg, creating a life that is simpler and more sustainable, creating delightful crafts to please the eye and warm the heart. I enjoy these blogs and yet I don't follow the obvious signpost which is to have a go myself. I know I want to, I know I can and I know I should but I don't. The question is ..Why?

Of course the age old answer for me is tiredness. But I'm tired of being tired. I love to create, I enjoy cooking, I used to sew, I have a visual journal. I know that when I create I feel good about life and about myself. I must not allow my job and my busy days to encroach on my evenings and weekends. My 'not school time' is my life and not the other way around. I am not living at the moment, I am working and watching TV and going to bed. No wonder I feel stressed and low.

I know that another reason I don't create enough to satisfy my soul is TV. Why do I sit and watch rubbish in a catatonic heap night after night?

I am going to pledge now, as a late New Year's Resolution, no not that.....as a New Life Resolution, to create at least one thing a week. It may be a picture, photo, meal, cake, sewing, craft, activity with the children, idea, gardening but I will not allow myself to turn into a person that allows their work to engulf their life and who I do not like or admire. I like and admire my favourite bloggers and so I will follow the signpost pointing me to the way I need to go.

The weekend comes at last!

My brain has slowly turned more into mush with each passing day this week. Back to full time teaching, each day brings more paperwork, more planning, more marking, more meetings, more assessing, more displays to put up, more resources to make and of course the growing knowledge that whatever I do with my little groups, it'll never be quite enough.

I take the very bottom ability groups for maths and english and it breaks my heart to be teaching these 11 year olds that are so far behind. To an extent they are given up on as they have had every intervention possible for four years and they still have made little measurable progress. I am a firm believer that measurable progress is not the be all and end all and, in fact, they have all increased in confidence and social skills a great deal. They have also been cared for and on occasion washed and had their head lice sorted out. BUT...The government doesn't consider these things when it conducts OFSTED inspections or publishes league tables or awards SATS levels and so my little gang, who won't be entered for the tests, are not priority.

But I haven't given up on them and I'm determined that they achieve success of some kind and so that is taking up lots of brain space at the moment. I almost dream about them.....which really isn't good!

This week 4 members of my family have told me not to get myself in a state about my job. They worry that I take it soooo seriously and take things too much to heart. It's true - I'm so determined to do a good job and feel that it's never good enough which stresses me out. I'm trying hard to take their advice and so I didn't bring work home with me (not much work anyway!).

This weekend I plan to......do some baking for Sunday teatime, draw in my visual journal, enjoy having my brother to stay, watch a childhood favourite film - The Court Jester starring Danny Kaye, go for a walk and breathe fresh air, sit by our woodburner and feel cosy.

Well, here goes......

Having contemplated doing this for a few months now and having fiddled about with the layout, it is now time to start posting.

But what to post? In the still of the night I am inspired to write all sorts of original and intelligent things but now, in the cold light of day those ideas seem to have deserted me and I feel a bit of an empty head!

Why am I doing this? I suppose I am hoping that by writing down bits of my life and thoughts and happenings I will make more sense of my life. I'm hoping that I'll begin to see a pattern, a plan. By communicating with others I'll see that I'm not so odd, I'm not out of sync with the rest of womankind. I want to feel normal, or if not normal, then happily abnormal. That's the key I think - confidence. I want to be confident to be me. How will writing a blog achieve this? No idea, but I just feel that it is a good thing to do, for me, at the moment.

I'm not going to promise to write every day or even every week because, I fear, I will fail and then feel like a failure. Another thing started and not finished (like the garden design course). So I'll post when the muse inspires and see how I go.

For now...

Alex

(The photo, by the way, is just one I like. It's not symbolic of anything. Certainly not symbolic of how I feel I look after Christmas. Definitely not.)