happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling
make puzzle, read, knit, repeat
a little roadtrip, diner with T, a short look at the sea, a visit to my parents
A little confession and a note to myself: I was so busy taking pictures that I kind of forgot to just be there and breathe for a while. That’s silly and I promise (to myself) I won’t let that happen again. I am savoring the short moment I did look at the sea without the camera though…
Well, it has been quite a while again, hasn’t it? What can I say… I actually have been really busy. I don’t know what I was thinking, I really like my summers to be quite lazy, but it happened.
It started with that last post about photography. I was hatching some plans to do more with it (yes I know, I said I wouldn’t, but it seems inevitable to go there everytime I really try to reconnect with my camera), so I set up a blog just for photography, explored how to sell prints, did a lot of shooting and editing. And then… well, I got overwhelmed (and disappointed in my abilities, but that’s another story).
I came to a place were I realized that maybe I should choose between writing and photography, because both take a lot of time and I also have my family, my house, my garden and my bookkeeping to take care of. But I couldn’t choose. While I love photography, writing is also very important to me. And that set me off on a whole lot of ideas to do more than just write a book and then wait for my publisher to send me a (tiny) cheque.
To grow my public I decided I needed to connect with readers, build a “tribe”, give something back. I wrote a story that will be published in short episodes, I designed and wrote a newsletter that will have extras for my subscribers and I wrote a list of ideas to revive my Dutch blog, focussing on writing, not my personal life.
And of course I thought it would be fun to start all that on September 1st. You know, since I like a good deadline.
Anyway, my summer was busy. So maybe it was a good thing that we hardly had a real summer until now. We’ve had an amazing amount of cold, wet days. There were also good days, but always just one or two, before it started raining again..
Right now I am (almost) done preparing for those September ideas (all in Dutch, sorry – I am contemplating translating some of my short stories, but that will take time). And somehow nature decided to give us a bit of summer after all. Forecasts are actually good for the next two weeks.
So… here’s to the rest of summer. And to taking pictures that won’t sell, but that will remind me of the good times.
Oh wait, that’s what I actually set out to put into words (I got sidetracked obviously). While I was working on my Dutch blog, I was also thinking about this one, it’s very few readers and what to do with it. And I realized (again) I really want to continue it to be what it always has been. some knitting, some sewing, some gardening, some family fun, some rambling about being too busy and about me trying to savor summer…
Well, so now I wrote all these words and I guess all I really want to say is: here are some garden pictures 😉
… thinking about the lovely fabrics I bought lately and what I want to make with them
… sitting in a bedroom that needs a thorough dusting and cleaning
… telling myself to get to that first
… looking back on a wonderful weekend
… looking forward to a wonderful summer
… planning to fully enjoy every bit of sunshine we get (today? raining again, but they say by the end of the week we’ll get good weather)
… also planning to have fun inside (sewing!) when it’s raining (after getting rid of all that dust, that is)
… wishing you all a wonderful start of your week
– a weekend full of sunshine
– the door my father made for us (and it being warm enough to leave it open)
– hours and hours spent outside
– having enough energy to take a little walk together
– fun ideas to make the house just a bit more livable
– a visit from one of the girls (we’re down to only one living here, the other two have moved out)
– watching a good movie
– listening to nostalgic music
– a garden that is nearly “done”
– a rainy day ahead which is a good excuse to do more sewing
Yesterday was a bit of an off-day for me. No particular reason, just one of those days. Luckily I had this gift card for the garden centre (a birthday gift from people who know me well), so I decided it was a good day to use it.
Of course I spent twice the amount of money that was on the card, but I did feel a whole lot better when I returned home with my treasures. That’s my kind of retail therapy.
I topped it off by a bit of hands-in-the-dirt-therapy to plant them all and then all was right with the world again 😉
:: thinking about this interview a lot. What hit me was this: it’s not “fake” to focus on the good stuff (that’s the feeling I get when real life gets overwhelming and then I stop blogging), it’s meditation. Thank you, Amanda. I do need some meditation.
:: focusing on the early summer goodness we got the last few days. It’s great to be outside a lot again.
:: happy that I found back my knitting mojo. Working on two projects, itching to start more (yes, still matching my outfit to my knitting 😉 ).
:: even happier that I finally sat down and sewed something yesterday.
:: feeling silly for being so proud of the few simple things I made (but I am and I’ll show you in another blogpost).
:: hearing birds sing
:: itching to get outside and work in the garden while the weather is still good (maybe I’ll just ignore the bookkeeping I need to do for a while? It will be raining again soon)
Well, yesterday it started raining before I got a chance to get outside. But today was an even sunnier day.
I thought I might go for a walk, but instead I worked in the front garden a bit. I never really did a proper “preparing for winter” clean up there, due to… well life happening.
I didn’t quite finish pulling all the weeds and trimming all the plants today, but does look better. So there’s that.
And I feel a whole lot better. And that’s even more important (note to self: get outside!)
We had a good weekend. The older girls both visited (they have their own apartments now), we talked, we read, we listened to some good music, I finally remembered how much I love burning candles.
I want to cherish those moments.
:: we’ve done almost nothing at all, since we were having a heatwave that was supposed to break all records (it did, but not where we lived) and we tried to be careful. It was good, but I’m itchy to do something now (which is good, since it’s Monday and a lot cooler and I have a todo list that is a mile long).
:: I started knitting something new before finishing what I was working on. That’s not how I usually do it, but I found out the synthetic stuff I was working with was sort of melting in the heat. It was scratchy and my knitting felt clumsy and hard. It was actually a relief to go through that, since that’s exactly how it felt when I first got sick, on Curaçao. It’s good to know that wasn’t the joint pain that made it impossible to knit, it’s just the combination of that yarn and the heat. Note to myself: buy better yarn especially to take with me on the next trip.
:: we watched our neighbours transferring their family, some guests, a party tent and lots of food and drinks to the other side of the channel (and back again) in two tiny boats.
:: felt some of their enthusiasm rubbing off and sat at our bedroom window watching an empty road most of the afternoon to see this for just one minute:
That’s the Tour de France rushing by.
:: enjoyed the weather cooling off and the rain falling down (no watering – yay!)
:: rested enough to actually feel up to dealing with the week to come. So I guess I’d better put down the laptop and get to it 😉
Wishing you all a happy start of your week!
NOT A STATION 