trimmingthesails

The future's bright, the future's ...

... orange - or so ran the advertising slogan for a phone company a clutch of years ago. Do you remember? It was in my head when, on a cold and blustery weekend, me and my watercolour box decided to mess around together for a few hours ...

... and then spliced the bits we liked best into a homemade spiral-bound booklet. Sometimes, you just need to take yourself off and play - and I harbour the probably totally fantastic idea that, somehow, just looking at bright colours and shapes enlivens and resets a brain wearied by too much grey thinking and black-and-white print. Hoping that it's been cheering for you too, and here's to a colourful week! Sending you warmest good wishes, wherever you are :).

Family archivist?

They slip into my phone with a welcome ping, these little snapshots, sent by our lovely extended family members now spread across several continents. Sometimes there's a pithy text that makes me smile, sometimes it's a photo I've taken myself when I didn't have my proper camera with me - like the one below. I wonder occasionally how my adult children are going to find, store and remember all these little moments - or will the pictures sit in a vast store somewhere, devoid of context and story? So I thought I might try a little photobook, 6"x9", where I can feature some of them: pivotal moments in development or growth, a beautiful photo, or one of their witty texts; each with its date and place, in true archivist tradition (hiding some identifying information if posted). And when I am no longer here, it's my hope that there will at least be a record of some of them for my children and grandchildren to enjoy and remember again ...

This is a Cathy Zielske Story Saver, with the 'o' of 'love' replaced by a heart and parts of the headings re-coloured: these little pages need to be simple and fun to do. In the meantime, there are heaps of leaves to sweep (and yet more to fall), weeds to be discouraged (how I yearn for a tidy garden this winter!) and a pile of clothes mending to be tackled ... Hoping your week has begun well, and looking forward to visiting you virtually and catching up :).

(If you are having difficulty leaving a comment, a different browser may make this easier. There seem to be general problems with Chrome. If a box appears for your name/email etc. but you don't see a Comment box, it will magically appear once you start entering your name etc. I am sorry for the difficulties - they seem to be widespread and not linked to this blog in particular).

Simply A Moment, October 2020

Once upon a time, many moons ago when the world was in a different place and I was too, I used to share a post with you around the middle of each month entitled Simply A Moment, and invite you to join me if you wished. Then, for quite a while, it felt too difficult; now it seems more possible again and - in these oddest of times - it feels appropriate to stop, notice and record just sixty seconds of life as it is right now ...

• the original post "From Blurry To Clear" about the genesis of Simply A Moment
• ideas for putting one together and the pdf itself: Download Simplyamoment1

And so, without more ado ... (click for a clearer view).

To my blogfriend Honoré, over at Morning Glory Studio who continued the tradition, I am very grateful, and for her welcoming me back to sharing Simply A Moment again with you. Wishing you gentle days, happy times, and the space to stop, look, listen and share ...

 

Reclaiming comfort ...

It seems to get a bit of a bad press, comfort, doesn't it? 'Comfortable' (in any sense) often seems to have a faint whiff of negative judgement about it, as if somehow we shouldn't be, we're not striving enough, or we're settling for something which is less than optimal. Looking for quotes with 'comfort' in them, I found lots with 'comfort zone' and none had anything positive to say. While there isn't much overtly about comfort in the week's layout below as we rolled to the end of September, I'm thinking of reclaiming it for October ... (Click for a clearer view).

Rooting around, at its Latin heart, com was 'with', and fort/is was 'strong'. Until the Middle Ages, comfort seems to have been about strengthening, support, consolation (solace, delight, pleasure) - and as we in the northern hemisphere wave goodbye to summer, I wonder if paying attention to comfort in October might be just the thing for nourishing, strengthening and supporting the ability to navigate the most uncertain autumn and winter in my - and probably most of our - lifetime/s ... Lots for me to ponder this month :). Thank-you so much for calling by and, whatever you most need right now, I hope it will find you today.