time passing

well I still haven't finished that quilt.... but I'm getting there!

It's been another time where it was difficult to know what to write - sadly my beautiful cat Sirius met with misadventure a few weeks ago and went to join Cammi buried at the bottom of the garden. It seemed a fitting place for her final resting place given how much she missed Cammi when we lost her. I still keep thinking I've seen her walking past out of the corner of my eye so I didn't think twice earlier today when I thought I saw a cat walking past in the corridoor. Then I did a doubled take - no I really had seen a cat walk past! It did a runner once it realised I'd seen it, but then I saw another moggy this evening out in the garden. Maybe it has become known in the cat world that this territory is up for grabs again?

The last few weeks have seen me trying to catch up on some things in life that had slipped due to being ill. My teacher registration portfolio for one... it's suddenly starting to fall into place and seems more achievable but I'm not convinced I'll have it all done by the end of this year. That is something of a pain as the new criteria come into play next year so I need to try to get as much done as I can on the system I started with.

It is also coming up for the end of my Ara Reo classes for the year - and I have a whole heap of homework to catch up on for that too... my kaiako (teacher) thinks I'm ready for Year 2 next year but having missed so much of this year from being sick/too run down to attend I'm not convinced. We'll see, classes don't start again until March so I've plenty time to think about it.

Next year... that feels such a long time away still! Yet it is only 8 weeks until I fly to the UK for my summer holidays. Yes you did read that right - people here think I must be mad to trade a summer here for a British winter. But it's not about the weather - as the whakatauki (proverb) here goes

He aha te mea nui o tēnei ao
Māku e kï atu
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

But if you ask me what is the most important thing in the world
I will tell you
tis the people, tis the people, tis the people.

mission impossible?

After several weeks (months?) of inactivity on the sewing front I've been making a concerted effort over the last month to catch up on what I have variously heard referred to as PHDs - Projects Half Done, UFOs - UnFinished Objects and work-in-progress.

I have finally finished a plaited rag rug that had been frustrating me for months. Eventually after unpicking it several times as it was turning into more of a bowl than a mat I gave up trying to follow the instructions I had and sewed it together my own way!

I've finished a patchwork-edged and appliqued blanket having discovered a cunning technique that got me over my fear of applique edges - cheers Natalie, if you'd not sent me the link to the bibdana pattern who knows when it would have got done!

I'm now making good progress with a quilt that I'd ground to a halt with at an early stage as the intended recipient sadly didn't live to see it, however I'm still making it for the family. It's taken me a while and a few rethinks as to what to do with it. I'm trying to decide whether to turn it from a cot sized quilt to a single bed or family sized one....

I've even cleared my mending pile!

But there in my cupboard, discovered when looking for something else (as you do!) is a project that I can't actually remember how long I've had waiting completion, other than it is at least 7yrs old as I know where I was living when I started it! The only reason I stopped work on it was my sewing machine died on me at the time. As it was a wedding present it got replaced with something else (I've now forgotten what!) and so once the machine was fixed any urgency had long gone and it went to the back of the queue.... time I bumped it up to the top again methinks as I'm hoping to see the (thankfully still happily married) couple in a few months!

However, whilst I work through this pile of projects I'm aware that there are more babies being born, birthdays slipping past and Christmas presents to be thought about and made! Will I ever catch up? Probably not....

awol

My apologies for my extended absence from the blogosphere. I didn't stop reading other people's blogs but it just got a bit too difficult to write.

Basically it felt like too much was happening at once and so much of it was "other peoples' news" rather than my own it didn't feel quite right to be blogging about it as it unfolded, yet to write and not mention it seemed superficial given how much it was all preoccupying my mind.

So here I am several months down the line... what has changed? Well in some ways things have slowed down a little and breathing space has been had, time to cogitate and put things into a different perspective. Time, as they say, is a great healer. Not that everyone is healed either emotionally or physically in some cases, yet my ability to cope with it all has improved.

Since I last blogged various people very dear to me have had a lot dumped on their plate - losing a baby at 8mths pregnant, discovering a brain tumour (benign but not far off inoperable due to location) and another with a bowel tumour. Two are watching their mothers go through the final stages of advanced cancer and another watching far too many of his fellow sufferers of Cystic Fybrosis die before they get the transplants or advances in medical science they need. Added to that are marriage breakdowns, assorted medical diagnosis of a less life-threatening kind yet still life long impact and another got bad news from the oncologist this week.

Daffodil Day is coming round soon.... if only it were no longer needed.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom by a long way though - a fantastic holiday on the Mainland (the South Island) tiki touring around with an old friend from uni days (first time round, not recent studies!), and unexpected bonus trip to Sydney for the w/e and a chance to catch up with Natalie (uni 2nd time!) and her boys.

I've got a new job at my existing work place - a job share with an old colleague who I'd been sad to leave behind when I went to kindergarten. Great getting to work with her again =) However I managed to get sick for over 6 weeks and have only just started my new post and hours. I think I've just about got to grips with my new timetable though.

And... I'm planning a trip back to the UK for Christmas and Hogmanay (plus a bit!) to catch up with friends and family. A real bonus as I'd been expecting to have to wait until 2012 for that to happen again. Big thanks to those making it possible!

I'll try to be a bit better (ok, a lot better!) at blogging more regularly again now life is starting to settle into a new routine - but no promises eh?!

time management

a wee while back Holly wrote a Note on facebook about the fact that many Quaker roles and responsibilities tend to fall on a few shoulders and maybe Meetings ought to spend some time discerning what work really needs to be done rather than just perpetuating them ad infinitum.

As I'm on our Yearly Meeting Nomination Committee it is an issue dear to my heart as we try to find people for committes that everyone seems to want to keep but no-one wants to be on! As someone who has four Quaker roles already and often gets asked to do others I am very glad that somewhere along the line I learned to say 'no' without feeling too guilty about it. Taking on too much and then burning out or not achieving what is necessary is a way too common a phenomena in Quakerdom.

Having cut back my working hours fairly recently I've gradually started to catch up with the various Quaker roles I've taken on and am realising why it all felt a bit much towards the end of last year. I spend over an hour a day dealing with assorted emails, paperwork and reading material circulated and I still don't get through it all within the wished for time frames. On top of that I still seem to wear my overseers hat on a regular basis even though I officially hung that one up a few years ago!

I have to admit that tasks that get done promptly aren't done so because of any deep and meaningful spiritual discernment process that prioritises importance but on a basis of what is quick and easy. Anything else takes it's chances in terms of allocated time and attention. That annoys me in itself but at least means that some things get done on time!

As Holly said "Where is room for testimonies of simplicity and integrity? What can we realistically commit to as a Society? If we could see where all Quaker committee, spiritual enrichment and volunteer/activist hours were going, would we like the picture it paints?"

At our MM residential recently it was acknowledged that we need to spend more of our time and money on looking after ourselves as a MM, doing the nurturing and spiritual enrichment we need to hold us together as a community rather than 4 geographically scattered worship groups. But it kept coming back to the inevitable question - who will organise it? at which point there was a deafening silence...

I've just been looking up the part in Britain Yearly Meeting's Advices and Queries that sprang to mind "28. Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relenquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great busyness"

Hmmmm....

Cammi

Things have been a bit subdued around here lately. A few nights ago Cammi (our, well technically Simon's, long haired dachshund - something of a Hairy Von Krumm) decided to go off and play with the traffic. She lost.

She's been buried down at the bottom of the garden, by the creek. I still can't quite bring myself to go and see - it was all done before I'd got up that morning so at least for me my last memory of her is as she usually looked, not the mess she apparently was. I do need to go and say 'goodbye' properly though.

For a dog who used to infuriate me on a regular basis I miss her heaps - and usually when she's not there to fall over! I still check the floor outside the bathroom door when I come out of the shower to make sure I don't trip over her, I check the floor under my desk before I move my feet or wheel the chair over, I glance down before moving in the kitchen, I still tiptoe back into my room at night if I've been up so I don't start her off whining outside my window wanting to come in. I still expect the deck doors to rattle and bang when I come home as she tries to hurl herself through the glass to say hello.

We'll have to clean up food spilt on the floor, no longer need to guard any food left on the table, the compost heap might actually fill up a bit quicker now the 'best bits' of kitchen scraps won't get grazed off the top. There are even enough empty chairs to sit on in front of the tv and the rug might finally stay looking clean for more than half an hour after being hoovered (and no-one tries to attack the vacuum cleaner as you use it!). The strawberries, grapes and peas will be able to grow in peace, we could even try melons again. Oh and I'll have to think of something to do with cherimoyas next season...

Poor Sirius (my cat) is most discombobulated, her bowl is now on the laundry floor not up on the washing machine as no-one else will steal her food now. She keeps checking chairs to see if Cammi is there. She looks very suspiciously at the deck where the kennel used to be. They'd become such good friends, we'd often come home to find them together on the deck waiting by the doors even though Sirius could get in through my bedroom window. They'd chase each other around the garden as if possessed and roll about on the gravel driveway - when Sirius had had enough she'd climb up the nearest post in the vineyard leaving Cammi stuck on the ground below.

Trips to the beach will no longer be quite the same, we'll be able to get a towel out of the cupboard without her going crazy hoping we're off for a swim. The sand in cars quota will drop and there will be one less joining us for Meeting when it's here.

She was a small dog with a big presence and I'm only now really appreciating how big. Daft mutt. I loved her though.