May days

Gosh, what a week hey. Sitting here alone in the same place I sat alone a week ago reflecting on the last seven days makes me realise what a crazy emotional flood we've been swimming through. I don't actually know if emotions can flood but whatever this past week was made of feels thick and heavy and honestly at times I'm not even sure the swimming we're doing is even getting us anywhere.

Throughout the week I've found myself looking at the unseasonal weather, at the full moon and at the time of the year for excuses for the intensity, but I'm still clueless. I guess it is what it is. And what it is is a jumble of four people's accumulated stress, needs and experiences and my desperate attempt to be the best partner and mother I can; to guide, to take over, to be there, to listen, to distract, to support, and to comfort. AND to try not to get swept along and be overcome by my own emotions in dealing with theirs.

Unfortunately none of the stories belonging to the emotions are mine to tell so I understand that this discussion of emotional overload might feel empty. This is one of the weeks where I definitely considered starting an anonymous second blog to discuss my secret life of raising and living with teenagers in order to get it out and make some sense of it all. But I do feel completely confident that everything we're living through is normal and some sort of rite of passage. Text book normal even. We'll get to the other side and be stronger for it.

In the meantime April turned into May and I remembered that last May I took a photo or two each day and then posted them on my blog every Friday. If you like you can click back to this post for the explanation. I liked the way it forced me to find one moment every day to capture, I liked the way it showed me how diverse my days are, I liked that it got me out of the rush around on a Friday morning, to be a bit more mindful over the whole week, and I loved the way it helped me to see the beauty in my everyday.

So I'm going to do it again. In fact I already started last Tuesday I just haven't told you yet. 

Let's get going then.

May 1

I took this photo of some pots of chrysanthemums on the first but the story they tell is from the days before. Last Sunday evening we drove through the forest and picked our farmer boy up from his time away. It was beautiful and emotional and our hearts felt full. The next few hours were filled with stories and tears and love. On Monday morning not wanting to be separated again so soon, we drove the girls out to their school together. On the way home, alone for the first time in what felt like forever, I couldn't stop looking at him and touching his face.

It had occurred to me the day before that I deal with my life the same way that I deal with a complicated knitting pattern - one line at a time. And that life line started with the preparations and discussions about his trip and ended with the drive to pick him up. One by one I had dealt with everything in between that I had to; I got the girls fed, dressed and ready for school, I did the drop offs and pick ups, I dealt with emotions and crises and tears as they came up, I looked after the farm, I prepared the meals, I picked crates and crates of apples and bunches and bunches of flowers and baskets and baskets of tomatoes, we all went together to a friend's 50th, we set up and sold at the farmer's market, came home for a quick lunch and then we drove an hour past Castlemaine. 

And the same way that I don't let myself look ahead and over complicate things in my knitting, I didn't look ahead in my life. And then all of a sudden when we were driving the wrong way through the forest, worried about being late, it occurred to me that we were going to bring our boy home. His trip was almost complete and then he would be ours. I immediately got excited, impatient butterflies in my tummy. One bit was ending and I could hardly wait to begin the next.

And then the next morning there was that magical, sunshine filled drive home from school. We told stories, we listened, we said so much mushy stuff, we stopped for coffee in a tiny nearby town and when we walked past a little buggy by the side of the road selling potted chrysanthemums - of course I bought them.

May 2

Until Last May we had an ugly poly-tunnel like hot house attached to the side of our house. On the ninth of May last year we pulled down that hot house that had been there since we  first moved here in 2001. On the fifteenth of May last year we concreted in three massive old bridge posts and started the construction of the green house at the back of the photo above. And on the 23rd of May the hot house was finished just leaving the shelves and table to be completed. (Click on any of the links in the sentences to visit those posts).

Exactly one year later on May the second, the sub floor, insulation and then floor of my studio went in and down.

Even though the hot house is predominantly my space it's still family owned and used, even though I am quite vocal and adamant when I decide that I want a recycled brick floor for the sun room, open shelving in the kitchen, and to decorate all the spaces my way, I still can't believe that this new build is only for me. Every piece of wood or window, every nail and screw, every jackhammered hole, all of it has been carefully chosen and designed, and banged and dug, and drawn and discussed, for me. I am definitely crazy excited, but I am also overwhelmed. So much time and effort and money is being spent on something that will be mine alone. I can't really get my head around it.

Watch this space, if I know anything at all I know that it's going to be pretty special.

May 3

On May third, yesterday, rain threatened and I made comfort soup from the garden for my gang and thought about how important beautiful spaces are to my state of mind. One year on and it's hard to imagine life before this greenhouse with it's beautifully big windows and purpose built shelving and table. It feels like it honours the growing work I do and enables me to be better at it.

I also took that photo of the sign I'm halfway through painting because seeing it there yesterday amongst all the golden leaves was the first time I really felt like it was autumn. There was a chill in the air, crunchy leaves underfoot, the air smelt smokey and we were preparing for rain. It's time.

May 4

Today. I always say that I can survive almost anything if I have a good book to read and a lovely pattern to knit. At the moment I have one of each.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Abbe who I met years and years ago at a craft thing when she was a quilter and I was a crocheter brought her three gorgeous boys to visit me at market. It's been years since I've seen her, possibly even since her wedding, but in the intervening years she's moved over from the fabric to the yarn side (yay!), and fallen deeply in love with knitting and dyeing.

It was pretty cute watching her three boys sitting beside our stall munching on apples. It was pretty exciting when Abbe gave me three skeins of her gorgeous hand dyed yarn to play with.

Abbe has teamed up with Kylie from Whiskey Bay Woollens who has designed a gorgeous shawl called Merricks to showcase the dyed yarns and together they are offering packs of yarn and pattern for sale. Click over to Abbe's instagram page for all the different yarn combinations she has available.

That's the start of my Merricks shawl up there, I'll pop all the details as I go on my Ravelry page.

The book next to it, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover is the book I'm about to finish. I've loved it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in beautifully written, powerful books about family, fundamentalist religion, mental illness and Mormonism. As Angela M, a reviewer on Goodreads wrote - 'Difficult to read. Impossible to put down.' 

And the last photo is the scene that greeted me just after I looked up from taking the photo above it. On the way to school, hot water bottle against the cold, happy to be in grade 5 again after spending the day at the local high school yesterday.

And that's my May so far
How about yours? How's it going?
Do you have a creative project on the go?
Are you swimming in a thick sea of emotions?
What's your trick to getting through times that are overwhelming? (I've been going to the gym most nights).

See you'se next week lovely ones!

Love, Kate x


ps Our farm gate stall is still open and full of delicious apples...just sayin'