Saturday 31 October 2009

I'm not incompetent when it comes to (fill in the blank) it's just a skill that I have to learn



I found this quote, and it really meant something to me, so in true SHE fashion, I went off looking for a picture to put with my words...my ideas.

This quote has so much hope......skills can be learned. They are not something that we are born with. Look at a baby, how they learn motor skills, can move their heads, then sit up, walk, etc... Language skills are also learned, slowly, which comes as a great frustration to many of my students.

I am sometimes like my students, frustrated because the new skills come too slowly. I have to practice what I preach, and take the time to learn those skills that are not so easy for me.....and maybe I should think about the skills that I have more or less succesfully learned; there are actually quite a lot of them, when I think about it!

Sunday 25 October 2009

Books



Searching for a particular book I got caught up in a real SHE moment...let's organise the books! The photos are of downstairs, in the family room, which had been friendly and tidy; maybe it's still friendly?

Books are a my "peché mignon" a real indulgence, a not too secret vice, a guilty pleasure. When I was a child my mother complained to a friend about the number of books I had. The friend suggested that my mum give the books to a jumble sale. "But Karen would simply buy them back again" was my mother's anguished response. It was true too.

Books and plants make a home, for me. Oh, and photos too. I have photos all over the house, old, not so new since the advent of digital cameras, but with DD1 we decided I should print out some more.

Books are alive to me. In the photo, not deliberately, or at least not consciously, you can find "women and self esteem" hmmm..... Just out of the frame is "Long walk to freedom" by Nelson Mandela. You know, you find kids called Nelson in France, a long way from Trafalgar. This copy was bought in South Africa, as my marriage was crumbling, although I was unaware of that. Not so ironic perhaps



A bit better organised, again a photo taken without regard to the books themselves. They do say something of me. My heritage (Buchan, Stevenson and Austin), my youth (the chalet girls) my aspirations, (Rousseau) my search for spirituality (prieres des chretians, living inspirations) some more offbeat,(tarot) some basic, (lavender pots pouris) and some French (various)

I cannot imagine a life without books, without words, without all the doors that they open.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Feeling a far cry from Thursa

 
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My elder sister's bithday, last week, and her husband went off to Afghanistan as a medic. We've spoken a few times, and it is good to be back in proper touch with her. I perused my brother's flikr album, and found this formal shot of the three of us when we were little. There is another one with our parents and our baby brother.....
I don't know if it is the cold I've had for a week, or my age, or SAD, or just maudlin, but I'm not feeling 100%....not sure if I'm even feeling 50% lol
Yesterday I was on my own, all the kids away doing other things, and it came to me that is how it will be next year. Rattling around like a pea in a pod, in this big house all by myself.
And having been sick, I've been rereading some books that have helped in the past, and some more on sophrology. There is only one conclusion to be drawn. In order to try to reach that serenity that I am aiming for, I have to get some serious sophrology practice in my life, to start walking the walk, figuratively as well as literally.
But just at the moment, I feel a long way from my roots.......