I've moved

You know how they say the grass is always greener? Well, I'm hoping they're right.
Dotty doesn't fee like home anymore, so I've decided to make a little move - I'm hoping it's akin to a sea-change.
I hope you'll come visit my new home. It's not much, but I'm sure with a bit of work it will be just dandy in no time.

Shop talk

I've been in a bit of a creative hole the past few weeks. That's not to say I havent been able to find my creativity, I'm just finding that it's all a bit all over the shop. Great ideas coming from all around, but no real way to pin anything down and be sure it's going to stick. I started wondering how to break this chain, and how to come up with something magically wonderful - where do those instantateously magic, all-together perfect Great Ideas come from, and how can I nab me one? Then, late one night while screwing around on food blogs doing research for an event proposal, I came across this TED video about creativity.

Now, just so you know, I LOVE TED. Kind of a bit too much. But this video, well I love it more than most TED stuff. Why? Well, apart from giving us an excuse to sit around in coffee shops chatting (because there's always room for another one of those), I think Stephen Johnson aptly and accurately sums up what creativity is all about. It's not really anthing new - in fact you've probably heard all of the 'there's no new ideas, only new ways at looking at things' rants before - but this amalgamation of all those ideas on creativity that we know to be true, that we want to be true, is a new take on an old idea that I happen to really like.

Home

Wednesday night, after two weeks of hell, culminating in The Day of Misery and Deafeat I cut my losses, packed my things and headed back to Toowoomba. Turning out of my street, tears and rain blurring my vision, I fumbled with my ipod, trying to find the song to sum up what I was feeling. This was it.
Home. More than anywhere, it's the place I long to be most often lately. More than travelling, I dream of home. To me, it's more than the place - familiar surroundings, space, clear starry sky - it's the people. My people - people who understand me, support me, and let me be me in all my crazy glory. This song was for them, about them - an anthem for what they represent.
So to Wabi, Miss Vodka, Ma and Pa Darling, Chica, and Bonnie Dog, thank you for being Home for me this weekend, and always.

Drowning out the noise

This is where I go when the world is caving in around me.
When everything is too hard...too heavy...too much.
Here there is nothing. Just me, my breath and the water.
This is where I go to find calm.

Where do you go?

Sweet treats and chicken feet

This little fella is sitting on my sewing table at the moment, looking every bit the happy shiny friend his brother in the picture looks. My Zoku (which I yearned for months ago) was a belated birthday gift from the loveliest of them all - Wabi and Miss Vodka. They also presented me with this pair of Victoria Mason earings:

Are they not the cutest things ever! And that's not all - Little G (known by other names, but none quite so Gangsta) presented me with facewash from The Body Shop - the exact one I had planned on purchasing sometime this week! My gal pals are the best gifters ever!
I was presented with the wonders while Yum Cha-ing it up in Old Brisbane Town - I even tried chicken feet (delicious once you get past the foot-like appearance)! Then we wandered a while and chatted some. A lovely afternoon after what seemed for all of us to be a pretty miserable week.
Thank you as always ladies, I am a very lucky, very happy girl becuase of youse guys ;0)

Got spoons?

My friend Wabi is amazing. Not just kind of amazing, or a little bit amazing, but absoulutely and incredibly amazing. She has, among other things, Crohn's Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis - that TWO autoimmune diseases.
Havign watched her suffer for a while now, I thought I had at least some idea of how hard it must be for her. And I did, but so very, very little. I was doing some research tonight and came across The Spoon Theory. As I read the theory I thought of her, going through each day, living with such a small amount of spoons, and I cried for her.
Wabi, you are so strong and so brave. If only I could, I'd share my spoons with you in a second.

Giving up

Yesterday I did something rediculous, something I haven't done since I was about fifteen - I decided to give up something for Lent. I haven't participated in Lent since I was a teen, because every single time I ever tried giving something up I lasted about a week, usually less. Also because by fifteen I was pretty disillusioned by the whole concept of giving something up for something I wasn't sure I believed in...and then I just kinda forgot the whole Lent thing existed.
Not this year. This year I'm doing Lent. Or at lease attempting to. Why? Because, aside from the fact that it's one of the few Christian traditions I honestly am compelled to acknowledge, it's also an excellent way of breaking bad habits - of which I have many. And so, after very little consideration and thought, I decided last night to give up one physical and one non-physical item for Lent.
My physical item is chocolate. Chocolate is the perfect thing for a lot of people to give up for Lent, but espcially for me because my love for it is so extreme. Chocolate sustains me. In a way it has become like a religion to me - when I'm happy I rejoice with it, when I'm sad I turn to in for solace, when I'm unsure I use it as a measure of my uncertainty (one block - mildly confused, two blocks - disheartened and weary, three blocks - serious depression and anxiety). chocolate is too much a part of my life, and too often consumed without thinking and without enjoying - something food should never become.
My non-physical item is excuses. I make far too many excuses on a daily basis - to myself, my family and my friends. Mostly they are little excuses like "sorry I was late, there was traffic", or "I can have chocolate, I'm sad". But little things are the kind that niggle and twinge, and grow ever-slowly into bigger and bigger things. So even the ever-so-little excuse - "I don't feel like swimming today, I have a headache" - become big problems - "I haven't been swimming in two weeks AND I ate way too much chocolate - no wonder I'm packing it on!". And there's nothing stupider than feeling bad about something you could have prevented purely by being a little less willing to make poor excuses for your own laziness.
So that's me for Lent. Now I've just got to figure out how to stick to it. Day one almost over and I'm already having chocolate withdrawels, but so far no excuses that weren't completely valid. Yay me!
Oh, and because I missed FebFast, all dollars normally spent on chocolate will be donated to a worthy charity at the end of Lent - with my chocolate habit they are going to be thanking the Lord all the way to Christmas that I did Lent!