A 7th Week of Happiness...

It's obviously going to take me longer than a year to get through this as some weeks I don't feel well enough to blog, but I don't think that really matters - its about changing the way you think, its about looking for things that make you smile, even if they are small things and sometimes even in the face of adversity!  I think those are the times when it's even more important to find something positive to be thankful for.

This week, it's been pretty easy to find things to be happy about - it was my birthday a few days ago and I've been overwhelmed by the kindness of others, especially as I haven't been very good at keeping track of other peoples birthdays over the past few years, which is something I really need to work on.  The two shelves above my television are crowded with beautiful birthday cards which make me smile every time I look at them, they are a reminder that I am fortunate to have some wonderful friends and family.  :)

On my birthday I had lunch with two friends I've known since I was 8 years old, we went to a lovely little cafe in an ex-coastguard station perched on top of the cliffs in the village where we grew up.  It was pretty cold and blustery so I took a photo of our view across the English Channel through the window from the comfort of our table in the tearoom...

I've noticed that every few years, I go down to the Bay on my birthday, so here is a photo from this year's visit...

It's the first time I've been out with my "big camera" for ages and it actually felt pretty good to be taking proper photos again  :)

I've completed my bear for January thanks to a small piece of pale green sheer fabric from one of my friends which I used for one side of the wings.  The bear is going in an exhibition at my local library next week which is being put on by the craft club I attend there once a fortnight.  Being a library based group we took some of our inspiration from books and this little bear is my take on Tinkerbell from Peter Pan...

Yesterday, I went to a morning workshop on making fused glass jewellery.  It's a shame that I can't find any cool courses like this locally but this one took place in the town where my sister lives so it was a great opportunity to spend some time with family.  It was a long and tiring day but absolutely wonderful and I don't even care that I can barely move today!

Years ago, I used to enjoy making things from stained glass until my hands started playing up to much, but was pleased to discover yesterday that I remembered how to cut glass successfully and as I've found with my bear-making, cutting small pieces is a lot easier.  It'll probably be a few weeks before I get my finished pieces back as firing glass takes too long to have got our pieces back the same day so I'm waiting very impatiently and with great excitement to see what the finished result will look like.

The photo above shows one of the pieces I'm most excited about.  The tutor told us that pieces of copper turn a beautiful deep burnished red when sandwiched between two pieces of glass.  I wanted to try this and chose a piece of white glass for the background, with a piece of "fracture and streamer" glass on top.  I thought the top piece I cut reminded me of reeds or tall grasses so I cut some tiny leaf shapes from the copper.  I'll post more pictures once I get my finished pieces back.

My First Year of Happy Post - 1/52

The way I understand it, you find three things about your week that made you happy and as someone who's been struggling quite a lot with my health over the last year, it does seem like a good idea to look for some positives.  My friend Clare from "The Summerhouse by the Sea" has been doing her year of happy for some time now and it's nice to see the things that make her happy over the course of a week - it seems to me that it doesn't always have to be big things, often it will be small simple things that will bring a out smile.

My first is that I'm grateful to have survived the storm last Sunday night/Monday morning pretty much unscathed.  I was told by one of my neighbours that the storm reached it's peak here around 4am, but I actually slept through that bit, which is better than I managed in the storm of 1987, when it sounded as though the roof was being ripped off - that was scary!  The first thing I noticed in the morning was that my bath had a load of little black bits in it which must have somehow been blown through the extractor fan, I was a bit worried when I went outside and saw a big piece of what was either someone's greenhouse or conservatory roof wedged under the front of my car but amazingly my car didn't have a scratch - we were very lucky, though my heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives in the storm.

I'd prepared for the storm just in case we lost power, I cheated with the radio - I put batteries in it to save having to wind the handle and checked the batteries in the torch too in case we lost power - I didn't need either but some of the outlying villages around here lost power for several days.  The picture below is of my bedside table with some of my storm preparations - the wooden duck/goose in the background was carved by me when I was expecting my son, my OH used to come to the wood carving classes too but suddenly decided I shouldn't go anymore so I never got the chance to finish, but as its reasonably bird shaped, I've kept it in the hope of being able to finish it off one day.  Perhaps I'll take some close up photos one day so you can see how rough my poor birdie has been looking for the past 20+ years!

My second happy thing was finding my camera's card reader which meant I could download all the photos I've taken recently, including the one below of Dottie the Dalmatian picking out a pumpkin which I took nearly two weeks ago.  We didn't bring that particular pumpkin home because it looked as though it already had a face and I wasn't sure I could bring myself to attack it with a knife when it was looking at me like that!

My final happy thing was spending some time with my seven year old niece today while my sister was at work and the school was having a teacher training day.  We spent a lovely few hours colouring in some Hello Kitty pictures I found on the internet and giving my niece her first sewing lesson, we used the Marianne Design owl die set, but didn't use all the pieces to make it simpler - K did a lot of the sewing and stuffing and I think she did brilliantly, I'm just annoyed with myself for forgetting to pack some glue to stick the googly eyes on with.  I'm now completely exhausted and in agony so its unlikely I'll get much sleep tonight even though I'm so tired, but I don't really care - I had such a great time!