Ten Things of Thankful #62

No need for speed this week, my lovelies. I’m going to try to stretch myself for you (and it really will be a stretch – I’ve suddenly come over absolutely bone tired, and in spite of having eaten a large dinner, I want something to ‘sweeten the mouth’, and may need to resort to sugar and a cuppa to keep myself going) because there have been some wonderful, shining moments this week, and I want to do them justice.

With no further ado, it’s TIME TO GET OUR THANKFUL ON!

A – The BEACH! I know I write this one a LOT, but it’s the place where my soul breathes easiest, and visiting is always an utter delight. Last weekend it was a triple joy, because I had my two favourite children in the world with me, and we spent some stunningly good times collecting seashells, hunting for crabs, playing on the playpark, sheltering from the rain in the car whilst eating our picnic, making fairy stones, and having clifftop ice-creams.

My absolute favourite moment was towards the end, when Niece had caught a faceful of damp sand and needed it gently wiped away from her teary eyes. Having decided she didn’t want to go back near the waves with her reckless brother, she sat next to me, then snuggled in, shivering where the damp had gotten onto her t-shirt. I hoiked her onto my lap, and then realising how cold she was, I snuggled her into my (old, enormous) jumper with me, so that both our heads stuck out of the neck, and I wrapped my arms around her and we sat, sharing warmth and schnoogliness, as we talked about how silly Neff was being, and just why boys?!

To be fair, at the time, Neff was busy genuflecting at the sea so that it would run into his boots and he could argue the toss on not having *actually* knelt in the sea. But you’re only a kid once, and his clothes needed changing anyway, so I let him have fifteen minutes of filling his wellie-boots with the ocean before pretend-yelling at him, then getting him changed as we giggled about the HUGE amount of water I’d poured onto the car-park, and the schlurping sound his feet made as they came out of the warm, salty boot-puddles.

D – We became a three-spider household this week. I KNOW! But listen – when I came home from college three years ago with the first spider (on ‘loan’, because it needed rescuing after my friend got busted for having illicit pets in his room on campus, and I figured the spider would be the least effort), Husby was SO EXCITED! His eyes lit up and he got all smiley, because he’d always wanted a tarantula, but his mam had never let him. Since then, she’s been pretty background, has ol SpideyGirl, but Husby decided he liked her but that he’d prefer a more lively kind of spidey. So he got a beauuuutiful Brazillian White-Kneed tarantula to keep himself happy. She’s called Artemis and she’s only half grown at the moment, but she likes walking around, she’s very pretty, and yes – she’s more interesting than the chile rose. She also came with a free baby curly-haired tarantula, who currently has NO NAME (because apparently ‘Princess Bubblegum’ is just not fitting). So there’s been a hunt on for a moniker for the wee spidey. Suggestions on a postcard, please…

B – One of the things I *love* about writing is its ability to transport you from wherever you are into a magical world created by the author. Whether it’s description or pure fantasy, you get to see the scenes through the writer’s mind, and enjoy them in the manner they intended. When Homer does this, it gives me chills, because I can imagine two millennia of readers having precisely the same reactions to it as I just had. That’s irrelevant – what’s pertinent is that I gave it a bit of a go earlier this week, and created a sanctuary for whoever wishes to travel there. I loved writing it, and took more care over crafting it than I do with most posts. I think it paid, off, but mostly I’m thankful for the feedback, which indicated that I’d succeeded in my objective.

F – It’s a bank holiday weekend. It’s also meant to pee with rain on Monday, but no work, so there’s that…if it rains it will just have to be a day spent snuggled up away from it, which is no bad thing.

K – I got tagged for the #IceBucketChallenge and immediately decided that it was NOT going to happen. Aside from anything else, the weather has turned distinctly (and very disappointingly) autumnal this week, with chilly mornings fit to take your breath away, and several instances of freezing-cold fingers. But at a prompt from a very dear friend, I did write about it, because there are other charities I’d prefer to support, and the one I featured – Reece’s Rainbow – is very close to my heart; as are two of the girls they featured, both of whom I wanted to adopt before research into UK adoption law informed me that this would be impossible.

Regardless, the charity is fabulous and I will continue to support their efforts to find forever-families for abandoned children. It was probably the hardest post I’ve written all week, and it left me devastated, in a ball of childlessness and heartbreak on the sofa, crying my eyes out. At 3am. It took me an hour to calm down, and I was so very thankful for the gentle love and support I received from both my friend with the prompt, and others, as I dipped into a small, unexpected crevasse of grief.

Which brings me to:

MP – Compassion, empathy, care, acceptance, support…things we all need, and things I’ve been in very grateful receipt of this week, from one of the two most wonderful communities I’ve ever known in the Blogosphere (the other’s the TToT…promise!) – the SisterWives. We fell together by accident (or, completely, unbeknownst to us, Absolutely On Purpose) and have formed deep friendships, discovering layers upon layers of parallels and resonances between our life experiences. As well as sharing some of the more desolate parts of the emotional landscape, we also all believe in the power of Silver Linings, the comfort of togetherness, and that healing can often come from being able to share openly, and have people raise their hand and say “me too”: together we are stronger.

So we made a place for all this to happen – the SisterWives Blog – a community effort where people can share their struggles, joys and nitty-gritty of the human condition, and find themselves surrounded with care and support. We’ve had some fabulous submissions so far, but we’re always seeking more. This place is Big News, and those who’ve participated so far have found the experience a liberating and rewarding one.

If you have a story to tell or encouragement to offer, and you’d like to share your Silver Linings at SisterWives, pop on over and see what we’re about, and consider submitting your piece to be featured on the site.

YC – I had a sudden, stunning realisation this week – that I’m pretty content where I am, work-wise. A friend’s blog was exploring the idea of being given a never-ending pot of money, and what he’d do with it. I realised that I wouldn’t give up my job, but that I’d send the money to do good elsewhere. My job isn’t high-powered or particularly well paid, but it’s not difficult, it *is* fun, and I have a great team of colleagues. All of which is pretty awesome, considering I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

J – CROWDSOURCING! I NEED YOUR HELP! My writer-brain tried to unblock (having been stuck and mired and all kinds of bad things which made writing very difficult for a coupla weeks) and had a bit of a…shall we say a ‘splurge’? that sounds fitting – and there was a PRIZE on offer. Because it’s late and I can’t think of anything good, I want YOUR feedback on what you think I should send my winnerS (there turned out to be two – they’re finding our RIGHT NOW! – congratumanylations to Michelle and Crystal). Let me know in the comments which prize you reckon I should send them:

i – Hand-written, For Realz card or letter

ii – A piece of Original Considerer art (that’s the little stick girlie who sometimes pops up here)

iii – A silly something in a glitterbomb

iv – Something online (a poem or limerick or piece of Considering they can do as they wish with)

v – Something completely different (what would you want me to send YOU?)

XO – Kinda glad this is almost over – it’s two hours past the time the linkie was *meant* to go live, and because I went out for a nice cycle ride and then did some actual cooking, I didn’t get to writing this for ages, and then it took a LONG TIME! So I’m late. And there might even be a co-host or so sending emails to find out what the hell happened to their link-up codes…(there might not be, too – I’m not going to my inbox until I HAVE the codes ready to send out (sub-note of which, I’m rather glad I’m in charge, and that by witholding the codes, I should still be able to get into the linkie at the beginning (which makes me possibly a bit of a cheater, but I call leader’s perks on this…)

Q – Niece and Neff will be here for a sleepover Saturday night (forgive me if I don’t get to posts until my lazy Monday) and *crosses fingers* if the weather’s nice, we’re going to take them to the fairground which has been gradually building itself this week, ready for the bank holiday. There will be small, warm hands to clutch in amongst the crowds and noisy pop music. There will be eyes gleaming multicoloured reflections and shouted excitement above the noise of the rides. There will be money wasted on fairground crap and games which are over too soon, and bouncy houses and spinny, whizzy things, and everything will be nestled in dusk and the heavy, delectable scent of candyfloss and toffee apples.

I expect that later, there will be sleepy, grumpy-around-the-edges children who are overtired and sleep badly, stuffed with sugar and wonderful memories. And in the morning, we’ll all get up still mussed and fuzzy from the excitement the night before, and will share our favourite bits over breakfast.

I can’t wait 🙂

Have yourself a gorgeous weekend 🙂

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