The Blogging Gap Year

For those who have been wondering where I disappeared to: nowhere, I'm still around. LOL I've been keeping up with NH Forum, as lots of my cyber-friends are on there, but blogging lost its appeal for a while. Things got busy here, as they do on occasion for most folks, and my Spiritual journey had to take precedence.... time spent on the computer had to be lessened, not only to relieve my neck, shoulder and back from the RSA type pain it kept getting, but so I could concentrate on the reading and meditational work that was, and still continues to be, necessary for progress to be made towards discovering the soul-inspired person within myself.... and that we are all meant to be. :0)

During the gap year I reached one of those milestone birthdays. My 40th passed without a problem but this, my 50th, bothered me a little.... after all, it is a half century! LOL But realisation came that it's only a number and in no way reflects how I feel on the inside - and I have looked forward to my Crone years with relish - so I figuratively grasped the change with both hands and got on with things. Of course, family and friends helped me to mark this milestone with some wonderful gifts and cards:



Once again I thank everyone for their kindness and generosity. :0) My apologies if I have missed out any cards or gifts but this was some time ago... and those menopausal brain farts insist on happening every so often. I did put details of who sent what on all the pics but, for some reason, it's not showing them - the same goes for all the pics in all of the slideshows! BTW, there are lots of pics for various events so I have posted them all as slideshows, in the hopes that everyone's computers don't get totally overloaded with a major league photo heavy blog post. ;0)

DH, DS and I had our annual summer holiday in July, once again in Undergarth cottage in the Langdale Valley - a fabulous cottage in a truly beautiful area and our most favourite place to be.... and guess who got to do some shopping and visit the wonderful Fobbles again? Then DH and I had a weeks holiday with my DSis, Aunt, Uncle and cousin in the Lincolnshire Wolds, so the bungalow pic onwards are of that and of some retail therapy I had:


Yes, that's me in the purple waterproof.... get the Robin Hood impression. LMAO DH didn't participate this year, as he'd hurt his back in a theatre Get Out a week or so before and was still suffering with, and taking pain killers for, that... archery was not conducive to recovery from said back pain. LOL Thankfully he was still able to drive and do a little walking, as well as get some much needed rest. Although he did get through two tubes worth of Ibuprofen Gel making things a bit more comfortable! LOL
Unfortunately we won't be holidaying in the lovely cottage again this year as someone gazumped us and booked it first. :0( Still, we have found a reasonable alternative within the Langdale Valley that will be something of a blast from the past - we'll be staying in a refurbished Fir Garth chalet type place.... we used to stay in these when DS was little. :0)

The major upheavals we had last year and at the start of this year were a total refurbishment of the bathroom and kitchen, back porch and downstairs toilet. The bath had a leak around it and was causing problems in the kitchen... as in, water running down the kitchen wall every time someone had a shower kinda problems. Something had to be done,as I'd got visions of someone getting in the bath one day and the whole lot ending up in the kitchen below. We'd also realised that, as time goes on, there might come a time when I would struggle to climb into the bath to have my favoured shower.... so fitting in a walk-in shower, as well as a bath (DH can't so without his soaks!), had to be done. It meant having to totally re-jig everything in there, so the whole lot was totally gutted (back to brick!) and started over. Here's yet another slideshow for you, starting with the partially dismantled old bathroom:



I did edit down the pics somewhat... if I'd posted every single one of the ones I took you'd have all lost the will to live by the end of the slideshow. LMAO

Once it was established that all the pipework etc was OK (ie: no leaks) we could then go ahead and get the kitchen refurbished. As this is the second time we've had to re-do the kitchen since moving in we decided to go the whole hog and go bespoke this time, the reasoning being that: it's an awkward shaped kitchen and the only way we could fit in everything in that we wanted to was to have it built to fit; this is going to be the last time it gets done, so we wanted it doing properly. As we wanted the same tiles through the kitchen, back porch & downstairs toilet we also had to gut the toilet and remove the cladding in the back porch. This was done in two stages: the kitchen first, then the loo & back porch a little later. Here are some pics of the various stages it all went through:



The roadworks pic is where both the gasboard and waterboard had the road up out the front - this was whilst the back porch and downstairs toilet were being refurbished.... everything seemed to happen all at once at the beginning of this year! LOL The loo has since had two cupboards fitted in there... will have to take some pics of it and post them another time.

Christmas was another time when family and friends were very kind and generous and I consider myself truly blessed:



Once again, I did label all of the pics and tried to stop the arty farty moving about of the pics but the darned Webshots slideshow bit insists on not showing labels and on keeping the arty farty bit. And thank you again my Forum friends... you know who you are. :0)

As mentioned at the start, my Development is still ongoing. I'm reading a lot of relevant books and attend the local Spiritualist Church's Open Circle once a week and a workshop once a month and have just re-started going to the weekly meditation session. Next month J, a Church committee member, will be running a 12-week course on The Principles of Mediumship - it'll cover aspects on the Principles that most, if not all, Spiritualist Churches are run on, about the do's and dont's of mediumship (ethics etc) and other relevant theory work, as well as practising our mediumship skills... at the end of the course we all get to take part in a Fledgling Service. Fledglings are what trainee mediums, like myself, are called and it's an opportunity to use what we have been taught within a Mediumship Demonstration Service, on a Saturday evening at Church. Am hoping that by the time this comes around I'll be feeling much more confident! LOL
I still go to P's workshops (a two-hour once a fortnight session and a four-hour once a month session). These prove to be different every time. P is also helping me to develop more confidence in my abilities and, if a few more people express an interest, is going to run a workshop on Public Speaking, to get us used to standing up and speaking in front of larger groups of people... this is all building up towards doing proper Platform work. She has also offered to take me through the coursework that the SNU have their trainees do, so, when I've read a couple of books she's kindly loaned me, I shall be taking her up on the offer. So that'll mean back to school and writing essays a little later in the year. She has also booked a Fledgling Service for August in Waddington Church... she wants myself and several of the others who attend her Group, to go along to that. Again, it's a ways off, so am hoping my skills have been better honed and my confidence increased by then.
Last month my acupuncturist began her once a month Meditation/Spiritual group, which I really enjoyed - unfortunately we couldn't meet this month (holidays) but next month we'll be talking about 2012 and the theories that abound about what it all means for us all, which is going to be very interesting. It's great to be able to talk about all of this stuff with like-minded people... I no longer feel like a fruit loop or a New Age hippy! LMAO
The most exciting thing to happen for me though, so far, is that I finally found a Reiki Master to train me, so myself and two other ladies from P's group are going to be undertaking Reiki I on the 20th of this month (April). I'd hoped to do the training two years ago but A, who was going to do it, had to stop doing all Spiritual work... that's when the Circle ended too. I realise now that I wasn't really ready then... but now I am. When I work at P's I seem to pick up on ailments a lot, even on people in photos who are in Spirit. For Reiki I I have to work on myself for 21 days.... this is to clear any old stuff that's holding me back, heal old wounds etc etc, so it will be a pretty intense time but also a liberating one. During that time I have to keep a journal... thankfully the Tarot journalling I did last year and at the start of this year has helped me get my head around that type of thing, so am not daunted by that. As part of the training Sh is doing a birth chart for each of us, so that's going to be really interesting to read through, and she has also sorted out the insurance we will need, so we can begin to work as soon as we have done our Reiki II. DH and my DSis are already anticipating lots of freebie Reiki sessions. LOL
I knew at the start of the New Year, with the excitement that I felt as midnight struck, that this would be my year, when everything would start to come together. :0)

As for stitching.... throughout most of 2011 that was a tad sparse but that's improved this year.... the mojo returned in full force and I've been stitching up a storm. How did I manage this? Well... I decided that the way to go was to keep the mojo interested with a string of smalls, giving lots of quick HD's - which was also an opportunity to start making inroads into the mountain of freebie designs I've got printed out. I think it now stands at 21 stitched pieces..... unfortunately they're all waiting to be finished into something. Anyone know where the finishing mojo went? ROFL I haven't yet photographed some of these and the ones I have are still on the camera, waiting to be uploaded to the computer. I shall get around to this at some point and add them to another blog post... or two. LOL

So those are the main happenings that kept me busy during this Gap Year. And if you got this far.... you deserve a medal! ROFL