My Creative Space 18.02.2010

This is Teddy, trying out the comfort of the first quilt I have ever made.

He seems happy - he snuck up on to it when I went off to attend to the kettle which was a-whistling.

I made this for my lovely friend A__'s new baby.  lovelyA__ is the first person I am super close to who has had a baby.  Its amazing how much you can love a little person who you have only met through photos on facebook (the family are all over in London.)  But oh honestly there is a photo taken from over the top of A's shoulder and she is holding her little one and to see my friend, who I ate sticky date pudding with, and got drunk with and cried on a beach, and danced a thousand dances and hugged and laughed and sang Madonna with in her car, this friend who is intrinsic and lovely and so loved by so many and just plain darn awesome - to see her holding her & her partner's child brings happy tears to my eyes every time I look at the picture.

Now my humble quilt is never going to be hung from the balconies in Braidwood as lovelyA__'s aunts are, but if it just rests under the baby in a stroller, or if it is used as a damn emergency un-wipeable changing mat ! the love that I feel for this little one will still pour from every stitch. 
I need to get rid of the cat hair though!

Thanks to kootoyoo for hosting all our creative spaces.

nightmare or a beautiful romance

I think the title of this blog comes from a Beyonce song. I am not 100 percent on that.  Or on the actual lyrics. 

Yesterday I was talking to lovelyS__ as we waited for our local pizza guy to make us pizza for us to run back to my house and eat while watching the latest downloaded Lost episode

(watching Lost together is one of those things that lovelyS__ and I continue to do, even though we are no longer together. Its been about 6 months now since we broke up, and about 3 since he moved out so I think I can stop explaining that we are still friends now, can't I? Just please don't think it means I am harbouring secret desires to be with him. I don't. We spent quite a bit of time together on Valentine's day, a morning and a night time, and even on that day of sickly sentimentality I was able to contain myself from pashing him. That doesn't mean I don't get jealous, sometimes I do. Sometimes I get upset when I think other girls are not treating him right, or are using him to prop up their own low self esteem and I want to yell a bit at them. But mostly I feel as I should and super happy that we are friends. He means so much to me and I like hanging out with him having coffee and beers and eating pizza and watching Lost and drinking wine and discussing stuff. We both like stuff.)

Any way..

So there we were waiting for the pizza and lovelyS__ said that I looked like I must be sleeping better, and I said I was. I am not drinking horrid V drinks any more and I am going to the swimming pool and since I stopped taking the anti depressants the crazy ultra-vivid dreams had stopped.

Anyway.

When I finally got to bed & went to sleep they were back and I woke up feeling like I had just spent 7 hours begging my high school boyfriend to be my friend.

I don’t have many friends. Part of that is that I just couldn't maintain friendships very well for many years as I was just to wrapped up in myself and my own loneliness and fear and I thought these people didn't like me and that became a self fulfilling prophecy. I lied to people and I mis managed things and I got to drunk and said the wrong thing or had sex with to many people. Or I don’t know, I f--ed something up. I am good at f--ing things up.

So after everything made me finally get some help to get my shit in order, I wake up, and I am still faced with the guilt that my actions have driven people away - or that people just don't like me - or you know - what ever.

A boy I grew up with, who used live up & down the hill from me and who I walked to school with almost every day in high school refused to be my friend on bloody facebook. I have not much in common with him any more, but I have nothing but love for him and I don't understand what I did wrong. This is just one example.

In the end, the best I can do is not hide away - feeling that this kind of situation is what I deserve and its better to hide away then have it happen again. In the end I know I am funny and likeable and caring and honest and true and loyal and a good friend. I just wish I hadn’t lost people. I wish I wasn't so clammeringly grateful for those I have kept - sometimes I catch myself apologising or explaining something and I hate myself for doing it. I feel pathetic. Needy.

Oh but that dream messed with my head. And its hard hard hard to battle the tentacles of self hate and depression.

13.14.02.2010

I have had a less then average week, (more later.. its on the list!)
In the mean time TinnieGirl linked to this and its too cute not to use.  You can make one too over here.

My Place and Yours - What's in Your Bag?

My bag (a nice black bag, from Witchery given to me by sisterS__ when she visited last July,) on the sofa, next to my kickboard and raggy old swimming towel bag - resting after our Sunday afternoon trip to the pool in the rain.



Its full of stuff..

 

Oh dear..  I'll try to go clockwise-ish starting from the diary - um, * Kikki K diary * notebook * panadinefort (just in case the back returns) * present for a certain newborn baby who I am a surrogate Aunty to;  Miss Mabel Jennifer   * eyedrops for computer/chlorine protection * mp3 player * bracelets & earrings (I seem to take of sparkly things more then I put them on!)* old bus tickets * keys * wallet * loose card of some sort * old tissue * nice blue pen * work security pass * goggles for chlorine protection - that I never use * Kiehl's Pear perfume (Yum!!) * necklace the wonder O, N & (Miss Mabel's Mum!!!) A gave me for my 21st * sunnies * usb cord * zip up Mimco bag I have had since 2002 and it is still perfect and cute!

Three things ...

Left - My diary is full of envelopes and obviously not a tool I use to help me be organised, more a square container for bills with a little ribbon attached.  My notebook is most commonly written in at bus stops or lunch times and often suddenly broken off. 

Right - My key ring is very old - lovelyS__ gave it to me years ago when he managed a record store and it has a picture of Nick Lachey on it, and on the other side WHAT'S LEFT OF ME in big letters.  I find it amusing so I keep it.  The little clog is from him to, that I keep as it is an appropriate key ring thing.

Left - This is the inside of my wallet - I only bought it two weeks ago from Mushu, a shop a block up the road on the street I used to live on in a little white terrace in Surry Hills and I love it (love the wallet I mean.)

Thanks to perky pretty host punky & me and theme queen The Textured Left.

State of the ribbon

The brownhairblueribbon definition of blogging..?  Well more then just a verb or a noun. To me it is writing, reading, lurking, commenting, scrawling through Kootoyoo archives when your lunch time ended 5 mins ago but you are sure you remember she did a great tutorial for something you want to attempt to make tonight..
Its memes, and hesitant thank-you-for-writing-I-think-you-are-tops emails, and fun swaps & gifts & giveaways - and not necessarily winning giveaways and participating in every meme, but observing  and being part of the nice little whirlpool we (the bloggers) create and ensconce each other in.

The best part of blogging is that I like it, and its nice to spend time doing things that you like.
The second best thing is making friends- well maybe not friends, but fellow tale sharers who care and are warm and lovely (I would not want to be so arrogant as to presume to be friends with every one, but the relationship is definitely more then an acquaintance!) and feeling a part of something.
Even before I started writing and commenting, when I would dance from page to page, (I didn't even have a readerthingy- just a lot of bookmarks!) even before I did literally participate, I felt a part of a world full of lovely people who cooked and crafted and photographed and wore materials in original manners and inspired people to try things & to talk to each other, and collaged, and shared their life and their joys and their lesson-to-be-learnt-here-at-sometime moments.

I walk past this sign every day, it is for a musical instrument and such paraphernalia shop.  The dog on the sign reminds me of my favourite internet dog friend, who I hope is getting better.

I am going to have a giveaway in a week, its a bit of a random giveaway, but it will have things in it that mean something to me - although not the most important somethings; never fear, no sisters will be sent in the post.  (I hope at least two people enter!) and I am going to keep writing theblueribbon, its been a year and a half I think.

When I started this post I included links to lots of lovely blogs, but the whole entry turned into links!  My blog roll is up to date and full of special people who are probably your friends too ..  But this post was inspired by (apart from Barney & his girl companion,) a need to acknowledge that there are people who make you want to continue.
There is the always warm Tania, and the two first commentors (who where not my family/lovelyS__) - Sara & Midge, and these two girls Sara & Kate -who's posts over the weekend perfectly demonstrated the warm whirlpool, and there is a person who made me feel humbled, Ms Bird Bath but so happy that we can share our tales.
Oh and Pip of course, and the lady who's archives I have read many times & who's honesty and beautiful words finally inspired me to start typing, honey.

Book I Love - The Book Thief

I have finally read this..  While eating a chocolate orange, which was in honor of my friend A__ who is meant to have had her & J__'s baby on the 2nd of Feb.  Still no baby arrival news has floated through from London..  But its in the wind! 

The Book Thief was (I suppose officially still is) sold as juvenile fiction.  So is Markus Zusak's other book that I have read "I am the Messenger."
The Book Thief is a good story, written well.

I liked the flowery language and evocative descriptions, it is a story narrated by Death.  Zusak makes Death not a romantic figure, but a soul like any of ours, searching for beauty in any place he can, just to try to get through.. Death describes blood staining through a bandage as cherries, which "bloom into plums."  Death searches for colours and moments that are a vacation from his every day..  Not so different from us.