Looking like Halloween

 For the current Outlawz Challenge the poem chosen is The Hag by Robert Herrick;

The Hag is astride,
    This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
    Through thick, and through thin,
    Now out, and then in,
Though ne'r so foule be the weather.

    A Thorn or a Burr
    She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
    Through Brakes and through Bryars,
    O're Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.

    No Beast, for his food,
    Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
    While mischiefs, by these,
    On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,

    The storme will arise,
    And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
    The ghost from the Tomb
    Affrighted shall come,
Cal'd out by the clap of the Thunder.

I did struggle with this one as it is not a poem I have ever heard of and it was written in 1648 so it's difficult to work out what is it saying. Anyway a Hag is an "ugly old woman" or a witch, so I went with the witch theme. Using an image of a witch astride a broomstick, which I believe echoes the first lines "The Hag is astride, This night for to ride;", the witch of course has a black cat as we have a black cat! The image also has a moon against the night sky for the lines "At noone of Night are working," and "This night, and more for the wonder," and finally lightning for "The storme will arise, And trouble the skies;" "Cal'd out by the clap of the Thunder."

The image was cut using my Cricut Joy and is mounted on a dark sky effect background then layer with dark grey on dark grey card.  The witch is cut in sparkly black card and the moon and lightning in glow in the dark card.

The second image is trying to show the glow in the dark effect

I was pleased to see some of the other members of the design team also used witches.

Halloween is only a month away so feels like an appropriate design.

Memories

It is ironic that the last few months I have been plagued by memories and feelings of getting old and life passing me by.

For my September Outlawz challenge I had chosen the song Memory from Cats and had chosen an image from the sponsor SBLeigh. At first I wasn't sure how to put them together, except for the cats link.

I used Microsoft paint to colour the image, much better than my colouring efforts, but would like it to look a more realistic paint effect, so will keep playing with it.  The lamp is cut with my Cricut Joy, using Cricut design space, the moon is an image from Digitalshesaid and cut with circle die, backing paper from Baker Ross, mounted on dark blue cardstock.

"Midnight, not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory, all alone in the moonlight
I can dream of the old days
Life was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every street lamp seems to beat
A fatalistic warning
Someone mutters and the street lamp sputters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale, cold smell of morning
A street lamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me, it's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is
Look, a new day has begun"

I think that the illustration represents the song, particularly the first verse and the cats signify it is from the musical cats. The song "was written for the 1981 musical Cats, where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance" (Wikipedia).  The song was based on a poem by T.S Eliot called Rhapsody on a Windy Night

As I said at the beginning I have been feeling a lot like this myself, although I don't think I had a glamourous past!  We have to accept the old days are gone, take each day as it comes and find the beauty in each day.  There is however nothing wrong with having memories, they make us who we are.

You can listen to the song on You Tube 

 

Music

POSTED ON 11TH SEPTEMBER 2023 BY JANESHAW

I have just written a blog about my card challenge linked to a song, I can’t share it until Sunday.

On the theme of music we attended an outdoor screening of Mamma Mia on Saturday. There is just something about music that speaks to you and many of the lyrics are so poignant. A few years ago I wrote a blog based on The Winner Takes it All (follow link) Listen here. The songs of Abba are all so powerful and all tell a story.

This week Slipping Through my Fingers is definitely my song; Listen here

“Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while

The feeling that I’m losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when she’s gone, there’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny

What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
(Slipping through my fingers all the time)
Well, some of that we did but most we didn’t
And why, I just don’t know

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers

Slipping through my fingers all the time

Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile”

My daughter has just started at college doing A levels and I feel so left behind.

Then there is Waterloo; Listen here

“My my
At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah
And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – Couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo – Finally facing my Waterloo

My my
I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger
Oh yeah
And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – Couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo – Finally facing my Waterloo

So how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo – Couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo – Finally facing my Waterloo”

Definitely about accepting our fate and making peace with it. “I was defeated, you won the war,” I was defeated by my illness and it won the war. “Couldn’t escape if I wanted to,” very true, if there was a way to escape I would have found it by now. “Knowing my fate is to be with you,” accepting this is the life I have. “Finally facing my Waterloo” Acceptance and facing my battle and accepting it’s fate.

Finally for today anyway! I have a Dream; Listen here

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream

I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream

About learning to cope and having your dreams to get through reality and face anything.

“I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see”

This is a good verse to try and live by.

I can lose myself in these songs, though they often make me cry too! With my hearing loss I do struggle to hear a lot of music, but if I can connect it to my hearings aids, it is great. I am getting new hearing aids next week, so I am hoping that music will be a bit more accessible.

Watching the film and singing along with the local community was a great experience and united all generations from tiny babies to people older than me!! The Winner Takes it All is still my favourite and a most powerful song.

Summer's End

 This challenge is sponsored by Starstampz so needed to use one of their images.  I actually chose the image before I knew what the rhyme was!

The rhyme chosen is;

The familiar rhythm of the cricket's chirps
Create the soundtrack for each day,
Echoing Summer's end
And that Autumn's on her way.

The stifling heat of the summer sun
Is now tempered by the clouds.
Those fluffy, cotton August clouds,
That soft breezes push about.

Shadows falling everywhere
As the sun plays peek-a-boo.
Losing her strength with each new day,
A sure sign that Summer is through.

As the lazy, care-free summer days,
Reluctantly draw to an end.
Excitement grows for what's ahead,
As school days and the Fall begin.

And no matter how the years may pass,
And how old I come to be,
I'll always love this time of year,
As it holds such fond memories

Of sitting with my childhood friends,
Recalling all our fun
While running, swimming and riding bikes
Beneath the summer sun.

And sharing all our hopes and dreams
As the future stirs us on.
Knowing as we sit on that late, August eve,
Summer's ending, but her memory lives on.

But there's also a haunting sadness sometimes
That I feel when those dark shadows fall.
And that my greatest adventures in life
Are just memories, now aroused by those sweet cricket calls.

I chose the image Goldfishing, just because I thought it was cute.  I made it fit with the theme by adding the words "We didn't realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun."  from Winnie the Pooh by A.A Milne.

The image is printed on watercolour card and coloured using watercolour markers a skill I am still trying to perfect, I think the final attempt was my 3rd or 4th and I am still not happy with it. Then mounted on blue card and a cream card.

Bedtime

The current Sunday Song & Rhyme challenge is set by me and I chose the rhyme Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson. I liked this rhyme as a child and I am sure that I stitched it onto a pillow case.

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

As someone who used to work shifts I was used to

“In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.”

and also

“In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.”

For the last 25 years I have suffered from ME and spend a lot of time in bed so very much feel

“And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?”

I decided to create a Get well Card

The cat in bed is a die from cottage cutsz, the window is also a die, the sun, moon and rainbow are created on my Cricut Joy as is the wording. Mounted on pearlescent pink card.

Check out this and other challenges at https://outlawzchallenges.blogspot.com/

Another year older, but not wiser!

 I should not complain, many people are denied the privilege. I got married on my 30th birthday so this year is my 52nd birthday and 22nd wedding anniversary, where does the time go to?  As well as being my birthday and wedding anniversary the date has become significant in other ways down the years. On my 35th birthday I found out I was pregnant with my daughter following IVF treatment.  This year my now 16-year-old daughter took her last GCSE and left school too so it was a busy and emotional day. Next year Father’s day is on my birthday, so another emotional one.

We were lucky with the weather and had a quick picnic in the park. Even with a birthday in June you can’t guarantee good weather (My 18th Birthday was very hot, but the day we got married was quite cool and windy and it rained so we didn’t get any outdoor photos). Later we went to an Abba themed meal and show, it was brilliant, but I am still recovering! It has made me really dizzy from the noise and totally worn out. The day was as much for Emily as me, which is why we chose the Abba event, she is such a fan. Abba formed in 1972 so I grew up with their music. My favourite song is Winner Takes it All, but it makes me cry! It’s a very powerful song. I once wrote a blog post relating it to ME! Emily knows all the songs off by heart, I only know the keywords. All the songs have great tunes and lyrics.

I have just seen there is an 80’s themed dinner show in September and a Christmas one, they are great , but hard work. There are some lunchtime performances too, but I always go to bed after lunch, so not much use for me. The evening ones keep me up way past my bedtime, oh dear I sound so old!! I am sure I am 52 not 92!

In the weeks leading up to my birthday/anniversary (and also Christmas/New Year) I find things very difficult as it marks the passing of another year where I feel I have made no progress and that life passes me by.  I feel I miss out and have missed out on so many experiences over the years and feel that I am running out of time. I haven’t been able to work since the year 2000, which is now a very long time ago.

Emily has just finished her GCSE’s and is try to work out what she wants to do next.  She has conditional places at colleges to do A levels, but can’t make a final choice until she gets her results. I feel like a bad role model and despite having two degrees to my name, most of the time I cannot understand anything she is doing.  I feel like I live in a different world to everyone else.  I am desperate to do some special activities with Emily once she leaves school as I feel I have missed out on so much of her growing up, but it is only possible now that she can push my wheelchair and communicate with people for me.  It is not much fun for her, and no 16-year-old thinks it is cool to be seen with their parents let alone one in a wheelchair and that cannot hold a proper conversation.  I do feel that having me as a parent has affected the way people view her.  At parents evenings I had to ask to see teachers in a side room rather than be in the noisy and overwhelming environment of the school hall.  School have been good in facilitating this, but it makes us stand out like a sore thumb, which is the last thing I want for me or Emily.  I just want to be able to fit in and be normal and the same for her.

I find not being able to work soul destroying, I am only 15 years off retirement age now and have no income or independence.  I do know many people who have worked hard and been able to retire in their 50’s, whilst I wonder and doubt if I will ever work again.  I don’t know how to accept that I will never work again and be at peace with it, it still feels so wrong.  I also have no idea what to do with myself as everything feels such hard work and my concentration and stamina let me down. I was told in my PIP feedback that as I do craft activities and do drive therefore I cannot have concentration and cognitive issues, try telling my body that!! It’s awful and takes all day to get so little done.

I enjoy craft activities and mainly make greeting cards.  I have a website, but they don’t really sell as I don’t have the time and energy to promote as well as make and I think cards are going out of fashion and other people making much higher standard and intricate designs.  I have a few friends who sometimes buy from me, but other than that I have to give them away! I spend more time looking for ideas than actually making things!  I always have a huge list of things I want to make and never get around to most of them.  I lose concentration very easily and make lots of mistakes so get very disillusioned.  I always want to be productive, but rarely get much made and feel bad as other people seem to produce loads.  I am currently taking part in an online craft market, but I have only sold one card, whilst other people have sold loads and I get really upset.  I can’t win really as I get upset if I can’t sell things, but then get in a panic if people want me to make things and worry about letting them down. 

I wonder what being 52 will bring?  In reality I don’t suppose much will change, life will plod along and I will plod along with it.  At our wedding we had the song “One more step along the world I go”, which many people may remember from school.  Ironically it was written in 1971, the year I was born.  Lyrics here for those who don’t know it https://www.hopepublishing.com/find-hymns-hw/hw4713.aspx.  We do keep taking the steps,  “from the old things to the new” , travelling “through the good and bad” and finding “courage when the world is rough”.  I have done more than I think I have, but it all feels like just filling time, rather than doing anything worthwhile or meaningful.

And on that note I have to end as I am exhausted and need to rest. I have to be able to drive later as Emily is going back to the Gymnastic group she helps at and of course it is the one day that Rob is not around.

Singing in the Rain

The chosen song for Outlawz Sunday Rhyme June 11th is Singing in the Rain. For this I chose a duck and umbrella cut with Cricut Joy and drew raindrops with Cricut Joy and wrote the wording Wishing you a birthday as happy as a duck in the rain. Inspired by being happy in the rain. Mounted on Hunkydory adorable scorable then on a white card.