who am i?

I am, apparently, someone who heads for the cereal at night when I don't have to cook dinner.

I am also someone who is learning to ignore that voice we all have, the one that screams at you, tells you you're not good enough, so don't even try.

Someone who is learning that so many of my limitations are temporary.

Someone who would die without some outlet for creativity.

Someone who is very lucky to have the husband that I do.

Someone who is loved by God, anyway.

Someone who is becoming the free, happy, and yet organised person that I have always wanted to be - one day at a time, even when it feels like two steps forward, and thirteen back.

Someone who has a hopeful future and the potential for joy in every situation.

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And now that I've gotten than off my chest, I would like to show off something I tried to do last week. After hanging out on http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/ for obscene amounts of time, I found a great little project involving cloth, walls and starch. Only problem is - it's practically impossible for me to come across starch at all! I tried every supermarket, little shop, cleaning agency, and the closest I got was a bottle of cannned spray starch. Crossing my fingers, I thought I'd try it anyway, and to my surprise it mostly worked. There are still one or two bubbles that appeared after the starch dried, but I'm holding off fixing them until I can get some of the real stuff.

Once I've ironed out the kinks (ha! a pun.) I'm gonna do a design on the baby's wall - I can see birdies, all cut out of different shades and patterns, probably involving some blue (not by choice, but the house was painted yellow with blue carpets when we moved in, so I'm just trying to work with it!) ((Oh, and not because we're having a boy, either. All that gender-colour-specific stuff bugs me anyway)) and flying along the walls. Lets hope I can find some of the starch soon! Nothing more frustrating than wanting to create and being thwarted by a lack of resources and materials.

Oh, this is our bedroom wall, by the way. Again, not my choice of colour schemes, but here we are. If I had my way that wall would be a light pistachio green, and the blue carpet (which shows up long blonde hair so well!) would be a woven, knotty wool sisal. At least, that's how it looks when I close my eyes.

rain

It's finally rained, after nearly three months without any. And it was satisfying rain as well, heavy, constant, soothing. I can almost see the lawn growing in front of my eyes now. The photo on the top bar (and to the left) was taken outside this morning, before the morning sun could evaporate the last of the raindrops. It's amazing how quickly water disappears in the desert. The red sand drinks it in greedily, like a great thirsty beast.

The last time it rained like this, we had a visitor in our backyard for about a month - a rare burrowing frog, that only comes out once every few years after monsoonal rains sweep down from the north. It was wonderful to hear him calling every night. It's a sound I've missed - along with the ever present crickets and cicadas - since moving away from the sub-tropics.

Although I've sewed today, I still don't really feel like I've accomplished anything. Time for another trip back to http://simplemom.com/ to remind myself of how to be productive - I just have to remember not to get so caught up reading all the wonderful posts that I forget why I went there!

the first

I've started another blog... oh dear. I can see a pattern emerging here. I seem to start a lot of these things and never finish them. But I've come to realise that there is no such thing as a finished blog - because there is no such thing as a finished life. I think I would like to document a little more about my life - and to keep learning to find joy in the everyday things.