Coming soon: About people who care. About people who look after those who live in cities, about our Greengrocers. :) Do you have a greengrocer where you live? Do you share your life stories with him/her? My greengrocer has told me a lot about his life and work and so I’ll be sharing with you his stories soon. Can’t wait, can you?
I made a choice a while ago to go back to studying. I dedicate two to three days per week to my academic work and four full days to looking after my son. Two days per week he is at the nursery. When people tell you that as soon as a child starts the nursery, they pick up everything going, they tell the truth. And so the first months of my studies have been quite intimidating and draining… it’s been a physical as much as a mental trial…
First, what I didn’t expect was that my child’s string of colds would last for as long as five months. You just don’t predict that you will often spend your nights in a sitting position with a coughing child clinging to your chest… that you won’t often sleep at night because you’ll be checking on them, changing clothes and sheets wet with sweat and saliva, measuring doses of medicine that will often end up on the bed or on the floor because your hands are just too shaky at five in the morning to do it right. What you are not mentally prepared for is that you’ll often get flu and colds yourself and you’ll won’t be able to shake them off for weeks because your body is shattered and cannot be bothered to fight. What you don’t hope for is that when things are just looking bright your husband will all of a sudden come back earlier from work with a pale and sad looking child and that as soon as you take the little one to cuddle him … you’ll understand why they look so miserable… because before you know it you’ll be standing there in a warm and slimy puddle of vomit… wearing a handful of it and holding a share of in your hand too. What people don’t tell you about are the visits to hospital when the child’s temperature turns dangerously high, they don’t tell you about the hours that you’ll spend there feeling frightened and inadequate… because your child is sick (again) and you haven’t figured out how to make mothering work properly yet.
It was a phase. A hard, trying and tiresome phase. And it passed, I hope… but it would have been much easier if some things did not happen, if words did not happen, wretched words that sadly come from directions that you least expect. Careless criticisms of your choices. Doesn’t matter what that choice is? Just a different and independent choice. That you study. That you don’t study. That you work part-time. That you work full-time. That you don’t work. That you cook, that you don’t cook. That you buy, that you don’t buy. That you look after yourself, that you don’t look after yourself. That you stand straight and that you don’t squat. And all this happens precisely at the time when you need support and encouragement most and it feels so unfair and so ridiculous. It feels stupid and uncaring.
And I wonder now… have I done it myself? Have I made a comment to any of my friend-mums that made them feel uncomfortable? Have I been too blind to see that they needed support and a listening ear? Have I tried to understand their values and their choices? Did I give them a good word? Was I a sister?
I’ve never given up a dream of women gathering to chat and cook together. I know that it’s difficult because we are busy and our routines and schedules are different. But I think having a cup of tea together is still possible and still needed because motherhood is hard work and our experiences, the good and the bad, should be shared, appreciated and understood. I think it takes as much as a barrel of tea drunk together to learn about and to understand another mother’s circumstances, problems and capabilities… This tea and a good word is often what it takes to show support… nothing else…
I’ll have my kettle ready for the next visit.
The nothing new challenge which I embraced this year is asking for a sacrifice… a healthy one though… I will need to stretch…. and I am being literal here… because I need to start exercising more as otherwise I may end up not having anything to wear when the weather gets warmer and when I travel to the beautiful and warm island of Cyprus at the end of this month to visit my friend’s family. This is not going to be easy as I am one of those people who is more inclined to choose a book over a stretch. So quite a change is required from me in this department. And… there is this other weakness… cakes… I just really like baking them… and eating them too, of course. :) Do I really need to give them up? Is it not possible to lose weight and have a slice or two (or three ;)) of cake on Sunday? Sunday cakes – oh, this is something so ingrained in my Polish culture. This is what my family gathers for around 4 o’clock in the afternoon every Sunday – the 3C’s: cake, coffee, conversation. Giving up cakes is like giving up childhood for me… unimaginable. Is it the same for you? Is it easy for you to resist sugar?
This week I’ll be posting a recipe for a very easy poppy seed cake. Watch the space if you are a fan of baking. Sorry if you’ve just decided to give up sugar for Lent, you see, it’s time for you to learn that temptations are everywhere even in blogosphere ;)
Below is a photo of my first attempt at making cheesecake. It was nice but even for such a cake lover as me a bit too rich.
February is over and as promised I haven’t bought anything new for myself or my son this year. This challenge is really growing on me and my family and I’m really starting seeing and appreciating its influence. In fact, I came to realise that ‘Nothing New’ is no longer only about buying nothing new… it’s much more than this…
I’ve been following the blog of the original initiator of this idea Sash at Inked in Colour and observing how she’s approaching her challenge. I’m reading her posts and I am often taken aback at how far she takes that challenge… how much she pushes herself to live by her rules. Just recently, for example, she has posted an article about making her own paint. I’ve been painting a lot recently… stroking our kitchen walls layer after layer. Not for a second did I think about making my own paint. It just never occurred to me that I can do it. That there is a way for me to do it on my own.
So thinking about Sash’s post while I was applying the last coat of the paint, I began wondering how many other skills are there that we haven’t developed because we are so used to buying things? How many skills have we forgotten because we shop? Are we not de-skilling ourselves because it’s just so convenient to buy things? The answers to these questions made me look at our different lists (shopping list, wish list, DIY list) and seriously consider if there are things on these lists that I can do by myself or learn to do by myself… and there are of course, quite a few… like making your own yoghurt, juices, jams and breads… and learning to craft home décor and sew.
This year I really would like to make some improvements and alterations to our garden, to make it look nice and neat, improve our herb patch and build a raised bed to grow some vegetables. In the spirit of ‘Nothing New’ I am preserving ‘bits’ of our old kitchen to use them for our garden and I also collected quite a few old-style bricks from our distant neighbours who just a few weeks ago knocked down a wall or two in their house. Last year I would probably have just gone to one of the big chain DIY supermarkets and I would try to find articles for my garden there… this year I am thinking differently… this year I want to be creative with what I have and what I can find and above all I want to do it with my own hands and learn some new skills too. Can’t wait.
There are over ten thousand charity shops in the UK. They sell mainly second-hand goods donated to them from any and every generous soul. You just turn up with your bag or box filled with small treasures and hand it over to the person that’s behind the counter. By selling your products, the shop raises funds for its parent charity. Or you can just simply shop there.
There’s a surprisingly large circle of people that are made happy through your give-aways to the charity shop. A) You are happy because you have done a good deed B) Your family is happy because you have eventually removed that unused-and-dumped-in-the-corner irritating cast away of an item C) The charity workers feel less lonely in their quest for good-doing – you provide them with evidence that there is quite a handful of open-hearted characters in their proximity (and how encouraging and uplifting it is to know that your town is full of generous beings!) D) The beneficiaries of the parent charity (no explanation needed here) E) The charity-shop customer who has just found what he has been looking for for ages and just a day before gave up hope of finding it F) The customer’s partner, friend and family that are going to be experiencing relief after the lucky find.
I do have a few nice things that caught my eye while I was visiting the shops. The vase above is one of them. It looks quite nice in our still-not-ready and rough-looking kitchen.
Do you shop or give to charity shops? Is there anything precious that you found there? Or maybe you are planning to visit a charity shop this weekend? What cause do you support?
Postcards Without Stamps 