The laughing Hyena Strikes Again!!!

Hello lovely peeps!

Short post this week, as I am over run with work on the house, and I am feeling lousy with a cold too. So I apologise if I haven't been visiting as many blogs as I usually do!  This week we have had a joiner here, sawing, whirring and hammering! Let the grand makeover begin! We have bought paint for a few rooms, and I have been planning colour schemes. These little birds I made from a pattern in the Cath Kidston book 'Sew!' will give you an idea of the colours of the 'new' room, along with the buttons in my cake stand which will be stood on the dressing table,... the room that we are presently using as a dining room, will be transformed into a bedroom. Before and after pics coming soon!

It was gala week last week, and the procession went past our house last Saturday. You will be pleased to know that I was reduced to tears with giggling again, on my own in the front garden with an audience of people watching me from across the road. The culprit? Well it was a float going by, with the warbling  tones of what I can only describe as chipmunks on speed siniging a disco song! I staggered back to the front door, unable to see through the tears. I was shaking and was no longer able to make any noise..

Anyway, I pulled myself together and went back out to stand by the Owl Tree again... I am a grown-up, I am a grown-up, repeat seven times.. I am a grown-up ....Another float, with horns a blowing, aaahhh-haaaa, ahhhh-haaaa, like the kind that Harpo Marx from the Marx brothers always hooted as he ran about wildly. Well the image of Harpo in my head was too much, so I am afraid it set me off again! George was stood in the front room window watching me with disdain, which quite frankly just made me all the worse. "How old are you?" he asked me, when I went back in the house! 

 For those who don't already know, the Cath Kidston book featured above, has everything you need to make this handbag! Amazing value for money!  I added the gingham lining though, and replaced the white button supplied with my own gingham covered one. It is easy to make too!

Well thats it! Yep, I mean it! No doubt you are all in a deep state of shock at my short post, but I really do feel yuk, and really just want to curl up in a ball somewhere. You know that feeling when you feel as if someone has taken all the bones out of your body?   As my Mum used to say, I am only useful to be chopped up for fire wood! An expression she would always use when I was a good for nothing!

Blessings and giggles to you all!

Update! I have put my owls back on...... I missed them!!!

Suzie xxxx

My 6th birthday in my second life! Springing in!

Hello to all of you, my friends!

Spring is here at last. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It makes me want to re-decorate the house and air out all the rooms.  Pretty up the surroundings!  Oh how I would love a bit of this!

                                A beautiful Cath Kidston Spring bedroom....yummy girls!

Doesn't it just fill our hearts up with hope and cheer when we see the beautiful bright bobbing heads of daffodils? Every spring I love filling the house with them. They bring a certain life to each room, and sunshine each day.

Now I don't know about you, but It just isn't the start of spring at all until I have held a daffodil up and said into its bewildered bloom...."Calling all cars, calling all cars"  Hee hee! Yes, I do. I do it every year! Poor George!

Well it is now six years since my breast cancer diagnosis!  And the start of my second life! Hey hey, its good to give myself two birthdays!  I had my biopsy on the 9th March and my first operation (a masectomy) on the 31st of March 2004. In fact, I got out of hospital just in time for Easter, and still remember the mix of fear (I hadn't got my pathology report back yet) and pure wonder at the way everything was painted more brightly, scents were keener, the breezes softer.

Many hours were spent while recovering from my op, and then going almost straight onto the chemotherapy (4 weeks after my op) watching the birds going about their busy days and reflecting on life and the importance of being in the moment.  I sat gazing out onto the garden from my armchair, wondering how I had never noticed before... so vividly, so real, so intensely.... just how beautiful this world is! Of course I thought I did  know. But I wasn't really awake! But I woke up fully that Easter! I found the beauty almost unbearable, it was so intense.

I wanted to hold it all in my eyes , my heart, my soul, I never wanted to let it go,  I did not want to leave this earth so young (just turned 46 then). My heart ached at the thought of leaving my loved ones, friends and such beauty, and even all the long term problems that I had had before the diagnosis, somehow now didn't seem all that bad! I just wanted to live!  I ached for life.

This is the blessing, the gift that I was given. Because from that day to this, I have never forgotten how lucky I am to still be here. To be here to enjoy another spring, another Easter.

                                       sourced from the internet!

I had such pain, mentally and physically back then, but such joy too!  So spring and Easter mean so much to me! Spring... a time of renewal, new starts, energy and hope! That is when my second life began!

All these photos of the churchyard were taken by me on Wednesday in Poulton le fylde, On a rainy spring day. Usually the flowering is much more profuse, it is a little sparce this year. People travel here every year to take photos, it is such a gorgeous display (photos not doing justice) and they buy postcards which are for sale in St. Chads church (where my Mum's funeral was, and where I was married to my first husband in 1978!)

I am looking forward to Easter!

                                            sourced from internet

These look like they could be full of good ideas for Easter......

Bright and cheerful, cosy and welcoming, Cath Kidston again..... slurp! Sheer eye candy!

Now a thank you to the very lovely Martha who you can visit here, please do go and see her! She sent me this gorgeous little owl pin and card all the way from America! Thank you so much Martha, you are a star!

Lovely isn't it?

Anyhow, I must dash (to bed!) I have taken to posting my posts after midnight on Friday, but yet it still says that I have posted on Thursday!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Lots of love Suzie xxx