The Real Influencers

 

I just want to say, never underestimate the effect your online presence has on others.

I was thinking about years ago when I first discovered blogging. I’d always liked to write and to share my thoughts on the internet seemed daunting. But, I was very lonely. I’d just moved to a new town and I didn’t know anyone. We were living in a bad area. Family was distant and I had three, soon to be four, then five little ones. I had only just embraced my faith in Jesus and I felt very alone in my journey as a Christian and a mother. The internet seemed to unlock a world to me. 

Then I found a group of women bloggers who were mothers and Christians. They posted about ordinary things, the things I was going through, mundane things, hard things, beautiful things. Their faith shone through their words, giving them strength. This overflowed off the page ( screen) and into my own ordinary world transfiguring it and showing me the profound meaning in it.

I was blessed by these women more than I can say. They inspired me, encouraged me, edified me, convicted me.

My children were blessed as my own journey of motherhood was blessed. I will always hold a special place in my heart for those women.

I dearly miss those humble, earthy, homely and homespun blogs although I find similar beautiful souls on Instagram, even if it is a little more fast paced.

A few years ago, I heard that one of these women passed away. I literally went into my bedroom and wept. I had never met or spoken to this sweet, Godly woman, but my children’s childhoods would not have been the same without her generous wisdom and quiet, strong faith. That is because she guided me, as a woman and a mother into the sacredness of my vocation and role. 

We are all influencers in our way. The effects of our lives will only be fully realised in eternity.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 

-Titus 2:3-5

( I just want to thank those who have commented recently. My laptop is not working properly and I’ve just changed my phone and for some reason my replies to your comments aren’t appearing in the blog. I’m really sorry. I think it will work better through my laptop once it’s fixed. I appreciate your kind comments so much) 

Knitting for Littles - Yarn Along

It has been hard to find time to sit down and write of late. Somehow there is always something else to do, which is good in a way as it means life is full. We have also all been down with various viruses, coughs and colds which isn't such a good kind of busy. I'm hoping at least we'll all have rock solid immunity by Christmas.

 I find that whenever I take a break from blogging, it feels hard to get back into it again. I wonder if I really have anything to say worth sharing. Yet blogging does inspire me. It tunes my mind to a positive dial. Maybe it's the sense of community and the interaction, or the way it makes me focus on the beautiful, easy to miss details of the day, in order to take a photo or record a wayward thought that would otherwise simply fall back into the great ocean of reflection that make up the moments, hours, days of life.

I like this quote from writer Noah Ben Shea: 

“The details make life holy. If you want a little happiness in life don’t forget to look at the little things. It is a poet’s work to see the incidental, pluck it, place an appropriate silence around both sides and see the profound in what passes for a passing moment. It is an artist’s job to as much discover art as create it. Prayer is a way of making the common profound by pausing, tying knots around a moment, turning our life into a string of pearls."

Little time for writing means more time for knitting though doesn't it? I have been spending lots of quite evenings with needles in hand, breaking every now and then for another cup of tea and some  Pinsperation. It amazes me how much you can accomplish during a few quiet evenings. Poor Nola lamby, has had a couple of ear infections recently. I found a  free slouch hat pattern on Ravelry and knit the child size up in one evening. It was a lovely simple knit. I love the way it fits cozily over her ears. I even learnt a new cast on method to make that cute rolled hem. I will be using the long tailed cast on method a lot more in the future. It is so fast and although sturdy allows a lot of flexibility. Click here for a You Tube tutorial.

To make the fingerless mitts I used the long tail cast on method and cast on 28 stitches onto size 4.5 mm needles using Aran weight wool mix yarn. I simply knitted in K2, P2" ribbing until I reached the desired length before casting off in rib and stitching up the side seam leaving adequate space for a little thumb.

I am making lots of bootees in different sizes for Emmy's baby. We still don't know if it will be a boy or a girl but if takes after it's Mama it will love any shade of green.

Above is the first leg of a pair of leggings. The cable cuff is a fun alternative to Knit2, Purl2 ribbing.

Below is a little top I kind of made up as I went along loosely following the dimensions of a couple of different patterns.

I haven't been reading too much but I have been enjoying the new series of Great Canal Journeys. Wouldn't it be magical to live on one of these?

Joining Small Things and Frontier Dreams

Lovely Link Ups

Monday:

A Field of Wildflowers - #Small Wonders
Lavender Cottage - Mosaic Monday 
Pumpkin Sunrise - Weekending

Tuesday:         

Frontier Dreams  - Keep Calm & Craft On
Spirit of Simplicity - Tuesday Afternoons

Wednesday:    

Small Things - Yarn Along   
The Pleated Poppy - What I Wore Wednesday
My Memory Art - Black and White Wednesday

          
Thurday:

Little by Little - Little Things Thursday

Like Mother, like Daughter  - Pretty, Funny, Happy, Real 
Recuerda Mi Corazon  - Haiku My Heart

 

Friday:

Natural Suburbia - Creative Friday 
A Soulful Life - Soulfood Fridays

Saturday:           

D'Verse - Poetry Link Up 
Sandra Heska King - Still Saturday

Sunday:

Wooly Moss Roots - Gratitude Sunday 
One Dad 3 girls - My Sunday Photo


Weekly:
 Practicing Simplicity - {52 Project}


Monthly:

Gingerlilytea - Siblings

 

Some thoughts on writing...

 ...and

A Few Words to a Young Writer: by Ursula K. le Guin

***

Socrates said, "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul." He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.

 

...in response...

I just had to write a post in response to comments on this post about the poor standard of living conditions the council are providing for a disabled woman and her 5 children.

I'm really tired of people who judge others for the number of children they have.

Those within a lower socio-economic income bracket often receive the worst prejudice of all.

It seems that there are quite a number of people who feel that if you don't fit a certain criteria, or earn a certain salary, you should not be allowed the privilege of having children.

Even though they work hard, many people do not and will not ever rise above a certain economic level, does that mean they should forfeit the greatest human right of all, the right to have a family? Should such a thing be sanctioned by an independent body, the government or worse still societal pressures and prejudices?

In the current climate many families' salaries are topped up with tax credits or medical exemptions even though they are doing everything possible to support themselves independently of the state.

Truthfully, many of the people at the lower end work harder, in more undesirable conditions, for less than those in the middle or top of the pile.
Does it mean they should be penalised?
I hope not.

I sincerely pray this lady and her family get the help they need...and deserve.

I also hope that compassion will overcome judgement in many hearts.

Mother Teresa once said...
"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

And what really makes the world a better place love or judgment?

When blogging hurts

Words are written so easily. The silence of the page hardly rebounds. Keys fall loosely, fluidly, without a sound. Mute and rhetorical.
Thoughts overflow upon a hungry white screen and they cannot be diluted or dammed. Emotions seep in drunken abandon.
They create waves, like ripples, ever widening.

Somehow things such as this lie beyond ideology.



Blogging, as with life, work, school or any other place where individuals gather into groups within a group has it's own rules, hierarchies, cliques and tribes.

I don't really fit in. I'm too much of one thing to be another and too much of another to be just one :) Most of the time I just scribble out my heart even though I know I'll never be a writer. Feeling the release of simply letting words fall out from fingertips. Realising how hard it can be to quell the flow.
Or I might record small moments of beauty and grace in this little space here. Staying out of the way like I did at school. Mixing a little with every tribe, still happy to be alone, doing my own thing.

Bullying in the blog world, seems to be getting worse. Maybe I'm just noticing it more.
There are blog parodies, with their very own blog buttons. The purpose of their existence being simply to ridicule other blogs. So much time and effort spent on negativity. Feeding distrust and division.

It makes me so deeply sad. I can't explain why. Somehow it reminds me of the rush predators get when they smell a little blood.
Fraying threads of red glint in blue vastness, and suddenly there is a feeding frenzy. All the fish in the sea clamoring to take a bite.

A few days ago, somebody may have said something a little off key, maybe their words could have been chosen differently.... but the reaction, like a landslide just got bigger. Till everyone involved became knee deep. Mired, smeared, dirtied. I watched on the sidelines half guilty observer, half paralyzed by dismay.

Feels like something bigger than a blog post became damaged somehow.

Grace, is such a beautiful word. So underused. Thrown around as if it were a rag doll, yet how easily broken to pieces like china.

So many things distract, harm, hurt.
There is a woman, I know only through the letters she types, she is really different from me, but today I felt her pain and alienation.
And the subtly of bullying disguised as discussion.
Thin veils these computer screens.
Still not so much between us and the world. As between us and our true selves.

Getting REAL! Taking the layers off one by one and finding true beauty and acceptance

Thank you Shakti Mama, Ariella, Kat and Maureen at Twig and Toadstool for inspiring this challenge to "Get Real" and embrace ourselves and each other.... Just the way we are!

Okay so this was the first "Real" shot of the day. And I was so happy with how blurry it turned out ;) Until I realised that the focus of my camera was on manual and therefore I wasn't really playing by the rules.

A little better....
Eeek! Okay this is me full on, no make up at the end of a busy day with the girlies :)

Matilda wanted a picture with me when she saw I was taking my own photo and being a silly mummy. Well she's used to that. Again blurry, because she knocked my hand a little as I took the shot.

Thoughtful...
I have pretty much stopped wearing make up for the past couple of years. I usually wear my hair up during the day too but let it down in the evening around my family.
Also often I wear a headband or headscarf .
My deep desire is to learn to find beauty from my soul. I seek to nurture that more than my outer appearance now.

Letting go of the make up was part of the process of embracing myself truly as I am.
To find my real work in the tending, cultivating, and nourishing my true self, and my soul above and beyond the outer work of conforming to an ideal of physical beauty.

Make up and clothes used to be my protection, my mask. I used to "find myself" in my look.
But one day it occurred to me, that if my look was taken away from me, what would be left? What would be me? A social stereotype?
My soul is more than an image.

I have been trying to take the layers off one by one. I want to be real, I want to be authentic, I want my girls to know that a woman's beauty lies in her heart not her make up bag.

Little by little I have come to find my value in who I am becoming in God rather than how I look.

I remember, as a child gazing into my danish grandmother's soft blue eyes, cradled in laughter lines and wrinkles and the shadows of a full but hard life. And all I could think was, how beautiful she was. I even used to ask her.... "Tell me Granny, tell me the truth, are you really an angel?" I sit here in recollection, smiling at the innocence of a child. But that is the kind of "seeing" I have lost somehow, along the years.
The learning to see real beauty, and accept it in myself too.

Your beauty shall not come from outer adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."
1 Peter 3.

Inner adornments are the most beautiful ones. I pray to learn how to recognise and acquire them as I walk my journey.

I see Children as Kites

"I see children as kites....

You run with them until you're both breathless....

You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly.... 
 
They need more string and you keep letting it out. But with each twist of the ball of twine, there is a sadness that goes with the joy.

The kite becomes more distant, and you know it won't be long
before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds
you together and will soar as it is meant to soar,
free and alone. Only then
do you know that your job is done."

Excerpts of a Poem called "Kites" by Erma Bombeck