The Two Bald Ones (by sarah)

Mary and Dad were sitting on the sofa and I just couldn't help but think of them as the two bald ones - this was not helped by the fact that Dad pointed out that Mary has hair round the back and down the sides but not much on top!

I am now carrying out my threat to put the photo on the blog under the title of The Two Bald Ones 😉

Poetry Me – a question of confidence (by sarah)

Last night I went out to Poetry Cafe which is a lovely poetry night in Chletenham organised by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival people - it often features a main poet and a mini show case of new poets (I've done a mini show case before which was fun). Yesterday was no exception with two fantastic headliner poets 🙂

I knew I had to go to this event in order to get back into the swing of things but it was hard - first off there is the anemia making me so tired and stuff still then there is the whole crutches thing and then of course children to be looked after and a time balancing with Mary's feeding as she is still completely breast fed and the event was being held in a pub. Then there was the panic whilst getting ready that cloths were either too big or too small and everything nice just made me look fat.

But I put on the black dress mum got me - it is maternity ware but I don't think you can really tell - it mainly hid the giant bandage/corset thing I have to ware to be able to walk and some black net stockings covered the compression stocking. I felt trussed up and rediculous and knew there was little I could do about it. I also knew I had to read to read at this event or I would loose the ability to get up on stage.

However I need some sort of confidence trick to be able to read especially as it was all going to be a bit awkard due to crutches and the venue room being upstairs etc... So I looked through my accessories and dug out the purple hat Al bought me at Wychwood last year and a purple flower hair band - I decided to go with the purple flower.

I ended up reading twice and I may now be doing two more events at the Poetry Festival - I am already doing the Poetry and Piaf event (reading my Piaf poem unsuprisingly).

The festival is the 31st of March - 3 April.

I am really looking forward to it plus April like it is going to be lots of writing fun for me anyway but more on that later 🙂

Musical Me (by sarah)

I've been practicing the guitar like a demon - well there's this little gap in the day when Mary is awake but not feeding and it coincides with Jean being around so I tend to spend then practicing the guitar. With a dose of nursery rhymes.

I am also learning the Firefly theme The Ballad of Serenity and the Hero of Canton just to be geeky and music mistro at the same time 🙂

Now I'm not really what I would call naturally musical, I can't read music, have little technical knowledge of the subject and spent a chunk of my early life with hearing problems, but I love music and I want to play it - I know I'm not really any good at it but I know that this also doesn't really matter.

I am making leaps and bounds with the guitar playing (still know 13 year olds that would make me look like a beginner because though I have had a guitar since I was 15 that is what I am!). Little things are clicking in my head - like I never could do strumming patterns - I still don't look at what they are supposed to be I just play but I noticed that I am hitting the right strings automatically some of which I always concidered impossible.

I have finially broken the back of reading tabs though I still end up with furrowed brow and pauses as I try and position both hands with multiple fingers for plucking. I am also attempting to combine strumming and plucking - again something I never thought I'd be able to do.

I know this all basic stuff but believe me it took me along time just to get rhythm - I'm not what you'd call a natural. Also the guitar music I was trying to play was far to advanced for me and getting the Nursery Rhyme and Christmas Carol book as helped so much - they are aimed at kids and so are my level.

The ability to tune the guitar is coming back too though I am still a slave to the tuner - when we first moved here I tried tuning from the piano at Barbara's but it never sounded right (mainly it turned out because the piano was out of tune).

I have also found things much easier since I stopped trying to completely mimic songs - I need to know what the song is supposed to sound like in order to start playing it but then I alter it to fit with how my voice wants to sing it. I'm sure half of you are cringing at that and Mum has apoplexy that I don't play the right tunes but sometimes the tunes are boring or it's too low for me.

Issues I still have is that my hands are being a little bit rubbery at the moment but I swear playing the guitar helps prevent the complete collapses that I've had in the past but I still have to restrict practice and incorporate it into the 'pacing' for pain management. On that note I can't currently play my new guitar due to it being too heavy for me to lift and swore joints make the extra push down on the metal strings painful.

I still fail at bar cords and those that I can make 'ring' (not sure the technical terms for half of this) I can't change into quickly and changing from one to another just is not even on the horizon. This is a shame as alot of my favorite songs use them :/ On the other hand I have found that I can work out simpler/easier for me to play cords that with me singing soprano works - though I again can see people throttling me as I sing heavy metal in a choir voice!

And this leads me into the singing thing - I really miss singing - I miss it so much - I sing to the girls all the time but though that is lovely it is not the same. I've hunted around for choirs but they do tend to be either just choral stuff - Latin etc... or they are naff and they cost a fortune!

But in desperation I had a little look around on the internets again and found there is a group that sounds vaguelly like MT Soc (Op Soc to the oldies) that I belonged to at college and they put shows on at the Everyman Theater and the Playhouse in Cheltenham. I really want to join this group though I need to learn to drive first really - the only down side is they do focus almost entirely on Gilbert and Sullivan - this only makes me sad as I feel there is so much more to musical theater and light opera.

I really enjoyed being in things like The Little Shop of Horrors at college but from memory just the right to perform the modern stuff is sky high. But The Cotswold Savoyards definatly sounds more up my street - I tend to prefer it if there is some acting involved plus you get outfits!!!! Droool.

But as I said joining this group would be in the future once I learn to drive and more importantly am back off of crutches.

Part of me is kicking myself for not having claimed domestic space for the music stuff before - I always hide the guitar away and had trouble keeping tuner, plectrums, guitar and music all in the same place and then the flood happened - mixed in with the issues with my hands and it's makes for poor neglected guitar. I'm sort of thinking - wow if I'd spent all the time form 15 until now playing guitar with daily practice I might actually be ok at it rather than at the - well I can play some nursery rhymes stage :/

Mirror Baby and Baby Sign (by sarah)

On Wednesday Mary discovered Mirror Baby - this is the baby in the mirror - when Jean used to be sad we would show her mirror baby and point out the sad baby and that if she smiled it would cheer up!

Mary like Jean has locked onto the image of another human and like she is doing with everybody - smiling her little head off 🙂

Then we come to baby sign and something that I'm sure can not be happening yet but even one keeps commenting on it and I thought it myself. If Mary is not wailing but hungry she makes little mah noises and then once you pick her up does what appears to be the milk sign in baby sign. I assume it is just because it is the sort of movement babies make anyway. Jean is very excited about this but then according to Jean Mary pulled all the cloths off the side in her bedroom and has conversations with her :/

Either way I respond to it as if it is baby sign in the hope that she will notice - when I do this I get milk - hmm it's the same thing everyone does when talking about 'food'.

Pain Flare (by sarah)

I have lots more cute pics and lots of things to write about but I am having to be very careful - I am in pain flare up mode - I don't mean the seperated pelvis I mean the muscle spasms and dull aching, the fire, shooting pains and being stuck by pins. Alot of the muscle pain has been muted during the pregnancy - spasms were less due to the pregnancy hormone but now they are crashing back.

So I am having to pace things and juggle various issues like sleep, breast feeding, anemia and pain management for things that need different treatments.

But bare with me and pics of baby will be forth coming!