Day 15 – Pinterest (by sarah)

It is day 15 of Advent and so I painted an Ice Tunnel - well actually I painted it like a fortnight ago but I am putting it up now 🙂 Yes I was behind, yes I have back blogged!

I kind of got obsessed with this colour scheme.

Also I found an interesting article on what happens if you try and live by Pinterest for a week - Pinterest is an image sharing platform. I discovered it existed as people where putting my photos on there and my friend saw some cakes I'd made and nagged me (still have not blogged nor pinned the cakes).

I was a bit sad to see that there is a Pinterest stereotype - Mummy Blogger, White middle class housewife etc... and some people have found it depressing as they are not crafty enough 🙁 I'm kind of sad that I now know this. I also have a horrible feeling that this is me and yet not me. I know tattoos and nail art where on there as I like those things and occassionally look them up! I still don't know what the hell a Mason jar is and I write craft tutorials :/

I use pinterest mainly to gather inspiration for me and other writers and to discover potential artists for book covers or to post my own images or find science peeps etc.. I would not have gotten through her experiment! Well not unless someone was sponsoring me anyway!

Anyway this is my Pinterest, for those who are interested.

Day 6 – Snowman and a Song (by sarah)

It is day 6 of Advent and so here is my water colour - say hello to Mr Snowman. Alaric likes this one though I kind of don't!

And to keep with the chill of winter, here is Jean's song In The Winters Heart.

The Chronically Ill and Missing Stuff (by sarah)

As anybody who has spoken to me recently will know I was looking forward to this weekend, I had the night of dangerous writing which to be fair was only a maybe as I needed to see when my practice sessions and stuff where, and the Writing Retreat.

But this week had been a bit rough but I thought I was managing it ok, and I had already had to do damage limitation and not go to my Chuffing It class. Friday I felt a bit odd but in a way that could have been nerves over doing a new show for the first time a school and the first time on my own too!

I really enjoyed the shows and the kids were great but in the car on the way home I got really sick, well not really sick but suddenly very flu-like very chronic pain flare, even my pelvis hurt. I was scrubbed out and didn't make it to Bristol. Then I spent today napping and having warm baths and stuff.

Then this evening I find that due to being out of it yesterday afternoon and evening and really and truly this morning - I'd missed the writing retreat which I was desperately trying to be well enough to go to.... tomorrow - yeah somehow I managed to get my days confused and I only found out after getting an email saying how unfair it was of me not to turn up as there was a waiting list.

This is something that happens to chronically ill people no matter how much you try, regardless of how much you make sure that you pay for things you do not go on etc... people just do not understand and one of the things that was hard to learn on the pain management course 10 odd years ago - is that you can't really expect them too either.

From their point of view you are just being awkward.

It doesn't help that now I have a extra food issues and they had gone to extra effort to cater for that.

Of course if I had known I wasn't going, I would have let them know but I didn't and I am uber hacked off that I missed it - not that I could have gone even if I had been with it enough to realise what the day was!

It's the same mechanism by which the chronically ill lose friends as people think the last minute cancellations are excuses for "I don't like you".

And annoyingly it may be flu but equally due to the arthritis symptoms resurfacing we looked at the breakfast I'd been eating this week. It turns out that some porridge contains a thing called spelt - this turns out to be a kind of wheat - it never occurred to me it would be it oat based stuff and I was only having it as the nurse had increased my calories and it's frosty icing mornings :/

You Can’t Be A Scientist (by sarah)

Me: explains science

Kid: How do you know all this slits eyes

Me: Because I happen to be a trained scientist

Kid: No you're not

Me: Yes I am

Kid: Nooooo, he's the scientist points to Al

Al: Nope I'm an engineer, she's the scientist

Kid: What really?

Me: Yep, I've blasted moon rock with lasers

Kid: puzzled look

This was last week. I am sure I've told you all about the time the toddlers refused to believe I was a geologist and that my friend with his shorts and big beard was the geologist?

I'm sure you've all read the posts I've made about how I get parents thanking me for having Ada and a list of female scientists and engineers but this time I don't think the issue was one of gender exactly - I am a mum, I had occupied the space of "mum person" "stay at home parent" and in our society that means, person who doesn't do anything but house work, or maybe a side job in a shop or nursery.

He had no problem with there being female scientist puppets or the idea of girls in the group doing science but Mums? Mums don't do/know this kind of stuff, mums well they're kind of dumb and reserved and frightened things.

And I have gotten this so much.

I noticed that crutches aside people just assume I don't want to/can't do stuff anymore because I've had a baby or two and it is INFURIATING, more so as though Alaric suffers from this too it is a watered down version - probably as he is out at "proper work". Stay at home dad's I know tend to have issues with people thinking they are lazy and heaven forbid they try and expand their minds by reading or anything whilst at home - surely they should be fixing everything - what you mean they cook and clean? They need to go out and get a job.

And on and on and on.

But I am kind of feeling a bit stressed about bits of science that are not my bit of science because though at primary school age etc... I know all the stuff I feel like I am now The Proof and the only proof that slightly dumpy mummies can do science too.

The Warrior Butterfly (by sarah)

Tonight (21 st Nov 2014) I am going to be taking part in a Quiet Compare event at The Strand in Cheltenham. It is medical themed poetry so I am taking along a poem I have only ever performed twice before and never to a live audience that is sitting there just for poetry.

The poem is The Warrior Butterfly and chronicles the issues I had around the pregnancy and birth of Jean, I could write a lot on the imagery and what the poem means to me but I shall not. The two previous performances were: 1) Cheltenham Community Radio for one of their shows and 2) for the On Form Sculpture exhibition in Oxford a few years ago where I stood on an Earth work (made for the garden not an ancient burial site) that was covered in flowers and called it to the sky and the arty loving people who happened to be wandering about at the time.

It is a long and in many ways personally indulgent poem for me, not my normal but as such it is often not the right sort of thing to read at events and the actual reading of it is hard for me.

I hope local peeps might like to come out tonight to listen - it isn't just me performing a 4 and a half minute poem, there are lots of others performing too, some of whom you might even have heard of!

Anyway I'd better give it the read through a couple of times before tonight.

Here's the event details for those of you not on Facebook it is 7:30 at The Strand in Cheltenham with a £1/£2 suggested donation on the door.