See inside my Black H'Art

for inside it is black... it is also, red and purple and blue and green and orange and all the colours of the rainbow. I am showing you my true colours.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Major, maajjoorr, MAJOR upheaval!

Well this could be a really long post, so I am going to get straight to the point... we have had a major upheaval. I'm not sure if the title gave it away?!?!?
I think everyone who has read my blog or facebook would well and truly know that Kev has been working in a "FIFO" (Fly-in-fly-out) position in the mines in Newman since April this year. When Kev took this job it was for a new lease on life.  After owning our own business or working for himself for the entire time we have been together he had had enough. 14 hour days, 7 day weeks. Never knowing what next week would bring.  We spoke to a lot of people.  We thought getting settled in our business early would mean the time would come when we could step back a bit, but everyone we ever spoke to said the same thing.  It never ends.  Our business did really well, and it was a hard decision to let it go, but he decided being able to spend time with the family was more important, so a job in the mines would suit our needs.  We thought it was definitely best for me to stay in Perth because of the kids (I hadn't really thought about how much I would feel like a single parent because of his absence). Our biggest boy was graduating primary school and we got him into the high school we really like, our baby needed help with a delay in his speech, and we had all those after school activities that they would miss out on if we moved to a small country town.  So, sensible thought won out and off Kev went at the start of the year.  And although I put on a brave face, it was one hell of a year.  Not only was Kev only with me one week out of three but to add a little more to the mix, my mum, who lives with us, fell and broke her arm (for the second time in 6 months) in May.  Now to a normal person this would be an inconvenience.  But in case you've never met me, there is very little "normal" about me and this extends to my mother.  She has Lupus and various serious complications that go along with the title.  Breaking her arm actually meant she was unable to walk because she uses and aide. And due to uber heavy drugs they pump into her she has the immune system of a grain of sand.  Anyway, due to some heavy complications Mum was really very unwell for quite a bit of last year and I felt oddly lonely for most of it because my soul mate was 100's of kms away. Now to fill in that blank I have to let you know that Kevin and I are still majorly in our honeymoon phase (I can hear you A-M, lol!).  Until the first swing, where he was gone for 15 days, we hadn't been apart for 15 days in total since we first met. Literally! We are the kind of couple who still hold hands walking around the shops.  We still sit next to each other on the couch every night. We go to bed at the same time every night, brush our teeth standing together around our tiny little basin.  I think you get the picture.  I almost lost my mum and I felt a bit like I had lost my best friend/lover/partner.  Not only was I feeling lonely and scared but my heart was breaking for my man because of the pain I knew he was in, so very lonely going back every night, after 13 hours of work every day, to an empty room.  Waiting patiently for our phone call every night just to hear our voices and feel like he was still apart of our day.  Feeling miserable and helpless because he couldn't put his arms around me as I sobbed on the phone most nights with fear, loneliness and heart ache.  So we had a change of heart.   We decided to go where the family could be together.  It was always going to be better for the kids to have their parents together as this is the way we work best.  Kev was approached to apply for a couple of jobs from a couple of different company's and that is what he did and then we just waited.  I kept "breaking the news" to everyone but was almost disappointed - no shock value there, everyone who knew me, who knew me & Kev, could see it coming.  Another hiccup- sure why not!! -  I couldn't bring Mum with me.  She can't get her medical treatment here and she needs to stay closer to my Nana.  So it was not an easy decision but it was one we all made.  And now here we are in Newman.  It really has been the best decision we could make.  And thankfully to all the beautiful family and friends that I have, my Mum will never be alone.  They are all chipping in to help keep her company and help her out where needed.  They know who they are and I can't thank them enough from the bottom of my heart, I just couldn't have left without knowing they love and care for my mum just as they do for me.  I know it doesn't make Mum's heart as full as having all of us around but it will only be for a couple of years.


What will I do up here?  Well, Kev thought, considering I have always held down a job (going back after each of our four children) aswell as working in our business,  and looking after the kids and Mum, that now might be the time I could spend on furthering the thing that means the most to me (other than my loved ones)... My art.  But what to do and where to start?  Oh the plans!  Hmmmm... Well, I decided when I saw the call out to drop a quick line to Suzanne from Words or Whatever, and here I am the extremely chuffed last DT member!  So this is a MAJOR good news post.  I have to say a huge thank you to Suzanne for being so patient with me while I fell into the black hole of communication that enveloped me while we were in the process of the relocation, your an absolute GEM xoxo.  I absolutely can't wait to get stuck into that corner of my head where the creative stuff lives and put it to good use.  I can't leave without a picture so I have just put up a couple of sneaky's of my scrap space.  As always it is in the middle of our living area, Kev has allotted me a good space so that I can be right next to him while he is on X-Box or puter or TV!  (*sigh* peace and love reign again)





Man, I love these old faux ivory handles on my vintage buffet!!


Please take care of each other,
see you soon!
M x
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Part 2: Did I answer the call...

OK, so this will be longer than yesterday.  Stay with me, won't you?
When my sister died (along time ago) amongst all her things were dozens upon dozens of notes.  Little kitschy note pads and journals and loose leaves with pretty pictures printed on them, filled with everything from heartfelt journal entries to shopping lists.  These notes and lists were so much a part of our lives. They were our lifestyle.  Notes to mum explaining where you were going and when you'd be home, remember this is in a family of 5, pre-mobile phone times.  And lists of things she shouldn't forget, and memories or feelings she wasn't ready to let go of. This was partly because of her make up and partly because of the aluminium poisoning that ravaged her memories.  But, whether it was because of her immensely strong will that she showed me everyday, or whether there is some little, tiny, microscopic piece of protein in our DNA that makes us this way, I'm afraid to say, this too is my craziness.  I am always writing things.  I have always got little books and note pads at the ready for me to store away those thoughts that I am so scared that I will lose.  I think this is also a connection to my trinket box fascination.  I feel the need, so desperately, to contain my memories, to have a place where they belong.  I have many notepads and journals of my own going back 20+ years. Some of them are artistic, some are wordy, some are childish and some are so beyond me that when I look back at them I can hardly believe it is my hand that wrote it.  Maybe this is why I keep them.  Some I decorated.  Some were bought because I thought they were so beautiful to start with that I had to have them in my collection.  So now, is this what I do?  Well it is part of it.  And probably very much part of my "scrapbooking".  The pages I have done strictly for me have little to no embellishment on them.  They are just photos with my memories written with them.  I keep these memories, maybe not so much for "them" but for myself.  Maybe one day I'll lose them and this will be the list I look back on to remind myself.
When I make a "journal" I just do the covers.  I have no intention of putting anything on the inside.  If the journal is for me, then the crisp, clean pages are just like a crisp, clean sheet pulled across a freshly made bed; it's somewhere I want to jump into, to feel safe.  I can pull the pages over my consciousness like a doona up over my ears and block out the deafening noise of all the pain around me.  I can hide my face in them, close my eyes to shut out the light from the world that burns into my mind and scorches it with it's hostility.  Those pages, scented and brittle, smooth and clean are there to shelter me from the world outside.  They will catch my tears.  But they will not betray my thoughts.  Such a promise from something heartless, breathless, unconscious.
I really like making things that are going to be used.  If someone else is to take my journal then part of this objects journey is to fill a spot in that persons day.  To take a list, or record a thought. Or be doodle in, to have an appointment scribbled on it with a shaky hand.  To give something so unfinished is to give the possibility of something greater.  Is to give the opportunity for something more.  My journals are not eclectic pages that I have created but safe places to go for the heart of who has it.

So... I had a miscarriage a couple of weeks ago.  Of course, as soon as Kev jumped on the plane.  And although it wasn't a baby that we had planned and yearned for, I can't help but feel the broken heart of someone who has lost something so connected to themselves and the promise of something so much more than themselves.  Maybe it is because I know how in love Kevin and I are with the people that we have brought into to the world, I fret for the love.  Maybe it is more the smell of a newborns head or the first gurgling smile that you wait for, gazing upon every little milky pore on their face, calling over anyone who will pause and absorb the grace of this wonderful fruit of our hearts.  I'm not sure.  I thought I was very steeled against this type of disappointment (this is the fourth baby Kevin and I have lost), and yet as my body betrays me (as always) and goes through the purging process so my heart goes through the mourning.  Maybe it's just because without Kevin's arms to cradle me and his chest for me to smother my wails and absorb my tears I feel so very, very vulnerable.  Or maybe it's just hormones.  Drugs will cure my physical ailments, time will cure my heart ache and I am strong.
I'm so so sorry, I can't bloody stand people that wah wah wah.  What a freakin' whinger, LOL!!  {Thank you to those who have let me have my vulnerable paranoid moments.  Honestly, everyday [at about the same time] I thank God for you.  xx}

Anyway, this is a box I did recently.  I felt I just had to jump on the "steampunk" bandwagon.  It really isn't my style so much.  I love the period pictures but I am much more aligned in my heart with the nature side of things than the mechanical (which is absolutely hilarious.  I know soooooo too much about machinery for my own liking!!  Bloody things rule our lives!!)

I was going to give you a bit of a run down on the hinges but, I'm not feeling quite up to it at the minute & and am sure you are completely over it too.  I will though, so stay tuned.
  
Thank you for getting to the end of this.  And I do apologise for taking up so much of your time.

Take care of each other,
see you soon!
M xx

Monday, October 18, 2010

That call was for me. Yep, it said "wake up"!!

I have had some wonderful conversations of late, with some wonderfully blessed and wise people. And it has all got me thinking. I know, that's dangerous, isn't it?!
One of these wonderful people asked me what I did. What a terrific question! So simple, so obvious and yet this question has made me lose sleep, has made me question so many things that I thought were constants in my life. It's the kind of question you can answer in a second- straight off the cuff- have it wash straight over you like water off a ducks back. Or it's the kind of question that when you go to answer, you realise you don't know the answer and trying to work it out it becomes so hard that it makes you reassess everything going on. I really liked that question!
So I am going to explain just a little bit about what I do. As it seems to me today. 
I spent quite a lot of time with my Nana when I was younger while my Mum spent a lot of time at the hospital with my older sister.  On the mantle in her kitchen she had about four old tea caddy tins.  I think this was the start of it.  That and Charlie Brown (a close relative) rolling smokes with one hand with baccy out of his little blue tin that he balanced in the hand that didn't have all his fingers.  It's so funny how some of your childhood memories can be so abstract and yet so, so, so vivid.  And so because these are two of those beautifully vivid memories I am sure that is where I got my "addiction" to tins.  I have always collected tins.  And that grew as I got older to trinket boxes and jewellery boxes and old bottles and jars.  Oh I love them.  I actually have an old Bex bottle with the label still on!!  That is one of my favourites.  So when I do my arty type thing (I'm not pretentious enough yet to call myself an artist LOL!!!  And truth be known, I don't think we can ever imbue ourselves with that title, I think it is for others to judge)  what I do is "alterations" and my favourite places to do it are on boxes and tins and books (that is for another post!).  So in case you didn't see it, I put my Wax Box on my blog a while ago, that is definitely one of my favourites.  Now, what I am showing you isn't a box, but it is still more "Meganesque" (LOL!! you-know-who) than some other things I have done lately.  It's so funny, I am NOT a gardener but I always create with leaves and flowers and all things of nature, work that out!?

This is my "Secluded Gardens" Canvas.  I am not even going to try to list some of the techniques, cause to be honest it's a mish-mash.  101 techniques on a canvas, LOL!!


Now when I say it, I don't just say it to hear myself speak (read myself type)- I say it because I sincerely hope as a world, as people in a community, as women (I don't think I have many man reading my blog, please let me know if you are a bloke reading this!), as family members, as friends that we learn to look after each other, because when we do, I believe, that is when we will make awesome things happen! So...
Take care of each other,
see you soon!
Mxx

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

I finally got a title - Phew!


Mmmmmm, gotta love the Lumiere Paints

Take care and all the rest, Mx!
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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Kraft IT Up for October

This is my effort for the Kraft-It Up October Challenge. I have used an Ikea place mat to mask those cute little love hearts and made a daisy chain from chipboard flowers and lace. I really like the way they both worked out!!
This layout was about my Mother's Day morning. I was feeling a bit down because Kev wasn't home, he usually spoils me so.  Lonely and unspoilt was the mood. However, I woke up to this beautiful sight, the big boys came through and off their own back made such a beautiful, heart felt effort.  It meant so much to me. Waking up to this beautiful sight on my bedside table; a picked flower in a cup, a necklace made in my favourite colours, a card drawn and coloured by hand and a hot cup of tea! What a wonderful day, and oh how spoilt I felt.

Take care of each other,
see you soon.
M
x
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Saturday, October 2, 2010

An Oldie but a Goodie


I think everyone has got at least one layout using up all the "spare parts" from chipboard letters or shapes or what ever is left over. I thoguht it was appropriate to use the chipboard letters for a school days layout. I mean what else can you do with royal blue uniforms?! Except the October Afternoon paper is very suitable and absolutely gorgeous!!
My little baby girl looks so grown up on her first day of kindy! Can't believe she'll be full time in just one more term- where does the time go?


Take care of each other,
see you soon!
M
x
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Friday, October 1, 2010

Happy 21st

This is a card that I made for a very dear friend of mine who turned 21 last month. I have literally known her since she was born and it has been a wonderful thing to be able to watch her grow into such a lovely young lady. Hope you had a great night Rach, love you lots! xxx
So the next step is the album to commemorate that wonderful night and all her memories of this exciting time!! Yay!!


Take care of each other,
see you soon!
M
x
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