Life lessons around every corner - and a little love too!

Just over a year ago I had surgery on my feet to remove my seriously painful bunions. My feet went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

Regular-looking feet for the first time in my life since I started walking. And they weren't just funny-looking - my feet used to hurt every day, sometimes to the point where I couldn’t walk any more. This time last year I had my bandages off, gave back my crutches and started shuffling around on my own two spanking-new feet. Yesterday as I stomped through the snow on my way home from yoga, I marvelled at how far I’d come since those first few tentative steps, when an old couple with a walker could (and did) overtake me with ease! 

But today I felt frustrated - while my feet definitely no longer hurt like they did when I had bunions, my big toes are stiff and often pretty sore, and I’ve lost a lot of flexibility. Flexible toes is not something I’d thought much about, until I started practicing yoga. My practice has come on in leaps and bounds, in almost every area except my leaps and bounds! Hopping back to plank, or forward from downward dog is almost impossible without being able to put all your body weight into your toes, and then even more as you spring up. Poses that require you to balance on your toes, like plank for example, have been more challenging for me than they would have before my operation, leading me to question whether it was all worth it. 

But today in class, with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we were all invited to let in a little self-love, to use love as a mantra to help us focus. And when I did, I began to be a little easier on myself, and my frustration began to fade. I realized that I’d forgotten what it was like to not be able to walk without help. To have to use crutches, the wall or other people as support, and how frustrating it was to need 10 minutes just to shuffle to the bathroom. I might not be hopping up into poses right now, and in fact I may never get full strength and flexibility back in my toes. But all that means is that I’ll have to develop strength in other areas to compensate, and maybe one day I’ll be floating into headstands, rather than springing into them! I’ve realized that what is holding me back isn’t lack of flexibility in my toes, it’s fear of the pain that might happen if I try. So with that in mind, I attempted my first couple of hops back and forward - It hurt a bit for sure, but nothing that I can’t handle. Yoga has taught me that being afraid of something is no reason to not try, and has given me the patience I need to keep on trying, even (especially) when the first attempt isn’t pretty!

After yoga I hit up The Cannon for my post-class coffee, and while there my friend and I met and chatted to a lady with no arms and no legs. Seeing this woman deal with one of the most challenging hands life can deal with humour and grace gave me the perspective I needed - yes, my feet are sore and my yoga practice is slightly restricted because of it. But I have a strong body, all my senses work and if achy toes are the worst of my problems, I got a pretty good thing going on!

And speaking of love, if you're looking for an environmentally (and financially) friendly flower-alternative for a Valentine's Day gift, come check out my stall at Art Crawl tomorrow! Yes, it's going to be negative-something-or-other, and probably snowing, but I'll still be there with plenty for sale - hats. gloves, fleece-lined cowls, and these Forever-Roses:

Let's spread the love...happy Valentine's Day! xxx

I Heart Hamilton

Hamilton is full of surprises:

On one of the coldest but most beautiful days I’ve experienced I went for a stroll around Gage Park, and discovered that it’s not only stunning outside

but that there’s hidden treasures on the inside.

 Inside a tropical hothouse that contains lush ferns. brightly coloured tropical flowers and a pond complete with waterfall and fat koi carp you can relax on a park bench and breathe in the warm wet air of the tropics whilst looking out the misted window at the sparkling snow. The greenhouse is open every day of the week, and is free - a bizarre and beautiful distraction from the wintery weather.

There’s all sorts of wildlife running around the place. At the waterfront iceskating rink - which is free to skate on, and only $6 for skate rental - two mythical creatures, fair and graceful, were spotted. 

A mid-afternoon Saturday skating session seemed the perfect time for Work-Wife and I to sport our matching unicorn onesies (like all housemates have), and we definitely made at least one little girl’s day who posed for a photo with us, and amused most of the other people at the rink. I was even asked if we were part of a special group. I like to think so. 

I am full of surprises:

After a fair amount of internet research, demonstrations from friends and coaxing from my yoga teacher, I attempted my first yoga headstand:

and have been practicing every couple of days since. I’m trying my hardest to learn to walk before I run, to build up to an effortless headstand in phases, to have patience and trust that as I keep doing other poses I am building the strength to make headstands easier. I think that’s the most important thing I’ve learnt in the last few weeks - to be gentle with myself and not rush things…although it’s taken a few tumbles and days of sore neck muscles to make me fully absorb the lesson. 

My time in Hamilton is coming to an end. My third and final Art Crawl is in a few weeks, and I have an out-of-control yarn collection I’ve got to make a serious dent in before I leave. I'll be making my usual cowls, gloves and tea cozies, but I thought I'd learn something new - so here's my latest (and possibly most favourite) achievement - the Cat Bum Coaster!

There’s going to be a fair amount of sitting around crocheting…I think there’s a park bench in the rainforest that’s got my name all over it! 

'If I could do it again I'd make more mistakes, I'd not be so scared of falling.'

A new year, and I really only have one resolution. It’s not even really a resolution, more of an intention - this year I intend to learn. 

Learning, for me, can be a tricky thing. I love being able to do a lot of different things, but I really don’t like to be bad at things. And something I’ve learnt the hard way is that you’re always bad at something when you first start doing it. So often that fear of being ‘bad’ at something has stopped me from taking the first step and actually learning how. Add in a need for everything I do to be perfect and beautiful, and I talk myself out of even trying. 

I’d like this year to be different - I’ve started a crafting business, and the only way I will get that business to grow is by learning new things. I need to learn new techniques, styles and stitches, and to work with different materials. 

I’ve been researching freeform crochet, scrolling endlessly through pictures on Pinterest and looking up various artists. I’ve found spectacular hyperbolic crochet sculptures:

and beautiful freeform crochet landscapes and portraits by artist Jo Hamilton:

Textiles artist Prudence Mapston (www.knotjustknitting.com) creates scrumbles, small patches of freeform crochet that are sewn together:

Freeform crochet doesn’t follow set written patterns - it’s about combining different stitches, styles and materials to create unique fabric that can be sewn onto clothes, sewn into clothes, or just hung on the wall as art. The possibilities are endless, and I’m excited about learning the techniques to allow my imagination to run wild, and get me out of my comfort zone a little bit!

Yoga has definitely inspired me to become better at learning, to accept that the first time you do something (whether is a crochet stitch or a yoga pose), you’re probably not going to do it perfectly. But if you keep doing it, day after day, and keep working at it, before you even realize it’s happening you’re doing Bird of Paradise. Every time I’ve tried to do a particularly tricky pose, I’ve done the best that I can at that moment, and then I leave it. I keep going to class, I keep doing the poses I can, and then a month later I’ll try again. And in that month I will have built up enough strength, balance and flexibility that the harder poses become a little easier. The first time I tried Crow pose I thought there was no way I would ever be able to do it. The first time my toes came off the ground, even for a second, was so exhilarating I couldn’t wait to try again. On Friday I managed 5 seconds of perfectly balanced balancing - and it will only keep getting better, just like everything else I’m going to have a go at learning this year.