Angels on our way

Sometimes when the going gets tough you need angels on your way to help you through the bad patch.

My angels are my friends and my family, I can't do without them.

Today is a rough day, I have more pain then I had before, my anxiety levels are high and for the first time I needed some anxiety medication to stop the racing thoughts in my head.

I am still waiting for my MRI scan to reveal if the cancer is gone or still there or is spreading somewhere else and on some days I can't handle this very well any more.

I know craft blogs are mostly uplifting and no one wants to read the hard stuff, but it is for now the real stuff in my life.

My angel doll

Every fortnight a small group of creative friends meet together and we have a craft morning, last time I started making this angel doll with Elizabeth.
The doll patterns are designed by her and her friend over many years. I finished the angel doll just before our craft morning today and took it along to show the other women.
I was not in the mood for crafting much and I left a bit earlier.
I came home crying, life seems to hard now.
But my amazing husband was home to comfort me.

The grapevine angel

But I realize that the kindness of my friends this morning are the angels on my path today.

They recycled cans for me to use for my herb plants, made me a coffee, gave me a new pattern to make for another angel doll and gave me a hug and prayed for me.

Thank you God for the angels in my life, I need them so much.

Spinning, knitting.... winter has arrived.

Winter arrived very suddenly.

I missed late summer and the warm autumn days because of my cancer treatment in Christchurch and seven weeks away from the cottage and the garden is a long time.

Now winter is here and the first frosty nights were a bit of a shock, so cold outside, but amazing starry night skies.

Waking up in the morning to a white world,even the pond is frozen and my goldfish are swimming under the ice till the morning sun comes out and melts the ice away.

All the growth in the garden has slowed down and` the winter vegetables are not doing well in this sudden cold snap.

I have planted the last spring bulbs and Henk is pruning the fruit trees in the orchard.

When the afternoon sun is warm enough I sit outside on the deck with my spinning wheel and spin away for a hour or so.

Handspun wool

My wool is not finely spun, I spin a bit more chunky, but I like a textured look and feel in my knitting,also I spin different yarns together.
Black Alpaca wool with grey Romney wool and some dyed fleece to create a burst of colour.

The first frost of winter.

Different fleeces spun together.

I can't wait to start knitting my next slippers.

Creative again

After two weeks at home I start to feel well enough to be creative again.

Slowly my energy levels are returning and I feel I can do a little bit more each day.

Most afternoons I am very tired, so I do some spinning or painting.

My friend Ruth lend me her mothers spinning wheel and I bought some carded fleece at Eyebright near Richmond,also Ruth left me some carded wool to spin. 

The last spinning I did was nearly two years ago, so it took me an afternoon to get into the swing of spinning again.

I hope to spin every day and use the wool for my knitting.

Paul is the next person I am knitting winter slippers for and Jean my friend put an order in for a pair of slippers.

My paintings are simple, watercolour images of every day items, mostly from my garden.

I use recycled paper and small pieces of watercolour paper for the cards.

I found the birds nest without the egg.

Henk is going back to work this week after nearly three months looking after me and being with me during my cancer treatment.
I won't be able to work for a while, so we have to live of one income what will not be easy.
The only way I can earn some extra money is through my creativity and I hope to be able to sell my little painted cards and hand spun knitted slippers through my blog and face book.

Another birdsnest card

Pumpkin from the garden.

Another pumpkin card.

Olives from the olive tree in the garden.

The cards cost $ 5 not including postage.
The hand-spun knitted slippers cost $ 25 not including postage.
I am selling my cards on trade me under crafts: Greeting cards and envelopes  in "other" catagory.

I will post some more information about the slippers in my next blog post.

Email me: frowijnmarijke@yahoo.co.nz if you are interested in my cards.

Home again

This photograph of our view was taken when we just moved into our cottage at Upper Moutere and it was spring time, everything looked fresh and green.
Spring passed, summer went and now we are in the autumn season.
So much has happened in those months we have been living here.
We transformed a neglected cottage and garden into our own rustic, shabby chic looking home and the garden one day will be full of flowers and well pruned fruit trees, thanks to the hard work of my husband Henk.
We are bottling and eating the fruit of our trees and the crops were plentiful this year because of our hot,long summer.
While I am writing this blog post, Rachel my daughter is juicing our Granny Smith apples into the most amazing fresh apple juice, I had already a glass full.

Only a few days ago I came home from Christchurch were I had seven long weeks of cancer treatment. Radiation and chemo therapy and my body is trying hard to recover.
I still have times during the day I feel very tired and sometimes I am in pain.
I lost a lot of weight, because my appetite was gone during treatment.
But each day I will get better and will beat this disease.

In three months time I am going back to Christchurch for a check up and will have another scan done to see if the cancer is gone.
I won't know until then,but in the mean time I will focus on my recovery; meditate daily, have a positive mindset and eat healthy food.

I am staying in the now, not thinking about tomorrow much, enjoy the day given to me, today!

Fighting the big black dragon called C

The big black dragon

Last year our family had a lovely walk on the beach in Marahau near Nelson.
Paul our son told us of his plans to get engaged with Emma and he wanted to do this in Golden Bay near were we live.
Emma loves Nelson and Golden Bay so he decided that would be the best place to ask her.
We were overjoyed and so happy for them both.
So Rachel and I cried a bit of joy.
We walked over the beach and on our way back we found this piece of driftwood and we all tried to guess what it looked like.
It was a dragon we decided, laughed and kept on walking,we forgot all about the piece of 'dragon' driftwood.

Now not even a year later I have to fight this big black dragon.
We all cried, not of joy, but of sadness and shock.
I am diagnosed with uterine cancer and because I can't have a hysterectomy because of an unknown bleeding tendency the treatment will be radiation and chemo therapy for the next 6 weeks.
I twice was admitted to Nelson hospital with heavy bleeding and flown to Christchurch by air ambulance.

I  nearly had my first week of treatment and it is still daunting for us all.
My family is so supportive and I can't do it without them.
We had help from Paul friends, lovely cards and  messages, lots of people praying for us.
My life suddenly goes in slow motion and the days are spend a lot of time around hospital appointments, sitting and watching 'healthy' people walking past and thinking 'that was me only two months ago, how could this have happened to me?'
Financial its a burden as well, I had to stop work and Henk is not working to be with me during treatment for the 6 weeks.
Our life is on hold.

But with help from my family and my friends and my faith I want to beat this big black dragon that 's luring at me and want to pull me under.

It won't happen. I don't know what the future will bring, I can only be in today.