Friday and all is quiet on the home front.......

A week of contrasts here..... from the heights of hilarity, shrieks of laughter, and celebrating a friend's birthday to visiting my friend battling through the last couple of chemo treatments, and to the funeral of another friend. This has been a week of extremes.

Highs and lows. The pendulum swings. The rhythm of life.......

Extremes are never easy to deal with, are they. There are times when I am simply exhausted by the changes, and then I stop and think about how incredibly lucky/blessed I am to be up and moving (ok, a little slowly, but moving nonetheless).

The red and white bunting is almost made. I just have to iron the bias binding and then attach it, and then I had idea for pastel shades for Easter but that can wait, and while I try to stay awake long enough to watch a tv programme in the evenings, I am crocheting a scarf. This will probably be for next winter at this rate, because I do half a row and wake up, crochet hook poised in my hand, 3 hours later. I sometimes think of how once upon a time, that bunting would have been made in an hour or so and how a scarf would have taken a couple of days and then I grin and think, so what. Who said I had to churn out stuff in torrents. I can take my time. Now, if only taking my time was a CHOICE instead of inevitable, all would be peachy.

My world is becoming quieter. I am learning.

And as this week has alternately hurtled and chugged to an end, there has been time to read a few pages. Time to make homemade soup today. Time to chat to friends, both in person and on the phone. Time to think.

I also decided to sing again with our local music society. Over 100 singers turned up for registration this week to sing Songs from the Shows at concerts in March. We are singing songs from Les Mis, Lion King, Blood Brothers, Cabaret and West Side Story, and I will have to take a box of tissues with me, because I howl through Les Mis whenever I hear the music. It will be good to sing again. I last sang the spring before Geoff died. It is time.

And it is also a declaration of sorts.

I have withdrawn from so much over the past 2 years. The clinic at Bath warned us that people with CRPS tend to do this, and not for a second did I believe them. But you know what? They were right. In actual fact, they have been right about a great deal. I was sceptical at first, but now? I know better. Older wiser and all that. I have withdrawn from so much, and it was slow and gradual and I hardly noticed what I was doing. Not good. But I am determined to rejoin the world one way or another in 2011. This is a start.

So the weekend is here. I think I need a list or 2 to remind me of all the things I intend doing. Like downloading the camera, and other such exciting bits. And I HAVE to decide on the new phone in the next 3 or 4 days. Oh I hate making decisions! However, the battery life has decreased to zilch, and that is no good at all. This decision has been pending since September.

I think my batteries could do with replacement too.