Once in every four years.....

The countryside on the other side of the village

Happy Leap Day!

This is an extra day for us - 24 extra hours. So what are you doing today? Something different? I wish I had given it more thought and planned something special to do.
My mind is all over the place, so I thought I would take the easy option and let it all leak out here in point form.

• My blogging friend, LoraLynn Has written a wonderful post after her trip to Blissdom (with her 38 week bump!) and I urge you to go and read it. She talks about how she has realised the importance of being a legacy maker, in addition to other really interesting things.
• I cannot tell you how much I would love to go to a blogging conference and meet up with the friends I have made blogging, in real life. And to learn. Heaven knows I need to keep learning all the new stuff. One day. I also hope that one day we will have them here in Europe.
• I need to think about my own Mission Statement. Do you have one? 
• Jean came to help me move mountains of Winter stuff up onto the deck in the sewing room. It was a real challenge, made do-able with a friend's help. 
• I tossed out bedding which has to be old. Very old. 
• Effort was expended at the gym, and calories were burned.
• I have no idea what I am cooking for supper because I forgot to defrost the food I had listed for today. Memo to self: check menu and do what is necessary in the morning, not at 4.30pm.
• James Murdoch has resigned.
• The daffodils are blooming around the house.
• Missy and her Mum are not coming up this weekend after all.
• I need to do some weeding in the garden.
• I would love each of my children to have homes of their own so I could give them most of the stuff in this house. Right now. This instant. Large homes. With lots of storage. 
• I am about to start making 24+24+8+8 metres of bunting for a young friend's wedding. I have plenty of time, which is excellent. In 4 metre lengths. I may be seeing triangles in my sleep.
• A peacock type of bird (I am a world authority on bird types - black, brown or white, small, medium or large) just breezed past my head in the garden and I did not have the camera with me. 
• The sun has just popped out, as it is about to set. I may go and take photos.......

I did go and take photos......

Enjoy the rest of your Leap Day - I am off to sing again......

More cleaning and hidden treasures..........

Evening, all...............

You may have noticed that the template for winter is gone. That was the easy part, because we all know how I hate messing with templates, but then the  hot bliggity blogs website was down too, so I tried a few others, got into a frightful mess, and gave up. So we are "simple" for now until I can gather the strength to play again. But winter had to go, really, and the blue reminds me of the colour I want the sky to be right now. It has not been blue. It has been grey. 

The cleaning continues. This has to be a Spring thing, doesn't it??? I managed to do the linen change/wash today and tackle one and a half bedrooms and one bathroom. But the phone rang and then I needed coffee and then the phone rang, and then it was dark, and I do not clean in the dark so that was a perfect excuse to cease and desist immediately. And once i got downstairs, I refused to go up again. 

There was a wonderful surprise yesterday when I did the tidying, sorting and cleaning of the lounge. I knew there were a couple of Christmas presents under the table, but I assumed that they were ones I had wrapped for emergencies. So I was packing them away when I noticed that the label didn't look familiar. And I turned it over, and the gifts were for MEEEEEEEEEE! They were both from Jean (who also gave me a wonderful box full of things I love which I opened ages ago) and I was SO thrilled to unwrap them and find a gorgeous book on quilting and some crafty tools to play with. I highly recommend opening Christmas presents at the end of February. 

See - I should have done the sorting cleaning thing much earlier, shouldn't I. In my own defence, though, we used similar paper, so it was a natural assumption that I had wrapped them. I can't wait to start playing! However, the cleaning needs to be conquered first, and the 40 bags need to be gathered and evicted. The house will breathe a sigh of relief, and you never know, I may even get the new study sorted. A year after it was started. There is the slight problem of an old rosewood piano, weighing 5499372625278tons, which no-one wants any more, to sort. You can't even give them away, because modern homes are too small, and everyone has those electronic keyboards now. They are light and easy to move. Diana played the piano, and so does David. Ann plays beautifully, and my neighbours love it when she is here in the summer, and the doors are open, and they sit in their gardens and listen to her playing.

I keep thinking that maybe David would like the piano one day, but realistically speaking, it will be a nightmare to move anywhere, until he has a home of his own, and that is not going to happen in the next couple of years, if he carries on studying. It is approaching 100 years old now, and it still sounds wonderful. Well, it would if it had been tuned recently, but even though it hasn't it still sounds fine.

So Day Three of the cleaning saga happens tomorrow. I am quite sure you are on the edge of your seats waiting with bated breath for the next instalment............ (only the US spells instalment with 2 x ls)(the Oxford English dictionary says we spell it with one!)

Monday turned out to be cleaning day......

It could not be postponed any longer. And the elusive cleaning fairy is nowhere to be seen, so this morning, I hauled out the duster and polish and cloth and pile of assorted cleaning stuff, not to mention the vacuum cleaner which is now sitting in the middle of the lounge.

And then I had a rest.

 It was an ordeal. What can I say.....

And before any of you start telling me what a wonderful thing it is to make your home clean and beautiful for your family, let me point out that there are very few members of the family here to impress at any one time. They have flown the nest. There are, of course, the guests who happen to darken my door at odd times, though.

But the time comes when it has to be done. Like now.

I can do the make it beautiful part and I LOVE that bit. It is the cleaning which is a nightmare. For me. The actual doing part. You girls may be able to crouch and kneel without thinking about it as you polish the legs of YOUR multitudes of coffee tables and cabinets, which need polish because they are yellowwood, stinkwood or blackwood or oak, and heating plays havoc with them if they are not polished regularly. Not to mention the dust. But I can't. It involves getting onto the floor and wriggling on my backside across the room. Then it involves needing a crane to get me up off the floor again. Which is why I always have the phone in my pocket.

And why my house needs cleaning.

Groan.

So, 3 hours later and the lounge furniture has been thoroughly polished. But I have yet to vacuum. Half of this sudden urge to clean is because the sun has been shining for the past few days, though not today, and oh good grief, does it show all the dust...... I have hot air central heating, so it just blows more dust around daily. Such a delight.

I have also polished the wooden furniture in the kitchen/family room. Add that to the list. And the table in the entrance. But that is it so far. We will not discuss the kitchen floor, or under the long table. It needs to be scrubbed, and tiles and knees and crawling are off the agenda permanently, so a wipe with a mop is all it gets.

Ironically, I actually don't dislike cleaning at all. It is part of what I do, so it is second nature. I do dislike ironing, I admit. But cleaning was never an issue, until I found it impossible to kneel. Aiyaiyai. The frustration levels soar, because it is a reminder of what I used to do and can't do now. Not the way I want to do it. At the speed I used to do it all. And we will not mention the tops of the kitchen cupboards, because getting up, as I used to, onto the counters and walking around scrubbing the tops of cupboards with hot soapy water is Out Of The Question.

No, you can rest assured, it is not a hovel, because I am exaggerating slightly. It is simply me moaning a little because I want it to be done NOW and I can't do it. But it does look pretty. Bright. Springlike. Yes, as you can see from the photos, the red is gone and the Spring stuff is out. Well. Some of the Spring stuff is out because I gave up after I found 3 boxes of it, and 2.5 of them have Easter things in, so we are going for a simplified Spring look, which will become a very complicated Easter look this year. And that will do perfectly. The boxes came out on Saturday and that took care of my weekend. The sewing room is piled high with winter things and I am pretending the room does not exist.

It is now later, and the vacuuming is finally done and said vacuum cleaner is now parked at the top of the stairs because I have not touched a thing up there, but I ran out of steam. And I had to listen to Jean talking on our local radio about her upcoming trip to Nepal, where she taught in 1975. In fact, I may get her to do a guest post or two  when she gets back, because she will have some great stories to tell. I watched an episode of The World's Most Dangerous Roads a few weeks ago about the road from Kathmandu to the Chinese border, and my hair stood on end. Oh, she said happily, yes, we will be going along that road. Right. I will expect a text message every 5 minutes so we know she is not at the bottom of a canyon.

Where was I.... oh, having a valid reason to stop cleaning. That and the fact that I could not actually straighten up. So, here I am, with coffee. And because I am a blogger, and like to keep things real, here is what I was careful not to get in my photos of the lounge.

That was after I sprayed the antique desk with Flash cleaner instead of polish and had to dry it immediately before it left water stains everywhere. Sigh.

 But LOOK! All the ripples are finished and ends are all sewn in. That took all of last night, but they are done. Missy's one and the one for the dolly, and the red one for next winter.

 I am really happy with the way they turned out, I must say - I love the waves in the red one. The pink one has 2 shades of pink and white in it, but it is hard to see the difference.

See, I can finish things. Sometimes.

Friday and phones (such an exciting title)........

So, today.......

New phones after all 3 died a sudden death. That involved finding Jean pottering around her garden, and kidnapping her (well, at the thought of coffee out, she leapt into my car). I did try calling her (from my mobile) but she was in the garden, as I said. I tried texting her, but for some reason her phone refused to receive messages, as we later discovered. It was not a good phone day for anyone actually.

So, coffee out. That was great. Pondering the merits of phones. That we sorted.

And home to charge them. Seven hours minimum. Then, hallelujah, these phones came with an instruction book, which, nowadays, is rarer than hen's teeth, so I was busy programming phone #1 when there was a power failure in the village, and I was plunged into darkness. Perfect. Clatter crashing my way around the room to light candles, and rescue the dolly's blanket I was crocheting, and sitting in the candlelight was actually quite soothing. And very quiet. I don't know when last I simply sat quietly alone in the light of some candles. I should do it more often. It was good. Time to let the brain rest. And the hands, because I couldn't see to do anything. I think I need enforced quiet.

Once the power came back on, I finished programming the other phones and then discovered that the clock on my microwave had blown a fuse. Or something. I can't set the clock. However, it still goes on, so it will be fine. I will just have to remember to look at real clocks instead, when I want to know the time. Oh well. It could have been worse.

Phones were not in the budget in MOT week. And microwaves are not in the budget for 2012 at all. So we will go back to stone age cooking if necessary and it will just be my recession heater warming which will be missed should the wretched thing roll over and really expire. But I am being positive here, and it will survive nicely, I am sure.

My sister has started changing her house from winter to spring. I KNEW she would do this, even though the end of the month is next week. So I went and looked at the mountain of boxes behind and under which my spring things are. I looked. And groaned. And looked. And sighed.

Then I came back to the couch and ate some chocolate so the blood pressure could return to normal and the hyperventilating could cease. .

Anemones are red. Maybe I can make spring red. And yellow. Tulips can be red. And green. And red. Did I mention red??

Tomorrow. Maybe.

Pampering ourselves......

Snowdrops

 Well, people, I could have bought a fancy laptop or iPad with the money which haemorrhaged out of my wallet when the car came back. Ball thingys, 2 new tyres, velocity gaiter (what??) Lambda thingy (Huh?)..... and here I was thinking the old chariot was perfect. Sigh. BUT it goes and passed in the end, and I am delighted to show off the new ball thingy and velocity gaiter. Well, I would be if I could a) see it and b) knew what they were.

I did ask for a detailed explanation, but the words sort of flew through one ear and out of the other.

Missy's pink ripple. There are 2 pinks in it, but one is pale, and the ends still have to be darned in. Thanks for the excellent idea, Needled Mom - I will be making one for the dolly too!

Sally Clarkson talks today of how everyone needs pampering now and then, how it is the small things which can make a world of difference to our lives, and yes. She is right. And it does not take money or arrangements or planning. It is all about the words or deed on the spur of the moment. I remember once, seeing a frazzled looking woman marching out of the supermarket, and I caught her arm, and she stopped and I grinned and said "I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you look in that colour!" and she transformed before my eyes. She did look beautiful. So why not tell her? Mind you, she may have flattened me, but she didn't. And maybe it changed her day. Surviving supermarket shopping is an ordeal at the best of times. Just a few words, and a moment of my time.

And if I want to have those little moments myself, why not start spreading it around, so people get the idea? Hmmm. I may, of course, become known as that crazy old woman, but who cares. If people smile more, then it is just fine. Doing something nice for someone.

And being pampered also means doing something nice for ourselves. Heaven knows if we wait for someone else to do something, we may wait for ever. This is much harder than I thought it would be. I am supposed to pamper myself, according to my consultants at Bath. At least one day a week, I am supposed to be self-indulgent. And do something special for myself. The "self-indulgent" part is not what they said. It is my interpretation, and therein lies the problem. We are trained to think of and put others first and ourselves last to the extent that anything we do which is simply for our own benefit, creeps or sidles into the "self-indulgent" area of the guilt corner of the brain. You know what I mean? If any of you know how to get rid of that corner, then please pass on any tips.

If I think of having my nails done, for instance, I immediately do the Maths and work out how many meals it could provide, which is why I never have my nails done. If I think of buying a book in a shop which I like, I resist, and come home and see if Amazon is cheaper and then I put it on the wish list where it languishes for a couple of years and then I delete it. If I think of going to a movie or show, I think, hmmmm, I will wait for the DVD or something. Something rarely appears.

I am an idiot.

Actually, making someone smile or happy has an amazing side effect. It changes my day too. I walk away smiling, and the attitude adjustment can change my day. So the best thing we can do is make other people happy, which in turn will make us happy, which has to be part of the pampering thing. As Sally said, it can be a note, an email, flowers, a meal,. help with cleaning, anything. When I went away, I came home to fresh flowers in my lounge, and bread and milk in the kitchen, not to mention a meal ready for me to heat and eat. I have wonderful friends.

So how do you pamper yourselves then?

It is vital that we take care of ourselves, and learn how to do things for ourselves without feeling guilt.

It is the end of February and there are ladybirds in my garden, and a bumble bee is buzzing around the washing.....

Well, the sun is shining and the temperature is nearly 16C, so it is the hottest day of the year so far, which is wonderful. I have washing drying outside, and I have inspected the garden, and the bulbs are on the rise, and the daffodils are about to join the snowdrops blooming. The soil is stirring, and life is coming back.

I love it.

It makes me smile.

Techy stuff, cars and comfort food.......

Hello, all....

I am taking a little break from trawling through thousands of websites. I need to get quotes for all things from gardening to memorial benches etc etc for the lawyers, and it is a slooooooooooooooow process. And one I would rather not be doing at all.

And then, to make life really peachy, I am having Issues with the latest Window update. It downloads, and then the next day, the computer closely resembles a snail (with arthritis) and the NEXT day, I get the blue screen of death yet again. So I narrowed it down to the update. I asked if anyone on Facebook was having similar problems and got an answer.....thank you, social media. Many are having the same problem. Apparently it is the Explorer part of the update and it needs some techy intervention. AKA jiggling some of the code.

Apparently it is simple.

Hmmm.

Disabling updates sounds like a simpler option.

While we are discussing techy stuff, let me just tell you that I have had a sudden surge of spam comments in the last 24 hours after lifting the word verification, which, thankfully, blogger is catching. The robots, people. They are out there.

I am trying not to think about the car having its fitness test. The dreaded annual MOT for cars over 3 years old. Mine is considerably older than 3. Last year I nearly needed smelling salts when it sailed into the drive with Bob, The Car Man. With new brakes, tyres the lot.  I am hoping for a good cheap result this time. It is all safety orientated, the MOT. Seat-belts, exhaust, brakes, lights, tyres, wipers, etc etc etc£££££££££s. But I need to be safe and I need it to be reliable and to go. But a good pass would be stellar, believe me. (Lots of buts there!)

So I have the crockpot bubbling away, and a blueberry cake in the oven, and I am here, because it is raining, and I am not walking anywhere in the rain when a cold wind is blowing as well. Coffee? Tick. Slippers? Tick. (Why isn't there a tick symbol on the keyboard?)

This evening, I will finish off the pink ripple I have done for Missy's bed, when she comes to visit. And the darning in of ends on the red one is still only half done. The end of the month is approaching and the red one has to be ready to pack away. But I will enjoy it next year.

Jean popped in this morning for coffee and a catch up and brought me some mushrooms, so I made mushrooms on toast for lunch. It is years, if not decades, since I have had mushrooms on toast, and I used to love it so much. It tasted wonderful - comfort food of the best kind. What is your favourite comfort food? I would love to know!

Pancakes and word verification........

Later - I had to add this. Cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top then rolled up and consumed with gusto. Delicious!

Pancakes. I am going to be making a pancake or 2 for supper today. It is, of course, Shrove Tuesday, and tomorrow it is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. And the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Not that I am trying to minimise Lent in any way shape or form, but the thought of re-homing 40 bags of Stuff and simplifying things around here is a heady one. So are the pancakes. With lemon and cinnamon. Who needs meat and vegetables.........

I popped in to visit a few blogs last night, and so help me, has Blogger completely lost its mind? TWO words for word verification??????????????? I see your point, Vee. This is beyond crazy. Or is there some huge problem that they have yet to divulge? I can't read one of them at all, and gave up trying to comment after 3 attempts at proving I was not a robot. I also find that a ridiculous addition to the comment box. "Prove you are not a robot". So, I am going to lift the verification for a few days and see how it goes. This could also explain the sudden drop in comments. It drove me crackers last night, so I am assuming the rest of you are also pulling your hair out by the roots. What are they thinking of?

OK, WHO MOVED THE STOP WORD VERIFICATION THINGY?????????????????

20 minutes later and after googling the problem and discovering that the last remnants of the world who had not yet removed word verification had now been tipped over the edge and that there is a mad scramble to drop it immediately as I speak........

It is gone.

There is no more word verification on this old blog.

You may now leave your comments freely.

Word veri-fiasco.

And a very useful tip I read is to keep your old blogger dashboard on your bookmark bar as well as the new one if you have switched. That means easy access should  we need to trot back and twiddle something else vital, which will no doubt be tomorrow's exciting discovery.

I am sorry it took me so long.

And now I have completely forgotten what I was going to chat about, so I am off to gather the ingredients for the pancakes.

Another letter to my granddaughter.........

Dear little Missy.......

You have just turned three, and your Moregranny cannot imagine what life would be like without you in it. How can one small beautiful girl have such an amazing influence on so many people? You make me smile, sweetie. No - everyone smiles around you. Even when they are secret grins as you try to exert some independence and stomp the feet and refuse to co-operate, just like all 3 year olds do. Your Daddy was an expert in his time. So were your Auntie and Uncle.

I wondered, back then, the day you were born, if you would have red hair or blonde..... you have such lovely long blonde hair, with a golden tint to it in the sunlight. I could not have begun, back then, to visualise the little girl you have become, or yet, the woman you will one day be.

You sing, you dance, you have perfected some astonishing dance moves, and now I know that you are indeed a little girlie girl, who loves all things pink and pretty. Who climbs up when I am doing my make-up and asks me to put some on your beautiful little cheeks too. Your wrinkles have been dealt with now that I have smoothed a tiny blob of Oil of Olay anti wrinkle moisturiser on them, you will be happy to know. 7 effects of aging stuff. And your "lickstick" is perfect. As is the faint dusting of blusher on those little cheeks.

Nails? You love nail varnish. And jewellery. Bling. And bags. One can never have too many bags, it seems, and one can never carry too many at the same time, stuffed with all one's many treasures either. And your (imaginary) friends, Jessica and Baby (and a whole host of other ones too, whose names I forget, silly Moregranny) have a great deal of fun with you as you play in your princess tent with them. It can get a little crowded when Moregranny gets in the tent too, wearing a fairy costume around her neck. It is so sad that it doesn't fit properly. Moregranny is a little large for it.

You love cooking in your little kitchen, and oh my word, you are an excellent baker of wonderful cakes and muffins with your Mummy. You cook and clean and wash up and chatter all the time. Moregranny loves listening to the chatter. And you love to try to knit with me, by poking long sticks into the ball of wool. And pulling it out. From the middle. And winding it around those sticks. Moregranny really doesn't mind spending an hour or two unravelling the mess wool. I wonder if you will love knitting or crocheting when you are a little older. ....Maybe I can teach you how. Or your Granny can take care of the knitting part, and I will do the other things.

And yet you are also an outdoor girl, who loves climbing and sliding, and running and riding in your little red car. You "help" your Mummy garden and I am sure that one day soon you will learn which are weeds and which are plants. Remember how you loved eating the chives in my garden? You knew which plants were potatoes too, and the lettuce was an easy one to remember.

In just three short years, you have captured everyone's hearts, you see, and you have turned your Mummy and Daddy into parents. Their lives have been turned upside down, and they are so happy with the change it has brought. Gone are the days of organised and tidy homes. You have Things To Do and Games To Play, and Dollies To Dress ..... and drawing, and painting and gluing, and cutting, and building and jumping, and "verk" to do on the computer. And the walls echo with your laughter and squeals, and shrieks when you need to get changed. And the prams for those dollies, the scooter, the bike, the trolley and the other Stuff you love, vie for space, but no-one would trade it for a second, you see.

Why? Because you are loved.

Because we all know you need room to grow and flourish.

I have watched you learn to crawl, to walk, to run like the wind. Those beautiful eyes sparkle as you learn new things. You love your friends. You love your family. You love going to the Alps on a big aeroplane. What you don't know yet is just is just how much I have come to value things like skype, even if it meant that you thought Moregranny lived in the TV set. It has allowed me to see you - to watch you growing up when I can't be there in person. And we have little chats, don't we,  and you show me your new comic, or toy, or show me how your Dolly is eating her dinner.

Ah, little one, how I love you so.

What will the years to come bring? I sometimes think I see the essence of who you may be one day, and it makes me smile. You are my granddaughter. Just always know that to me you are perfect, just as you are. You are part of this family, and very very special.

With love
Moregranny

Homemaker...............

Homemaker it is then. I have no idea why I didn't think of that one. I still think a little large card with all the other things on would be appropriate too. I am proud of who I am. I have no need to make excuses or to feel slightly inadequate or moronic. I just wish the world at large would acknowledge just how much work and how many talents you need to create a home for a family.

Not a house you live in, but a home. A real home. A refuge from the winds which toss us all around outside the door.You just have to look at one of the Compassion photo of homes our friends have visited to know how hard those women have worked with almost zero resources and a great deal of ingenuity, to create homes.

It can't be bought, and it doesn't happen over night. My sister is a world-class home maker. Everyone who has visited her home knows just how warm and welcoming it is and oh, the ideas she has come up with to create little areas of delight. Just amazing. Beautiful. And she works full time and has a massive garden too.

It is the fact that the work is done with love, for those you love, which makes the hugest of differences.

Anyway......

I have been trying to rest and recharge my soul for a while now. And body. I have also discovered that when something else, apart from my leg, aches in this old body of mine, my neural network goes crackers, and the prickling of the skin spreads all over the body, like pins and needles. Constantly.  Actually, it feels like ants running rampant over my skin. I am not very partial to the ants and skin combination. I can visualise those neurons being confused, and running about like headless chickens not knowing what to do next, and it would help enormously if they would listen to me tell them to calm down and relax. They are not listening. So we are moving slowly.

I don't like talking too much about pain and associated bits here. But then, this is my life, and pain features prominently, to my regret. But life still trots on and there is still a great deal of laughter. What would I do without family and friends? And you lot?

I have been sitting here, watching the soft golden light of the setting sun touch the walls of the room around me, and it is so beautiful. Gentle. It bathes the world in golden rays and I want to reach out and capture it. But it is illusive.

Time for a nap, I think. Tomorrow is a Big Day. Someone I love very much will be 3!!!!!!

3?? How is that possible?

Maybe I need to write another letter to my granddaughter.......................

Who am I?

Ok, so here is a question for you....... who am I? Or, more specifically, what am I?

I ask this for a reason. I had to fill in a form, you see, and the word "occupation" popped up. And I didn't actually know what to write. Housewife? Invalid? ( I hate that word. It makes you sound in - not quite - valid) Former cover supervisor/teacher? Blogger? Empty nester? Textile artist? Creative director of Linds Inc? Quilter? Crochet-er? (I just invented that word, I think. It looks weird.) Writer? Former SAHM? Or now a SAHG (stay at home granny) ? I am not old enough to be retired. Or a pensioner, although I do get a small pension so maybe I could be a pensioner after all.

One suggestion was to pop a little note in place saying that the block was too small to write everything I do/am in it. But how do you define yourselves? What do you pop in the occupation block?

I looked at what I have written in the about section over on the sidebar. So how do I condense that into one word? Person? Member of the community? Citizen?

It is a dilemma.

I really don't know what to write. I am not a wife, but I do have a house. Maybe a SAHG, pronounced sarg (not sarge) gggggg as it gate - maybe we can be SAHGS. It sounds quite posh. There are quite a few of us around now. We could be a new exclusive club. And look at any bewildered customs official with just a touch of benign grandmotherliness, and say "Why, dear boy, haven't you heard of the SAGHS? We are the new elite" or something like that.

Mind you, they may lock us up.

Hmmmmm.

So, what other options are there for me, and those of you looking for a defining single word to describe what we do, which defines who we are?

We could, of course print cards listing all our many roles. Excellent idea. Big cards, so we can read the print easily.

You know, dishwasher, laundress, ironer, waitress, chef, chauffeur, stylist, hairdresser, maid, trouble shooter aka mender of messes, gardener, artistic director , fixer, plumber, telephonist, seamstress, dog walker, painter, singer, reader, computer whizz, comedian, hospital visitor, photographer, florist, beautician, nurse, encourager, interior decorator, musician, inventor, carpenter......

That would be Section 1a.

Section 1b would have the personal stuff....Mum, daughter, sister, granny, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, friend, (wife), cousin, 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin etc etc etc.

Section 2 could be the ethereal section....... Dreamer, thinker, planner, capturer of memories and baby teeth ....

Section 3 could be the section of choice. You know. The things we love to do. Like the writer, blogger, quilter, artist, crochet-er, baker, craftswoman, scrapbooker, card maker, knitter, dancer (I am not speaking of myself, you understand - the dancing part), candlestick maker, potter........

Sigh.

Maybe Grumpy Old Woman - GOW will cover it all perfectly adequately.........