Really busy atm, will blog soon! But for now I like this quote...

"You will get through it. You will be stronger. You will have bad days. You will have good days. Both are okay. Both are normal. Do what works for you. Do only what works for you. Take it one day (and sometimes one hour) at a time."
Elise was talking about deployment but I liked her post all the same :)

more soon!!

x

Home

Wow, so a weeks gone by already! Its been really lovely if a little stressfull in parts. I've done alot though. I like making lists, so heres the list!

• Packed to come home
• Played with the band at a wedding! (My first, it was rather lovely and we got dessert which is always good)
• Fitted everything into my little KA... just
• Got called into work halfway home so drove straight there
• Eventually got home
• Visited my grandparents and auntie
• Spent ALOT of time on my essay
• Made fairy cakes
• Got quite a few scrapbooking pages done
• Finished reading the hunger games
• Had a bass lesson
• Found out my friend is engaged!
• Finally finished my essay with some motivation from my OT friends
• Congratulated myself by buying the next hunger games book
• Lost at a pub quiz
• Expected Adam home and was dissapointed
• But happy cause he's finally got a interview :)
• and then spent quite a while reading again, i think im slightly addicted

If you take out the essay writing its been a good week really! Gone quickly though, il be on placement before I know it. For now I'm looking forward to a little more scrapbooking, lunch with mum and Adam finally getting home.

Patchwork

As promised I'd like to share with you one of my favourite presents I have ever received! Its also mentioned in my 20 by 20 :)

This is a fairly poor photo of the patchwork blanket I received for my 18th birthday getting on for 2 years ago from my mum. (Sorry, clearing up my room enough to take a good one would have taken too much time away from essay writing!). It's made of loads of different materials and has messages on from my friends and family which they wrote and my mum embroidered. The rest of the patches have been left blank to add friends I meet along the way :) Here's some of my favourites...

 A reminder of times when I hadn't quite decided on OT yet!

 A message that I'm learning more and more is very true!

 From one of my best freinds :) and i think it looks nice!

And finally from my mum... the whole confidentiality thing gets a bit annoying sometimes!

I love my blanket! At times it somehow makes me feel like I've got people around me even if their miles away. I remember my first night at uni all on my own curling up with it and theres still times when it's nice to pull it out! Plus it is very cosy. I'm really looking forward to finding out who gets added over the years... and deciding who to add this year. I'd love to add my house mates as we've had some really good times in the last 18 months, it's a bit sad that I'm not sure now we're at a stage when they'll have much to write... who knows maybe I'm wrong, we will see!

In other news after a bit of a panick yesterday I have reached my 3000 word target on the essay for today, finally past half way!

x

5000 words...

The last two days I have spent buried in the world of paper, words, books, research, confusion, interest, impossible descisions, stress and more and more paper. The best bit is so far I've only written about 500 words, thats a 10th of what I'm aiming for! I'll get there, the end is a way off but it always comes. For now I thought I'd introduce you to what a students room lookslike midassignment crisis.

I guess atleast I don't have anyone here to tell me to clear it up! It does make moving around interesting though and getting in to bed later could be tricky. Some people need everything in order to be able to work (and there will be a time in a couple of weeks that I probably will too) but I always seem to go though this stage of needing space to spread out and look at everything before I can really do anything productive. It's ok though I have my supply of biscuits to keep me going :) back to work I go...

The last week or so...

So contrary to beleif after yesterdays post the last couple of weeks have actually been pretty good! I've been home for a weekend, been busy back at uni and acheived quite a bit, got a bit more involved in the music department- All sorts.
Here's some favourites...

 

Me and my brother had fun failing at making cake pops... you can see the full blog post here.

There was a gorgeous full moon that was slightly tricky to photograph while carrying a double bass around!

I created my new favourite space in y room simply by adding fairy lights. I also love my patchwork of friends blanket that makes it that much more homely (a possible post on this may follow).

My new kindle arrived! I'm slightly ashamed to admit that it's name on amazon is 'hannah's 3rd kindle'. Having broken mine the replacement they sent broke after just 2 days! Thankfully amazon have been really nice about it and it's been as stress free as possible. I have now bought a hard case for it though and it's living in its box untill that arrives! It's ashame as i quite like the one I sewed myself.

I discovered this song by Miranda Lambert via this blog and kind of fell in love with it. Sometimes sad songs are nice, I'm not sure I can explain this but it's true.

And finally, my new scrapbooking idea that I mentioned... I'd really like to create a scrapbook of all of my grandparents old photos of their young lives and possibly there parents where they have photos. While home I was visiting my grandma and for the first time I realised that her and my grandpa also had a long distance relationship at my age and I never even realised. She told me a story from their honeymoon and I think it would be really nice to have a record of these moments to be remembered and to have the oppurtunity to have come good old chats with grandma (not that we don't anyway!). I think it may become my summer project but we will see. For now I plan to start a board on pintrest to collect up some ideas. Any suggetsions are welcome!

i hate that people i dont especially care about can make me cry. and that no matter how many inspirational quotes i read on pintrest this is still a problem. and that these people dont appear to know what theyre doing. and that beause of this i still feel mean saying bad things about them and try to justify what they do.and that i continue to be resposible and do things for them.

i love that writing these points down in words makes it all feel so much better.... temporarily

and i hate that theyre making my blog all negativey

I  should be writing about everything I've acheived in the last few days, and its been alot, I've been busy! And about how today I was reminded how great OT is, just by reading some legislation (yes, random!). And how last week Adam proved again that he cares and can make me smile (even when im stupidly upset amount previously mentioned people). And that i completly failed at making cake pops but had a great time with my brother attempting it. And that i have a plan for a new scrapbook that I can't wait to start when I have time and money. And that simple texts from my friends mean alot. And that I got another kindle (long story)...

See told you I'd been busy!! I'll expand on one of these tomorrow, I'm kind of looking forward to it!
x

Determination (a late post)

When on train journeys my mum has a tradition of writing letters. I lovce reading them, it gives us a bit of mum while she's away. But I'm on a train on my way home so a letter seems a little pointless. So instead I'm blogging, or rather scribbling on a peice of scrap paper because my laptop won't work (I'll type this later... thats now!) Sometimes train journeys are utterly boring but other times I like them for the excuse to sit and think and do nothing for hours. This is one of those times. I enjoy watching the world go by, listening to conversations, dipping in and out of my book and, hen my mind wanders that way, mulling over my work. I've actually managed to vaguelly plan my 5000 word essay and produce goals for placement in this littlr world. And now I'm nearing the end of my journey and I know all of my good intentions will be difficult to keep. I had a thought- I wish I could bottle this determination. And so I've come up with my word. Several bloggers made theres in the new year and I loved them all, I wanted to copy several but I also wanted my own. I remember initially I liked 'fearless' (I don't remember where I found it so apologies!) but my problem is I'm not sure I'm capable of that! But I can be determined. To fight my fears and sometimes my exhaustion or my will to give up. I will be determined to do well on my placement, to become the best OT I can, to continue to improve at bass and my crafty fun and most importantly to be me.

Thats my word... Determination.

Finally!

I found out my placement! I can't say exactly where it is because of confidentiality and the like but its in a acute mental health setting which is both exciting and a tad scary! I've never worked in mental health before and I'm really looking forward to finding out all about. I spoke to the OT that will be my 'educator' for placement today and she seems really nice and it sounds like theres lots of oppurtunities! So yeah, I'm happy :) Just need to sort outwhere I can live while I'm there and do some prep work and then... can I go now?!

I also took a photo of a lovely full moon earlier but the fake SD card seem to be stuck in the slot of my laptop so i cant put the real one in a download the photos :(

Maybe tomorrow...

happy days

Well after being down about placements you'll be pleased to know I got a whole load of good news! On thursday evening having just written my post and started to rearrange a few bits on the blog in the space of about two hours, things turned good! I heard that amazon are sending me a brand new kindle for free!! Then I got offered a job for next year! Then I was asked to write a witness statement for an accident I witnessed recently (ok maybe not great, but I was glad to know it's sorted) and then Adam arrived! So I'm back to my more happy self :)

Friday we went to one of the best shops- The Range. I could spend hours wandering around all their craft stuff... I think I might have! You can get some good scrapbooking deals in their gift bags and I managed to get all this:

For just £10, got to love a bargain! I've had a play around with it a bit but will post when I've created something worth showing.

We've also had a nice wander down the beach soaking up the sun (which I swear has a direct influence on my mood) resulting in some particulatly unispiring photography and discovered that the reason our fox is in our garden so much is because he lives there....

It was surprisingly hard to get a photo that gives an idea of the size of these burrows but they're roughly fox sized so I'm assuming he's the one that's dug them!

Control

Well this week so far has just been stress! One of the great things and worst things about being an OT student is the placements we have randomly through our course. They're great because they remind me of the reason behind all the work I'm doing and I have met some truly inspiring people, both clients and therapists. If I'm honest I'm not sure I'd be able to sit in lectures for three years! However they are also incredibly stressful. At the moment I'm waiting to hear where I'm going. The problem is that it is the uni that organise the majority of our placements and though they try incredibly hard we still get left a month before having no clue where we are going, and considering this could be anywhere in a huge range of settings over two counties it leaves alot unknown. I guess my problem is I like to have things planned and to have them in control and when I can't I don't deal with it very well and it plays on my mind and then nothing else gets done which in turn is stressful!
But thankfully I now have a long weekend ahead of me with Adam and I'm going to do my best to forget about it, not moan too much and assume I'm not going to find out untill atleast tuesday... wish me luck!

In other news this months HTC challenge is cake pops, I'm so excited, can't wait to give it a go!


(http://babyccinokids.com/blog/2011/03/10/everyone-is-doing-them-cake-pops/)

Spring has sprung

Well as promised I fitted in a wander with my camera between bass playing. I've never really just gone out just with the purpose of taking photos. I wasn't really in the best place for photography, just a random street near the church we were playign in really, but I'm actually quite pleased with what I found! And some time in the sun always does me good :)

I love the fact that the sun makes everything so colourful! (And the fact that my camera is fairly good at point and click!)

Confessions

I have a confession to make... I've become slightly obsessed with browsing the realms of the blogging world and pintrest. I'm amazed how many inspiring people there are out there and I feel like i ought to be blogging about my favourites or something but right now I dont think I have any. I'm just enjoying reading and getting ideas and looking at amazing things and wanting to try some myself and not doing them because well, i'm spending all my time looking at them! It also makes blogging a bit daunting. But I think for now I'll just keep going, I havnt quite figured out what I want my blog to be yet, you can probably tell I've just written about lots of bits and peices, but it's a start.

One plan is to bring back the photos to my blog, it's been sadly lacking in the last couple of posts. I'm playing a concert thisevening and has rehersals all afternoon (and was playing another gig last night!), but somewhere in there I think I will have a play around with my camera. It's beautifully sunny today which I love. I can't wait for summer, for lieing in the garden reading my book (probably a text book), for days at the beach, for summer dresses and ice cream. Sunny photos here I come!

Stars

I love looking at the stars. When I've got stuff on my mind it puts it all in perspective. It's so peaceful (if your in the right place)  it makes me realise any problems of mine are tiny in comparison to everthing out there. It reminds me of a winter when I was about 15 when I walked the dog with my dad every night. He used to laugh at me attempting to walk in a straight line while looking at the stars (im incapable of it but I insist on trying) and everytime I remembered my camera it was cloudy and every time I forgot it there were stars everywhere. I remembered this today because it's the first time my cameras left my bag in the last couple of weeks and guess what... I wanted to take a picture. Guess I havn't got rid of that habit! They were good times, and when I go home now I always go walk the dog with dad at some point. It normally ends in me being pushed in a puddle, or a bramble bush, or being jumped up on from behind in the dark, or listening to awful music on radio 2... but we enjoy it and when I get back frozen, muddy or complaining about whatever dad has done I'm always in a better mood strangely! This started about stars.... ah well.. heres a memory for you!

OT

I would like to answer a question which is going to follow me for the rest of my life... 'so what is OT?'

The obvious question when you say your at uni is 'what are you studying?'. People can understanding when you say history, or art or even nursing. My answer is occupational therapy. To which I normally get a 'ooh' or a blank kind of smile and then... so whats that then?

The problem is it's pretty hard to explain. I'm not sure even most of my friends and family really know... I'm not entirely sure I do! We were talking about it in a lecture the other day and I quite liked our lecturers quote: 'It's not our fault it's so complicated!'. And thats the thing, its pretty difficult to sum up an entire career into a nice short sentence. Would a nurse be able to do it? Or a physio? The difference is people don't have a picture in their head of OT. So... For anyone passing my blog, please read on and learn a bit cause one day you might need an OT and it would be nice to know what they do.

My normal definition is 'we work with people to live independantly with illness'

An improvement I heard in discussion the other day is that 'we help people live how they want to live'. I like this, indepednance isnt the only thing we work for, it's not always possible and it's not always wanted. But we help people do what they value and what is meaningful to them and we call this occupation, be it getting dressed in the morning, having a job or going swimming. We see occupation as vital to good health. We can work in physical or mental health, with any age group. We can work in hospitals, the community, prisons, charities, schools ... you'll be surprised where we pop up! We look holistically at a person, considering their environment, their illness and its effects, their values and their goals to decide what to work on and we use a range of techniques to acheive them. eg. teaching techniques and strategies, providing equipment, groups, education, exercises, splinting... the list could go on!

I'm struggling here to define what we do because it's so broad, but I've tried and hopefully you have slightly more of an idea. Please note I am only a second year student, not qualified, please don't reference this! It's just an attempt at getting a few more people out there to understand what OT's do, because I think it's really important and the more widely OT is known, the more effective can be!

If I'm clever enough I may start a new page of my blog to continue this and give some examples.... we will see!

For further infomation http://www.cot.co.uk/ is pretty good :)

Girly weekend :)

Nothing too creative to share recently, been busy with my sister who came to visit for a few days. I think it was good for us both to have a few days away from normal life.

Here's some snaps of what we've been up to (i remembered the camera again see!)

 ... such a cute film! We were planning on watching the descendants but it had sold out so we saw this, a good girly film to watch with the sis :) 

Brunch in a little cafe with stuff from all over the world on the walls, it makes me want to travel and see all those places! I liked this map. We're going to volunteer in morocco for 3 weeks in the summer, just my and my sister, so excited!



And ice skating! Told you we were busy! Amazingly neither of us fell over. It was a tad scary but great fun and we saw olly murs's tour van thingy outside after!

And then we spent a fair amount of time shopping... I havnt got photos of our purchases but we had fun and came home for a dvd and ice ceam :) All in all a pretty good few days.

HTC 1

Two blogs in one day, that's a first! I kind of feel like I'm enjoying writing the blog at the moment but I'd really like to get to know other bloggers gradually aswell so I thought I'd sign up to a blogging challenge or two! This is my first months baking for 'Have the cake'. I've never made (or even heard of) Linzer cookies before and due to my student food cupboard lacking jam at the moment I adapted it a bit and used icing and then stuck some fruit on to make them a bit colourful! I have to say they were quite yummy though and it was nice to cook something I havn't done before. Keeping up with my 20 things too!

Calm before the storm...

The last 5 weeks of uni have been a bit nothingy really. I havn't enjoyed the unit and we've had very little work. To begin with it drove me crazy, our course is so full on normally that I didn't know what to do with myself! I have gradually got back into the things that I enjoy a bit though, so in some ways it has been a good thing. .... blogging and browsing pintrest, randomly deciding to bake a cake or making a pressie for my mum. I've just completed my latest project, my first patchwork! I'm quite pleased with it, I love the strawberry material :)

Saying this, tomorrow we start our next unit which by the sounds of it will be back to to the busy life I'm used to, I'm kind of looking forward to it! But I also want to keep up the things I've started to enjoy. Today is my last day of calm for a while and I'm making the most of it. I've had a very lazy morning reading 'A Game of Thrones' and browsing blogs. I'm going to make some fairy cakes just cause I can and I might do a bit of scrapbooking or patchwork, we will see. I also need to tidy my room up a bit and print everything  for tomorrow, strangely I actually kind of enjoy getting it all organised, I guess it makes it feel a bit more undercontrol.

Finally, my sisters in Paris this weekend and then coming to visit me next week. Missing chatting already and she's only been away 2 days. Can't wait for next week!

20 before 20, number 1!

I've been away for a few days, hence the lack of blogging, but I've brought back some things to share. Number 1 on my 20 before 20 list is to carry my camera with me more, so i took it with me and it actually snowed and I actually took some nice photos! I cant say that I have any kind of skill in photography but I do enjoy it, my photos tend to stay unedited apart from the odd bit of cropping, mainly due to not knowing how to do it! and not having the technology... anyways here are some of my shots I'm fairly pleased with...

A walk in the dark and the snow :)

The sun setting, was rather beautiful (i still have ot say b-e-a-utiful to spell that.. random fact) and I was quite pleased with the photo too!

I like this one just because it says 'fun' :)

Number one on my list is turning out quite well!

Music

I had a plan to finish my latest project today but it hasnt happened so instead I thought I would write about my music.
...
I've started this several times now, I'm realising music is too much part of my life to be able to write one post about it. I guess what I want to get at is that there are times when music is part of my life and I go to rehersals and I do the odd concert and I enjoy it. There are other times when walking into a music department almost feels like a second home, and not only because you spend so much time there! More because there are friends who put their head round the door when your practicing just to say hi, and because you are somehow valued for the part you play. Because when rehersals are cancelled you can end up going for a drink with 2 girls, one of which you've never spoken to before. And because any day you go in you can meet someone new and you might not be friends for life but you can have a chat and learn something and its another familiar face next time your there. Last year, my first year of uni, I was banned from playing bass and piano for medical reasons and I really missed playing. I didnt realise at the time what I actually missed was having this group of friends. This year it's taken a while to get to know everyone but I'm really enjoying it, I'd forgotten what a big part of me music can be and it's nice to be reminded.

This is me concentraing hard, playing my first ever bass solo in the uni scholars concert before christmas.... just to add some colour to all the writing!

Giving blood

Yesterday my 5-9 donations card arrived! Its a bit sad but I was pretty excited! Giving blood sometimes seems a bit odd if I think about it too much but its something I'm kind of proud that I do. I havn't had the any horror stories like some people come out with but it hasnt necessarily been easy. 3 years ago I hated needles. Hated them. If I needed an injection it would be on my mind for days before and someone would definitly need to be with me. But after needing several injections I got a bit better with it and when I was old enough to give blood I wanted to give it a go. My grandpa needed over 20 units after an accident when I was a baby and I'd love to be able to pay them back so some one else can have an extra couple of decades  with there grandpa! My first donation I fainted, the second one was extremely painful, the third so slow that they didnt manage to get 'a full donation' and the 4th was refused. So it hasnt been great, but for the last 2 I've gone on my own, I've felt fine, and I've stayed consious! And now I've reached 5 donations and yes, the prize of a new, different coloured card, is exciting! Now to aim for the next one, I'll be at 20 before you know it!

No. 1

So today I start my blog! It's a good day for it because today I took quite a lovely photo so I can figure out how to attach things...

I think it's worked! This is the fox that spent today curled up at the end of our garden. I love animals, I miss our dog and 3 cats back at home and I have to admit i enjoy watching the squirrels, birds and fox from our kitchen. He didn't seem too fussed by being photographed! It's the first picture I've got of him (I'm calling it a him, I have no idea if I'm honest) because normally I dont have my camera when he's there. It reminded me I should start carrying my camera more. And so this is going to start of my list... or perhaps it's a plan? My awesome friend Vicky is the one that whas inspired me to start this blog and I quite like the idea she is using of '21 things to do before she's 21'. Unfortunately, me being a baby, I'm not yet 20, so mine is going to be 20 before 20- not quite the same but hey ho! I've got 7 months, wish me luck!

1. Start carrying my camera with me more often
2. Try my best to get over my fear of singing in front of people
3. Become more confident in myself
4. Keep up (or if im honest restart) my physio so I have control of me
5. Add atleast 5 uni friends to my patchwork blanket
6. Have a crafty project on the go all the time
7. Paint something
8. Have an utterly amazing time in morocco with my sister
9. Make more of an effort to talk to my brother while I'm at uni
10. Say hello to a friend from home at least once a week
11. Cook something new every week
12. Keep up my new blog! (even when the work load kicks in again at uni)
13. Do a first aid course
14. Learn 3 new pieces on the piano
15. Pass this year of uni!
16. Visit my grandparents
17. Improve my french
18. Go to some form of live music
19. Spend a gorgeous day on the beach
20. Tell someone I love them every day (if I'm honest this will probly be the same person most days :P )

That took some thinking! I hadnt really planned it so knowing me il think of something else as soon as i click post but I think its a good start and covers lots of things that I enjoy or are important to me. If I manage them I'll be a happy bean!
x