Linda Holman

 "My friend Linda is having a mastectomy Her breast will no longer be next to me Instead there's a void Like when they removed her fibroid As part of a previous hysterectomy."      ~Matt Hunt Kia ora! I love that poem above, written a couple of months ago by my friend, and I'm glad to have had such well-rhyming surgeries! I hope you are well and are not getting run over by the Christmas madness. We are not putting up a tree this year as I'm struggling with the reminders of this time last year, when our lives changed utterly with my breast cancer diagnosis. I'm concerned I will stop loving Christmas if I associate it too strongly with all this waves vaguely . I am promising myself this will be a very short blog post as, a) who the heck has time to read a long episode in December, and b) I've not done much apart from recover from surgery . We will see how that pans out though... I do love to rant and rave a bit! Craft I have cut out a few patterns ...

 "Of all the seasons, winter is the most conducive to the great art of dormancy. This art requires an appreciation of semi-consciousness: the beautiful and necessary prelude to sleep - a special pleasure in itself that is all too often neglected, under-valued or looked down upon."      ~Michael Leunig Greetings, dear ones. Today I write to you from both the warmth of my bed, and the midst of deep chemo-fog. Normally I'd wait for the fog to lift before writing but today I thought I'd just start moving my fingers across the keyboard and see what happens. So let's dive into June together. Craft Jewellery, finally! I had a burst of inspiration after repairing a necklace and bracelet for my Mum and so I made two crystal pendants and had an experiment with an idea I've been kicking around in my head for a while. Firstly, the crystals: these are the first two that I've made for a while that weren't straight copies of pendants I'd seen online. My re...

"The reason that women feel so pressured to "remain youthful" is because the maiden isn't threatening to patriarchy."      ~Bonnie Rose Flower Welcome Kia ora whānau and welcome to May 2021. This month's theme - The Crone - had me thinking about the shift from the abundance of early autumn to the stark beauty of skeleton trees, and my own shift into inescapable baldness. For my opening quote I struggled to find positive words about Crone-hood, but personally I welcome the wisdom and re-prioritisation that comes with the territory of aging and slipping the shackles of societal expectations. Craft May has been a great craft month! Jewellery still not getting a look-in, but knitting and sewing projects abound. I've started my other colourway of Lotus Flower Beanies , and I've been asked to make some hats for my wonderful friend's wonderful shop: SoulyNZ. They have been asked for woolly hats on the regular so I'm madly knitting up hats in m...

 "Winter is coming"      ~Stark et al. Welcome Kia ora whānau. I planned the episode themes months ago, before I knew what my life would look like in 2021. April's theme is fitting, as the month had a sense of foreboding and oncoming chill - the seasonal shift towards winter and my internal shift towards anger and anxiety. Early April brought a phone call from my oncologist to say that the Oncotype testing had come back with a high-risk score, requiring the full 6 months of chemo. This was not the news I wanted, and to be frank, I was extremely pissed off. Whereas March had a lightness and playfulness, April felt like I was being dragged headlong into a dark tunnel. I was still doing all the same activities as in March, but now they felt rather hollow and joyless. Craft The chemo news brought with it a desire to make hats. Many hats. I finally received my delivery of yarn and pom poms from B Knits and set about making Lotus Flower Beanies . It's glorious yarn...

 "On days you can't stand to look at your own reflection, remember all of the things your body has allowed you to do and all the places it has taken you to. It may be scarred, it may be tired, it may be old... but you are so lucky to be in it."      ~Ruby Jones Kia ora whānau. I'm writing February's episode in early March but I won't tell if you don't. During February I was wondering why I enjoy writing this blog so much and I decided it came down to these elements: Attention and praise - I love it, keep it coming :) I can send people the link so they can read my story rather than me having to tell it over and over It allows me to take the role of the observer Taking the role of the observer is an idea I've come across in various yoga and meditation classes over the years. I understand it to mean taking a step back, out of the whirligig of my feelings and thoughts and being able to think "I see there is fear there" rather than "I...

  “Life is made up of lessons and gifts, that’s it. Every experience is an opportunity to learn from, or a gift    to be thankful for. Or both. But that’s it. That’s all we get.”           Colleen Patrick-Goudreau A new year brings an opportunity to reflect on the lessons and gifts of the previous twelve months. For me, as for many, 2020 was a mixed bag. Here in New Zealand we went into strict lockdown early in the pandemic and those weeks were some of the most peaceful of my entire life. After many years putting too much emphasis on work I finally had time to rest, read, and listen to birdsong. It was a gift to be thankful for, even amongst the anxiety and fear of a pandemic. The 'wood kennels' I made over lockdown Right now my December 2020 breast cancer diagnosis is too new and too raw for me to clearly see where the lessons and the gifts lie, but I trust that at some point soon I will look back and know. This blog will help with tha...