Finding that silver lining

Just at the moment, Mr Namasi and I are facing some really significant life challenges. Each one daunting on its own, but when they gang up like this, it can be somewhat overwhelming. Just to prove that I'm not exaggerating, our list of challenges includes (but is not restricted to):

• Mr Namasi has been unemployed since December when the company he worked for folded, and I don't earn nearly enough to make ends even wave at each other
• When we at last found a buyer for our house, the sale fell through at the very last hurdle - we've already gotten rid of much of our furniture and started packing
• Our presence in a post-Brexit UK is not guaranteed.

I'm sure you get the picture. Things are pretty bleak. And yet, and yet...

We've introduced what we call 'austerity budget' and have cut corners all over the place. We've had to do this before and, as before, somehow it's fun. Planning meals together, choosing cheaper everything, and buoying each other up with the make-do mentality and the fact that we're in it together. Something as mundane as a chocolate bar becomes a real treat, and we appreciate the little things so much more.

I recently came home from work to find that a friend-and-colleague had popped a chocolate bar into my handbag. I gave it to Mr Namasi, because it happened to be a Boost and he needed one.

A friend treated me to a Sunday roast dinner out, which was such a blessing.

After a protracted battle with HMRC, who kept sending me letters to say I owed them money, in spite of the fact that they had already confirmed more than once that this was not the case, I finally spoke to someone who was able to stop the regular letters. This person was also able to tell me, that not only did I not owe them any money, but they owed me £100. Mr Namasi and I had foregone birthday presents due to budget cuts, and I decided that we would split the money and each buy ourselves a £50 gift.

As part of the ongoing downsizing project, I've been advertising some of our belongings online, and a few of them have sold. It's just £10 here and £15 there. But those little windfalls feel significant when they're dropping into an empty cache in a way they wouldn't have done under normal circumstances.

And then, of course, things go wrong - things you just don't have the budget for. The glass turntable plate thingy in the microwave broke clean in two. Normally, we would just buy a new one. On the austerity budget, we repaired it with superglue. So far, so good. We feel good about our resourcefulness.

Our tumble drier broke down - the spindle holding the drum in place sheared clean through. We can't get by without one so, with sighs of resignation, we called a man in to repair it. He discovered that our tumble drier is a recalled model. He waived his call out fee (incredibly generous of him) and arranged for us to have a brand new tumble drier for less than his call out fee would have been.

The friend who supplied the Boost bar, has also supplied other little blessings: a can of coconut milk here, an 8-pack of my preferred soft drink there. Things that I would normally buy without even looking at the price tag, and which have now been cut on the austerity budget.

Another friend gave us tickets to a live comedy act. A night out that we wouldn't even contemplate at the moment.

We find ourselves more determined to find the upside to every situation, to look for a reason to be glad.

Something that happened not to us, but to a friend, is an illustration of how the most unlikely things can turn out to be blessings in disguise. She found a lump in her breast and went to see the doctor, as you do. The doctor was pretty sure it was nothing nefarious, but sent her for a mammogram anyway. The mammogram confirmed his suspicion that the lump was of no concern. However, they found early stage cancer in the other breast. Apparently, it is pretty much undetectable at this stage other than on a scan. This makes for an excellent prognosis. Hooray for the lump.

So now our house is back on the market. There is no furniture in either of our sons' ex bedrooms. One of them is doing duty as a storage space for the stuff I'm looking to sell. Our lovely double length garage used to house gym equipment and a lovely XBox gaming space - it's now full of boxes, some packed and some empty. There are no pictures on the walls. There are half-packed boxes in most of the rooms. My lovely studio in the loft, with the best views in the house, is full of stuff from the attic-space, which is in the process of being sorted. It is nowhere near the lovely home it was when our previous buyers saw it. The sight that meets prospective buyers right now is far less inviting. But we've already had one offer, and it was a smidgen higher than the offer that fell through. And viewers are still coming. Maybe the failed sale and the resultant flirtation with financial ruin will result in a better price than before?

Mr Namasi, my wonderfully pragmatic, phlegmatic husband has made an occupation out of job hunting. This is the first time he has been unemployed for more than a couple of weeks, and the job market is not kind to the over 50s.

He has a daily routine of checking his emails, following up on new job alerts, making phone calls, reaching out to his network. He has been pouring himself into the task with the same sort of dedication and commitment that characterises the way he has approached every aspect of his life: previous jobs, marriage, parenting, sport, volunteering commitments... His resilience inspires me.

As we speak, he is en route to an interview in London. If the potential employers had been a fly on the wall as he prepared for this interview and spoke about how life would be if he got this job (at a lower salary than his previous role), they would have hired him on the spot. I just hope they are able to see his sterling qualities in the short space of time they get to spend with him. And maybe he will land a role that fits him like a glove, holds his interest and allows him to grow and develop.

Maybe this time of unemployment will also prove to be a blessing in disguise? I have to confess that at the moment, if this is a blessing in disguise, the disguise is a pretty impenetrable one, but I'm standing hopefully by for the Great Unmasking.

As 2017 gets underway...

Sincere and heartfelt wishes for a happy New Year to you and yours. May the year ahead be somewhat kinder to us than the one behind.

I'm not fool enough to believe that the arbitrary flip of a calendar page has much cosmic significance. But I find myself wanting to believe that the fact that 2016 is now over will somehow also bring an end to the very negative circumstances that befell us during the year.

I'm not much of a one for making New Year's resolutions, but I do like to do a little reflection, introspection and goal setting as each new year gets underway. It's as good a time as any.

When our sons were still living at home, lunch time on New Year's Day included a time slot for each person to share their goals for the year ahead - both for themselves and for the family. The idea was that in sharing them with each other, we were making ourselves accountable to each other as we worked towards those goals.

For the first time this year, it was just the two of us. Mr Namasi is totally focused on finding a job and selling the house - he isn't thinking beyond that at this point. And I'm fine with that. After all, whenever either or both of those things happen, that will be just as appropriate a time for goal setting.

So what about me, then? What about your friendly Upsycho? I have set myself a few goals, and I'd like to share them with you. That way, I'm accountable to you.

Sharing the Link Love

I have decided that I will promote the work of fellow makers, crafters and artisans this year. I'm aiming for one a day. I'll do that in my most used online spaces: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. At the end of each week, I'll write a summary post here. I have already started this practice, so my first summary post should appear at the end of this week.

 "Do not feed the trolls"

I have a tendency to feel things very strongly and to take personally things not directed towards me. After all, everything's personal if you're a person. Even as a child, I had an overdeveloped sense of injustice, and would loudly and persistently champion the cause of someone who had been wronged, sometimes even to the point that the wronged party would beg me to shut up and let it go.

I haven't outgrown that, and I have found that some of the ugliness that has arisen out of political situations of late has ground me down to breaking point. I need to step away.

I won't be turning a blind eye to injustice any time soon - I'm not sure I could live with myself if I became inured to the conditions under which some people are forced to live and raise their families - but I must try to avoid engaging in debate with people whose minds I will never change and to whom my own views are as abhorrent as theirs are to me.

I gently suggested this approach to a Twitter follower who attracts trolls in vast numbers. I need to think about whether there is mileage even in that - if people want to feed the trolls and tilt at windmills, I guess that's their right, too. 

Learning New Things

I need to improve the accuracy of my woodwork. Practice (and YouTube tutorials) makes perfect.

I also want to learn new skills. I haven't identified those yet, but I don't feel under pressure to have all the answers at this point. As the year unfolds, I will try to live by Bigweld's mantra:

I'll come back to this point.

Sharing the Knowledge

A very dear friend of mine recently retired from the police, having served her 30 years in exemplary fashion. She prefers to refer to herself as rewired, rather than retired, and is setting up a business in which I will have a part to play.

My crafting skills will come in very handy, and I look forward to passing them on:

• To my friend, who is keen to learn
• To paying customers, with the funds going towards this charity (another brainchild of the same friend)
• To the clients of the charity, with a view to helping them produce items they can sell

These endeavours will steer me towards the sorts of skills I need to learn under the banner of Learning New Things

That's pretty much it. These aren't really SMART goals...yet. This is the broad framework within which I will look to operate this year, and which will inform such SMART goals as I do set as the year unfolds. I'm leaving room for JIT and LEAN and all those things. Aren't you proud of me?

After all, who knows what a day (or a year) may bring forth? If Mr Namasi lands a job in some far flung place, a complete rethink will be necessary.

On not knowing that it can't be done

There's something to be said for a certain level of ignorance. It has certainly served me well in my life. Years ago, when I sang in a band, I didn't play an instrument, and I would want to go straight from one song into another. The instrumentalists would tell me it couldn't be done, and I'd say "Like this..." and sing what I wanted. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Nobody died.

The first piece of user-driven 'e-learning' I ever created was done using PowerPoint and a screen capture tool called SnagIt. Apparently that couldn't be done either. Except I did it. And it worked.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not describing a level of defiance here. It's not that people say a thing can't be done and that then fires me up to prove them wrong. It's that I think of something I want to do, and decide on a way to do it. Sometimes I find out before I begin the actual work that it (allegedly) can't be done. Sometimes it is only after I've done it that I find out it can't be done.  Sometimes when people tell me a thing can't be done, they're right. Sometimes I say "But what about..." and it turns out they weren't right.

I seem to have an overdeveloped 'how hard can it be' gland (perhaps it takes up the space where my schadenfreude gland is supposed to be, because those who know me will attest to the fact that I am singularly lacking in that area).

That same blithe lack of realism is found in most areas of my life. The work I do with my hands is no exception. There are so many examples of things that I didn't know couldn't be done before I did them.

Pine, rickety and in need of TLC

Today's post is about one small example of that.

I acquired a little stool from a house clearance not far from my home. It was pine. It was rickety. And it was strung with hideous green nylon twine. I know it doesn't look hideous in the photo, but trust me: it was.

First I took the twine off. I Freecycled that to a keen allotment gardener for his peas and beans.

Then I made it a little less rickety by sanding off a lot of excess of glue, previously applied for no doubt the same reason, and re-gluing it. One tip: new glue doesn't generally stick very well to old glue (does that make sense?), so if you need to re-glue something, take the old glue off first.

Then I painted the frame a lovely duck egg blue, and gave it a good waxing.

So far, I haven't mentioned anything that 'can't be done', have I? Well, here it comes...

What was I going to do about that top? I could just screw on a plank of wood. I could put a piece of wood with a cushion on top. But I liked that woven look. And how hard could it be?

How hard could it be?

I bought cotton ribbon in duck egg blue and cream. Two different designs. Then I cut lengths of it and wove a new seat for the stool. Starting in one corner and alternating between north-south and east-west. I pulled it as tight as I could and stapled it with my trusty staple gun. Then I covered the ends and staples with some calico strips, much as I do when I'm reupholstering a chair. And hey presto! A stool for teddy.

It never occurred to me to think that the width of the ribbon and the dimensions of the chair would be a mismatch...and they weren't. It worked perfectly. It was only when I put the item up on my Folksy store and Facebook page that I found out that it was tricky to do a seat like that and easy to get it wrong.

Hey Presto! A stool for teddy

I say again: there's a lot to be said for not knowing something can't be done. I'm sure there's a lot of deep philosophy that can be extrapolated from this, but it's just how I work. Perhaps I'm just in permanent denial. Don't disillusion me, will you? I seem to get more done this way.