*winter

Better late than never, I finished the last painting of the #merrymakers drawing challenge! I added it to the other paintings in my old blogpost {klick here, if you want to have a look}. Even if it took me so long, it feels good to have completed it! 

We had ice rain yesterday and everything is very slippery right now and the branches of the trees full of little frozen water drops that are glinting in the sun.

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*wintry ceramics

Hi there, I finally made pictures of my latest ceramic pieces. It's always tricky with the lighting in the dark season, but I did not want to wait any longer. I really love to work with clay that contains bigger fireclay parts. The roughness is so pleasing to the eyes, it gives such a natural feel to the pieces and I like how it absorbs the glaze differently.

I made a new flock of light birds, and according to Feng Shui teachings you should always place decoration in your home that comes in pairs to nurture a happy relationship and I can feel the truth in it when looking at my bird and hedgehog couples. What do you think?

The dish set had to wait the longest for being finished, I started it back in summer when the Roman fennel was in full bloom. It's such a nice thought to have tea in one the cups that comes from the same fennel plant I made the imprints with.

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*the beauty of winter

{Music: Solande – Jase Moran}

At the beginning of December I captured the beauty of winter for you. The deer would come into our garden beds to eat up the mangold that I had not harvested. It was so nice to be able to observe them so closely. The bird feeder was always well-attended too! And we visited a castle ruin from which we had an amazing view over the snowy houses. 

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*phoenix

Still nothing really new from my side here. Fighting, making tiny walks before the sun is down, trying to find my way back into my body.

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*When autumn met winter

Winter came back today, it is snowing since the early morning hours and it will get pretty cold again the coming days. I don't have much to tell, I'm still struggling a lot, first and foremost with depression, my eyes, the constant pressure on my chest and ears, my low blood pressure, the nerve pain, my digestion and I hope all will come into balance again soon. I'm daydreaming of being out in nature with my camera again, feeling free and connected. 

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*The first snow, an icy moon & pouring candles

{Music: Snowdrift – Blue dot sessions + Steadfast – Blue dot sessions}

I have forgotten to show you my video of the first snow we had at the end of November here on my blog. It feels so long ago already, but this happens when you do not feel good – time seems to almost stand still and the days do not want to pass.

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*merry makers

1-6 Dec – trim the tree / decorating

7-12 Dec – gingerbread house / cozy night baking

13 -19 Dec – building a snowman / ice skating

20-25 Dec – opening presents / rocking around the Christmas tree

26-31 Dec – holiday party / Christmas feast

Dear people, maybe you noticed my sudden absence, I wish I could tell you that I made an intentional break from the internet world to just enjoy Christmas time, but unfortunately that was not the case. Ronald came home with very high fever and terrible pain from work in the middle of December and I cared for him some days until I got really really sick myself to the point where I was not able to sit upright in bed or walk to the toilet alone as my circulation was so bad that I would collapse as soon as I tried. Even when I was lying and closed my eyes I would start to faint and this would give my body kind of a shock every time, followed by a terrible feeling of nausea and I was not able to eat and every sip of water came back immediately which was really scary, because at the same time the high fever was eating me away from the inside. Days went by and I started to become a shadow of myself and really stuck. I don't know why my body struggled so much, maybe because of my health preconditions. I better spare you more details of how terrible it was, today is day 17 of being bound to bed and I slowly try to fight myself back to life once again. The worst is really the circulatory insufficiency and the permanent nausea. I'm really not good in handling those two symptoms. The pain is a whole other story, but this feeling of sickness and unability to digest anything is always horrible for me. When it goes on an on and you can not make a break for a moment and you can not at all distract yourself, when such a state resides, I tend to get depressed after a while which makes it even harder to improve. 

To speak of other things finally, I joined the #merrymakers drawing challenge in December. Here are my contributions! I was not able to continue, so one prompt is missing, but maybe I will finish when I am able to improve my current state and am able to paint again.

I really hope you are doing a lot better than me and that you were able to have a nice Christmas and New Year and I wish you the very best for 2024!

☙