With the dark nights upon us, it’s not easy, so I thought last night what can I do to pass a bit of time and occupy my brain instead of it running mad. A piece of paper, pen and find a word of 8 letters (can be any length of word) and see how many word you can make out of the word. I did diameter and so far found 44 words. It helped to pass a bit of time. If anyone else has any ideas please say. It helped me last night.
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What a nice thread to start. Later in the week I plan to go to my local pottery painting shop and get a take home kit, put on Netflix and paint
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Thank you, I was very unsure about starting a thread like that on here. That sounds nice what you are planning to do x
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I have started reading light hearted books or true stories you could join a book review club this can be done online or in person maybe set up your own i get my books from charity shop
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I enjoy reading but find I can’t concentrate long enough at the moment, used to get all my books on Amazon.
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I have started diamond painting of a picture of my husband and myself. 40cm by 60cm with thirty thousand diamonds. Going to take a while. X
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How lovely to do, will pass the time and a lovely result at the end, you can hang it up and have lovely memories
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Yes going to put it up in the bedroom… thank you xx
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Hi,
Today I wanted to do something creative just to take me out of my world of grief for an hour or so.I made some handmade Christmas themed soap. When my mum passed instead of flowers donations were given to the History Society in the village where she was born and brought up at. The members decided to set up a project called Yesterday’s Voices and plan to record older members of the village recalling stories about village life. They set up a separate fund under my mum’s name. So I am going to sell my soap and donate the money to her fund.
When it sets I shall post a photo of it tom
Deborah
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Oh wow what a lovely idea and such a nice idea to do something for the memorial for your mum. Xx
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Thank you Hazel x
Wow Hazel that’s a lot of diamonds. Such a lovely idea and tribute. You must have a lot of patience. So rewarding though both doing if and the finished piece of work.
Deborah x
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Hi Madge,
Reading is such a tonic but I am struggling to concentrate for long. I tend to read a few pages and haven’t a clue afterwards what I have read. It’s both funny and sad. It’s probably bec I am trying to do something to fill my time but it’s it’s for the wrong reason I guess. My interest simply isn’t there. I am going to still try though.
Yes I get my books from charity shops or fayres and even the local Tesco sometimes as they usually have a stall for charity. There’s always a charity book stall in the hosp corridor also so I buy one whenever I have an appointment of some kind
Deborah x
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Thank you for posting this. So many of us struggle to fill in the time when we are heartbroken. Everything seems like a mountain to climb. Sharing ideas can only be a help for us and it’s so interesting to hear about other people do. The winter time is especially difficult for so many so hearing about what everyone else is doing helps
Deborah
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This is such a lovely thread. It’s heartwarming to hear how we are all trying to reconnect with ourselves. During these cold winter days I don’t feel much like going out. This time of the year I make Christmas decorations with my granddaughter with one special one for grandad’s memory tree. I have two little trees that I decorate with personalised decorations, one tree for my husband and the other for my mum and dad. We also make table arrangements for her other grandma and for our Christmas table. Dead easy to do with a floral oasis, a candle and some evergreens cut on a quick walk around the local common.
Other things we do is to paint and varnish rocks with pictures or short messages and leave them outside for others to find. We found it is actually easier to do with coloured sharpies rather than paint. People who find them either keep them or rehide them somewhere else. There are whole facebook pages dedicated to rock painting in different areas.
To start me off in the morning I’ve just started doing Wordle and Connections before I even get out of bed! I belong to a facebook book club which meets on Tuesday evenings which started in lockdown and has just kept going. I often haven’t read a complete book or even any book at all but it is nice to be involved with the banter with virtual friends I have known for the past 4 years.
To keep me connected to my real life friends, we do a weekly Zoom call. Again, this started in lockdown and it has just kept going.
When I’m on my own, I do jigsaws, mindful colouring (I call it mindless but it’s much the same, 
) and do face yoga (!) with YouTube - you really don’t want to be doing THAT with anyone around 
. My friend showed me how to do needle felting and I so far I’ve made a legless sheep at home.
I am thinking about doing a silver making workshop at my local adult ed. class but I haven’t had the courage to do that yet.
I hope that has given people some ideas of creative ways to reconnect with themselves almost without stepping out of your front door. May you too find something which suits your interests and captures your imagination. I hope you find comfort in doing so on these long, cold winter nights.
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Hi JJbee,
Wow what a load of ideas.It brought back memories on me making Christmas decorations with my gran many years ago. Mainly from nature like decorating pine cones with as praying them and sequins and glitter If course we had to go for walks in the woods first and find them and put them on her night storage heaters and watch and listen to them popping as they opened with the heat. Wonderful times!!! She always found a very large branch and painted it white and hung Christmas cards on it and with fairy lights on it also it looked magical to me as a child. Then it was the paper lanterns and twisted crepe paper decorations etc . We had so much fun.
I have been keeping busy this winter sorting my mum’s house ready to sell it but after Christmas I shall spend my time sorting out my garden as it’s well overdue a makeover.With grieving so much I have neglected it.
I hope to start reading again but at the moment I can’t concentrate on reading. I read but can’t remember what I have read if you know what I mean.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful ideas
Deborah x
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