Layer upon layer

It has been a few months since I last posted on my blog, a few months that have been full of many and various things. The main feature of this time has been a chronic headache. If it lasted one day, it is the kind of headache I would ignore and get on with life, but when it dragged on day after day, it dragged me down.

In the meantime we have investigated potential causes of my headache and ruled out anything sinister. Instead, I have realised that it is likely the end result of doing too much for too long, of too many layers of stress building up until my body started to complain. There is not one stressor that I can blame, but layer upon layer of things that have combined to become too much.

Now I am faced with the challenge of peeling back these layers, assessing my commitments, deciding what I keep, and moving forward slowly and carefully. When there are so many good and important things needing doing, that I am capable of doing, it is hard to say no to some of them. I am also working on building better self-care habits to prevent this kind of thing happening again.

This blog has become one of the things put aside for now. I enjoy the process of writing and sharing, but had put myself under pressure to post something every week. At some stage I intend to return to writing out my thoughts and putting them here, but it will not be to a regular schedule, and I'm not sure when I will start up again.

Thank you for your patience and your prayers. I look forward to returning to blogging, but don't know when that will be. 

For now, I will leave you with a few pictures…

 

When working on our dictionary, it was often beneficial to take a photo, as well as to write a description.

 

Our kitten did not like anything other than him being the focus of attention, and kept trying to get in on the pictures. In the end, we just gave him his moment in the spotlight…