In My View #2

In my view #2, the December 2018 update encompassing where I am now and my hopes for the month ahead. With the beginning of December comes Journal Your Christmas with Shimelle or #DecemberDaily with Ali Edwards – or even a mix of the two projects! Embarking upon my own Christmas Journal project has me reflecting over the past month and thinking about what I want to achieve over the next month, and even into next year.

In My View – December 2018

I had a new wheelchair on 11th October and very nice it looks too, with its orange accents.

There was one problem: this wheelchair didn’t like “wheeling” anywhere! At first, I blamed it on the new front castors, being new and too rubbery. 

Two weeks later that theory had to be ditched. Changing the castors to a larger, older pair from my other wheelchair made no difference.  This chair didn’t like moving, not when I was at the wheels pushing. Now I have terrible shoulder and neck pain from trying to get me, the wheelchair, and a cup of tea anywhere, let alone to my desk!

The experts are puzzled.

Finally, after trying the tea towels under the back of the cushion for a couple of weeks, the pain pushes me to screaming point. I can’t think, I can’t scrapbook, I can’t do Silhouette Studio videos and I haven’t even started my Christmas cards. 

Ian and I do what we should have done from the beginning; we measured the height of the wheelchair. It’s an inch/2.5cm too high. I’ve used a  wheelchair for as long as I can remember, I should trust my instinct. I knew it wasn’t quite right but experts had me questioning myself with their snappy “Yes, it’s the height you asked for!” replies to my queries.

My husband, and hero, got to work moving the wheels. The wheelchair is now the right height, 17 inches, and it moves! The pain in my neck and shoulders is taking longer to move but is slowly getting better. 

Scrapbook Update

A good chunk of October and most of November disappeared while I struggled with the wheelchair. I suppose one benefit is that I took so few photos, and did so little during the day, keeping up with the photobook pages was easy!

Since my last Scrapbook Update I’ve made 38 photobook pages. Since this screenshot I’ve added another 5 pages and my total is now 88! I have a mixture of pages:

• simple, graphic styles with photos and text;
• full digital scrapbooking pages with embellishments and shadows – the full works;
• some digital art pages, where I’m trying out my drawing skills.

Oh, and a couple of pages that look like newspaper, so I could use Ian’s Punaround entries. (Punaround is a little game he sometimes listens to on the way to work, found on XSManchester radio at 7.30am.)

In My View This Month

As I head into December, here are few things I’m planning to do:

• a Christmas Journal – as I mentioned at the start of this post I’m doing a Christmas project, loosely following Journal Your Christmas.
• finish the yearly photobook – for the last couple of years I’ve managed this on New Year’s Eve and I rather like this tradition, so that’s what I’ll aim for.
• video projects – I originally had great ideas for this month but the wheelchair kerfuffle has put me behind schedule. I do have a couple of ideas, and I hope to be recording soon.
  
• taking classes – I recently signed up to Skillshare for a couple of free months, mostly for Photoshop tutorials, but I am finding all sorts of great classes there and may keep the subscription for 2019.
  

I am wary of making plans, and writing them here, wondering if it’s tempting fate. But what is life if you don’t have something to aim for eh?