String of Stars

Good evening sweetlings, I hope you are all having a good time and enjoying the Winter or Summer ^^
Recently I have been very much into reading children's books and stories, just the other day I purchased Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. I managed to finish A Little Princess in one night, I just love the way Frances Hodgson Burnett writes, I love The Secret Garden as well and I would highly reccommend those two to you my dears.
I like to buy books from the Oxfam Bookshop we have here, they have so many old copies of things and I love the way old books in particular look and smell and feel, there's something lovely about fragile, frail paper with such old words hidden inside. The only real downside is that sometimes the font is really tiny and it gives me a headache to read it.
Another thing I am enjoying at the moment is the Christmas lights, although I like the decorations the little lights are my most favourite, they look like little stars clinging to pieces of string and light everything up white, blue, yellow. I love walking underneath and staring up to the black night sky.
The other day I went out with Steven to town, that's when I bought the children's books, I took my camera out also as I wanted to photograph the lights.

Cheerful shop fronts always make me smile.

Is everybody excited for Christmas? Tell me some things that are making you happy!

Giving Thanks

I believe I'm a little late but I wanted to wish you all Happy Thanksgiving, even though we don't follow the holiday here in England I think the idea of giving thanks is a really important one because we all have something we are thankful for and it's a great thing to think about those things and remember them, the idea that there are so many people feeling thankful all at once in the world right now makes my heart warm.

So I decided to make a list of some of the things I am thankful for right now ^_^

My boyfriend

In just 5 months this one person has managed to turn my world completely upside down or perhaps right way up might be the better way to put it.
From the very first moment of talking to him we got on so well, he would always be so excited to talk to me and we would spend hours chatting about everything, our conversations rambled along as though we were sitting together simply saying whatever came to our minds. He's a person I can tell absolutely everything to, I feel I have somebody who understands me so well and truly loves me, everything that makes me up, the good and the bad.

Since I have been with him I have done so much, come so far. He has supported me and encouraged me every single day, joining in my high points and holding me up in the low ones.

He truly is the sweetest person with the purest most loving heart. His view on everything is so inspiring to me, I love his way of thinking, of doing, of being. He is such an inspiration to me, I really look up to him and respect him, to know that he loves me makes everything in the world feel right.

My friends

I truly am thankful for my friends, the new ones and the old. I love that I am still so close to my two oldest friends even though we are far apart, I know I can always talk to them about anything, they understand what makes me happy, excited, sad and angry, they tell me their troubles as I tell them mine, they show me such affection and love and we share such amazing memories. I love when silly little things remind me of them, songs that we used to listen to, little jokes. We can get behind eachothers walls so easily, there are no guards when we speak to eachother and I love that. These girls have kept me going in some extremely tough times and I am eternally thankful to have found them and to have them in my life.

And to other friends, my online friends and to new friends. A lot of the people I know online are like family to me, some of us have known eachother for so long. Someone once said to me that people online aren't the same as real life friends but I don't think that's true at all, distance does not make you care any less for somebody. My online friends also take me by surprise quite a lot! My friend Rhaggles, just today, set up a Steam account for me and bought me Dragon Age, isn't that the sweetest thing?

Having friends around the world is so important to me. We can share things together so easily, I can connect with people I never would have been able to in the past. I know I always have somebody I can talk to no matter the time and I hope I can extend my support to those people who help me so much. I love you guys.

And new friends, since going back to University I have really started to connect to the people on my course, we can now talk and joke with one another and chat to eachother. A lot of people there have remarked on how much I have changed, as though I am a completely new person, and say they are glad to talk to me. I love that my change is visible to so many people, it makes me feel confident that what I am doing is really coming across.

I have also finally joined a forum that Steven is part of, I was lurking around on it for some time but now I am a member. I met the members of it a few times with Steven before I joined as we went out for drinks but it feels so great to be able to chat to them all properly, everyone is so lovely and friendly to me and I feel like a fit right in, I feel really welcomed. Thank you for welcoming me ^^

And lastly to everyone who reads Dear Sweetlings, I am also incredibly thankful to you. I have met some lovely people here and found some wonderful places that I would most likely never have found otherwise, the things people say here truly warm my heart and make my life better. I love how the blogosphere makes it possible to find so many positive, loving people, to find people being glad every day.

My parents

I am very thankful for how I was raised and how my parents are always there for me. I think I was raised with such a great attitude, my parents were always very strong and loving and although I know now that it was sometimes difficult bringing me up they never showed that to me, never made me feel different and always treated me with so much care and affection. My parents are to me as parents should be, I hope that when I become a parent I can bring my child up as well.

I love that my parents are not just parents to me but also my friends, I talk to my dad online at least every two days and they call me on the phone quite often too. I know that if I'm having a rough time I can just call them up and they will always be there for me, they often go out of their way to make sure I am alright. I am also very thankful for being allowed to 'run free' with my interests, style and personality as I grew up, I think being allowed that freedom to explore and be who you really are is the most healthy way to bring up and connect to your child.

Thank you mum and dad for always looking after me and always encouraging me.

The Earth

There are so many beautiful things in this world, to be here is so lucky to me. To think of all the things that had to happen for me to exist, it puts me in awe. It really is luck, any number of things could have happened differently that would have made the course of events carry out differently. But they didn't, everything that has happened has been just right in order for me to be alive, to be able to think, to be able to experience the things around me.

The past

One of my favourite quotes is this one

"I don't regret the past. It's due to past that I'm here now, right?" - Seth, Lost Odyssey.

When I first heard that line it really hit me hard because I think it's a lovely way to think, a really positive way to view the past. I don't regret anything that has happened to me, anything that I have done, even if it turned out to be a mistake, a bad idea or a painful experience. If I could I wouldn't change my past, I know that the lessons I have learnt have taught me so many important things and have molded and formed my personality into one that I truly do like. I like myself, if I changed anything in my past then I wouldn't be who I am today.

I also think that making mistakes in the past leads us to become stronger people in the present and the future, by learning from the things we have experienced that weren't good we learn how to navigate these problems and get over them.

And of course there have been amazing things in the past too, I have great memories of my childhood, growing up glued to tapes of Fantasia, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, my obsession with Pocahontas was pretty epic! Going up to the castle to play with my friends, crazy sleepovers that only little girls can have, being naive enough to believe that Dinosaurs still existed and were just shy of humans... the list of good memories is endless.

The modern world

There are so many great things that come from the modern world, music, books, the internet. We have access to so much information, so many varied sounds, words, thoughts and opinions, the opportunity to meet hundreds and thousands of people, the chance to break boundaries and come out of your shell. It's thanks to the internet that I was able to learn about half of the things that I love, it's thanks to it that I am here writing this now!

Simple things

I don't know how I've ended up the way I have, whether it's how I was bought up or just how I am, but most people know that I can be pretty spaced out and a bit strange. People seem to like that about me and I like it too, I like how my mind sometimes works in strange ways and lets me think of things without trying to make everything logical all the time. I like putting my head in the clouds and seeing what happens. I like simple things, little things that happen, that you can see or feel just by looking around. The world is a lot of fun when little things are just as fun as big ones.

And there is much, much more but as it is 3 AM I really need to go to sleep now.

New Paintings

Good Evening my dears ^^
I am really glad to say that I have been painting quite a lot recently, it feels really good to have that motivation again. I went through a few months during the Summer where I wasn't inclined to draw or paint at all really, I suspect due to how much everything was changing.
My reason for painting changed during those months which I think is another thing that slowed me down. In the past I painted for some form of escape, a desperation for the feeling of peace it gave me. Now I don't especially need to escape from anything, I already feel contented in my everyday life and don't need to find that feeling in painting anymore.
It took me a little while to feel that sense of calm that came from painting again but when I think about it, it is a different sort of 'calm'.
When I paint I can stop thinking, I become still and quiet. I try to practice this in every day life, just sitting and being quiet, but it comes completely naturally with painting to me.
I feel as though I don't really invent what I draw, it's more that it already exists somewhere deep in my mind and I'm just pulling it up.

So, a collection of pictures and paintings ^^

Tolten from Lost Odyssey, this was actually painted around July time but I never got around to sharing it.

Seth from Lost Odyssey ^^

and Ming from Lost Odyssey
I actually did paintings of every character but these are my favourites.

I've done the 'spider' effect before and I really enjoy it but don't use it all that often.

This character was very unusual to me. I really couldn't figure her out, get inside her mind or understand really what she's about. Usually I get a definite 'feel' for each character but she was extremely still, completely mysterious. Not in a negative way, I enjoyed the complete lack of thought with her.

Green hair seems to be becoming a recurring theme!

The only creature I've ever drawn with her back to me, I don't know what her face looks like, her hair was a lot of fun.

And my own hair, doing silly things with your hair makes sitting at home studying a lot more fun than usual.

Continuing with the theme of plaits.

If it's worth having then it's worth fighting for

The strangest things have got me thinking recently but I really enjoy the world this way, little thoughts always meandering into my head whenever they feel like it it seems! It's good to be able to get inspiration from lots of varied sources, it makes life interesting to think that thoughts are just flying at you from all over the place.
I tend to sleep with the music channel on when I'm at my house, it soothes me so that I can fall asleep and also it gives me light so that I can turn my main light off. I ususally have it too low to really hear the songs properly, it's just the voices that I like, but one song caught my attention: Fight for this Love by Cheryl Cole.

First of all I just like the beat of the song and I think she has a nice voice, it's always nice to catch something you like in amongst everything else. Something else made me think though, the subject matter.


The song is about fighting for love, or really anything at all that we 'want'. The chorus sums it up:
Anything that's worth having

Is sure enough worth fighting for

Quitting's out of the question

When it gets tough gotta fight some more

Fighting for something is a common theme in life I think, whether it be in relationships and friendships, work, or regarding ourselves such as trying to reach a goal. I'm pretty sure we've all fought hard for something at least once in our lives, maybe winning, maybe not.

What I'm wondering is how do we tell if something truly is worth fighting for, what does it mean exactly to 'fight' for something and how do we know when it's not worth it?

Of course, choosing what is worth fighting for is always going to be a subjective matter. We probably wouldn't put that much effort into something that doesn't matter to us and it can be hard to stand back and look at things from another perspective for this reason. If that instinct in us has been ignited then it can be hard to think about in any other way.

We can really fight for anything and it's difficult to compare two different spheres and come up with a conclusion on what is worth it and what is not. For example if we are in a relationship is there anything that can happen that means its not worth it? Maybe knowing there is love there, no matter how close or far away, is enough. But would the same criteria apply if we were fighting for something more abstract like Freedom? Is there a time when we would say enough?

Of course with things like freedom it can be a slow process to get it, on a personal scale or on a larger one. Freedom from something doesn't tend to happen over night but it's still worth trying to get it because it's an important thing to have.

In a relationship things can also be slow, sometimes things can be tough and you have to work through those rough patches, whatever they are. Every relationship will come up against something eventually, not necessarily something negative like fighting with one another but perhaps a difficulty for one or both people where you need to support eachother and hold one another up. The same goes for friendships, sometimes you will have really great times but sometimes people can need your help, sometimes you might have a fight.

And then there is fighting for something personally, just for you. Sometimes I think this can be the hardest because you have to motivate yourself, you have to keep going with it and be strong enough to handle it.

So what do we deem worth it? In a relationship for instance, if we have to fight for something how long do we fight for? Do we give up after a month, six, a year, never? Perhaps depending on what the issue is we would change the timescale, for instance we might choose to stand by someone for longer through emotional issues such as sadness than we would if it were a real relationship 'problem' such as fighting, or perhaps not. It can also be down to our own personality, some people will give something a short timescale and then stop no matter what, others may find it hard to ever let something go.

If you are in a tough spot what keeps you fighting? Maybe it's about remembering the good times you had with that person and knowing you will find them again, maybe because you know you will get through it, because they need you. Sometimes things can go on for a long time, is there any time when you stop wanting to fight for it? For example if you keep arguing constantly for months on end do you still hold on, still know that things are good enough to stick around? Or if they are not getting any 'better', is it hard to keep caring or do we just carry on with the same intensity?

I know for myself personally that if I deem something worthy of my love and attention I will keep going with it for as long as I possibly can. I don't give up easily, not even if I am getting hurt on a regular basis. I think a lot of people can relate to that, sticking around for something even though you are suffering badly for it, because it's worth the suffering no matter how severe.

But is there sometimes an amount of suffering that you just can't cope with? I think there is. It doesn't always have to be a huge thing that happens, sometimes it's an accumulation of all the little things that break us in the end.

Perhaps it's not right to say that someone should never, ever give up on something. It seems we have been trained to believe that if we ever give up on something we are somehow weaker than everyone else, we couldn't stick it out. It's a philosophy that really ignores the individual, the idea that being in any way selfish is somehow a major sin. That bending to something somehow makes us useless.

In my own view I think sometimes we need to be selfish, sometimes it saves us from something. It's human and natural and there is nothing wrong with putting ourselves first, it doesn't mean you don't love other people, doesn't mean you have to be some horrible person. Putting yourself on the line constantly for others can be wearing and if we get hurt too often it can break people quite severely, cause a problem that takes a long time to fix. Constantly hurting yourself or allowing yourself to be hurt often makes you feel weakened, that type of suffering shouldn't have to happen forever but it can if we refuse to let something go. Sometimes it seems things just don't improve no matter how much effort we invest.

I think that attitude needs to change, instead of making people feel that they have to keep going in the face of any adversity we need more acceptance of a persons best effort. To me if someone is truly trying their best, no matter how good their best is, it's good enough. It's about the trying, the effort, the intent that really matters, not what the outcome is. That also defines to me what something 'worth fighting for' is. Something that responds to you, no matter how slow, no matter how small the reaction, as long as it is the best that can be given at that time.

I would also say that fighting for something often makes things stronger. Going through tough times in relationships and friendships and seeing it through can often make you feel closer to the other person, make you love them more. Achieving something that was difficult to get to feels great.

So I agree with the idea, life often doesn't make things perfect and easy all the time and it can be the testing times that really make you stronger and show who you are. The things that I have in my own life now would definitely be worth fighting for, the love I have, the friends I keep, my own personal goals. Once someone or something has gained my love, my interest, my passion it is very difficult to lose it.

And for me personally I try to keep in mind a simple criteria for whether I should fight for something: has it earnt it?

If it's a cause that I care about a lot then I would say that it has earnt the effort, if it's a goal that I strongly want to achieve then I will keep going no matter how hard. If someone is good to me, loves me and is willing to show me support when I need it then I will not give up on them, I will fight hard for them and put my best effort in no matter how hard the situation is. I will always do my best to help.

And if not, if a goal I have is not realistic, if I am suffering greatly in my attempt to reach it then I will try to stop and move on.

If someone hurts me repeatedly, if I keep getting my heart broken, if they are truly not showing me the same effort then I will try to let that go also.

Because I agree that if something is worth having then it is most definitely worth fighting for, worth all the time and effort in the world, perhaps even worth your own life.

But sometimes it pays to know that we can't fight for every single thing that comes our way forever. Sometimes you have to let go.

the song ^^