About Us – About Me
Well, every website seems to have an ‘About Us’ page. So here’s a little more detail about the Lisa behind Busy Busy Learning…About Me.
Hey, I’m Lisa. I originally set up Busy Busy Learning website in 2018 after my daughter was born. Well, my other half set it up for me as I’d been doing what I often do – talking about something and telling myself all of the reasons I shouldn’t do it!
Busy Busy Learning About Me from the Start
Initially, I wanted a place to share learning through play. Before having my daughter I was an early years and primary school teacher. I wanted to be able to share ideas with families and educators and keep up to date with the latest research and pedagogy so that when I returned to teaching I would be well equipped to jump right back in.
Fast Forward
Life definitely had other ideas. To cut a very long story short, after waiting and waiting to ‘get better’ my doctors gave me the answer I’d been dreading in February 2024. No, I would not be able to return to teaching and that I was not ‘employable’.
It’s an answer that I knew deep down really; I just didn’t want to admit. Although, initially, this news felt like being hit metaphorically by a bus it was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. It meant no more waiting to ‘get better’ – I needed to learn to work within the parameters that I’d been set.
The Medical Stuff
In case you’re interested (I always am with anything medical) I have a myriad of health conditions but a couple of my main troubles are with a ‘suboptimal’ immune system and Addison’s Disease. The one flares up the the other resulting in a very unstable Addison’s state where I go into adrenal crisis frequently. Often needing to ‘updose’ just to do basic tasks such as….getting out of bed! Plus all my other health conditions just pile on like some unstable Jenga set up!
Spoonie Life
Have you heard of the term ‘Spoonie’? If you haven’t you can find out a little more in this blog post. I am a spoonie and I’m slowly coming to terms with the term ‘Invisible Disabled’. However, the basic principle is that you wake up each day with a certain amount of spoons and each activity you do in a day may take a certain amount of spoons. Once you’ve used up your spoons for the day there is literally nothing left in you.
Seems simple enough?! You just need to pace yourself, right?! Maybe you get 15 spoons a day. If showering is a five spoon activity, getting dressed is a four spoon activity and preparing a meal is a five spoon activity then you’re only eating once and you certainly haven’t left the house! Although, some days you wake up and your spoon allotment didn’t get replenished properly. Sometimes you only get ten spoons – other days you don’t get any!
Totally Unemployable – Let Down Lisa!
Hence why I am unemployable. The one thing that I can guarantee to you is that I can 100% be completely inconsistent. Are there times of the year I’m better than others, yes. Can I guarantee when they will be, no. Am I generally better at certain times of the day, sometimes, sometimes not. If I plan to meet up with you in two weeks time – will I be there? Who knows, I try not to plan anything in advance, that’s how I got the nickname ‘let down Lisa’.
This all becomes a lot trickier when you love to work. I miss my teaching job terribly. However, being around children with under-developed immune systems is not something I can do. What that day in February 2024 taught me was that it was time to stop waiting to get better and just get on with things. Forge a new path.
Re-Evaluating Life
I did a lot of re-evaluating through 2024. I looked carefully at what I enjoyed and how I could turn some of my passions into making a small income. Prior to this I’d never seriously looked to monetize my website as it has been more of a creative outlet/ hobby.
Disabled Unfriendly Social Media
I looked at where I was spending my precious time and realised that I was spending too much time on areas that were not important, areas that didn’t fit with me as a disabled person. I came off of Instagram in 2024 (you can find out more about this here).
Sadly, algorithms need you to be consistent and show up regularly. This is something I just couldn’t keep up with and made me ill trying to. I’ve discovered that certain social media platforms are just not meant for certain disabilities.
Showing Up Where it Matters
So in 2024 I started to put a little more time into my website rather than Instagram. This is something that I could do from my bed (if needed) and it also didn’t matter if I could show up a little more one week or not at all for a few weeks/ months.
A HUGE Thank You!
I looked seriously at how I could monetise my site to be able to bring in a small income. Amazingly, this drive to want to carve a path for myself in the world of work has started to bring in a little money. At the end of 2024 I made Busy Busy Learning into a company. Thank you so much if you do utilise the links on my website. It really does mean the world to me to be able to feel useful recommending things we love and being able to support my family at the same time.
Find What Fits You
If you are a spoonie or disabled person struggling to fit into this hamster wheel of expected work then I hope this post can give you the power to evaluate your strengths and what you can do. Being told I couldn’t was such a motivator for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still tough. I’m very lucky to be in the privileged position to have access to a laptop and the internet, to have knowledge and expertise from education and a home with an incredibly supportive partner to allow me to achieve small dreams.
The Highs and the Lows
You’ll find friends and family who are really encouraging and kind but you’ll also have to battle against the negativity and put downs that you don’t do ‘real’ work because you don’t leave the house to ‘go to work’.
You’re told you have the luxury of being at home with the flexibility to to do as you please, on your own timescales. These people don’t understand the freedoms they have to be able to leave the house whenever they want to and plan and do whatever they desire (even if it is on days off and holidays). There’s lots that I can’t do, but I choose to focus my attention and good days and moments on what I can do. Yes, even if that’s congratulating myself on getting out of bed on a day! It doesn’t mean that people’s comments don’t still cut deeply and I’m trying very hard to ignore the negativity and focus on the positives.
About Me 2025 Hopes
It’s now 2025 and I’ve been spurred on by my re-evaluations of life in 2024. I think it’s important to continually re-evaluate and consider what next. So what am I hoping is in store for 2025:
- Add more crafts and learning resources (especially for iris folding and macrame), including audio content to the website.
- Add a couple more super slow crafting videos to my YouTube channel.
- Set up and use Substack to foster a community of like-minded spoonies who build each other up.
- Produce a small amount of craft kits to be sold locally to help others experience the joy of simple crafts (this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while but as I said at the beginning of this post I’m great at talking myself out of things – the good old ‘What If!’ scenarios that plague my mind to paralysis.
Not SMART!
Are these SMART goals that you would see in the corporate world of work? Absolutely not! As always with chronic health conditions there are spanners thrown into the works. Can I give you dates when any of this will happen, no. Remember the only thing I can be 100% sure of is to be completely inconsistent.
Are these goals really quite ‘woolly’, totally! Do I think that I’ll be able to achieve my hopes for the year? I really don’t know, but I do know that they help give me a focus, something to strive for and I know that I’ll be super proud of myself even if I make a start on any of them.
I Fell in a Grave
2025 has been a little challenging so far. One of the problems I have is I can be very unsteady on my feet. I had a bad fall and injured by ankle early January, this had left me even more unsteady than usual and lacking in spoons!
In April I was getting prepared to try and make a YouTube video but ended up having an adrenal crisis (the joys of Addison’s). The day after, whilst trying to get myself a glass of water I managed to smash up my hand – wow did it bleed….and bleed….and bleed! This made typing, crafting and trying to do any sort of videoing challenging.
Just as that was healing I managed to have a fall into a grave! Yes, you heard me right, a grave! I was having an unsteady day on my feet so my Mom had driven us to the cemetery to put flowers on my Nan’s grave. We were literally able to park less than 1m from the grave. Alas, I still managed to fall into the grave next door tearing my thigh muscle, cutting my still healing hand and damaging my wrist, ankle, back and my head. I think YouTube will be waiting a little longer!
I Have Skills – About Me
However, I’m learning to adapt. I have lists of things that I can do with ‘no energy’, ‘low energy’ and ‘some energy’. I’m learning about new apps that can help such as turning voice into text. I’m also great at trying to find alternative solutions for other people.
About Me: I volunteer at an arts and crafts community group. It’s something that can knock me off my feet for a few days after and I always have to ‘updose’ but it’s so good for my mental health.
Over the years I’ve had to find many ways to adapt and utilise different tools to help me continue to be creative. This means that I can usually come up with an adaption to help allow people to continue to be as creative as they would like with whatever personal challenges they face. If you’d love to keep up to date (very irregularly) on what I’m up to you can find me below.
Where to Find Me
- On the website here – busybusylearning.com
- NEW Facebook page – Busy Busy Learning & Creating Crafts
- Facebook group – Seasonal Rhythms: Slow Living & Learning through Nature, Creativity & Play
- Substack – The Spoonie Life of Bookworms – I’ll be moving my newsletter over to Substack soon – watch this space!