wagwaan?

...

I thought I'd come and say hi - I know some of you only get news from me like this, so I'm sorry I don't pop in more often.  Life, you know...

The great news is that I start a new job on 15th December!  I've missed being a medical secretary. For the past 2 1/2 years I've been called "office manager" and I've been doing a lot of admin work but the invoicing side has got too stressful if you ask me.  A job came up in a department where I've temped before and I was asked if I'd like to come for an interview. That's rather good for the ego, I must say. Anyway, long story short, I handed in my notice on Thursday and I work here until Friday 12th December. I hope I can leave early because I'm due to go to Norfolk to spend the weekend with friends...

Otherwise, what have you missed?  Ooh I'm a Great Aunt again. Lovely little Nathaniel was born on 13th September and I got to have cuddles and take photos a couple of weeks later.

Sadly, I could feel I was coming down with something, and I had the return journey from hell due to problems on the line; the next day I dragged myself to the GP to be told I had shingles. Luckily I was put on Aciclovir really quickly and the pain wasn't too bad. The fatigue, however, was something else. Horrendous. I was signed off for the whole month of October in the end. Looking back, it was as bad as after my subarachnoid haemorrhage, but I've now realised that your mind plays tricks on you and you forget really difficult times, so I felt like this was the worst I'd ever felt. A bit like childbirth.... or so I've been told (being too posh to push myself haha), you forget just how painful something is. Anyway, after weeks of thinking I'd never feel normal I have finally turned a corner in the past week and my energy levels are much more back to a reasonable level.

The best thing in previous weeks was my weekend away, crafting with my gal friends. Such fun and laughter. Oh and a bit of scrapbooking... We've already booked our next one :D  It's become a bit of a tradition, and it's such a great place - especially now it's been done up.

The best news of all is that we are going to have Christmas with the family!  We thought we wouldn't manage it and it would just be me and DD, but things have all fallen into place and it's going to be me and DD, my mum and one of my sisters. Yes, all the singletons in the family are getting together hahaha. I think we're also going to cross paths with my brother and his wife, so it's going to be a very festive season indeed.

Talking of the festive season, I've been working like mad on crafts to sell to raise funds for the Community Centre. I really enjoy working with my hands.

Clay decorations..

Owl keyrings...

 

Then I saw some mini meringues in Sainsbury's, and thought they'd make excellent snowmen... 

 

 

I shall be making these with little Alex when I next babysit for the afternoon. He's 4 now - I reckon it's right up his street.

I also decided to whip up some cream cheese with cocoa powder so I could stick some together like this, in a more grown up fashion....

Yum!

Well there you go, that's a bit of a catch up. I know I've said this before, but I might even manage to pop in a bit more frequently nowadays.  Watch this space....

 

 

 

 

 

Catch up

Oh dearie me. I am sorry to have neglected this poor little old blog!  Life does have a habit of getting in the way, doesn't it?  It's not for any particular reason, either. It's just that I'm so tired all the time. I hate to admit that, because somehow it seems like a cop out, but it's the truth. It's very hard, according to the doctors, to work out whether it's post-stroke fatigue or the psoriatic arthritis, but it could just be the double whammy!  

On the plus side, I have started a new treatment for the arthritis - a fortnightly injection of Humira.  My psoriasis practically cleared up overnight after one injection, but the joints are taking a little longer. I do hope that 2014 is the year I'll start to get my energy back though!

Let me see... what have I been up to?  Well, not much I guess, but I do have a load of photos in my photo library so let's see:

Oh yes, first of all I decided I was going to take my birthday week off in February, and go and see my mum in France

I did have a lovely time!  It was great seeing my mum and I'm glad I did, for just a couple of weeks later she had another stroke. How worried we all were!  She's home again now, with extra home help, and I think she's doing quite well, considering.  I'm planning another trip to see her just as soon as I can.

Then I really got stuck into my abandoned Project Life.  I love this way of scrapbooking and I did a few months all at once. I don't do a page a week or anything, I just do layouts as and when I have photos or an occasion I want to write about.  This is just one of the pages I caught up with.

Also, love love love this photo, straight out of the iPhone camera, nothing special but boy look at those colours!

Sadly, today looks nothing like that. It's grey and raining, but I'm just going to stay indoors so it doesn't matter.  I think I shall catch up with my crochet. Yes crochet! Me!  I never got on with knitting when I was younger, but I joined a beginners' knitting/crochet group at the Community Centre, and in two ticks I learned the basics.  I'm so hooked (pun intended)!  And it was all Lucy from Attic 24's fault really. Before her, I never really liked crochet....

My first ever granny square

Above it you can see the beginning of my ripple blanket, made with the wool I got from my Secret Santa... Now it's looking like this

I took some other pictures of it, but with the big camera, which I've not uploaded yet. Another time.

Lyle tries to help...

But really he just wants to play...

(I love the scrap of wool on his whiskers, silly boy)

So there you have a bit of an update. I really will try and update more often! I have a project to do with stroke survivors, so I'll talk about that soon too.

Have a great day :)

Sunday night

It's pretty much woe is us here - between a migraine/sickness (Claire) and lumbago (me) we are a sorry sight!

But what a lovely Christmas we had. Very quiet, just the two of us... and the cat, the goldfish and of course our little Christmas visitor, William the hamster.

He's very cute - but one of us is less than impressed:

Poor boy!  He's alright really, getting lots of cuddles and Dreamies, but I think he's not too sure what's going on, and will be very relieved when William's young owners come home from their travels. 

On Christmas Day Claire came up to the bedroom with the bags my wonderful brother and his wife put together for our stockings. We had decided to stretch things out a bit and to open these separately, before breakfast, and planned to open the rest of our presents later.  It was lovely, and so unexpected, so thank you NJ and J :)

First things first, we opened up the champagne, courtesy of one of my bosses, and added OJ for the most delicious Bucks Fizz

Then I made French Toast with icing sugar for Claire and maple syrup for me, to make up for the fact that we didn't buy a Pandoro this year...

 

After breakfast of course it was time to open our presents, and I must say my daughter is the most thoughtful and wonderful person in the whole wide world! One of her gifts to me was a magazine subscription. I love that I'll get to open a present every month for the whole year.

 

I was also excited to receive some yarn and a crochet hook from my Secret Santa (one of my scrapbooking buddies). I'm trying, but I'm a loooong way from this! I shall be joining the beginners' class at the Community Centre and hope to make my first crochet blanket in 2014. 

In the afternoon, we had planned on going for a Christmas post-prandial walk, but in the end I just felt so tired after all the hustle and bustle of the run-up. I am getting better at pacing myself and recognising when I just have to rest and listen to my body.  Although I always love our huge family gatherings, I don't cope as well with the noise etc now, and it was quite pleasant to just sit quietly, reading or watching a little bit of Christmas TV. Claire and I both got books so we were happy to switch off and read in companionable silence!

There's so much I didn't do this year, that I had planned, and where once this would have frustrated me, it's no big deal. We'll get a Pandoro another time and I'll buy marzipan and stuff the dates in the New Year instead, for example.

Oh I nearly forgot, I can't remember if I mentioned Do Something Different before, but I signed up to it in December and have been getting daily prompts. Anyway, I got the No Diet Diet by the same authors from the library and today is day one, which was "switch off the tv". So that's what I've done. I'm not watching it at all today, and I've got plenty of other things to do instead. Although the prompts that have been coming in have often been to do things I already do naturally, it is great to have a little jab in the ribs occasionally to do something you're putting off.

So, off I go. I need to check in on Claire and then I've got that craft corner to clear up in the bedroom... Ciao!

:Sunday:

Phew what a week!  I know, I know, I always say I know how to pace myself now - but apparently I do not. Something every day of the week = a very tired brain. By Friday afternoon I was having trouble with my words, which doesn't happen that often now, thank goodness. I did a real push to get most of the database updates out of the way so my jobshare colleague doesn't come in to a pile of them on Monday. Thing is, though, I was already pushing my luck.

I stopped for a cuppa on the way home with my colleague and I don't think I was talking much sense, to be honest. I must have looked exhausted because she was concerned for me. I know that look! My friends get a concerned look on their face that tells me I need to go and rest immediately. I actually took a cab home, which is a real sign I'd overdone it. But never fear, the weekend is for relaxing, right?

Anyway, yesterday Claire and I decided we needed some craft supplies, so we had lunch in town and went shopping for goodies. When we got home Claire set to with the hot glue gun and I did some Photoshop creating. We didn't see the time fly by and it was 10pm before we knew it.  I was working on my Project Life and thought I'd do a few filler cards. Here are a couple that I made for the 4 x 3 inch pockets. Feel free to download... They're  not going to win any awards for design, but I enjoyed making them :)

I'll be making more today no doubt, and then I'm off for my Sunday walk in the park with one of my choir buddies. I must remember to switch on the app when I leave the house. Talking of choir, I really must practice my pieces more AND learn the words. Gospel choirs don't stand their with their sheet music do they?! And we'll be recording soon, so I must get it right! 

Have a restful Sunday.

 

 

Autumn... and nearly Winter

I have so many photos in my iPhone I thought I'd upload some of them here...

First of all, this is one of my favourite Autumn snaps from this year.  Just round the corner from our place - it made my heart soar every time I walked into town.

Then there's this one: I bought Lyle some catnip and even the packaging drove him crazy!

and more recently I snapped this one on my way home from work. Yes it's that time of year again...

And the same night, from the top of the town looking down the High Street.  

Today I went out to the Christmas Craft Fair at the Colosseum and met up with my friends and their toddler. After we'd had coffee and little Alex had had his lunch, I had a late lunch with my other friends from the Community Centre who were manning a stall there. It was a real shame I don't have any spending money till next week, but I suppose that way at least there were no rash purchases!  It was gorgeously sunny early on, after a stormy and windy night, but tonight it turned quite grey and cold and I was glad to get home and have a cuppa all snug in my little house.

It's Agatha Christie's Marple now on ITV3, so I'm going to settle in for a nice evening. Busy week (off work) ahead... maybe I'll get an early night.

 

Making stuff

You know I get a lot of support from the Community Centre, right? I try and reciprocate when I can and as we are having to do a lot more fundraising this year due to cuts in funding I have been roped in to help (I know we are not alone in this, sadly.) Anyway, we have the option of taking a stall in the local "artisan market" and have all kinds of crafty goodness planned so we can make stuff to sell.  I was playing around with some bits of felt & ribbon and some pound shop hair clips yesterday... Claire was my (rather unwilling) model:

I really should get the big camera out for pictures like this..  

Well I had such fun that I made loads and loads of the bow ones, with different ribbons, and they went down a treat at the coffee morning today where I showed them off. "Baby Anabelle", our little nearly-2-yr-old resident beauty, let me put one in her hair to see how it looked and she was so sweet I let her keep it. They are perfect for little ones so I hope we can sell LOADS!

Christmas crafting

It's quite a year for Christmas crafts. I'm not sure if it's the world economic situation but we're all very "make do and mend" these days.  I have already sent my home-made Christmas presents to the family in France via my lovely brother, but I'm still working on stuff. I have made quite a lot of felt hearts, each one unique, and I have had several people ask me to make more. Tonight, though, I thought I'd do something a little different, and as Claire got the cookie cutters out to make snowflake biscuits I thought I'd use a cutter as a template - and this is the result:

 

I love it so much I think I'll make more, BUT I must say that the edging was much more difficult than on the heart shape, due to all those pointy bits. I find it really relaxing and I was lucky enough to get some bits from the Watford Recycling Art Project so the ones I'm making to sell at the Community Centre coffee mornings aren't costing me a thing. I have some other ideas up my sleeve, so I'll be crafting for days yet!

In other news, Claire and I did some shopping at that well-known high street store that is extremely good value.... We bought snuggly blankets and a cushion for the living room. I think Lyle approves (picture by Claire)

 

Gorgeous boy!  (oh and I mustn't forget, the banner pic is also courtesy of Claire. She's been busy).

Well, it's past my bedtime. I'm off to check the Lottery numbers. If I've won, you'll be the first to know. Goodnight!

 

In the festive spirit

Can you guess where I met Claire for "lunch" the other day?

 

That's right - the Red Cups are back :)   And I thought I'd try and get in the Christmas spirit with a deep-filled Mince Pie. It was actually rather good....

And to continue in the festive spirit, I started doing some more Christmas craft today. What do you think of my freehand embroidery?

Yeah, the curly bits went a bit wrong, but I had such fun!

Countdown to Christmas

Oh no - I used the C word! I blame it on Claire: she loves Christmas so much and she keeps getting her iPhone out and saying "ooh, xx sleeps till Christmas".

(just FYI, that screencap is from today)

She also went into London with a friend yesterday and filmed her way round the Christmas department in Harrods, which has actually got me in the mood too now.  Anyway, this morning I've made a start on some Christmas presents. I've always liked home-made gifts and, well, money's tight for everyone these days so I'm hoping not to have to buy anything except materials for most of my presents this year.  

I've got lastfm playing on the PC, and the table spread out with crafty stuff while the washing machine and tumble dryer are going full-pelt. You see, I can multitask again at last, ha ha!

It really does feel like Autumn now, after that unseasonably hot weather we had before. The leaves are turning and before long it'll be Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes' night, Victorian evening, the Church Christmas bazaar... all the events that Claire and I enjoy. Oh, of course, not forgetting the winter extravaganza in Hyde Park which is a blast.  

Life's great, isn't it?! 

Inky fingers

At the weekend I had a coaching assigment to do, and I was asked to think back to my childhood to do it creatively.  That got me thinking and as I had bought some canvases and paint, I decided to do it as a piece of artwork.

Getting ready:

During:

And this is the result, which I love by the way....

Especially as I used Glossy Accents all over it when the paint was dry....

 

I can highly recommend getting messy with paints :)