Happy Mother's Day

Hope everyone has had a lovely day? It's been very low key here as both me and the ToddlerBoy have been struck down with a horrible cold. He kept us up most of last night, poor thing was running a temperature. I've been struggling to stay awake and have ended up sneaking off back to bed a couple of times. I was hoping that there would be an end to all the illness this winter.

I wasn't expecting anything for Mother's Day as, let's face it, my husband is a bit pants where presents are concerned and the kids don't have their own source of income beyond claiming coins from down the back of the sofa. However he did take the kids out to choose something. I ended up having it on Saturday, Girl just couldn't wait. I had a couple of these plants in funky felt holders. They will last longer than flowers and I have taken the felt thingies off to use as storage for something.

I knew Boy had made me something in his after school craft club because he kept telling me. Another one who can't hold a secret!

He did well to choose my favourite colours. I can see where the teacher started him off and he has carried on. It's very true when people say it's the thought that counts.

Things aren't always lemonade and cream buns around here but I am very lucky to have all three of them. 

TTFN

Homemade photo lightbox fun

I made it my task this weekend to try and get my yarn stash sorted out. I have bits and pieces all over the house, squirreled away under beds, in cupboards, in bags and in drawers. When I joined Ravelry I made a half-hearted attempt to get it all listed on my stash page. I didn't realise then how useful it is to have a reminder of what I actually own on the screen in front of me. Especially when I'm browsing yarn shops!

So where to put it all was the first problem. I have some under-bed storage boxes but they really don't hold much at all. For cheapness I found these Frakta zipped trunk bags in Ikea for a bargainous £1.99. I took Boy for a late evening trip and he talked me into buying chips and cake even though we'd already eaten dinner. Not that I needed much persuasion.

Not surprisingly my yarn stash doesn't fit in just one. I bought 3 to be on the safe side but I think 2 will do it. As for taking pics of it all I knew it would be a huge job but I find the 'no featured photo' stash page blankness depressing and couldn't just leave it. My photography skills aren't up to much but I do try. I've always fancied a DSLR but at the moment just have a basic point and shoot with a long zoom. Zooming is good for people with messy houses! Also my house is always so dark it an be hard to get any sort of focus on small objects. I just tended to zoom in as far as possible from a distance and then crop out any background. I've always admired the photo's on Eskimimi's blog and project page, they are so clean and simple and the colours are so vibrant. Mine will never be in that league but I thought I'd have a go at making a lightbox to try and show things off a bit better.

I found this web page that shows how to make one for practically no cost. I couldn't wait to get started and had the house to myself for once so no interruptions. I have numerous cardboard boxes lying around the place so it wasn't hard to sacrifice one and used some Lidl greaseproof paper which is handily white and not brown like they usually are to stick to the sides and top of the box. A few bits of sticky tape and a piece of white card and I was done. Really quick and easy, took me around 10 minutes to make and just using things I already had. I have a couple of marble lamps I bought for £1 still waiting for me to supply them with shades that I used to light the outside of the box. The lamps were a bit too tall so I had to place the lightbox on a huge packet of Cheerios to get it to the right height.

So now my pics have gone from this

 

to this 

 

And this

 

to this

Not bad for something free! My kids came home and of course wondered what on earth I was doing, it must have looked like some sort of yarn shrine. They are already used to seeing me taking pictures of inanimate objects. Girl decided it was a stage and put her toys in to play. Not quite sure what sort of story involves a winged purple pony and a dinosaur skeleton.

Plus they saw ALL my stash and think they are storing it up for next time I tell they they have too many toys.......
(I do have some under the heading of 'What was I thinking?' that I will be donating to the school!)

Hope everyone in blogland is well. I have been trying to comment more on other peoples but sometimes keeping up with my Google Reader is a job in itself.

TTYL

Cheese and crackers

Thank you for your kind comments, I'm feeling a bit better, though still sleeping a lot which often means I'm in bed before the children are. My friend Sharon took the above picture in my honour for her Flickr 365 project. Made me smile!

The Dr's appointment went well. He didn't try to talk me into anything and is happy for me to be medication free for now. ToddlerBoy is still being fed by me and I'd prefer not to take anything for the moment.

I will be back to post something (hopefully) more interesting once I stop sleeping like a 3 year old.

TTYL

Breaking the silence

The longer you leave something the harder it is to do.

I think that can apply to most things in life, and most certainly to blogging. I have written numerous posts before now only to delete them. Too dull, too late, too personal, too whiny. Before I know it the months have slipped by and nothing at all to say. Until now.

I am depressed. Not right in the head. The cheese has fallen off my cracker.

There, I have said it. Phew. Can I come back now?

It's not all been doom and gloom, but mostly, so I haven't been very inspired to come and post. This year has got of to a bit of a bumpy start and most of November and December was riddled with colds and flu and of course my rapidly waning sanity but less said about that the better.

Some nice things that have happened, we took Boy to his first concert to see the big man. No, not Santa - Marilyn Manson. Yeah I know he's rude and all that but Boy is very sensible and to his credit he never swears. He danced all the way through it almost whacking the head of the man in front a couple of times!

I went to see Girl in her nativity play. She was a sheep and her costume involved wrestling a fleece pet bed bought from the bargain shop through the sewing machine, something I don't wish to repeat again in a hurry! Boy went to see her rehearsal and said she had been told off for excessive 'baa-ing' which is just like her, she does like to get into character. On the day she was just prodding the child next to her and saying loudly 'Look, there's my MOM!'

And BoyBaby, well he's a year old now and had turned into......... ToddlerBoy! He took his first steps just after Christmas. He's not in any hurry to use his new skills as crawling still remains the quickest method of getting about.

I had some nice Christmas presents. Man bought me some Knitpro Interchangeable needles (Nova and Symfonie) and some metal sock dpn's. I bought some bargain sock yarn from Kemps Wool Shop and hopefully will learn how to make socks sometime this year. Kemps is a great yarn shop, they have some fab deals on. They had 500g of mystery Rowan for £5 before Christmas. I got some great stuff to boost my Ravelry stash and a couple of bit's I'm not sure about. I can't knit or crochet at the moment unfortunately, pushing the pushchair in the snow has done my wrists in. My car is broken at the moment after getting stuck in the snow so we're having to walk. Sometimes Good Samaritans can be bad for you! I'm hoping that the feeling in my arms will come back soon and this snow will give up and melt.

The house is still falling to bits around us, definitely on the shabby more than chic side. Something else to add to the list for this year. I'd better sign off now and see if I can get some sleep, I have a Dr's appointment tomorrow, see if they can help me out with the cheese/cracker thing.

TTYL

A mixed bag

It's been raining, raining, raining today so no chance of going to a car boot. I didn't mind too much and decided to take the opportunity to dash to a few shops instead. End of term is looming and I want to get the kids teachers something nice and non-teachery. I took Boy with me, I don't often get to spend any time with him by himself lately but now BabyBoy is older he can be left with Man for a short while. Boy had transferred his Headteacher's Award sticker that he earned on Friday (for writing a good story) from his uniform to his t-shirt today and was very unsubtly indicating that he had done well for himself and quite fancied a reward! I'm a complete pushover where the kids are concerned (don't tell them that though) and we stopped off for hot chocolate (him), latte (me) and cake even though we had just bought these lovelies from the Farmers Market.Aren't they beautiful? I couldn't resist! They are made by Sweet Annalise and they tasted absolutely fantastic. I got a vanilla buttercream one for Girl, chocolate with Cointreau for me and Boy and Man had white chocolate and strawberry. Once it came to serving them up Girl was quite adamant that she wanted a chocolate one so I had to haggle with her about sharing mine and I share hers. I know there was only a teeny amount of alcohol in the icing but she went totally loopy and was on about being able to 'smell ponies'. Oops.

Despite me thinking there were no longer any toyshops in Stafford I found the Co-op Department Store had a toy section upstairs where he managed to wheedle a Lego set out of me and I got Girl a couple of dinosaurs to add to her precious collection. All of them are called 'Triceratop-tops' and 'T-rex' whether they are one or not. She was even trying to get me to breastfeed her T-Rex the other day in the bath. Er, definitely not with those teeth!

Speaking of teeth BoyBaby has gained his first two this week, he's been a slight bit grumpy but otherwise has managed really well. He has also managed to sit up unaided a couple of times and looks a very grown up boy at the moment. Because of this his time in his crib is on a tight limit if we want to avoid any more baby-meets-floor type situations. To get his big cot set up it means taking down our stupid and ugly fitted wardrobes which are crammed full of stuff, most of which I had forgotten I had. Man's idea of getting the job done was to empty all the things onto our bed then proceed to take the wardrobe apart. In the true style of the DIY bodgers who lived here before us it was held together with almost nothing and some of it fell on Man's head. We then ran out of time, the kids needed to go to bed, and all the things have now been dumped back where the wardrobe was but without the luxury of being able to shut the doors on it. I have mentioned before my tendency towards clutter and any mass amount of moving the clutter about stresses me out like nobody's business. I just don't know what to do with it all, I really don't.Lastly, a pic I took of my little cat. This week she has been bringing in poor half dead creatures for us and I really wish she wouldn't! One bird even had to be taken to the vet as I didn't know what else to do. It was in a bad way but I'm not brave enough to end their suffering myself. She is such a lovely cat though. As much as I pretend she is mine she really likes Girl the most. She has the loudest miaow ever and even though she is tiny compared to the other cats in the street they are terrified of her! She came in soaking wet this evening. It's like she forgets to go and find somewhere to shelter if there is something more interesting to look at. I think i will have to reserve her a towel, she loved being wrapped up and dried. Oh and she also has lost the fancy collar I got for her.

TTYL

Week of Happy - Thursday......

.........Friday, Saturday and erm, Sunday! Well the daily post thing didn't go too well did it?! Blimey it's been hot, I haven't felt like doing anything except lying about complaining about the heat, having lots of showers and changing my clothes every 5 minutes. I'm not one of those people who can waft around, glowing delicately in the sun. BoyBaby doesn't fare well in it either, poor thing.

There have still been things to make me happy though. The kids have had their school reports and I'm so proud of them. Boy is doing ok, just a little slack on the presentation side of things and Girl has come on leaps and bounds. It was lovely to read that they have enjoyed having her in nursery just as much as she has loved going. It won't be too long till she is in school all day, she hardly seems big enough! She certainly has the energy though.
The weather finally calmed down a bit today and we headed out to a car boot, a different one to usual as it seems to be the same sellers every week at the regular place and I fancied a change. Oh how I wish we hadn't bothered, it was scary to be honest. The place just seemed to have a very funny atmosphere and the things were very poor quality and overpriced. I did find one stall where everything seemed to be 5p and I picked up a crochet granny square tea cosy. Can't argue for that price and especially after someones hard work has gone into it. I also got a couple of pieces of material, £1 each. We called it a day and went back to our usual place even though it had gone 10am. It was still nice and busy and I found a few more things to buy. I got a wooden box (no pic yet) that needs a little work, for £2 . I've put the shoes in it for now as I'm tired of falling over them. I got the tin in the picture for 50p too.
I also got this fab bedside table to go on Man's side of the bed. The stallholder was asking £10 but i managed to get him down to £5. I also bought some spray paint to go over the gold bits, I'm not overly keen on them. I got on with getting it painted this afternoon but should have bought a second can of paint, they are very small and it wasn't quite enough to get it done. The paint seller will be there next week so I can stock up then, I just hope they have the same colour. I got a pair of marble lamp bases for £1 that just need shades.

I also added a couple more bevelled mirrors to my collection. Man doesn't even comment on them now! He knows it's pointless. I have given up asking about the endless computers he brings home. All in all a successful day!
And this is my freebie vintage wastepaper basket from the other week. It was grubby but I have given it a very good clean and i just totally love it.

Week of Happy - Wednesday

I didn't get the chance to update yesterday, I was busy baking for the second meeting of our new knitting group. We have gone from four of us last time to a fab ELEVEN this week. Great stuff. We have a blog - Cannock Crafties which I have made nice and colourful!

My yarn arrived in time, fab service from McA Direct especially with the postage being free with orders over £10. I'll definitely use them again.

Far, far too hot yesterday so I'm having a lazy day today and I'm not going to feel guilty about it!