How girly?

I seen this on Jamie's blog and wanted to have a go too!

You Are 44% Girly

You're a little girly, a little boyish, and probably a whole lot indie. You have your own unique style, and it pretty much defies gender lines.

How Girly Are You?

Weekend Finish

This is what i stitched at the weekend for the Christmas Ornament SAL. I wanted to do something small, and probably will each month, to get it finished fairly quickly. It's a freebie from San Man originals. I think i will properly finish all the christmas pieces nearer the end of the year. There's some great pieces that people have done, check out the blog by clicking here.

Progress and facts about me

Here's the latest progress on Dollhouse which i LOVE stitching (as you will know by now!).

I was tagged by Jamie the other day so here goes. Five Questions.. and Five Things...Here's how this works:

For the first part, 5 Questions - anyone reading my blog can ask me five questions, either in comments or feel free to email them if you'd prefer. I'll answer them in the blog as soon as time allows.

For the second, Five Things About Me. Here are the rules: 1. Get tagged 2. List five things that have not been revealed on your blog 3. Tag five others.

So....5 things about me.....

1. I don't think ive mentioned this i my blog but i love to read (although stitching has seriously affected how much i read these days). I normally read on my commute to work as i have a 45minute train journey each way. I live right opposite my little village library and my family have a good laugh that im on such friendly terms with our local librarian. She is lovely. In fact, i popped in tonight on my way home from work and she had actually looked out some books that she thought i'd like and kept them aside for me! How great is she?! I would love to work in a library, it just doesn't pay enough!

2. Speaking about work, i work for a charity. Most of you will know that but to be more specific i work with young people ("young" being aged 25 and under) and try and get them more involved in their communities and volunteering. I work in a fairly disadvantaged area so the idea is that volunteering will increase their skills and confidence etc etc. I also promote an award for young volunteers.

3. I live in a small village as do my immediate family. My mum and dad are a 5 minute drive away, my sister and her husband are a 1 minute walk away, as are my aunt and uncle. Some people would hate that but i love it.

4. The majority of people i would term my "best friends" live no where near me. I was born in Scotland but moved down to England when i was 6 because of my dads job. Mum and Dad and my sister moved back to Scotland in 2000 whilst i was at uni. As a result my main group of friends are a long way away now! We've all ended up in different parts of the UK but we meet up fairly regularly which is good. Would be better if they all lived in my village though LOL

5. Along with a friend i run the kids club at my church. Its for kids aged 4-12. We pick them up in a minibus. Its on every sunday 1-2pm. I love it but it is hard work. My friend and i do all the planning etc but there are a few helpers as well which we couldn't do without! At the moment we have a really good group and we successfully recruited quite a few new kids when we did a leaflet drop in January.

So thats my 5 things. I hope you're still awake! Now for tagging.....i tag Mercy, Michele, Lizzy, Shannon and Bliss.

Hope you all have a good weekend. Tonight after my weekly fix of ugly betty we're going to my sisters as one of our friends is up from Manchester staying with her. Tomorrow i plan on going to the gym, doing my Christmas ornament SAL and then we're going to our friends for dinner. Sunday is always busy busy!

My Nephew

As promised the other day here's a picture of my gorgeous little nephew Luke. We won't see him until we go over to Canada in May but we're being kept up to date with lots of photos and videos of him. He's so small, just 6lb. His birth was pretty traumatic, the story, which i won't share here, is a great contraceptive for anyone feeling broody LOL.

As for a stitching update...ive finished the first room on Dollhouse. I'll post a picture later in the week. I'm now planning what to do for the Christmas Ornament SAL this weekend. I just joined that recently. It feels a bit weird thinking about Christmas ornaments in February but it'll be great at Christmas time when i have all these lovely ornaments. I'm going to do little, uncomplicated pieces as i dont have much free time. I'm also about to start a SAL with Jamie which im also excited about, i'll write more about that another time.

Dollhouse Progress

Here's my progress on Dollhouse this week. I'm really enjoying stitching this, i just love it. The photo isn't great, the lines look wonky but i promise you they are straight! It's going to take a long time to stitch this piece, this is only one of the rooms (which isn't finished yet) and this has taken hours.

Im an aunty!

Today my nephew Luke Ethan was born weighing 6lb 4oz. Great news! After quite a traumatic labour and birth, both mother and baby are well. I will post a picture soon! We are an aunt and uncle and we're very happy and excited :)

Quiz

Seen this on a few blogs so thought i'd try it out! Its fairly accurate, not sure that's a good thing though LOL You scored as Harry Potter. You are a very passionate and caring person when it comes to the wellness of your friends as well as others. You're very temperamental and sarcastic, and sometimes you'll flow a little bit over to the arrogant and obnoxious side when your temper gets the best of you. But you're bold and daring and will stand up for what you feel is right with bravery. Harry Potter 78% Draco Malfoy 66% Severus Snape 59% Ron Weasley 47% Oliver Wood 47% Hermione Granger 47% Percy Weasley 44% Sirius Black 41% Bellatrix Lestrange 38% Remus Lupin 38% Luna Lovegood 34% Lord Voldemort 31% Neville Longbottom 28% Albus Dumbledore 25% Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test created with QuizFarm.com

I love blogs

I was a bit sceptical when i started this blog in the new year. Wasn't sure why i was starting it/worried it was a waste of time etc etc but can i just say, i love to blog and read blogs! I think it's great that i get to "meet" lots of new friends from all over the world. I find other people's lives fascinating, I think that's why i work in the social work sector!

I have recently discovered Google Reader. It's such a great way to read blogs and saves a lot of time. I'd recommend it to everyone. Im not a google employee or anything, but it's well worth promoting!

I got this through on an email today so thought i'd share it, made me laugh anyway

You know you're living in 2007 when........

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses. (*so true*)
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line. (*i do this all the time*)
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your mobile phone to see if anyone is home.
13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.
14. Leaving the house without your mobile phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile.
17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list. and now you're laughing at yourself

Hope everyone has a great Valentine's day. We went out for a meal last night as we're busy tonight and tomorrow night.

Before i go, for anyone interested, i still have space left on my pay it forward!

Pay it Forward

Okay, so i signed up to Heidi's Pay it Forward. So here we go....if you want to sign up, the first three people to respond to this post will get some form of "art" made by me. Please post that you want in on this and then email me (cherylthomas3000 at yahoo dot com) with your name and snail mail. Please put in the subject line Pay it forward. Think of it as something to look forward to getting in the mail. I am not sure what it will be. There is a catch, of course, the way this works is that if you sign up, you have to blog this as well and continue sharing (it was orginially 5 people if you want that challenge). Heidi, i reduced it to 3 people i hope you don't mind, i dont have much free time. Oh and if you sign up, be patient, you'll hopefully get something before we reach 2008 LOL!!!

I've had a good weekend. Yesterday we babysat my sister' dog, Barney, for about 7 hours. Man, it was exhausting. He's not trained yet so we had to keep an eye on him and put him on the paper everytime he peed. There were a few accidents. He loves attention so if i was watching tv he would bark or bite my slippers! Everytime i had a sip of my tea he would bark. He really is very cute though. Here he is during one of his quieter moments!I have started stitching Dollhouse! Yeah! I love it! I'm going to post this picture even though there's nothing much to see. I've been looking forward to starting this so just thought i'd mark the occasion with a photo. I've also started stitching a free kit that came with this months crossstitcher magazine. Going back to Dollhouse though...the last few things ive stitched have all been on Aida. I just love stitching this on linen though, it's so much nicer.

A little bit of everything

There's this really cool shop near to where i work called Rainbow Turtle. It's a fairtrade shop and i love it. They sell lots of handcrafted items. It's quite pricey but you dont mind because it's really nice stuff and makes great gifts for people. It's my mother-in-laws birthday on Friday and i got her a handcrafted purse and keychain. The picture doesn't show the colours up very well but its a stunning purple colour with beading. Ive started stitching the "summer fun" kit but i won't post a picture of my WIP at the moment as there's not much to see at present. I think it'll take me a while as it is quite a big piece. My heart's not really in it either as i really want to start stitching on Dollhouse which i have been looking forward to starting for what seems like ages! I was waiting for my fabric to arrive and it did yesterday. Yeah! However, i then realised i didn't have all the floss i'll need so will need to order more, so that'll delay my start again. I couldn't decide whether to stitch it over one (like the chart suggests) or over two. After some advice from Mercy, i have decided to stitch it over two. I think i'll get on better doing that. There's so many pieces that i want to start but just not enough time. I work full time for a charity so don't get much time during the week. Weekends have been relatively free so far this year but they soon fill up. I was looking at my calendar today and we have something planned already for every weekend from the middle of April to the end of June. Crazy.

Anyway, any day soon we will become aunty cheryl and uncle matthew! (Elaine, in case you read this, i know we already are to doggy nephew Barney, but it's not really the same!) Matthews brother and his wife were due their first baby on Monday so any day now.... Everytime the phone rings we're expecting it to be them! It'll be hard for Matthew being so far away from them at this time :( but we're going over to Canada on the 26th May so not too long to wait. It would be good if our families all lived in the same place.

Right, im off to watch England vs. Spain football match. I know being born and living in Scotland i should be cheering on Spain and booing England but i don't. I love the England team. We lived in England from when i was 6 until i was 21 and i have an English accent so consider myself part English. The Scottish do NOT like the English though which makes life interesting up here. I'm normally fine once i tell people i was born in Scotland. I used to work with young offenders and they were always nicer to me once i told them i was actually Scottish!! "Braveheart" is always fresh in people's minds!!!!

Framed at last

Well this is how i finished the little duck that i stitched for my friend's baby. I stitched the baby's name and then I was lucky enough to find a frame that was pretty much the right size. I'm pleased with it. I must say though that whilst i really love stitching, i don't really enjoy "finishing." Sometimes i don't know what would look best, other times i'm worried that i'll do something to ruin all the stitching!

Now im off to bed. I have a headache and an early night would do me good!

Before i go - thanks to everyone that leaves comments. I love getting them and reading them!

Lovely Stash

I've read a few peoples blogs today and they all had new stash and i was jealous! However, i just got home and look what had arrived in the mail - some designs that i have been waiting for. "The Tea Room" by Country Cottage Needleworks (very appropriate for me as i drink lots of tea), "Coffee Menu" by Little House Needleworks (very appropriate for my coffee drinking husband who, being from Canada and used to the 'real stuff,' hates British coffee) and "Fruit of the Spirit" by My Mark.

These came from America. I think it's crazy that, even adding on shipping costs, it is still cheaper to buy them online from a US store than it is to buy here in the UK. If any British person reading this knows of somewhere in the UK that isn't costly please let me know! It makes me want to cancel all my weekend plans and just start them all right now. But i won't, because that would be very anti-social!!

Have a good weekend!