Im back

Im here, blogging, at long last. I think this is the longest break ive ever had from blogging, its not really been intentional, there are just always other things that need done and blogging is the first thing to go. My return to work probably coincided with my blogging hiatus. I work 25 hours a week as a project coordinator for a charity and that, along with 2 kids, a husband, 2 rabbits and all the household 'stuff' pretty much fills all my time. I just logged into my Bloglovin' account though and i see many of the blogs i follow have also been on a bit of a break too. Funny how that happens!

Lets see if i can remember some things that have happened since i last blogged back in June.

-We had the hottest July i can remember and i spent a fabulous week at our church camp in the glorious sunshine. Arriving at camp in shorts and vest tops at 8am and still in the same leaving at 10pm at night is unheard of for me. This is Scotland! It was really great.

-On the 11th August our family increased by 2. We got bunnies! Here are Hippy and Hoppy :)

- Matthew and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

- We went away to Centre Parcs in the lake district and had a lovely time. I even had time to read some of a book *gasp*

- I got glasses for reading and using the computer, which has made me feel like im getting old.

- The jogging group I started in the village where i live celebrated its first anniversary!

- I finished some stitching! Caleb's nursery class has 3 teachers and i thought id stitch for them all. These actually took me a lot longer than i anticipated but they were finished in time.

Lizzie Kate design

The back

July

July seems to have flown by. We're keeping busy in the holidays, despite the terrible summer weather we are having. I spent a week at our church youth camp, which was fab! We had a great group of girls and it was the first year in a long time without any major hassles. I never thought id consider camp a holiday but it really was, i enjoyed it and had the benefit of sleeping at home each night too lol.

Ive signed up for the Great Scottish Run (10K) on 2nd September, which i ran 2 years ago. So im busy trying to train for that again! I do love running.

On Friday we seen a whale washed up on our local beach! It was dead and pretty gross (its tongue had swollen to an unbelievable balloon like size) so i will refrain from posting a picture but it was still really cool to see. We watched it get lifted from the beach onto a truck, which now sounds quite morbid but i didnt tell Caleb it was dead. There's  a Fireman Sam episode in which Sam saves a washed up whale so i think he thought that was what was going on :) He kept talking about how they needed to get the double harness on it :)

Just having a relaxing Monday after a busy but great weekend. I had dinner with 5 friends on Friday night, took Caleb for his first ever trip to the cinema on Saturday (we seen The Lorax) and had some good friends over after church on Sunday. Oh and we've been trying to watch as much of The Olympics as and when we can, i really enjoy the swimming. London has done a great job of hosting so far! Gotta love this guy.... Ryan Lochte, for his swimming ability, obviously ;)

Long overdue blog post

Gosh, i didnt realise i last updated in July. How my blog has been neglected! Life has just been too too busy.

Firstly, for all my blog friends that i have neglected over the past few months, i apologise! Let me know if you're on facebook though (and how to find you)! Thats the best way to keep in touch with me these days. I have it on my phone so its a lot more accessible.

So here's a bullet point list of all thats been going

- I was working fulltime, which i hated

- I stopped for maternity leave last week. Hurray, a whole year off and i will not be going back fulltime.

- We have a beautiful new home which we moved into at the beginning of September. A sparkly 4 bedroom new-build. I love it. We had a lot of work to pack up the flat, clean and tidy it and get it rented out.

- I am having a baby on Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday! My due date was the 25th but the baby has been breech and hasnt turned so im having a csection on the 12th. Scary Mary. Caleb was an emergency section so i know what to expect but this will be quite a different experience. I had a labour etc last time and the section was the last resort. It'll be weird going in cold to have a baby.I am looking forward to it though, im done in. I know a baby and a toddler will be hard work but pregnancy has been hard going and im looking forward to getting my body back to "normal."

- I got Labyrinthitis (an inner ear thing) on the first day of my maternity leave. Talk about bad luck! After 7 whole days i still have a high pitched ringing in my right ear which is torture. Mental torture.

So today is my last day on my own for a long time! Caleb is in nursery on a Friday. He's doing great, such good fun and making us laugh constantly with the things he says.

Im off to get organised for this baby.... I will leave with a picture of my beautiful new home

p.s. its probably been about 6months since i stitched!!!

Free to a good home....

Im still here! Its been a crazy few months. Nothing wrong, just working full-time, having an exhausting pregnancy, just generally trying to keep on top of life. Oh and on top of all that, buying a house, trying to rent out our flat and an upcoming move within the next month. Did i mention im also due a baby in 12 weeks?? You can see why blogging has sadly been pushed aside!

It was funny when i logged into my google reader there. I assumed i'd have 1000s of unread posts but there's not been so many in my absence. Looks like quite a few of my blogging friends have been taking a break from blogging recently.

With the upcoming move ive been having a clearout; ebaying like crazy and lots of bags of "stuff" to charity. Im just wondering if anyone (in the UK) would like this kit? Everything included...threads, aida, chart etc It has been started and i don't know what the stitching looks like because it was back in my early stitching days (and i cant be bothered to open up the kit to have a look), but i know i will never stitch it. Its a shame for it to go to waste. Its going free to a good home anyway! Just leave me a message if you're interested.

Moany

There are some days i just want to do nothing. Nothing being no interaction with anyone, like, lie in bed and read my book, for as long as i want, then maybe go back to sleep again for a while. Or sit on the couch in my pjs, stitch and watch boxsets all day. I reeeallly miss those days sometimes. Dont get me wrong, i love my boy and am privileged to be a mum but there are things from my "past life" i miss LOL. We have our vegging out days but its not the same you know.... it still requires interaction ;-)

Today i got some me time. Matthew took Caleb to church and i stayed home. I went for a 25minute run, i had a long shower, i bought a Sunday newspaper and sat with a cup of tea and read it. It was BLISS. I needed that. Then i got a text from Matthew to say Caleb was going to his Grans for a couple of hours after church yeeehaaaaa.....however, we're gonna make the most of that time and try and blast through the rest of the painting of Caleb's bedroom. We are in the midst of decorating to get our flat on the market. Painting everything plain old Magnolia. Its a drag. My place is a mess. But it needs done.

Did i mention the inlaws from Canada will be descending on us soon?! Yes, they are. Joy of joys.

Im very moany today but it's good to vent. Now to drag my butt into that room to paint.

p.s. so sign of my nephew yet. That's my sis a week overdue!

And the winner is

.......Barbara!! Congratulations! My husband chose a random number for me and Barbara was that 11th person. Yeah! Barbara's blog was one of the first i started reading 4 years ago and i still do to date. I love it. I do not know how she has the time to do everything that she does though!! Barbara, you sound like an amazing woman! I promise to send you something before my next blog birthday :-)

Im having a good day. It was a really nice morning and we've had a dusting of snow again so the three of us went for a walk. After our walk i made potato scone rolls yum yum then, whilst Caleb napped, i went on my exercise bike for half an hour. The pavements were too slippy to go running. Now Matthew and Caleb are out running some errands and i've made banana loaf and prepared tonights casserole. Im feeling very productive!

TV has been so crap recently that we're back into watching films again. I hardly watched any movies last year. We're on a Godfather fix at the moment. We have the trilogy lined up to watch. 1 down, 2 to go. Ive heard The Godfather II is brilliant. I really enjoyed the first one so that bodes well. Last night we watched most of Slumdog Millionaire (still half an hour left to watch)....so far, sooo good.

Catching up

Well, i havent posted here in a while! Ive been busy, have done no stitching or anything even remotely crafty. Lets see, what's happened in the last month....

-We travelled down south to Appleby Magna where I was a bridesmaid for one of my best friends.

-I was at camp for a week (i help run our church's kids camp), which was hard work in terrible weather

-My friend from London came to stay

- My husband got a new job, which is so great but has created a childcare gap one day a week...looking for a childminder or good nursery and its hard!!

- Have i mentioned it rained pretty much all of July? Some summer!

- I have entered the Great Scottish run and in 5 weeks will be running a 10k race. Or attempting to. Training is under way.

I got quite into catching up with friends on facebook and blogging has been pushed aside. Looking forward to catching up with your lives soon!

Stitching is good for your health

So according to a magazine im reading, clinical studies have shown that sewing can help to reduce the three key markers of stress - blood pressure, heart rate and perspiration. It's official then, stitching is good for your health!

With that in mind, i wish i had more time for it! Life is busy at the moment and the weeks fly by. As of last week, im back at work every Wednesday. Im also on a fitness kick at the moment too, back into running and going to a body combat class at least once a week. It feels good! These dark winter days can make you sluggish otherwise.

Busy day

Had a busy, productive, good day today. I hung out 2 loads of washing, then we went to church, then the 3 of us went and had lunch outside at a nice restaurant that has outside heaters (because the hot weather has gone), came home and baked a banana loaf, brought my washing in, put my washing away, put another load in, emptied the dishwasher, washed and sterilised bottles. Tonight i plan on sitting on my butt, scoffing my banana loaf, watching the apprentice final on tv and stitching....of course that plan involves Caleb being a good boy and going to bed early!

So, now Caleb' s sampler is finished i could work on one of my many wips (oh so many wips) but then i read Hazel's blog and now i just have to start this, which i know you've probably all seen by now but im always behind in blogworld. Gorgeous eh? Im gonna order my linen this week!

Barbara's comment on my last post made me laugh. Yes it was brave to let Caleb hold the sampler but believe me i was quick in taking the photo...and i was worried about him puking or drooling all over it!

Even more sickness

Well since my last post...when i was wishing for a better weekend...things continued on the illness front. Last weekend, not long after i'd blogged about hoping it would be a better one, Caleb and I were at the out of hours doctor at midnight. After his virus and cold, he then got thrush in his mouth which then transfered to me. Breastfeeding with thrush is possibly as sore as having contractions. No exaggeration. So i persevered until about Wednesday when, and this is probably just too much information for some, my nipples were bleeding. Feeding was just unbearable and i had to stop and just express. Caleb was so upset and couldnt understand the change at all. It was distressing and i was so upset. Just when i thought things couldnt get any worse, i was then at the out of hours doctor again on saturday with an infection in my breast. By this point i was physically and emotionally drained. Today, i am so much better, ive dealt with the hard decision not to breastfeed and both of us are a lot happier (although we have just been to the docs and Caleb still has thrush). I just want to be healthy again so i can enjoy my wee boy. There is so much pressure on new mums i tell you.

My inlaws arrive from Canada on Wednesday and i am so looking forward to their visit. They'll be a great help. My DH cannot believe i am actually looking forward to their visit, i normally dread the inlaws LOL

Here's to a better week!

Im still here!

Hi folks. Just thought i'd check in to say hi and that i am still here! Ive been sick this last week and done nothing but feel sorry for myself and sleep a lot!! Absolutely no stitching.

Last week i did stitch and finish a biscornu though. My first ever one! It was a gift for someone so as soon as it arrives with them i'll show some pictures.

Right that's me for now, still not feeling 100% and the computer screen gives me a headache. Back soon with photos hopefully

Sore Ear

Thank-you for all your encouragement after my last post! In conclusion....i am running the 10k (18th May aaaahhh) and i am going to Canada (on wednesday)!! You're all very persuasive!

Another week has past since my last post. DH left for Canada and is having a great time back home with his family and friends....he's loving the snow and playing ice hockey again! I go this wednesday and im glad im going, if only for a week.

Im not looking forward to the flight because last night i burst my ear drum. I had to be spend 4 hours at A&E. Such a nightmare! My ear is sore and i cant hear anything. Im on antibiotics and painkillers. It will heal and my hearing will come back soon but it hurts!! Needless to say i wont be going to work tomorrow.

I really havent been stitching much recently, just havent had the time. I've only managed to work on my 2 SAL pieces. Ive made fairly good progress on Dear Diary

and only a tiny wee bit on Cirque

I wont be working on either of them now until i come back from Canada. Off to relax for the evening and have an early to bed night!

Happy New Year!

AULD LANG SYNE
Words adapated from a traditional song by Rabbie Burns (1759-96)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And auld lang syne?

CHORUS:For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne,

We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,

For auld lang syne!

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,

And surely I'll be mine,

And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet,

For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,

And pou'd the gowans fine,

But we've wander'd monie a weary fit,

Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn

Frae morning sun till dine,

But seas between us braid hae roar'd

Sin auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,

And gie's a hand o thine,

And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,

For auld lang syne

Next year i will learn the words to Auld Land Syne so i can properly sing it at midnight! Happy New Year to everyone that reads my blog. I hope this year is a good one for you!

On New Years eve we ended up having about 15 friends over for a party. Had a great time! Lots of singstar/guitar hero and dancing! Us girlies even pulled out an old Spice Girls album to dance to at one point LOL Was fun. Lori, if you read this, i think we did a great "Vogue!" Unfortunately i didnt take any pictures of the evening.

My hols are nearly up and they have gone so quickly. I have two more days and then im back at work on Friday. DH went back today.

I have stitched but not as much as i thought. I've finished stitching all my exchange pieces but now need to "finish" them. Today im going to work on Lizzy's RR and maybe start season 7 of Gilmore Girls which my American friend got recently. Stitching plans for the new year include a new SAL with Vonna which im excited about! We're going to stitch LHN's Dear Diary series as a big sampler. We're going to stitch that on a Tuesday. Im just waiting for my fabric, i think Vonna started yesterday and i cant wait to see her progress! I'll obviously be carrying on with the Snowbirds SAL too for CdC. Maybe that'll be 2 big finishes for 2008?! We'll see!

Watch out for my blogiversary in 4 days time!

Happy New Year to all my blogging friends :-)

Thank-you Donna!

The lovely Donna sent me a gift certificate for Mary Kathryn's online store. The stash i ordered arrived last week.

Snappy Sampler - Bent Creek
The Bookshelf - LHN
My Beloved - CCN
32 Ct Bo Peep Pink Belfast Linen

Thank-you so much Donna! You are great!

Im afraid i have no stitching to show, in fact, im not sure when i will! Im busy stitching but can't show any of it. Im stitching for the Specific Designer Exchange (LHN) on the SBEBB and ive also started my Fair and Square piece - i got Donna as my partner!! Im trying to get those done (or at least underway) before the next RR arrives in October.

Thursday evening is the start of the quilting class. I'm looking forward to it. Apparently we will be starting with making a tabletop runner for Christmas. Today is a local holiday in Glasgow -woohoo!! Im going swimming this morning with my mum and then we're going for lunch afterwards.

I was just thinking the other day...I love stitching/blogging about stitching and have met some great friends through this. The one thing i don't like about blogging is when people just go missing. I find it distressing! I totally understand that things happen in people's lives and blogging becomes totally insignificant. However, i wish sometimes people would just log on and write one sentence, even to say bye or just say i won't be around for a while. That's understandable. I find it distressing when people just disappear...recently one blog i visited a lot was suddenly deleted. Please don't think im annoyed or anything by this...im not, it's just concerning when friends just go missing, not to be heard from again. The worst could happen and you'd never know. Guess that's just part and parcel of blogging/internet world.

Right, im off to get ready for some much needed exercise. Have a good week!

Crazy Weekend

It's been a crazy weekend here in Scotland. As you will be aware, Glasgow was targeted by 2 crazy terrorist bombers on saturday. My dad came through the airport at lunchtime that day, those idiots drove their bomb ridden car towards the terminal at 3pm. I will never understand why these people are so determined to kill so many innocent people. It was the start of the school holidays up here so it could have been disastrous. Fortunately there were no casualties on saturday, apart from the two bombers, but you can't help but wonder how long it's going to be before it happens again. We would never have expected Scotland to become a target and especially so close to home. The media are alleging it could be because our new prime minister is Scottish but who knows. It's a crazy world, crazy and scary.

On a much lighter note, i've finished gridding the basic outline of my RR and started stitching my square which is LHN's Daisy Lane Cottage.

Ive had very few weekends here at home recently so haven't posted any West of Scotland Weekend pictures for ages. Here's the view of the river Clyde out of our front window the other night

Kilt wearing Canadian

Look at my handsome hubby in a kilt (he's the one on the right)....the Canadian is Scottish at last!

We were at another wedding on saturday (the 3rd in 2 months) and DH was an usher. He was rather wary of having to wear a "skirt" but i thought it suited him! Here's a picture of the two of usIt was a good day!

Anyway, i haven't been doing much stitching in the last week. We had quite a few people staying with us at the weekend as they were up from England for the wedding, so that kept us busy. However, I have pulled out Dollhouse again and did a little bit tonight. Last time i updated on Dollhouse i had just finished the 4th room so as you can see i've started the room on the far right. This is a terrible picture in terrible lighting without a flash but it gives an idea of where i'm up to anywayI can only work on this a bit at a time as i get fed up changing thread colour so often!

In the Lake District

There are no West of Scotland weekend photos as we ventured to England this weekend. We went to the Lake District with a group of friends. There was about 16 of us in total and we had this cottage all to ourselves (i found this picture on a website). Isn't it lovely? The Lake District is really beautiful, we only seen a small part of it on this trip but i'd love to go back with our bikes sometime. On Saturday we drove through Kendal and Windermere and then spent the afternoon in Bowness. 6 of us hired a boat to go on Lake Windermere for an hour which was fun! In the evening we had a BBQ back at the cottage and then had an 80's night....it's a long story but to cut it short-basically my cousin is making an 80's pop video as part of his speech at his brothers wedding. So we were all filming our part, singing and dancing. It was sooo funny. I loved my leg warmers and head viser.... I just found out today when we got home that Hazel, a blogging friend, was in the same place at the same time on Saturday afternoon! I might have walked right past her and never noticed, isn't that bizarre!?!!

Drum roll please...

Ta Da.....I started cirque des cercles. Sorry about the terrible picture. I left it on the couch yesterday and came back to find my DH sitting on it so my fabric needs an iron! I am stitching it on a cream Belfast linen 32 ct over 2 with 1 strand of silk. I'm loving stitching with silk by the way. I'd highly recommend it! It'll be hard going back to DMC :) Im really pleased with the colour i chose.

Now for some West of Scotland weekend pictures. Look who we found eating the flowers the other morning

and here's a cute picture i took out my friends window today, these were in her back garden

Ive been at my friends hen weekend. We had a good laugh. On friday night we had a Karaoke night and then last night we dressed her up as a bride and went out for a meal and then onto a line dancing place. The line dancing place was surreal, it was full of very serious line dancing enthusiasts all kitted out with their cowboy hats etc. I never knew places like this existed in the UK, especially not in Glasgow. We had a great time, it was such fun and everyone in there, whilst a little strange, were so friendly and made a big fuss of the bride to be. I am now totally exhausted and wish i had a day to recover before going back to work again but unfortunately i don't!

Progress Pics

Firstly here is an update on my SAL piece that i am doing with Jamie every Tuesday. You can see what i did last week by clicking here and this is my progress this week

So i didn't get much done. We had plans with friends on Tuesday evening so i had a free hour after work to stitch and that was it.

Here's a progress picture of Dollhouse, i finished another room recently.

I'm getting cravings for new stash this week! I really want another big project to work on. I think im going to go for Cirque des Cercles by Ink Circles. This certainly will be a big project with nearly 20,000 stitches in it. Im not keen on the colour in the link but i've seen it done on a few blogs in beautiful colours and i want to buy this right now!! LOL. Im not sure what colours i would choose, i'm not very good at visualising how things would look so if you have any suggestions you can let me know! (**6.30pm update - i have no will power, i've ordered the chart - im so excited!!!)

I am so glad it's the easter weekend. Today my boss let us finish just after lunch and i'm now off until Tuesday. It is such a good feeling, especially seeing as the weather has been so beautiful recently. It's my friends wedding on Saturday so im excited about that and i hope it stays sunny for her. I'm also hoping DH and I will be able to go biking at some point over the weekend, the first time the bikes will have been aired all year.

Happy Easter to all my blogging friends!

The creme egg season

I went to the quilting demonstration on Monday night. It was great. She had the most amazing quilts on display. I wish i'd taken some pictures so that i could show them. My favourite one was all different purple colours with loads of beading and fancy stitching. It would take me years to make! I'm really quite interested in taking this up but still not that confident on how to go about it. She said i could go to her house and she'd give me some lessons so i might do that. It's just having the time for all this!

Not much stitching this week as i've had something on every night after work. I am nearly finished one of the PIF gifts i have been working on but now have loads of satin stiches to do and i'm not enjoying that bit. I only just discovered buying stash on ebay. I wish i'd done it before, it is much cheaper. I seen the lizzie kate "make it personal" charts for half the price i bought them for the other week. I'm definitely going to check ebay out in future before i purchase charts elsewhere. Last night i ordered some wadding and some foam boards. Nothing very exciting but useful for finishing.

Now for something completely different. Here's one of my favourite things about this time of year. The cadburys creme egg. Hmmmm. I love them. I'm not a huge chocolate fan, i have more of a savoury tooth than a sweet one, but this is my exception. They are only in the shops for a few months every year around easter so that's my excuse to indulge!

Today i am meeting my friend for lunch. She is another one of my friends who has just had a baby. I must be at that age because i can't believe the number of friends i have with babies now. Everyone's always like "ooh you're gonna get broody now" and i thought i would. But you know what? If anything i've actually been put off! I can't believe how much some of my friends have changed. I am so not ready for that. I like being able to do things at the last minute, i like having a great social life, i like not having to plan ahead, i like talking about things other than babies....don't get me wrong, i definitely want children one day, just not yet! Thankfully my group of best friends ("the bezzas") aren't at the stage yet so i will need to see them more often to keep my sanity LOL (actually 1 is due in August but she's like 32 so i'll forgive her, but 2 are single, 1 has a boyfriend and 2 are married). Anyway, i'd better go and get ready to ooh and aah over another baby.............i love it really :)