She makes stuff...

A little TLC....

yes a little TLC is needed at the moment. The from me to me type! A run of 3 12 hour shifts has left me well....totally knackered to be honest! I have had 2 days off and I slept most of yesterday. Ah it was blissfull! I seriously can't remember the last time I felt so tired. So sleep was what was needed and sleep I got. Lots and lots of the stuff!

Thankfully I woke feeling a little brighter this morning and embarked on completing the dreaded tax return! 6 hours later and it was all done and submitted! You gotta love this online tax return malarkey! Easy peasy...well once you have all the figures sorted that is. And get this....THEY OWE ME MONEY!!!! Ha! Thats a first!

Sooo once the paperwork was sorted I had a little 30min power nap and onto the ironing. Yes I live life on the fast lane!!! Tonight I'm having a little pamper night :-) As I type I have hair mask, eye mask and face mask insitu. It's not purdy but totally necessary as I am pig sick of people telling me how awful I look :-( Yes I KNOW I look rubbish....but I have been sick for gawds sake! I have one those faces that if I lose 3lbs my cheekbones become really noticeable. So you can imagine that having lost a stone in weight my face is looking pretty gaunt. I am trying to put the weight back on. Eating chocolate and cheese by the bucketfull but its just gonna take some time.

So with the tiredness and tax returns etc unfortunately there has been no hooking going on in this house. I have yearned to pick it up but am being very disciplined (for once!!!) and the crochet has stayed in the bag. I have however been doing a little blog surfing :-) I just happened upon Kirsty's site last night and saw a link to a workshop by this lady!!! Wow I was totally blown away!

Suzi Blu does the most amazing mixed media folk art. I just love it!!!! It actually made me want to get all creative again so have signed up for Le Petit Dolls workshop.

I honestly can't remember the last time I painted, was probably about 20 odd years ago (yikes!!!) but am raring to go! And mixed media is something that I have never really got to grips with so its win win all round I say :-)

Til next time x

Procrastinate

I am the  worlds worst at procrastinating! So I have decided that it's my word of the day.

I am dreadful at putting things off to "deal with" another day. However today I bit the bullet and sorted out a whole pile (or should that be mountain!!) of paperwork. The crochet got put to one side. I even debated tidying some cupboards rather face the task ahead. My cupboards are in shocking state I'll have you know. They desperately need a bloody good sort out but today the paperwork took precident. I have worked out budgets, wrote letters, paid some stuff that was a "tad" overdue and set up a zillion direct debits and you know what? It's a bloody good feeling :-) There are still a couple of bits and pieces to sort out but they can wait until tuesday....my next day off! And NOOOOO not procrastinating again but got rather a little fed up waiting for customer service advisors to answer the telephone :-) All in all a good days work methinks!

My day got off to rather a shaky start with a stupid o'clock in the morning phonecall work from work just to let me know that almost half todays workforce had rang in sick!!!! Oh the joys!!! I did what any person would do at that ungodly hour and told them to ring the area manager to get her to authorise some agency staff and then put the kettle on. Oh I do delegate ever so well :-)

I don't have any new photos to share today as a pic of a mountain of invoices, bills and statements would not make for pretty viewing so here's a photo from a couple of weeks ago when we pretty much snowed in! 

Very pretty but not much fun in reality! My poor little car just cannot cope with snow. Its rear wheel drive, has a mid point engine and was really built for summer driving rather than a north east winter!!! I must be the only person who has to scrape ice off the INSIDE of the windscreen as well as the outside.....sheesh!

Right I think a cup of tea is in order after all that paperwork! Til next time x

New Year, New Start, New Goals

Ok so I think it's been waaaaaaaaayyyyyy tooooooo looooonnngggg since I last blogged! Not sure why I left it this long. Perhaps I just needed a break from the blogging and creating malarkey. Anyhow I'm back.

The past few months have been a whole mix of joy, love, sadness, illness, new job and new challenges. Just normal life I guess. After a somewhat difficult start to the New Year I'm getting myself back on track and so the blogging is reinstated. 

So whats new in Maria land? Well I have a new job. I started work as Deputy Manager at a nursing home on the coast and to be honest it's taken me 3 months to decide that I actually might quite like it!!!! It's full time and loooonnng hours but I think it's gonna be ok!

I have taken a little break from scrapping, on account of I simply do not have time (or the mojo!) at the moment. My scrap room is fairly tidy but has a weird layer of dust over everything. Maybe sometime soon I'll get in there and blow off that dust, but in the meantime I have developed a bit of a passion for crochet and have even hunted out the knitting needles from the loft!

I have been on a much needed holiday. A whole week of soaking up the sun, pampering and eating for England!!! It actually feels like a lifetime ago now but hey! I was there!!

I love a good sunrise! The dawn of a new day and all that it brings.

Sooo a brand spanking new year lies ahead! Well ok, we're more than half way through January but having had the most disgusting of chest infections (onto week 3 of antibiotics....this infection is a feisty little bugger!) to see the New Year in with, I feel like it is only now that I am beginning to plan out the year, set myself some goals, promise myself a few things and actually look forward to what the year ahead will bring.

Already this year I have finished a little knitting project. I was very lucky just before Christmas to have visited the Boden website only to find a sale in progress!!!!!! Oooooh I do love a good sale and especially when they have the very coat I had been lusting after in said sale! 

Oh how happy was I????? It duly arrived on Christmas Eve....perfect timing or what? I love it!!!! However I decided that I needed a scarf to go with it. So into the loft I went, dragged out the knitting needles, and the knitting frenzy began and here are the results....

Sorry about the picture quality but the light here today is practically none existent! I've used the gorgeous Rowan Cashsoft yarn and its a pretty simple cable pattern. But oh how I love it! It was great fun knitting again and I'm planning a couple of knitted cushion projects in the future. But only once I've got a little further along with my current work in progress!!!!!

There's nothing quite like a bag full of gorgeous yarn to make my heart go a flutter :-) Balls and balls of Rowan Handnit Cotton just waiting to be transformed in to a large, large throw. I've made a start.... but have a long long way to go yet.

 

A glorious, chaotic, riot of colour. And it makes me smile everytime I look at the finished squares. 

So thats the current crochet project!

On the home front I have lots of plans too for this year. My garden has been sadly neglected. It quite frankly looks like a shocking mess. This will be rectified. Well just as soon as the weather allows that is! Its waaayyyyy too cold out there at the moment to be digging, weeding etc. so planning is whats needed right now. I use my garden a lot. I love sitting out there, pondering life, sharing a glass of wine with friends and generally just enjoying the space. Its a lovely suntrap and nicely sheltered but teeny tiny. So sadly no room for veggie plots but plenty room for lovely blooms in the borders :-) Ah roll on summer!!!!