Sunday 29 December 2013

Christmas 2013

I really must blog more because when I don't I then have to try and cram lots in to a single post or write lots of posts at the same time which isn't ideal either. Let's start with Christmas anyway.

I told my eldest 2 that they were not to open their stockings before 6am. I was awoken on Christmas morning by Child #2 pottering about on the landing. I thought that maybe she would get her stocking and go an open it but it was still dark so I checked the time...6:01am. She'd clearly been awake and waiting for the clock to strike 6! Despite this, I didn't hear any stocking opening and she just seemed to go back to bed. I thought it was odd but went with it and attempted to sleep again. Then I got a text at 6:29: 

"You awake?x" 

I knew then that more sleep wasn't an option. That would have been ok if I hadn't had to stay up until 1am on Christmas Eve to play Santa to my youngest who claims he still believes. I'm sceptical to say the least but went along with it for one more year. So, we were all up and dressed by about 7am this year ready to open this lot...



Child #3 was about to burst with excitement...


All for this....an Xbox!


The older 2 were only marginally less excited too...


Its never too early for a 'Onsie' either apparently, I think this was taken at around 10:30am. (Note child #3 in the background, on his xbox, where he remained for most of the day and even managed to get refreshments delivered to him by passing siblings on a regular basis. He was evicted to the portable tv setup after tea with a frown!)


I cooked...and I did really well too....




I was, however, still eating it until yesterday...it was delicious though.

So that was that. It was a lovely relaxing day, where we all just did whatever we liked. No arguments, no tantrums (those were saved for the following days) and no crying if only every day at Vivod was like that!

I think the Angel may have had one too many though...


Sunday 24 November 2013

The 'Afternoon Tea' Knitted Blanket

Wow....I cannot believe I am actually going to say this...IT'S FINISHED!!

The blanket I began in the summer of 2011 is finally complete. Look!!!....


2 years and about 3 months later! It's not that big really either (it's laid out on a double bed in the photo above) but...BUT....it was all knitted on 3mm needles. Any knitters out there I am assuming will now be impressed. (For non knitters that a bit like cutting an acre of grass with nail scissors.) If that's not enough to justify the delay then can I also highlight that the squares (all 81 of them) called for various skills like beading, intarsia, cable etc. Well anyway, I worked out that I knitted something in the region of 165,000 (!!!) stitches. Enough said.

Here's some more pictures...







So that's it, and it has been finished in time to make a lovely gift for Child #2 for Christmas, I think that was only reason I have been motivated to finish it in 2013 to be honest. 

Thursday 31 October 2013

Half Term...

Hello! It's been a while! Work is still very busy but I won't be dwelling on that today. It's half term here and I'm so grateful for the break. We haven't done anything significant, just appreciated not having to do that much. So, there are probably lots of things that I've done since I last blogged properly but I will not be talking about all of that today or we would be here for hours. I did finally gloss the stairs last weekend though which I'm quite proud of. I still need to finish the bannister and may even manage that before then end of the week but we shall see.

I have been quite creative in between working. Child #1's blanket is looking good...



I will get it done this year! Very pleased with it so far though. Child #2's blanket is only 8 squares and 2 borders away from completion too. (Please don't be mistaken into thinking that I have overcome my issues with incomplete projects....I haven't...quite the opposite but I have given up caring. They all get finished in the end so does it really matter?!)

Child #3 has been up to his usual October half term activity...




I don't know what it is about this half term holiday but lego building always seems to feature, maybe its a because winter is on its way?

Talking of winter being on it's way, I too have certain things that I seem to do at this time, one of which is cooking. I've done loads this week and currently waiting on Asda to deliver so that I can do more.  So far, since the start of the weekend I have made:

Soda Bread....



Smoked Haddock and Spinach Quiche (with home made wholemeal pastry)...




Apple upside down cake... (bit of a disaster resulting in lots of maple syrup on the oven floor! - it was still nice)



Country Soup...




Vegetable Paella with eggs....


Now the problem I really have is that I want to bake cakes and pies the most. Which is fine but ultimately leads to me eating cakes and pies in vast quantities. Not good. Now, in my last brief post I mentioned that I lost weight (just over a stone I think) so now I'm trying to convince myself that I like cooking healthy things but if I'm honest its just not as much fun! Why is life so hard?? I just want to bake bad things, eat bad things but not put weight on!

I shall persevere with the healthy cooking for now anyway but I will be making bad things on Sunday...that's what Sundays are for.

Bye for now.

Sunday 22 September 2013

Back soon

I am still here but just taking a little blogging break. It is that time of the year again. I refer you back to this post, and it has, well and truly  been that time of the year again. However, this time has been 3 times as bad. This is down to 2 reasons:

  • We merged. We are now more that twice the size we were and I now am responsible for more than twice the amount of enrolments, funding, data and staff.
  • I was ill during Main Enrolment!! Not just a cold, but properly  - 'Can barely get out of bed' ill!! Obviously I did get out of bed and go to work on almost every day but it did hinder things somewhat to say the least!
Anyway, there is light at the end of the tunnel, things are getting much better at work to the point that I did actually take some time off on Friday and devoted it to me. (Aka Knitting :-) ) I promise to come back soon and update you on some things that have been happening around all of that at Vivod. Namely stitching, cooking, weight loss (yes, there is a plus side to working 80 hour weeks!), and concert ticket buying (we deserve something to look forward to!!).

Can I just highlight that not everyone at Vivod has been quite so busy though...


!!!!!

See you soon.

xx



Monday 5 August 2013

The Stairs

Feeling a bit proud of myself at the moment. Despite thinking that I should do some work on Vivod while I had some time off I didn't actually think I would be motivated enough to, especially with still keeping the day job going too.

However, cast your minds back to this post though. They stayed like that for a while to be honest, and then one day, quite out of the blue, I decided to finish them.

So I finished sanding them last week, over the course of a couple of days...





Then, making the most of a kid free weekend, I varnished them 4 times. Twice on Friday evening and twice on Saturday morning...





I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening sanding the risers and undercoating them (twice). Then sanding and filling the sides ready for undercoating...





Finally, on Sunday I under coated the sides twice and gave the risers a third coat too. 


I am sooooo pleased with them. They are lovely to walk up and down and they look a thousand times better than they did. It was a truly messy and tedious job but so worth it in my opinion. I still have to gloss them (I'm waiting for a couple of weeks when the kids spend a fortnight with their dad and the house is quiet), and a final coat of varnish will go on too. 

I'm now working on the bannister and spindles (varnished bannister and painted spindles to match), but that's no where near as messy thankfully. I should be doing that right now really, but here I am sat blogging! Hmm.

Sunday 4 August 2013

The Stash Ripple Blanket

With no less than 4 blankets on the go (1 knitted and 3 crocheted), I am pleased to say that I actually finished one of them a couple of weeks ago.  Remember this one that I began back in March? Well this is it now...







It took me ages to decide on the border but (well that are 150 in this book!)...



I wanted something quite simple, and neat but which allowed me to use 3 or 4 of the colours from the blanket too. I settled for this one in the end, I started with a round of double, in light blue.


Then a round of treble in baby pink.


Then I had to make a round of double treble in hot pink, I was a little concerned that it wasn't looking great at this point...


But then I read the next step where you use double crochet to fold the double trebles on half, created this rather nice 3D effect...


Finally ending with a round of trebles in lime green.


I do quite like the border a lot, even though the majority of this was done when I was ill! ILL! With a horrid cold type virus that had me chained to the sofa for 48 hours feeling rubbish and living on painkillers. At least it made me finish the blanket though! 


The thing I love most about this blanket is that it used wool that I bought when I first learnt to knit, that has since sat in the stash cupboard for years and was destined to stay there for probably decades. The brighter colours are those that were left over from the first ripple blanket. I did have to go and buy one ball of light blue as I ran out but that cost me about £1.80.  I wasn't sure if I was even going to like the blanket that much so it could well have ended up as a Christmas gift but there's no chance of that now, its ace, and warm, and is now draped over the back of the big sofa to be used as needed. 

I better get back to the other 3 now.

Saturday 3 August 2013

Greenacres Farm Park

Wow, it's been a while! Lots has happened, lots of things I need to tell you about. As usual, I've been busy.

Let's start with the Farm Park. I've not been to the Mancot farm park since before child #3 was born but I did remember that it was a great day out for kids. Our visit was a bit spontaneous. I had a couple of weeks off work (well I was at home...we merged with another college on August 1st so things are a little crazy at work lately so I've been doing lots while I've been 'on leave'). Anyway, I decided we needed a day out.

It was great, weather was still good, and the farm park was just as good as I remember, deceptively bigger than you think too. 

I took a whopping 153 photos! Here are some of them...




You can buy poultry, pig and goat food when you buy tickets. The animals aren't stupid...you only have to take a step towards the ones you can feed and they huddle around instantly for food!







"take a photo of me with the bird!"...




"Take a photo of me with the clown"....


"Take a photo of me with the.." (You get the idea!)...



Never too big for the park....




This guy was great, biggest rodent apparently....still cute though...







 

We were on the tractor ride at this point, this guy's trained to perform 'smiles' and jumps in return for half a loaf of bread from the farmer. Obviously he goes by the name 'smiler' too! 



These were my favourite, we spotted them wandering around down by the shire horses. So I followed them...









I must admit, she has her ducklings under far better control than I have mine! She did shout a lot more than I do though!

"Don't take pictures of me!!"...





"But if you insist then I am quite the poser!"


This bit is ace too, you can sit in this little under cover shelter circle and they bring out loads of the animals for you to look at, stroke and feed...







Finally, before leaving, Child #3 had to have a go on the pony ride...






Fab day out! 

Back soon (honest!)