A Neverending Saga - it's a matter of perspective!

Ladies, I have managed to pick up another cold.   As I write I am sniffing and blowing and coughing and sighing.  Hubby Biscuit says it's because I got lots of my hair [as in never had my hair this short, ever!] chopped off on Friday and the cold has found it's way in via an exposed neck.  So having never quite making it to 100% well I've taken a wee baby step back again.  I say a baby step as it is all a matter of perspective.  Yes I feel god awful again but so what, Christmas is on it's way and that means I can justify sitting down sewing and knitting all those gifts I have in mind.  

The washing machine has been showing signs of dying the last few weeks and this morning it would not switch on.  It has obviously lost it's battle.  Ah well, I have a large kitchen sink, a bath and arms with which to scrub.  It'll either get mended or be replaced and in the big scheme of things it's no real biggy.  As I say the approach of the ching-ching of jingle bells can ward off pretty much anything even kitchen appliances dying [my gas oven went on the blink a couple of weeks ago too, luckily I have a second electric one].  

So I say Que Sera Sera!

I admit I am finding it easy to be philosophical as this Friday we are off here...

Auldallan Cottage

 (click for more of a looksee, even a virtual tour if you are curious)

...set in a simply beautiful landscape...

this image and above from cottages4you

...for a couple of nights and it will do me the world of good.  A bit of relaxation before December brings it's usual full steam ahead activity.  A break way from home to take some deep breaths [I hope my nose will allow this] and to look at the stars without the pollution of street lights.  We have holidayed there once before a couple of January's ago and I was stunned by the night sky.  

It'll be difficult not to arrive home feeling rejuvenated and refreshed on Sunday.

It's either the thought of this cottage or there being something to that old adage -  'get a haircut, take a load of your mind'.  Either way I am glad I'm taking it all on the chin.

X

Nearly Headless Nick...sorry I mean Nearly Wordless Wednesday!

Thank goodness my dining table is a big fella!

Sure I would love to take part in the actual Wordless Wednesday but who am I kidding, not gonna happen, no way, no how!

X

The 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge - Weeks 13 to 16!

I think I [finally] am feeling better now, my head seems to have cleared  a lot and am sleeping better so [again, finally] got my finger out with catching up posting about my t52mmmc challenge.

First up Week 13 - bumble bee scarf! 

 A Christmas gift for a friend to honour his much treasured sweater of the same stripes which was worn all the time, two decades ago.  Wear and age caused it's death as can happen with well loved clothes made of wool.  This was also the bugger that caused the wrist incident, I used acrylic wool on bamboo needles and it was hell.  Punishment for not using pure wool and the opposite of the scarf I knitted at the same time for myself with Rowan Big Wool made of 100% merino which was a dream to knit.  Last year I knitted one similar to this in black/white stripes and didn't have any trouble, different yarn brand, different experience.  Acrylic does have it's place and is great for crocheting blankets for my Biscuits to wrap themselves up in playing caterpillars and the like.

Week 14 - a week of birthdays!

Coffee and Walnut Cake* (which I've always detested until I tried this one!) for Mr Biscuit.  Birthday biscuits* which I have made every year of my Biscuits' lives (they say they expect them till I'm too old or too incapacitated to make them and I am NOT allowed to try anything fancy like filled in icing, it has to be messy and covered in sweets, glitter etc or else.  Suited me fine this year as my sprained wrist meant I struggled and this too is the reason for Youngest Biscuit's birthday cake* not being made in the shape of anything needing rolled icing but in the shape of a child's mud pie, worms and all.

I also baked pretty pink cupcakes for a dear friend but with organizing her birthday meal, I forgot to take photos before they were taken away or indeed scoffed for pudding.  

A very busy week indeed especially in a bandage and always during school holidays.

* from Cupcakes from a Primrose Bakery.

* from Nigella's Domestic Goddess.

* easy chocolate cake (x2) from Nigella's Feast.

Week 15 - granny square cushion front!

Making new cushions for the sofa.  This is the cover that I needed to fix the mistake in if you remember.  Wishing I had pressed it for the photo, ever the perfectionist!

Week 16 - empire biscuits! 

I think some would call these german biscuits but they've always been empire to us.  I always make plenty of dough when I am making birthday biscuits so I can freeze batches and these biscuits are the main reason why.  I got away with love hearts in a house of males as we all agreed they were the best shape out of the haribo box, almost went for the fried egg.  Scrummy!!

That's all for now.  Still loving this challenge!

I shall leave you with a couple of caterpillars I managed to photograph one day...

X

Seeing black and feeling blue!

I'm fed up!

I'm fed up with feeling fed up!

Week three and I'm still poorly and it's starting to eat into me now.  Really starting to get me down, not sleeping well, no energy and so, so tired.  As Hubby Biscuit always says "I'm keeping it till it gets better" and I am looking after myself but impatience, hormones and a general lack of understanding as to why this b*****d cold will not go away are draining me.  

I'm feeling blue, finding it hard to see the positive thus seeing black and feeling affected by the rain and the lack of sun.

One of the reasons, if not the reason I started this blog was the idea of pulling my thoughts out of me and feeling the catharsis that brings.  I wrote a journal for years.  Books and books filled with ink;  my thoughts, feelings, ideas, my history and yet it stopped, stopped when the weight of motherhood caused such repetition I didn't want to listen to myself anymore.  

It was no longer cathartic discussing my life, life simply was what it was.  

After staring reading blogs I started to see blogging could open that door again so I tentatively began. I felt more freedom in my life and found a platform so here I am using that platform, putting it out there that I feel pants and saying (writing) that out loud and pulling it out of me helps just a little. Helps enough to motivate me enough to keep going and do the things I need to do today.  

Helps enough to know putting The Smiths on my ipod will put me over the edge so I won't be doing that then!

Ooh and my Doctor Who DVD may come today!  See, a positive thought! 

X

You know you are a geek when...

...you spend your money (very excitedly and with baited breath) pre-ordering this...

 image from amazon
(out on Monday - yikes!!!)

...instead of visiting your lovely friend and hairdresser (gorgeous bride in the photo of the wedding cake I made - remember her?) for a full head of highlights.  Bugger it I'll maybe go red instead, I can do that with a shop dye, much cheaper!

I am more of a geek than a lady, what can I say?

X

Bats in the belfry!

Not really! 

Workmen insulating the loft!

Why am I drawn to phrases on madness?  I suspect for the same reason my first reaction to having workmen in the house is going through Criminal Minds type scenarios of rape and gruesome murder.  I cannot help myself.  No wood is innocent and no stranger in my house has not concocted a well thought out ploy to get in and torture and/or kill me.

Actually (workies have just left the building) they drank tea and coffee and insulated the whole loft in forty five minutes for free.  Yes!!   FOR FREE!!!!!  A knock on the door (why do some people ignore both the letterbox and bell?) less than twenty four hours ago from a rep from a well known energy company offering free loft insulation from the local council for all houses in the area whether council or privately owned like ours.  A grant that would eventually run out of funds so grab the chance of FREE FREE FREE while you can, so we did!  

I don't know about you but it has been on our list of things to do for a few years now and usually gets usurped by some other plan (this year redecorating the kitchen which is taking forever due to birthdays, wrists and colds) and now *sigh*, didn't even have to empty the loft, didn't have to watch Hubby Biscuit take forever with the prep, it's done and dusted.

It's a great thing to have something so readily at hand to be positive about to counterbalance the negatives of a cough laden, sleep depriving night in bed and a morning of having to unpick sewn up granny squares to reach the one I noticed had a mistake just as I was finishing off.  Love Actually helped with the hour plus fixing that mistake.  The ying and yang, the balance of doing something as I spent last week strewn on the sofa poorly and being poorly masking my ability to catch mistakes as they happen.  

Where the inability to leave the mistake well alone comes in, I do not know!  Well I do but after thirty seven years, I have grown to accept the perfectionist in me!

X

No longer a clown....that's a matter of opinion!

It's week two of this awful cold I am experiencing and yes my face has sooked itself back up (as much as a 37 year old face can), my nose is no longer as red as a clown's nose or Rudolph's for that matter.  My house is no longer covered in ickle mounds of used tissues and I am no longer sneezing and spitting (that includes food, I know MINGING!!) all over myself.  

I am however facing the truth that I do not sound sexy and husky and all Mariella Frostrup but like I am crying all the time which is embarrassing when phoning school offices and hospitals to cancel orthodontic appointments.  I am blessed, for the first time in nine years, in being able to be ill and in my jim-jams for days on end as my lovely Biscuits have been taking themselves off to school in the morning.  I have been able, for the most part, to stop dead in it's tracks the dreaded 'Mum' law that seems to state we must keep going no matter what or how ill we get.  I was poorly this time last year and 'kept going' and was still not right at Christmas time so this year, thanks to my Biscuits, I have been resting lots, watched lots of films and thankfully (after only one week of wearing a bandage although I'm not going to get into how bad that week was..ooh the pain!!) have been able to knit and crochet again.  

So I am not dwelling on how little I have been getting done or how sick I am being poorly or how I am going ever so slightly mad cooped up in the house but grateful I am getting to have sick days and blessing the invention of Jakemans Soothing Menthol Sweets.   
I have missed some posts I was planning, namely celebrating this...

...the first birthday of my blog.  My lovely wee blog that has enabled me, for the first time in years, to feel more like me.  Not just Mum and Wife and Housekeeper but silly old clown-like me.  I have 'met' a hopeful, 'restores your faith in mankind', large mixing bowl amount of fantastic people and can not get enough of being reminded how similar we all are and I am not alone in my existential thoughts (forever the Philosophy student).  If I am being honest I thought, in my usual way, I'd get bored with it after a bit but no, a year on I'm still really enjoying it.  So thanks peeps for reading!

Here's to another year!

X