The One About my Craft Room Update.......

I know that a lot of people are interested in how my craft area is progressing, and I like to keep track of all the stages too so that I can scrap it eventually so here is the next stage.

M finished varnishing the shelving units and put them altogether on Thursday to show what they looked like, bearing in mind they're not in the right room at this point:

Please excuse the mess that is our dining room - another room that needs a make-over!
The drawers have been made especially as 12x12 inches to fit my card and papers :)

Then yesterday we went on the hunt for something that would do for the work tops.  We tried three different places before we ended up in Wickes where we found the wood that we decided to use.  Do you know how difficult it is to find pieces of wood in large widths and depths?  You see we needed it to be at least half a metre wide, with a good 2cm depth to it, and we didn't want laminate as we need to varnish the worktop to match the rest of the wood.  Wickes was the best with a width of 60cm and depth of 2.8cm.  So M has done his initial cutting out, and put it altogether in the craft area (nothing is fixed in yet, and a bit more painting is required - you might be able to spot the odd wall area of white or yellow where I forgot to paint - ooops!), but nothing isfixed in, and the work tops need varnishing still.

The bit in the middle on the chimney breast is where my fold down table is going to go, and M has just gone off to Wickes to get some more wood for that part, and for the hinges for the legs.

Let me know what you think!  And if you have pictures of your craft space on your blog please share them here so that I can have a nosy!  (I'm intending to frame some of my 12x12 LO's and putting them up on the wall running to the left of the craft space, I'm after some of those ones where there is just glass all the way to the edge, with no actual frame.  If anyone knows where I can get any please point me in the right direction!)

And don't forget everyone that it is Storytelling Sunday tomorrow over at Sian's.

The One About Easter Monday in Photos...

M just before going for his regular Monday run - he wouln't let me take a picture of him when he got back!  Shall we say he was just a little bit hot!

Catching up on all the lovely blogs I read (see RHS if you're interested) and adding a blog post of my own before work on th ehouse actually starts.

And so the second coat of the craft/exercise room begins

A sneaky pic there that M took, he was all for this project today!

No time to make lunch so off to Subway we went

M is building the work units for the craft area, as we couldn't buy any wood in the shade we wanted they are being varnished as they are built, this looks like the second coat going on!

I tried a new recipe for Aubergine, tomato and parmesan bake with a twist

The twist was I added bacon and sweet potato to it to make it more filling, and very tasty it was too!

See here for more days

The One About Speke Hall....

Yesterday Mum and I took a trip out to Speke Hall, near Liverpool.  We're both members of the National Trust, and this one wasn't too far away, and we hadn't been before.  We got there for just after 11am to be told the house wasn't open to the public until 1pm, but we could always sign up, for free, to a tour of the house by one of the National Trust volunteers.  Well of course that's what we did!  So our tour started at 11:15, with just enough time before for a quick trip to the ladies, or o we thought.  On starting to make our way to the house (it was some way from the reception area) I read the back of the visitors pass, which said make sure you get to the front of the house 5mins before the tour is due to start, and that the house is a ten minute walk away!  Well given that we had 5 minutes to get there we got a wriggle on (a new phrase I've picked up from M and that my Mum had never heard before which made her laugh!) and very quickly hotfooted it to the house - only to find we were there in under 5 minutes, and that the National Trust were obviously erring on the side of caution with their 'it takes 10minutes!!!!!'.

The gentleman showing us around was dressed in full victorian attire, and was very knowledgable about the  house and the family (as he should be really if he's giving a tour but anyway), and told us lots of little anecdotes and stories as we went around.  Apparently one of the upstairs bedrooms was haunted (I'll tell the story later if anyone wants to hear it), and there were lots of little hidey holes around the house.  The man of the house, one William Morris, had two wives, and get this, 19 children!!! 7 by the first wife (I believe she dies, but not sure why) and 12 by the second!  I can't really comprehend having that many children, but as Mum said they didn't have contraception in those days!!!

After our tour round the house we meandered round the formal gardens, and found our way into the bluebell woods.  It was lovely because it was still so quiet that I could stop and take photos without anyone else accidentally getting into the shot.  I've been after some pretty shots of bluebells for a while so I tried.  You'll have to be the judge of how good they are :)  I also wanted to try out my new remote for the camera that M's father got me for my birthday last year (I know its taken me a while to get round to using it, but the weathers nice now).  The night before M helped me work out how to use it, and I was all set.  I lined the camera up on the tripod (a pressie from M the Christmas before last - one of those ones with wiggly legs, only about a foot tall) and stood next to Mum and pressed the button and, nothing happened!  I went back to the camera checked all the settings and tried again, still nothing happened!  So for the time being I gave up, because I didn't want to hold Mum up much longer.  (Don't worry I did come back to it later, but more of that in a mo).

By this time we decided it was time for lunch, and with it being such a warm sunny day we had a picnic in the grounds of the house.  Whilst we were having a break I thought it would be a good time to have another go with my camera, so I again set it all up, and tested the camera and got this shot of my Mum's feet.

I thought that would be it and I again set the camera up for a shot of us together (as we only go out with the two of us its rare that the two of us are in a photo together), and guess what???  It still didn't work!  I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I'm going to play with it at home with M.  As a last resort I did the usual thing and held the camera at arms length, but of course at such a funny angle it made our necks look huge and gave me a double chin!  So that picture will not get shown!!!

As we still had the afternoon free and to make the most of the weather, we thought we would attempt the  external walk round the grounds, which was just over a mile long.  (I say attempt, the leaflet said it had rough terrain and that it was fairly steep in places).  We needn't have worried, the ground was fairly flat and there were no steep hills!  We stopped for a while on a bench along the way to watch the aeroplanes taking off, yes the house it right next to Liverpool airport.  It was quite strange to be in this lovely setting with this old house and beautiful grounds, to hear the thundering of an aeroplane every ten minutes or so!

Whilst on our little walk I again tried for some interesting photos.

I look large from the waist down in this photo - its only because I've got my jacket tied round my waist!

Mum has this habit of taking pictures and standing too far away.  So I set the shot up let her take the first one and then told her to take a step in for the next shot, and then another step and so on, and the final shot is really quite good.  Although my hair looks very windblown and untidy, but Mum said it demonstrated the surroundings more!

We finished up our walk and headed home for a much earned cup of tea :)

The One About the Little Things...

Its the little things that turn a house into a home isn't it?  And we're slowly getting there with the house, room by room.  The kitchen has been fully painted for a while, but it was only yesterday that we got round to putting up some finishing touches.  The utensil holder actually got put up on the kitchen wall, and I bought a whiteboard (to write things down when they run out as it is inevitable that when I get to the supermarket I won't remember!) for the other wall, which went up this morning.  So all we need for the kitchen now, is a blind (which I ordered online yesterday - another tick on the list!) and to give the ceiling another coat of paint, and its finished.  Unless you include the fact that the cupboards need a complete reorganisation (but I think that can wait for another weekend) as when I moved in with M I brought all my uni crockery with me and now we're just not making best use of the space.

Here are pictures...

Yesterday I also ordered a blind for the downstairs loo, its been on my things to do list forever too.  Do you know how difficult it is to find a roman blind in purple (to match my towels of course!) ready made with the weird dimensions of our windows??? I was there all afternoon looking in the internet!  Anyway, I found a plain one which I'm going to snazz up a bit with some crystals.

I hope everyone is having a lovely Easter.  Mum and I went to Speke Hall today and had a fab day in the sun.  I'll be back with photos tomorrow :)

The One About Dunham Massey Park......

The journalling reads:

'Mum and I share a love of visiting new places, most especially National Trust properties.  So one sunny Sunday in May 2009 Mum & I took a trip out to Dunham Massey Park.  It was such a nice day that it gave me the chance to practice different types of shots with my camera.  Luckily Mum is very patient with me and is used to me stopping to take photos.  First up we took a trip round the house (unfortunately cameras weren't allowed) learning the history of the family that used to live there.  Then we took a walk around the pretty gardens, me photographing unusual plants along the way.  Next to the lake were a few ducks having a snooze in the afternoon sun.  I wanted a decent shot of one of the ducks, with the background a bit out of focus.  Well as I started taking pictures & approached it, I began to talk to it, telling it not to move.  Well unsurprisingly Mum disowned me and walked off!'

Edited to enlarge the photos - took me a while to figure it out, but I got there in the end!

The About Being Jinxed...

Do you ever have a day where anything electrical you touch goes wrong?  Well thats what happened to me today.  I was going about my usual working, I printed a few pages showing monthly transactions, then moved onto my next task where I had to request a new supplier to be set up on Sage.  To do this I had to print off a form and fill it in.  I sent the document to the printer and waited for the printer to produce it.  Nothing happened.  I checked the store on the printer (sometimes the printer saves it and you have to relaease your print job with a password).  Still nothing.  So then I thought maybe I hadn't sent it to print at all.  So I asked it to print again.  I was quite confused as I'd already been printing documents ealier on.  So to bypass the problem I sent it to the colour printer (despite it being a black and white document) and it printed just fine.  (As is departmental policy at the moment I reported the problem to IT).

Next issue was with Sage.  My job doesn't involve needing to be in Sage all day long, so when I've finished what I'm doing I close it down.  Sage needs a password.  Earlier in the day I'd posted a few journals and it was just fine.  Later on I had to run an account to check the transactions.  So I attempted to log on.  Even though I was using the same password as earlier it wasn't having it and said my account was locked.  So that had to be unlocked by the Sage manager.

Next up, my phone.  My shiny lovely smart phone that I've had about two months.  It was flashing to show there was a new message on there.  So I pressed the menu key to unlock the phone, and the screen didn't change.  Next I tried to use the unlock button on the side of the phone, again nothing happened.  So I thought the best thing to do would be to turn the phone off and on again, thats what people usually recommend isn't it?  Even the power button wouldn't work!  In the end I had to pull the back of the phone off and the battery out and put it back in again to make it work!

So, later in the day IT responded to my report of the printing problem.  So we tried to print the same document that wouldn't print earlier, and what happened?  It printed just fine!  It really wasn't my day at all!!!

So has anyone else had a day where it seems they emit electromagnetic radiation or something that just effects everything electrical around them?  

The One About Lunch...

Yesterday I was a 'woman what lunches'!  I had the day off and M asked would I like to meet him for lunch so off I went to meet him at work (nevermind that it was an hours driving in total, it was worth it).  It was nice to actually sit and take some time out together - don't you find that although you live with someone you're always doing something, or everything has a purpose and very rarely do you take some time out to enjoy each others company???  Well yesterday we only went for lunch at a little cafe, but it was nice having a meal out and time to talk :)

Which brings me on to today, and again I went out for lunch.  One of my friends at work asked did I want to go with her to the pub over the road. Despite having my packed lunch with me I still said yes, because I very rarely get asked for lunch at work and thought it would be nice to spend some time with the girls away from the office (and in the sunshine!)  We had a lovely lunch with girly chatter and gossip - and it really made me realise that I'm going to miss some of the faces from work when I leave in three weeks time.  I was only saying to M the other day that I don't have that many girlfriends to go out with, my best friend S living in London makes it more difficult nowadays for regular meet ups, and it was lovely being one of the ones asked to lunch today(I only realised when we got there that not everyone was asked).  I think its a shame really that we never socialised outside of work much while I was there.  So I'm hoping that I'll make some lovely new friends at the new place (not that I will forget the old ones - we're already arranging a meet up) and try to be more proactive in arranging more socialising :)

J, me & H

Today I saw three Eddie's, can you believe it three!!!  Karen Emma, Jade Amy (seen before) and Ruby Louise.  At the moment its rare on my journey to work even seeing one, so three is a bonus!!!

A bit of an aside now... but sometimes I get an idea about what I want to blog about, then I write it in my head (generally while I'm driving), does anyone else do this or am I slowly going mad????