New Year... New Challenges

 

Happy New Year... we had a lovely celebration time here in our little corner of Cornwall. A lovely smallish celebration of a special time of year. I love Christmas and make no secret of it! Most people close to me dread the beginning of October as that is when I begin to start my preparations in earnest! Just before Christmas I had the horrible task of waiting for biopsy results as there were symptoms of something not quite right in my womb! On Christmas Eve I got the magical letter that said 'your results are benign!!'... I would like to publicy thank all my friends and family for the support through this awful period of time!

Anyway... at the start of the New Year I start to think of resolutions and challenges... I don't normally make resolutions are I feel they are the best way to fail quickly! Instead this year I am setting myself two challenges...
1. To be less of a person tied to my job! I think that I have a good balance in my mind about work and homelife but sometimes I find it VERY hard to say no when asked to do something work related! I do this at the expense of myself! I am determined this year to do my job to the best of my ability but that is where it ends! I am not going to break my back and my family over going the 'extra mile'. I feel that my family and my own life come first from now on!

No more looking like this through my own fault!...

 

2. A Challenge/New Experience every week for 52 weeks!

 

I am going to challenge myself to something new every week for whole year. They could be small challenges to big ones! I am open to some suggestions but be warned I may not take you up on your ideas!! I will blog about them on here so this will hopefully mean that I at least blog regularly!!

Challenge 1: 

To complete a patchwork quilted item... this is the first week's challenge and I will post pictures tomorrow... I have nearly finished and will have a 'big reveal' as soon as possible!

 

Good luck with what ever challenges you make for yourselves this year!

 



Cushion Crazy!

I am so proud of myself. I have been learnng how to quilt and sew with the help of Frugal Queen and have had a fantastic time - so this weekend I decided to have a go at making a cushion (all by myself!!!).

I used some scraps of fabric that I had left over from a previous project and wanted to try and do something for my lounge... I am also in the middle of crocheting a cushion cover and so will have a range of colours and designs on our sofa!

I started by cutting the squares into rectangles and then assembling them in a pattern that I liked. I sewed them together and then ironed each piece as I went.... I had such fun!!

Here is the result of all my hard work:

 

I love it and cannot wait to snuggle up with it and a homemade blanket that I am working on together on my sofa in the cold evenings!

 

 

Taking Time Out...

I have to make a confession... I have at times been a complete workaholic and thrown myself into my career without thinking of the effect on myself or my family. These past two weekends I have made a conscious effort to take time out for myself and as a family unit and I really can say I relaxed.

Family time has always been important to me and I have always taken time out for that but the problem has arisen when I have failed to take time for myself or if work has encroached on family time...

This weekend I went to Frugal Queen's house to make a quilt! You must understand that whilst I love knitting, all embroidery and crochet - I have not really ever used a sewing machine! There I was off for a whole day quilting!! I packed the car and set off the 5 miles that lie between our houses... Upon arrival I was met with the most friendly of responses which continued all day. I was joined by 3 other wonderful ladies who I had never met before and then the five of us set off on our quilting adventure. A wonderful day with real laughter and fun. Everyone was so relaxed and 'at home'.

I feel that as British we are often too scared to say 'I am proud of that' but I am really proud of the start of my quilt that I had achieved by the end of the day! I will try and post a picture later but at the moment the camera is not playing nicely!

After such a lovely day on Saturday I was really looking forward to a family day out on Sunday.... I had recently been sent a Groupon offer for the Monkey Sanctuary in Looe... we have lived on this side of Cornwall for over two years now and up until yesterday we had never been to the sanctuary... it was lovely and really important place. You are not encouraged to interact with the monkeys as they are rescue animals and therefore they are trying to de-imprint the animals.... They are so gorgeous though and it is hard not to blow kisses at the various species.

I have a day off tomorrow and intend on having some guilt free fun tomorrow too! :)

Until tomorrow
V

Racing for Wildlife

Today was the day that DH had to face his first 10k run! He has recently re-started running and whilst he is a fit and healthy person, when he suggested a 10k run I was a little worried!! He spoke to DS who told him in no uncertain terms 'Daddy I want you to make money for the animals!' - melted my heart and sent DH on a quest for a charity to make money for... he found the Race For Wildlife in Penzance and swiftly filled in the forms and paid the entrance fee!!

At 7.30am this morning we set off from our moorland home en mass and travelled to Penzance... now you must understand here that DS has a love affair with Penzance like nothing I have ever seen a 4 year old love!! He adores the place (mainly stemming from the fact that his beloved trains end their journey there!) and we frequently have to visit there. He was about to have his perfect day but more of that later!

On arrival at the venue we had to park and then walk about 1/2 mile to the beginning of the race at Trengwainton Gardens (which are beautiful to visit)... the walk to beginning of the race was gorgeous on this glorious October morning...

 

 

 

 

DS strolled on ahead of all of us... he was a boy on a mission!

 

 

 

DH was getting ready for the 10K aheard of him!

 

With the sounding of a single gun they were all off...

We went for a walk around Trengwainton Gardens whilst waiting... there were beautiful flowers all around...

And secret passages...

 

and more gorgeous flowers like this agapanthus!

DS decided to stroll through the Autumn leaves... don't you just love doing that!?

The beautiful lane that we walked down to the finish line...

 

Well done Daddy!!

Then we went for a walk on Marazion beach... beautiful weather especially for October!

 

Barefoot on the sand!

 

 

 

 The sunshine on the water was amazing!

Playing on the sand with Grandad is the best thing sometimes!

Followed by a building of a model St Michael's Mount!

 

All in all a fantastic and wonderful family day that was completed by the best part (according to DS) - the train ride home where we had to be met by Nanny and Grandad who had driven the car back from Penzance!!!!

New Beginnings...

I apologise for the length of time between posts... I have been very busy here with moving!

We have been talking about a new move for a long time... two years ago we moved back to my childhood home county of Cornwall. Dear Husband (DH) fell in love with it straight away as did my then almost two year old little boy (DS) - I had always been in love with the county... although growing up on the wild North coast was very different to the tamer south coast. We moved into a really lovely house but it was rented... the whole time that we were there I was haunted by the fear that we would get notice that the landlord wanted to sell etc... I also felt haunted by the fact that we were pouring money into another person's pocket each month at an alarming rate! We began to have converstations with my parents who were also not happy in their house and so began The Plan!

We decided that we could begin to look for somewhere to live together... there were stipulations that were put into the mix from the beginning... we would each own half of the property and that there had to be separate living areas. We began the search one (very rare!) sunny July afternoon and were crossing houses off our short list at a rapid pace.... too small, not enough space, small garden, main road.... and so the list went on! We were soon nearly out of hope for the afternnon and we drove around the corner to see this:

We all fell in love straight away and the long and short of it is that it is now ours after a long arduous battle with solitors etc... We moved in over the last weekend of September and had amazing friends who came to help us! We have been living out of boxes for two weeks but there seems to be some kind of normality descended on us now.

The living arrangements are perfect... company when we want it and privacy when we want that... bills beginning to be less due to splitting down the middle and most important DS has all of us under one roof! He loves it and splits his time between the lounges choosing where he wants to be at that moment!

As well as all this new moving I had also been desperate to learn to crochet because of this ... I wanted desperately to make a version of this and so decided that I would learn!

I went to the local wool warehouse in Saltash which has wool from floor to ceiling as I wanted to see the widest selection of colours that I could together to make my choices. I chose a selection of 6 colours plus a base of cream.

I then began to crochet... after a few battles with the hooks I began to produce something that resembled a crocheted circle!

This is the result now...

And here....

I am now waiting for some more so I can then make them into the first stripe for the blanket as I think I prefer the 'mass makeup' method.

I will keep you updated... until soon xx

Tea Cosy

Today I was sat despairing that I was not going to get the tea cosy finished in time for the birthday next week but I then broke the stitches down into days and feel that it is achievable!
I am going to knit at least 20 rows tomorrow and hope that I can keep the level up over the weekend...

I have chosen a fairly simple design as I need to finish it quite quickly and with work commitments and a three year old this is not always easy!

Until tomorrow...

Scrapbook/Diary ideas....

I am a complete camera addict and would love to follow my Dad's footsteps with his talent for photography... Last year he upgraded his camera (to an eye watering one!) and I was the lucky person to get his 'old' camera - it was only a couple of years old!! It is a 'proper' SLR camera and I love it - this means that I take many, many photos when out and often wish that I was able to be more creative... that is a story for another day! I have decided that I am going to make a scrapbook/diary/album using all the pictures to document our family life over the year.

I try to enhance Ethan's life by taking him to experience many different things and it is an important part of my life. I love spending time with him exploring and experiencing things - many of our adventures do not cost anything or are part of a membership scheme such as The National Trust and so we often spend time out without spending any money - an extra bonus! I felt that it was a travesty to leave these photos in their digital form and so the idea of the scrapbook diary was born. I have spent time scrapbooking before but never really developed it. I have decided to make a visit to Trago Mills (a recent bargain store) and gather resources and will have a go at the beginning stages this weekend.

I really think it is important to document our lives (even things such as first time washing the car with Daddy!) to pass onto our future generations and not only that but also to look back on personally and see the things that we have shared together over the years. I hope that it becomes a family treasure...

Until next time...