No News Is Good News?

We still haven't heard about the cottage yet. Duncan spent all day yesterday obsessively checking his phone (emails), and eventually got an email at 9.30pm saying our bank and landlord references were good and they would be contacting Duncan's employer today. Poor Duncan, I expect he will spend another day checking his phone.
I had an up and down day yesterday. I started the day with a little bit of 1940/50's  hair styling.

 

A hairnet knitted by me, the night before, stylish eh?

I wasn't off anyplace special, just into town to do some shopping. 

Oscar was fairly tired and the two main places I had to go to were far apart and I knew he would never make it, so we took the buggy (again, which I am not entirely happy with).

 

The first shop didn't prove very fruitful, but I had better luck across town in the second shop.

 

Duncan and I don't have a wardrobe because this house has built in wardrobes, and even if we move to a place with built in wardrobe too (the cottage doesn't have any though), it wont go to waste.

And

I have been after a sideboard for ages but I couldn't decide if I wanted a 1970's style or this bow front style. This was in such good condition I had to take it. I will take more photo's of the inside when it arrives tomorrow.

As predicted, Oscar was fast asleep by this point, so I made a refuel stop.

 

A friend sent a text asking if we wanted to meet up with her and her kids in the park, and I initially said yes, but when I go up on my feet again, I realised my back was in a bad way, so I decided to just head home. I actually had some nerve problems later in the day with pain following the typical sciatic path, and my big toe was stuck upwards. INFO

So we headed home for some peace and quiet. ......................

Can you guess what these pictures are?

 

 

Aimee, Oscar and I were in the lounge when suddenly we all heard an eek eek, and there was a little mouse half dead/stunned on the carpet with the cat purring and all but grinning beside it. Its under the bowl in the photo. Check the other cat in the top right of the pictures haha. Luckily Aimee managed to pick it up (in a rubber glove) and put it back outside. This makes the 4th one the cat has brought in (the rest were dead), and goodness knows how many left in the garden. We have lived in places where mice were living outside her whole life, I have no idea why at the age of 15 she has decided to become a mouser. Frankly though, I wish she would quit it. So much for relaxation. 

* while I am writing this, the cat is in the back garden tossing something into the air and watching it fall, grrrr*

PS if anyone wants to know how to knit a hairnet, let me know, its SO easy.

Valerie

xxx

No News Is Good News?

We still haven't heard about the cottage yet. Duncan spent all day yesterday obsessively checking his phone (emails), and eventually got an email at 9.30pm saying our bank and landlord references were good and they would be contacting Duncan's employer today. Poor Duncan, I expect he will spend another day checking his phone.
I had an up and down day yesterday. I started the day with a little bit of 1940/50's  hair styling.

 

A hairnet knitted by me, the night before, stylish eh?

 

I wasn't off anyplace special, just into town to do some shopping. 

 

Oscar was fairly tired and the two main places I had to go to were far apart and I knew he would never make it, so we took the buggy (again, which I am not entirely happy with).

 

 

The first shop didn't prove very fruitful, but I had better luck across town in the second shop.

 

Duncan and I don't have a wardrobe because this house has built in wardrobes, and even if we move to a place with built in wardrobe too (the cottage doesn't have any though), it wont go to waste.

And

I have been after a sideboard for ages but I couldn't decide if I wanted a 1970's style or this bow front style. This was in such good condition I had to take it. I will take more photo's of the inside when it arrives tomorrow.

As predicted, Oscar was fast asleep by this point, so I made a refuel stop.

 

A friend sent a text asking if we wanted to meet up with her and her kids in the park, and I initially said yes, but when I go up on my feet again, I realised my back was in a bad way, so I decided to just head home. I actually had some nerve problems later in the day with pain following the typical sciatic path, and my big toe was stuck upwards. INFO

So we headed home for some peace and quiet. ......................

Can you guess what these pictures are?

 

 

Aimee, Oscar and I were in the lounge when suddenly we all heard an eek eek, and there was a little mouse half dead/stunned on the carpet with the cat purring and all but grinning beside it. Its under the bowl in the photo. Check the other cat in the top right of the pictures haha. Luckily Aimee managed to pick it up (in a rubber glove) and put it back outside. This makes the 4th one the cat has brought in (the rest were dead), and goodness knows how many left in the garden. We have lived in places where mice were living outside her whole life, I have no idea why at the age of 15 she has decided to become a mouser. Frankly though, I wish she would quit it. So much for relaxation. 

* while I am writing this, the cat is in the back garden tossing something into the air and watching it fall, grrrr*

PS if anyone wants to know how to knit a hairnet, let me know, its SO easy.

Valerie

xxx

Waiting

 

I have not had much to say lately. Probably because there is nothing remarkable going on. The weather has been pretty awful so we have not been out much. I have had an upset tummy for 3 weeks and its getting me down. Also, our lease is about to expire and we have decided not to renew. We have not signed for a new place but we are waiting to hear about a cottage by the sea (today). Don't worry though, I haven't gone mad and decided to move to the sticks again. I learnt my lesson last year when I hurried back to the city again. There is a small village type place just on the outskirts of the city which is where Duncan and I both went to school, and we have decided it would be good for Oscar to get some sea air into him, and to follow in our footsteps and school there too.  The snag of course, is the price of properties there, being by the beach, the rents are pretty high. We did our sums and decided it was worth it, because Duncan works in this area too and he would be able to walk to work. Fingers crossed the cottage is ours, we have 2 weeks to find a place if it isnt. 

We have started packing, because we cant wait with so many belongings, and meanwhile Oscar is amusing himself quite well. We had his heart check-up and they did find a murmur, and we have a new appointment with the murmur clinic on 25th July.  Wish us luck with that too.

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting

 

I have not had much to say lately. Probably because there is nothing remarkable going on. The weather has been pretty awful so we have not been out much. I have had an upset tummy for 3 weeks and its getting me down. Also, our lease is about to expire and we have decided not to renew. We have not signed for a new place but we are waiting to hear about a cottage by the sea (today). Don't worry though, I haven't gone mad and decided to move to the sticks again. I learnt my lesson last year when I hurried back to the city again. There is a small village type place just on the outskirts of the city which is where Duncan and I both went to school, and we have decided it would be good for Oscar to get some sea air into him, and to follow in our footsteps and school there too.  The snag of course, is the price of properties there, being by the beach, the rents are pretty high. We did our sums and decided it was worth it, because Duncan works in this area too and he would be able to walk to work. Fingers crossed the cottage is ours, we have 2 weeks to find a place if it isnt. 

We have started packing, because we cant wait with so many belongings, and meanwhile Oscar is amusing himself quite well. We had his heart check-up and they did find a murmur, and we have a new appointment with the murmur clinic on 25th July.  Wish us luck with that too.

 

 

 

 

 

Shorties And Longies

When I was looking on Filth Wizardry for the robot craft, I saw THIS tutorial on how to make shorts out of tea-towels. I haven't done much sewing lately and so I decided these would be non-precious enough to break me out of my sewing slump.

And here they are

 

 

The tea-towels were 3 for £1 in the pound shop, and I went for colour rather than size, which was a bit of a mistake. They are a bit too small, but for the boy who would happily be naked all day, they were fine. I am now going to look for some larger terry toweling vintage tea-towels, because how cute will that be? (I remember having orange and yellow terry shorts in the 1970's myself).

Meanwhile, since the sewing machine was out, I made these.

 

 

 

I made them in the same way as I made the shorts (from Filth Wizardry link above), and I think they are so cute. Oscar said he would like them to be shorter. I have some cute mushroom fabric, so after a cup of tea and a square of chocolate I think I may oblige with a shorter pair.

 

 

If I thought I could make myself a dress out of it without looking like Baby-Jane, I probably would. lol. Sewing slump over.

Valerie
xxx

Crafternoon

We have been seriously lacking on the craft front lately, what with all the illness and upset, but I guess its fair to say we are slowly getting our mojo back. So, we had a bit of a craft afternoon.

First we tried some home made lava lamp experiments.

 

As per the instructions from The Crafty Crow , we mixed 2 parts water, 1 part cooking oil.

 

 I quite liked it like this

 

We were totally out of food colouring as instructed, so we used some watered down glitter paint instead.

 

It looked quite pretty but even when we added the seltzers it didn't do much.  Later in the day, after a shopping run, we tried again with denture tablets and green food colouring.

 

It did do more of a lava type thing, but it wasn't 'spectacular'. I guess Oscar enjoyed the mixing, so it was worth the very minimum effort it took.

Spiderman has made an appearance in our house  (Netfix has the 1960's Spiderman cartoons), and Oscar has a Spiderman action figure. We decided it would be cool to make some 'EVIL' robots to do battle with Spiderman, so I went back to an old post on Filth Wizardry (love love love Filth Wizardry). 

We printed off some of her robot sheets (see above link), and coloured them in.

 

For our robots we used

• Ice cream cone wafer boxes - For the bodies


• Plastic shot glasses - For the eyes, with googly eyes stuck on


• Aluminum Foil -  Wrapped and glued around the bodies


• Pipe cleaners - For the arms

We used a mix of PVA glue and the glue gun to stick them down. I also wrapped some clear tape around them to make them a bit tougher (toddler play is rough)

 

 

And finally, while I was in the pound shop I picked up a 6 pack of foam sheets (for £1 obviously). Oscar was running out of time (energy) before his bath so I quickly cut out some shapes for him to stick to the tiles.

 

 

 

I used water soluble pen to draw the shapes (in about 5 minutes flat), because I think they will be better with no pen lines. The pen did run down the tiles though, but its soluble so it will come off (I hope). 

All in all, not a bad day. Oh and in case you were wondering, Oscar went to bed at 9 : 45pm last night, and got up at 6 : 30am today. We are all still fairly tired.

Valerie

xxx

Yawn Yawn Yawn

Last night Oscar fell asleep on the floor about 1 foot away from the table with his dinner set upon it.   It was 5 : 45pm. I try to get dinner out as early as possible so this doesn't happen, but this is the 2nd time in as many days. At around 12 : 30am I was just getting to sleep (I am having one of my periods of being exhausted but not sleeping well), when Oscar woke in his own bed and started to cry. Duncan carried him through to our bed (but Duncan was actually still doing work downstairs). When Duncan came to bed some time after 2am Oscar was still awake, crying over a hang nail and asking for a drink of milk. This of course meant that I was awake. I am guessing we finally got back to sleep about 3am, only to be prodded awake at 6 : 30am. "Wake up Mummy, its morning"
 I REALLY struggle with tiredness. I know most people don't do particularly well with it, but there are some people who seem to manage to keep going, a little slower, a little quieter but without too much complaint. I envy them, I am not like that. I have been known to cry, shout, faint, mistake a tired day for the onset of severe depression, throw up or literally fall asleep where I am standing. My Mum told me that one of the big clues that I had a heart condition was my unnatural sleep activities. I could be sitting playing on the floor then I would suddenly slump and be fast asleep, little toys still in hand. I have seen children fall asleep fast (who don't have a heart condition), but apparently you could recognise this as not quite right if you saw it. I guess it started a lifetime intolerance to being tired (or something?). Oscar has a bit of a complicated sleep relationship too. There are days when he is SO tired he can hardly move and spends the day whining and literally lying about the place. He never seems to have bags of energy, and any bursts of big activity are offset by huge periods of exhaustion. I cant remember there being such a huge contrast noticeable with the other kids. If Oscar's heart checks out ok (appointment next Tuesday), then I think I will have to look a bit more closely at Oscar's / our routine.
The roll on from this pattern is of course, it's 2 : 30pm and Oscar is fast asleep. There was no chance of him making it through today without a nap. This means bedtime tonight will not be before 9 : 00pm, in fact its most likely to be about 10 : 00pm. So in essence, any routine we may have had is out of the window. I know some parents abolish bed time completely and let their kids flop down when they want to, but we are just not able to do that. We appreciate out 2 hour slot in an evening between Oscar's bedtime and mine (and Duncan going back to doing work). Ah well, it will sort itself out in the end I suppose. I have parented teenagers, I know that all too soon I will be dragging him out of bed for lunch and sitting up waiting for his key in the lock. Ok, scared myself there, I am off to take a nap so I have the energy to do dinner, bathtime and the long evening ahead.

 

Valerie

xxx

PS - Duncan, if you are reading this on the bus home from work, sorry babe there was no way he was staying awake.