Musings of a Humdrum Life

2007-10-06T23:53:00.000+01:00

Ok, i know i said i had started blogging again and then disappeared for ages but that was because I found a house to rent, yay!!, and then had to organise my furniture getting moved 500 miles.. I also got the kids into a school and was working so I only got broadband on tonight! (about 10 minutes ago, the first place i've come to online is here to let everyone know whats been happening, how thoughtful am I?)

So, the kids are settled into school, which just happens to be the school I went to, how freaky is that? It's much bigger now than it was when i went there, (500 pupils in 1984, 1000 pupils in 2007) but is still relatively small and the kids are loving it!

The house I am renting is a bit of a nightmare but is livable and cheap and suits us, lovely neighbours and a very friendly street! On the day we moved in, we found a huge basket of fruit on our doorstep, bulging with fruit, with a lovely card saying "welcome"! Was a very very sweet gesture!

I havent unpacked all the boxes yet (have a bedroom full of them) but am getting there! Once i sort out a place to put all my craft stuff it will be the next things unpacked - I'm really going to miss my old kitchen, this kitchen isnt big enough for my pc and all my craft bits, so only one reception room here, which is going to be hard to live with! But I will figure something out!

So, there you go, I am officially a Glaswegian again! :)

Hurrah for B&Q..

2007-08-08T22:05:00.001+01:00

I went to see the B&Q store up here on monday to sort out my transfer and its all sorted! I start on monday.. same hours i was doing before but different days so i get every second friday off now instead of working every friday, and every 2nd weekend i get 4 days off!! I'm very impressed..

1 down, 2 to go - schools and a house here i come!

2007-08-06T22:42:00.000+01:00

well, went to see that house today.. gorgeous house, gorgeous views, big rooms and lots of them.. what's the catch? Agent wants £47 per adult to screen tenants and there is no guarantee you will get the house and its non-refundable.. what a scam!!

So its back to the house search...

Picking up the threads...

2007-08-05T12:23:00.000+01:00

Ok, i know it's been a long, long time since i last posted here but I'm starting to get my life together again and this is part of it :) so I'm posting again..

Why have I not posted in so long, well basically I had another bit of a breakdown.. depression, anxiety, agraphobia etc etc etc.. I wasn't doing anything online or on the pc other than play Spider Solitaire.. but I'm over it now! I took things one step at a time - got a part time job at B&Q in January, working nights so i wasnt out during the day.. and I've slowly but surely got myself back to normal!

Now for the good news, I'm in the process of moving back to Scotland.. I'm living at my sisters at the moment until i find a house to rent, then I'll pop back down south, pack up the rest of the house, get it all brought up here (with the dog) then i'll be back in Glasgow! Hubs is going to move into his mum's (once we give up the house down there) and he will carry on working in England and come up here at weekends..

So, I'm finally getting what I want, after a 13 year wait! God, it feels good.. I'm very pleased, happy and excited about this!!! Now I just need to get my transfer sorted out, find a house and get the kids into a school here!! Dawdle!!

Crafting wise, i've not done much recently.. most of my stuff was already in the garage and now its all been packed up pending the move, but i'm hoping to find a house where i can have a separate craft room, that will be sooooooo great!!

I will try and catch up on everyones blogs.. but there is quite a bit of reading there so might take me a while, so in the meantime I hope everyone is doing well!!

Laws of blogging...

2006-09-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

A philosophical question is "if something has no name, does it exist?" well there is no name for the bloggers equivelant of Murphy's law but it definitely exists..

A while back I was blogging all the time and more or less stayed in my little corner, now when I'm not blogging every day I'm getting tagged from all directions and because I've not been on or even reading others blogs I didnt even know what the tags were for... that has to be some kind of bloggers law!

Anyways, 2 tags for the same things:

1. Which famous person would you most like to learn that you are descended from?
Mother Theresa's mother.. Mother Theresa is the only famous person I actually think deserves the fame and ovbiously i couldnt be descended from her!
2. Which famous person would you hate to learn that you are descended from?
Jack the Ripper
3. If you could be ancestor to any living famous person, who would it be and why? Mother Theresa again, it would be awesome to think that some of my genes were responsible for such a wonderful person.
4. If you could go back in time and meet any known ancestor(s) of yours, who would it be?
Captain K? in 1704, just to find out what his name was ;)
5. Tag five others: I'm going to come back to this cos I dont think i know 5 people who havent already done it, will have to research.

whew... finally got back!

2006-09-06T09:50:00.000+01:00

I know its been ages since my last entry but I've been having a total nightmare! I took advantage of the kids being away to try and get my pc fixed.. so i had to disconnect the kids one that i have been using as it was plugged into my monitor/keyboard/mouse - practically took the pc to bits and still cant get it to work... so when i got back from glasgow i just reconnected the kids pc back up... looks like i'm going to have to fork out loadsa money to get my pc back!

Then i had to go to glasgow to pick the kids up and i stayed up there for a bit but wasnt able to get online... I feel like i've been away for months even though its only been a few weeks :D

Now i'm going to go catch up on Carolyns, whats the betting there are like 800+ posts on there to read.... :)

2006-08-15T09:56:00.000+01:00

Still havent managed to get my pc fixed.. have been working on it for days, in between getting the kids packing done! They go to glasgow on thursday night but i'm out all day thursday and my MIL is coming round on wednesday so i've had to get everything ready for today.... blah!

Its quite interesting but my next door neighbours pc has just gone exactly the same way, how weird is that?? i'm beginning to think its a manufacturer thing to make us pay for repairs!

I only need a stupid .ini file, thats the most annoying thing!

The grass is always greener...

2006-08-10T14:51:00.000+01:00

well woke up to a bit of a surprise today, the bird is turning into a gardener... she had emptied out her seed bowl the other day and i had just left it, there was no way i could have separated those seeds from the grit and shells on the bottom and it had only just been put down...

but then the next day she upended her water bowl - result: today she has shoots growing on the bottom of her cage... what a nutter! Worst of it is i have no batteries in my camera and i'm not getting rid of it til i get a picture :)

What can you do with a bird like that????

Blah!

2006-08-09T10:03:00.000+01:00

I tried fixing my pc yesterday but it wouldnt work... its going to have to go in for repairs methings... its really annoying because i know whats wrong with it and i know how to fix it BUT these stupid new computers nowadays dont come with windows cd's (to stop illegal copying) they are fixed into a separate partition of your hdd, now i need to get one file from that partition reinstalled but because i cant boot up i cant do it, i tried taking the file from another pc (identical make) and burning it onto cd but the broken one wont boot up from that cd..

i think manufacturers will have to take this into account and if they dont want to give out windows cds then they could just give out cds with the repair console on it then people like me wouldnt have these problems...

i have enjoyed my little holiday though... its been really nice not having to spend all day working on my site and images etc.

I'm a little astounded though at how much my orders have dropped since i stopped promoting - i hadnt realised how many orders these different things brought in, so for other people running an online business try these out to get orders:

Have your website, new products, sale products printed onto your packaging (cardboard sleeves, bags, invoices etc) you can do it yourself very cheaply.
print your website on the back of mailing envelopes, do you know how many people in royal mail see that envelope?
do regular email newsletters to your subscribers
if you know someone who has a different kind of business - swap advertising! You put their details on your stuff and they do the same for you.

Since i've stopped doing all these things, my orders have dwindled to 1 or 2 a week so they are well worth it!

Hmm, i probably shouldnt have given away business secrets there, but who cares... i'm feeling generous!

The sun has got his hat on...

2006-08-08T08:55:00.000+01:00

After a few days of low cloud, rain and thunder the blue skies are back - which is nice... i suppose!

Wish I could say the same for my pens... I can never find a pen! Its ridiculous how many pens are in this house and how there is never one that works when you need one!

Yesterday Lythan and Susan popped round for Coffee, which was lovely... I hardly ever get visitors and cos i'm not going out of the house at the moment that means that I dont really get to see anyone... they did make me a bit jealous though, they'd been doing crafty stuff at Lythans (I couldnt go cos of the kids) I hope they got lots of crafting done!

I am going to get my pc fixed today or tomorrow hopefully, but i'll hang on to the kids for a while so they can still get online on stewarts pc... which sounds complicated but isnt really!

Beware, the Fairy of Time is out there......

2006-08-07T09:21:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm feeling much better today - had a very lazy weekend! Yay for doing nothing!

The strange thing is that I havent done any crafting for ages, yet this morning I pull 2 brads and some beads out of my keyboard.. the mind boggles! They can't have been in there for ages cos I would have noticed, like I did today when the keys kept sticking.... Fairies? You betcha!

We have a new fairy in this house, its called the "Time Fairy" - when you walk across the floor she steals half an hour from you, you sit down for an hour on the PC - WHAM! she's away with 3 hours... on the phone to my Mum, before you know it 2 hours have been stolen... I wish she'd give it a rest, time is going fast enough for me without a fairy stealing hours here and there!

After a lot of thought I have come to the conclusion that she steals the time and gives it to her sister, the Anticipation Fairy, so that when you are waiting on something good, she has lots of time to make it drag and seem like ages away... she also gives some to her other sister, the Boredom Fairy... nothing she likes better than adding a couple of hours into a lecture!

See, fairies do exist!

sniff sniff

2006-08-04T10:21:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling much better today, thank you for all your good wishes :)

My nose feels as if its running but it isnt... very very irritating! I hate sniffing but there is nothing to 'blow'

The weather is brightening up although its still cold but I think it must be me as i've been told that it is not absolutely freezing... well i think it is, i'm shivering as i type this!

Its Friday and i've done nothing this week.. absolutely nothing! how bad is that? I have to get my act together!

Hayfever, cold or flu?

2006-08-03T14:29:00.000+01:00

If i was a hypochondriach I'd probably have hayfever, if I was a man I'd probably have Flu, or possible double pnumeonia with an added complication of plurisy but as i'm just an uncomplicated woman I think i have a cold!

I hate colds... that has to be the most perisitant life form ever! What is its purpose? I think I have to classify cold bugs in the same category as wasps - creatures of the devil! No known purpose in nature!

AND I know i've been complaining about the heat but going from tropical temperatures to artic temperatures in one day is taking the michael!

Whine.. whine.. moan... moan.. grumble!

Normal service is resumed!

2006-08-02T08:52:00.000+01:00

My web host worked very hard yesterday and got all the back-ups restored. There may be a slight gap in emails though, i'm not sure. If an email was sent after he was blocked then it may have bounced back to sender, so if you emailed me yesterday and it got returned, just resend it! Disrupton to me was minimal, i'm pretty much working on holiday parameters until the transfer is complete, so all advertising is down etc! My orders at the moment are a bare trickle but if it had happened at christmas, that kind of bottle neck could cause chaos and i'm just a very very small retailer. Some of the sites affected were much bigger than me...

I do actually have a feeling of empathy for hackers, i know what they are trying to do (mostly) and I do agree with their principles just not the way they go about it, but even in that respect, to attack a hosting server is just stupid! Some little kid who wants to boast to their friends "hey, i hacked such and such and changed the home page on a couple of thousand web sites" - big deal!

But at least everything is back to normal now - i'm actually quite impressed how quickly it was dealt with!

The clouds lie low...

2006-08-02T08:46:00.000+01:00

Very strange weather again today... the clouds are dark and low, seeping their way across the skies! I use the word seeping because they are moving fast but you cant actually see them moving, they are 'seeping'! AND its cooler, still hot but much cooler!

Probably very fitting weather for such a solomn day... at 10am my sister is attending the funeral of a 21yr old man (her friend's brother) who drowned in the River Clyde last week.. what a tragic curtailing of a young life! My thoughts are with them all today, especially his family.

May your grief lessen just enough to let the memory of love filter through!

Dear Hacker

2006-08-01T10:29:00.000+01:00

Congratulations on your success at Hacking into a webhosting site, you must be very proud of yourself! What a one in the eye for microsoft that is... that will teach them a lesson, eh?

Get a life you little twerp... microsoft dont run on web hosting companies, they have their own servers... you are not striking a blow for freedom or even getting your point across at the inanity of MS's monopoly. All you are doing is disrupting small businesses and people who build their own websites deditcated to their dogs!

Wow, you're a Linux user are you, i'm impressed that someone with as little brain function as you is capable of running a complicated program like that.. I see you are learning something in school then... keep up the good work.

When you grow up you will realise that there are more important things than disrupting other ordinary people who are just trying to get along as best as they can and what you have done today has the nuisance value of a bug and the best things to do with bugs are stamp on them!

Have a nice day!

It never rains....

2006-08-01T08:57:00.000+01:00

Looks like the climate is back to normal... rain, thunder, rain, wind & rain! Funnily enough its not got that much cooler though... the skies are grey and the clouds are rolling but its still hot and clammy! I just can't get a washing hung out and now that the kids are off school i have about 3 loads a day!

I'm hoping to arrange a scottish mini-meet while i'm in glasgow! Because it will be lovely to see the scottish ladies and have a chat without lots of other stuff going on!

Things are looking hopeful for the 26th so fingers crossed!

I still havent got my pc fixed, will have to do that soon! I'm itching to get at some graphic work, may have to succumb and install photoshop on this pc **huge groans from the kids** if i do i promise i will take it off as soon as i finish with this computer!! There, now its in writing!

I had a thought whilst talking to my sis last night.... has anyone noticed that our food is evolving faster than our digestive tract?? No wonder IBS is endemic! Food is just too easy to get and nature hasnt caught up yet... how much cheese, butter etc would you be eating if you had to make it all from scratch? starting with getting it out the cow or goat? And while all these ready made meals are gorgeous and quick and easy and cheaper to buy like that than make from scratch.... how many preservatives, chemicals and additives are we actually eating? Evolution takes thousands of years, so our digestive tracts should have caught up with our diets in about the year 10,000AD or so! Wonder what people will be eating then? The SF 3-course meal in a pill that was so popular an idea in the 70's?

I may have to go eat some chocolate.... just to feel the texture you understand!

Ugh Panic Stations...

2006-07-31T12:14:00.000+01:00

Looks like I'm going to Brum on my own... omg omg omg omg! The thing is, I may be allright by then or I may not... its kinda unpredictable... what if i get half way and have a panic attack... what if i dont get there?

Ok, i know i'm a responsible adult and if i choose to go then i'm the only one responsible for getting me there.. i know all that.. but its just so much easier when i'm travelling with someone I know, then all i have to worry about is the actual time in the hall... instead of the journey and the time in the hall....

God i'm such a wuss!

This is not hard, lots of people go out of their houses every day, I used to be able to go out without even thinking about it.... WHY IS THIS SO HARD???????

I want to go, i'm determined to go... i like meeting up with the ladies from carolyns, its fun and i dont feel like a weirdo ooohing and aaahing over paper etc but omg... Birminham?? why couldnt it have been in London?? Or better yet, Upminster?

By my reckoning, i have 4 weeks to panic, 2 weeks to prepare and 1 day to do it!

Consider me officially panicked!

Tickets are booked!

2006-07-30T17:09:00.000+01:00

My brother takes the kids up to glasgow on the thursday night, i'll go up the following week and bring them home on the following week! All sorted except for me getting up there but i can do that at any time.... the kids have to go up by train with Alan, not flying - they are very disappointed but there are no cheap flights in august, what can we do?

so I'll have a full week with no kids! whooo hoooo

I know, i'm an unnatural mother!

Tree causes confusion...

2006-07-29T10:26:00.000+01:00

Outside my living room window there is a tree, this tree has suffered really badly with the hot weather and is actually dying.. its leaves are brown and falling off - every time i sit in the living room i see this tree and think its autumn... then i have to remind myself thats its just summer and that the tree is a victim of the heat....

None of the other trees are affected, just this one, and there is nothing i can do for it but it still makes me feel bad... after all it was only being a tree, it was good at being a tree and it just got on with things as nature intended... and now because of a heat wave it wont be a tree for much longer... unless of course it rallys round and recovers, which it may do... trees are amazing things really!

I've been reading a lot lately about Celtic mythology, there are a lot of trees in that as well!

I think we could learn a lot from trees! Not that i'm into the whole 'i am a tree' thing.. but even so they are amazing creations of nature!

I've always liked trees - I asked my teacher once, when i was about 6 or 7 if God had made trees with no feelings so that they wouldnt get itchy when a worm went over their roots :) she probably still laughs about that one!

Have I been in a coma?

2006-07-28T09:52:00.000+01:00

I've suddenly realised that its the end of July.... where has the year gone? How can 7 months go by so quickly? I'll have to start buying for christmas soon, its unbelievable!

I'm not completely stupid, i did know it was July (after all my birthday is in that month) but I just didnt realise it...iyswim!

There is an old Scottish superstition that whatever you are doing/whatever your house looks like/who you are with will determine what you do/what your house is like/who you are with for the rest of the year (tried spending it in glasgow but we are still living down here so that didnt work) BUT while we were in Glasgow, every computer in the house was in the kitchen (kids got one for christmas but we couldnt get it up so it was here waiting for them when they got back) and I had had a last minute rush so my craft table had been left totally unorganised - Well, we have every computer in the house in the kitchen and my craft table is a mess :) (except for the 2 in the garage but they dont work)

I have 3 pc's, 2 monitors on my desk and stewart has 1 pc and 1 monitor on his desk - we've networked the kids and his computer so both are online (used his Xbox live ethernet cable cos he's not using xbox live right now) which will be a major pain when mine gets fixed 1. cos its not in the network and 2. cos that will be the main one to get online so the other 2 wont be able to until they are networked again....

I know it sounds like a lot but the computers were really an accident - we had one that we bought years ago - then my work were selling some off so we bought one for £30. Then the first one went Kaput so we built one ourselves (stewarts) then Stewarts brother brought his round cos it had stopped working to see if we wanted it, but it needs windows reinstalling and we havent done it yet, just cannibalised it instead.... then port 80 on my work one fried so it wouldnt go online so we bought a bottom of the range cheapo one but i still use my work one for graphics and the new one for online stuff - then we got the kids a cheapo one too... see? just an accident!

I'm thinking of installing some temporary graphics software on the kids pc but they dont want me to, i think they think its an incentive to get mine fixed :) and if i can work on this one then i wont hurry to fix the other one....

I need to finish off my Sisters book of shadows - its all written, just needs to be printed. I dont want to do it A4 cos i think its too small but i cant find someone who just has a desktop A3 printer - and to get it done at a printers will cost me around £90 which is just too much. I'm thinking of buying an A3 printer and offering a printing service, i cant be the only one who needs just basic printing on A3 size and who needs a cheap option - am definitely going to look into this.

Stereotypes just dont work!

2006-07-27T09:17:00.000+01:00

It may be that my interests coincide with those of young teenagers but I still find it irritating to keep coming across a playground mentality on the internet... The only place where this isnt obvious is Carolyns and I think that is due more to the average age of the members as well as diligent moderators but everywhere else this attitude of "i'm with them and we dont like you" is getting more and more common, especially at this time of year when all the schools are on holiday...

There is also the added bug factor of "wow you're over 30, do you know how to work the computer? my mum doesnt even know how to switch it on".... very very irritating...

Then I started thinking about it and its true, there is a stereotype that parents of teenagers dont know a thing about computers or technology... they might know how to work a pc but at their age I was writing 43 pages of Basic to make simple games... did you know that in those days it took 197 lines of code to make a 5 letter name flash different colours on a screen? and over 3000 to make it move? The kids keep bringing leaflets and things home that explain computers and technology and terminology to parents - all written in simple easy to read formats - now i know that there are lots of people who dont know this stuff but theres not that many... the majority of workplaces use computers, and i would say that the majority of 35-45yr olds know the basics... its just not fashionable to admit it...

My kids get a shock when i tell them what they have been doing on the computer, they dont realise that if you know what to look for there are no secrets - and I know more about the internet than they do.....

anyways, back to the playground mentality, i dont know if its a sign of my advancing age but I find the petty arguing and immature wrangling very annoying... 90% of these cases dont even involve the kids who are getting so het up over it... but when they resort to spamming inboxes and sending hatemail to people who have had an incident with friends of theirs then its getting stupid and they really should get off the pc and spend some time in the real world!

Everything happens for a reason....

2006-07-26T10:59:00.000+01:00

Its amazing how much more time I have! Its only been 2 days since my pc went kaput but because all my programs are on it, my images are on it - in fact everything i have been doing for the last few months is on it and now I cant work on them (I have the bits but not the software) I suddenly have all this free time!

Wow... i've been surfing, catching up on forums - its great. Just like a holiday! What fun!

I may also have a way to salvage my Wedding Invitations from the scourge of Royal Mail... Flat folded scrolls! This was a brilliant suggestion from Kathy (who is a genius!) This way I can keep my scroll format, wording, paper etc but just fold them flat instead of rolled. I've been having a play and found a few different ways to fold - just have to try out envelopes and see how they survive the postage system. The really interesting thing is that if my pc hadnt broken, i probably wouldnt have been around to get the message and definitely wouldnt have had the time to try it... so yay for corrupted files!

So far it looks like they will fit into the 2nd category of mail so will cost 46p to post which is a lot better than £1, so I may get my customers back!

I think I may spend today playing.. maybe do some of those templates that are around - they look like lots of fun but i've not had a chance to try yet....

I dont think i will fix my pc until the weekend...... ;)

and 1 more makes 3...

2006-07-25T11:31:00.000+01:00

I now have 3 computers on my desk.. this is getting stupid! Last night my pc froze and wouldnt restart - i'm getting an unmountable_boot_volume error, and I dont have an XP disk (its on a separate partition of my HDD) so i cant get into the Recovery Console... so am going to have to find a pc repair place and somehow get the pc up there... its too hot for this!

In the meantime i've got the kids pc on my desk so i can get online, as well as my broken one and my old one that i use for graphics... definitely getting crowded!

First day of the summer holidays!

2006-07-24T08:15:00.000+01:00

Well, here it is, the day the kids have been waiting for... its now officially the Summer Holidays!! I used to love this day when i was younger... the whole holiday stretched out in front of you, like it was going to last forever! I would get together with my friends and we would make plans for every day that we could - picnics, going to the park, games we were going to play etc... pure joy! Didnt recognise it as pure joy at the time, unfortunately!

My kids have 3 weeks here with me then Uncle Alan is coming down to take them up to Glasgow, then I'll join them a bit later... I always like to send them up on their own during the summer otherwise they would only see my family when i'm with them and its not the same when "mum's" around.. luckily they are bigger now and can do more for themselves so even if my Mum isnt very well it doesnt matter so much. Alan & Emma will be around too... so will be fun for them!

Now I just have to amuse them for 3 weeks... can't be too hard, can it?

and ebay finish what royal mail started...

2006-07-22T10:21:00.000+01:00

I havent added a new entry in over a week which is terrible but its just been too hot, hayfever has been too bad and i've not really had anything to say...

Next month Royal Mails Pricing in Proportion comes into effect, which, in theory, is a great idea - the theory was that it was costing RM more to deliver a large box which was the same weight as a letter so they were going to charge more for size as well as weight...

BUT..

as with all things, they have gone to extremes - their ideas of 'bigger' are very strange -

<=C5 and <=5mm thick is a letter
between 5mm-25mm and/or <=C4 is a large letter
>C4 or >25mm is a packet and will cost £1 to post up to 100g.

I have no idea how it costs them more to deliver things with these differences.. its a joke! Then to cap it all, Ebay have had the brilliant idea of increasing their shop inventory listing fees by 300% & FVF's to 10% for up to £4.99 and cutting visibility and changing it so cheapest items show up first in shop searches... so i'm shutting my ebay shop - its hardly cost effective at the moment but brings in new customers so was handy but now it would actually be running at a loss so its not worth it any more.

A lot of ebay shop owners are really upset at this and lots of them have already shut their shops... the ones that are left are planning a one day listing strike, if there is a whole day where no-one lists anything that will show ebay exactly who they make their money from and may teach them better customer relations. Small business dont treat their customers shabbily cos they cant afford to but for big businesses it seems to be mandatory!

2006-07-14T09:06:00.000+01:00

I didnt manage to make an entry yesterday, I just couldnt find 5 minutes in which to do so... I want my insomnia back!

On Wednesday I did manage to get out, 1 near panic attack and 2 bursting into tears but I did it! Yay for me! (yesterday hubs came home early, and we went back up to get a picture and I was fine... this is driving me nuts!)

Most of the product pictures have been taken now, I just have to edit them and get them uploaded.. should be finished this side of christmas!

To top it all off, I've found a dog breeding virtual game - its still being built so new things are added constantly and a lot of features arent ready yet, but it has lots of breeds available and so I have started on my Boxer stock... am going to do Border Collies as well - I will get my perfect dog virtually cos I can't afford to do it in RL!

If anyone wants to have a go, the link is Dog Realm each dog ages 1 week in a RL day, and it takes 30 days for any pups you have to reach adulthood, so you have to wait a while for your next generation... the dogs dont need to be fed but have to be kept happy by playing with them each day... Dog Shows etc havent been added yet but by the time they are I should be a few generations down the line and closer to my perfect dog.

It works on a gene pool/scoring system - so you have to be careful about what dogs you breed so you only get good genes... very fascinating and interesting and doesnt take too much time each day as its more a long term thing.

If you join, my user name on there is Axaria! One word of warning though, you start off with 25,000 in money, if you go to the Dog Mart clicking on an image in there will buy you that item... and the first item in the leads and collars section costs 20,000 - I was expecting it to take me to a more info/buy page and instead lost most of my money.. so be warned!

I've already printed out details of my breeding stock and decided which dogs are going to produce my next generation :) i'm so sad! I really need a life thats not virutal! 28 days to go til my pups can breed!

I sitll dont wanna...

2006-07-12T09:10:00.000+01:00

I did get out yesterday... I just didnt get as far as I should have done, so now I have to go out today as well... (I'm hearing kathys voice in my head as I type this... :P)

I was very much over this, I dont know what brought it back... maybe its just one of those things that come and go....

On the bright side Lythan popped round yesterday with a gorgeous card, I love lythan's cards they are so striking! Then I got an email last night with a gift voucher.. so I can do some more crafty spending.... why is it easier to spend your own money than it is a gift? I am really struggling to decide what to buy!

No takers on yesterdays question I see... This question came up in a conversation I had with my sis (emma) as a follow on to the unstableness of our society (more on this another time) and how we are no longer able to cope and wouldnt know what to do if our artificial crutches were removed....

Emmas thoughts: "well i'd just plug in the kettle to the car lighter and make a cuppa soup!" When challenged on the fact that she wouldnt have her car, she said j"well I would still have it and would just fill lots of cans with petrol" (when told she'd have to fight her way through the thousands of other people with the same idea, her reply was - "I was in the Army Cadets, I can unassemble and reassemble a gun in seconds.....") Then when asked specifically, "if you were left with no resources but nature, could you boil water" her reply was - "I'm gonna invent a cuppa soup that you pour cold water into and it boils the water for you..."

And people wonder why I think humans wouldnt survive? It was a funny conversation none the less...

Our kind of civilisation is built on artificial means - the things we would need to survive would be there, supplied by nature, but we wouldnt know how to recognise them or how to use them... very few people under the age of 40 in the UK know how to lay and start a fire... or how to bank it so its still lit the following morning - I can see a whole group of people standing around after a catastrophe 'oh we cant light a fire, its not allowed... and playing with matches is dangerous'... God only knows what would happen when the matches ran out.... not to mention that they wouldnt be able to get any fuel other than deadfall because knives are even worse than matches.... I doubt if they would be able to debark a branch without cutting themselves anyway.... and as for cooking over an open fire, I wont even go there!

I dont wanna!

2006-07-11T08:49:00.000+01:00

I really do have to go out today and I really dont want to.... I walked up to the village one day last week and didnt even take the dog, so thats good! But now I have to go into Romford, by myself.... in this age of technology I shouldnt have to leave the house unless I want to... or unless other people are with me...

Now i'm not totally reclusive, I do go out but only when someone else or the dog is with me, its only by myself that I have problems (or if i go somewhere that has masses and masses of people)... yes i've been to therapy, yes i know what the problem is and yes i know what the solution is - its just harder to implement it than it is to talk about it in therapy sessions!

Wish i was 3yrs old again, so i could lie on the floor, kick my heels and scream "I don' wanna!"

A question for people reading this - If a dire emergency happened, total catastrophe, and you are in a field, with woods not far off and beside a stream - you have a knife, a glass bottle and a ball of string - would you be able to boil water both in the evening and the next morning?

I will give my sisters answer to this tomorrow!

As I was typing this, the postman arrived - with gorgeous cards from Susan and Sue F - thank you ladies, they are gorgeous and I really appreciate them! Will post pics later!

Another year older...

2006-07-10T08:36:00.000+01:00

Well had my birthday yesterday and managed to survive it :) other people may not be so lucky though....

Here are the family facts: On my side - I have 1 husband, 3 kids, 1 father, 1 mother, 2 sisters, 1 brother, 1 BIL, 1 nephew and 8 cousins (+ a whole load of aunts & uncles) On hubs side I have 1 MIL, 1 MIL's partner, 3 SIL's (+hubs), 2 BIL's (+wives), 2 nephews and 4 nieces.

Yesterday, I get 1 card from my MIL, phone calls from one sister (emma) and my mum & dad and from 1 SIL (siobhan) and an e-card from a cousin (caroline)... that has to be the worst record in history! CBC came up trumps though with 23 Happy Birthday messages :)

Hubs forgot... he didnt forget it was my birthday on the 9th, he just forgot that yesterday was the 9th....

Anyways, we went out for dinner and decided to go somewhere new so we headed to the Festival leisure park at Basildon as it has an abundance of places to eat... We decided to try Chilli's (didnt have a menu outside) but when we got in, there was nothing on the menu that the kids would eat and their childrens menu only went up to 12yrs of age... so we had drinks and left!

We went onto the Honey Pot, which is a Brewers Fayre... menu was excellent, kids menu was brilliant (most impressive kids menu i have ever seen!) and great value for money - 3 course meal with drinks for 2 adults and 3 kids (2 of them teenagers) came to £38!!!!! BUT we were in there for a total of 2 hours 40 minutes, the wait in between courses was stupid! we finished our main course at 5.10pm, by 6pm dessert still hadnt arrived and we had to leave.. so i cancelled that order, made a complaint and got my money back for the desserts - totally spoiled an otherwise perfect meal. the quality of the food was brilliant but the service was abysmal! Still, it will be a funny story in days to come I suppose!

On the plus side - I have permission to make up a £30 order at an online craft shop and my mum will pay it for me.... ohhhhh the possibilities.... I think I will spend today surfing through online shops and deciding what I want.......... :)

Last day of being a twin...

2006-07-08T12:33:00.000+01:00

Today is the last day, for this year, that my sister and I will be the same age.... I was born on the 9th July and she was born on the 27th June on the following year so for 12 days every year we are the same age :) This was great when we were younger... people would ask me what age I was and I would say"7" and then they would ask Elizabeth and she would say "7" and then they would say "oh are you twins?" and we would say "no, just sisters" and they would be really puzzled... *cue the saying about small minds*

It seems really strange that at the moment we are the same age, but she has been married nearly 2 years and has a 4 month old baby and i've been married 12 years and my babies are 14yrs, 13yrs and 10yrs...

what is also strange is that we have a 26yr old sister and an 18yr old brother (my parent's family-planning was off the wall!)....

All 3 of my babies have Optician appointments this afternoon - this will be fun! they do the full tests in there so we will probably be there for hours.... just the thing for a hot saturday afternoon!

woof woof!

2006-07-08T10:43:00.000+01:00

Kia's behaviour session went well last night... she was the only dog in the hall which made a big... huge difference to her behaviour - the trainer said it was like having a different dog! I'm glad they got to see her like that and realise that her nervous agression isnt inherent in her but is learned behaviour and the trigger is other dogs....

She is usually very nervous of people she doesnt know and wont allow the trainers to approach her in any way but last night she was accepting treats and the behaviourist got right up close to her... very illuminating! Hopefully now they know more detail about the problem we can start coming up with some solutions - i really dont want kia to end up as an anti-social dog!

I finally managed to add blog links here and am working on new graphics... but i just cant make up my mind what i want - might have to spend another day on photoshop getting them right ;)

Jane's turn...

2006-07-07T10:45:00.000+01:00

I took a pic of your boys, added one of the cat and turned them into this..... It's a bit bitty cos i'm working with low res images but I quite like the effect of this one, hope you do too!

I have a zillion and one things to do and I can't keep away from photoshop.... gah! why cant i have an addiction to chocolate or something else less time consuming???

On the knee front, I can move it today it's not frozen into place any more but it still hurts... sob! And it's not raining today but its cloudy and windy and I can't get good photo's... sob sob! I can't do much more to the site until I get the photo's done and my knee hurts too much to do any h*******k so photohop here I come!

Dear Junk E-mailer...

2006-07-07T09:07:00.000+01:00

I would like to thank you for your kind concern about my health, my medication levels and the length of my penis, it is also very considerate of you to send me all these links showing where I can get genuine replica (!) watches, jewellery and purses.

I would just like to point out to you that my health was fine as at 9.06 this morning (and at 9.07, 9.09, 9.12 and so forth) and while I do realise that illness can strike suddenly, is it really necessary to ask every 2 minutes? If I did fall seriously ill between 9.01 and 9.03 I doubt I would be on the computer reading your email giving me all these marvelous cures.

Please note that my medication levels are fine, in fact they are at zero - not because I've run out or can't find a supplier or even because they are too expensive (although i do appreciate the 304 emails you sent yesterday telling me where I can get cheaper meds) but because I dont actually need any... please dont think I'm ungrateful but when I need medication I'll get a prescription from my doctor and go to the chemist... would you like me to send you a couple of thousand emails telling you how this works? Oh, and just for the record - I'm not overweight and wouldnt use dubious slimming pills even if I was! If you have problems in this area I would recommend cutting back on calorie intake and increasing calorie burn - this is known in some circles as 'diet and excercise'. I'm sure Hoodia is the best thing since penacillian but I have no idea what it is and wouldnt buy it even if I did!

As for penis enlargement, even given the fact you guarantee results and have lots of satisfied customers and even more satisfied wives and girlfriends... I can guarantee it wouldnt work on me - I dont actually have a penis or a wife or a girlfriend.. I do however have a husband and his penis if fine, thank you very much! To be honest with you, if I heard someone scream all night I would either phone an ambulance or noise pollution - I definitely wouldnt rush to the computer to email the fact out to as many people as possible... I suspect you may have an exhibitionist complex, have you ever thought of therapy?

With regards to the jewellery/shopping links you send me, on average every 2.4 mins, if I want a watch, necklace or purse I will go out and buy one, from a shop (as you havent ever been out of the house you may not realise that some of the buildings out there in the big bad world have merchadise in them that you visit and buy things- these are shops!) - I may even buy a genuine article although I'm sure it wont be as good quality as your genuine replicas (!) and I really dont care if all the 'Stars' have one and no, I dont need an alphabetical list of which stars and I definitely dont need pictures of them wearing it!

So even though i have so much fun trawling through the 600+ emails you send me every day and I have nothing better to do than spend time checking and deleting them, I do think it would be better if you just got a life and stopped wasting time in mine.

Yours faithfully
A non-penis owning woman without a girlfriend who needs satisfying, who is in perfect health, isnt overweight and already owns a watch.

For RachelB

2006-07-06T18:16:00.000+01:00

Temptation struck and I fell.... I take horrible photos, but other people have such nice ones... I keep looking at them and thinking... ohh what I could do with that and as today I was on a major avoidance, I altered this one from RachelB's blog - I really hope you dont mind!

million-1 chances come up 9 times out of 10...

2006-07-06T09:03:00.000+01:00

That is my favourite quote from Terry Pratchett... I think its a brilliant phrase and one we have been conditioned into by films, books etc.... Now bearing in mind that ALL tv shows, films etc follow this principle... this is connors homework.. (a sheet with a load of statements on it - and a table with different columns: impossible, unlikely, likely, certain - and he has to put the statements in the right column)

How Likely?

I will go to Mars for my summer holiday
Connors Answer: Likely - reason: gotta be better than butlins, can granny & granda come too?!

It will rain tomorrow
Connors Answer: Certain - reason: Mummy doesnt want it to!

Manchester United will the FA Cup
Connors Answer: Impossible - reason: Daddy wouldnt like it and nobody does things daddy doesnt like!

My teacher will dye his or her hair green
Connors Answer: Likely - reason: A teacher that uses a puppet could do anything.

My family will win the pools on saturday
Connors Answer: Impossible - reason: We've already got a pool and another one wouldnt fit in the garden

I will play football after school
Connors Answer: Impossible - reason: I'm grounded

I am in a maths lesson
Connors Answer: Impossible - reason: I'm at home doing homework.. duh!

I will have toast for breakfast tomorrow
Connors Answer: Impossible - reason: The bread went mouldy today cause it was so hot

I think this proves, without a doubt, the 'ego theory' of children... either that or he just doesn't grasp the principles of probability......

For Lythan

2006-07-05T23:01:00.000+01:00

I forgot to put this in my previous entry and couldnt be bothered editing it... I had a play with one of your pictures of Carys (cos you are a much better photographer than me) and this is the result.. Hope you like it!

Now, technically i'm guilty of infringement of copyright but please dont sue me - i'm in too much pain, i cant afford it and honestly i did it with the best of intentions and i'm not profiting from it in any way whatsoever.... honest!

I admit it... its all my fault...

2006-07-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

The rain that is.. it rained today because I was planning on taking new stock photographs in the garden today, ready for putting on the new site and so it poured all day!! Shoot me... I should have known better than to actually plan it, but I thought Fate was giving me a break lately.... bad enough that I've got the arthritis back in my knee (which hurts really badly) it didnt have to rain as well and throw my entire day out!

Hubs has gone to bed early tonight, so I have time to make a proper entry... which is scary as usually I just type what I'm thinking but now that I know that people are reading this my thoughts get a bit jumbled - so if I was to type what I was actually thinking it
1. wouldnt make any sense,
2. would probably get me locked up in the funny farm
3. would probably offend somebody...
4. would make for a very strange read

I've been thinking for a while that I would like to do a weekly entry giving my opinions on something or other... i love airing my opinion but get very few opportunities to do so for 2 very good reasons - one is political correctness, its dangerous to give your true thoughts on something nowadays and the other is I have nobody to give it to.... a phobia against people has its drawbacks! Of course, I could give it to myself and frequently do but thats the fast lane to the aforementioned funny farm so i dont do it often and not when anyone can hear me... another reason for not giving my opinions to me is that I agree with myself, which is no fun!

I love giving out my opinion but I also love hearing other peoples, especially if it differs from mine... then we can debate it... mmmmmmm debates! About the only thing I miss from School is the debates, i love to debate, discuss and argue out things.... very enjoyable!

But to get back to what I was saying earlier (god i ramble so much, even when talking to myself) i have decided to give my opinion weekly, but not tonight (huge sighs of relief all round!) cos I am in too much pain and too tanked up with painkillers to formulate my thoughts to put my opinion down coherently!

Pain is a funny thing - I have an extremly high pain threshold, i can carry on when in pain and it doesnt stop me doing things but it does turn me into the biggest b**ch in the country - very weird! My mother on the other hand lives with constant pain... every day and she isnt a bitch - she only gets bitchy when she is short of sleep but she has a lower threshold than me and when i'm short of sleep i'm fine, in fact i prefer it cos then the adrenalin kicks in, gotta love adrenalin - how does that work? Its so unfair really...

I havent put my tickers up for a while so will add them to end of this entry!

oh the responsibility...

2006-07-05T20:30:00.000+01:00

I've made a strange discovery... other people (except for Lythan - hi lythan!) actually read this... not only are people reading this and leaving comments... BUT i've been added to other people links pages... how astounding! I have no more excuses, I will have to revamp my blog and add a links page etc... but I am surprised that people get past the first entry to be honest! Very boring stuff, maybe i should peddle it as an insomnia cure! I could make millions!

Too hot....

2006-07-04T16:21:00.000+01:00

This heat is getting too much for me... I'm mellllllltttttttinnnnngggggg......

I've been trying to turn photographs of Kia into decent pencil sketches today but its not really working very well.... the original photos arent very good... and i'm not that good a photographer so cant get any better....

These are about the best 2 so far but i'm still not completely happy with them....

Cluck cluck

2006-07-03T11:05:00.000+01:00

The last few days, our lovebird has been acting very strange... emptying out its seed bowl, throwing stuff around the cage, and out of the cage... and now i know why...

Yep, she's laid an egg.... it wont hatch cos its not fertilised (can't be as she's the only one) but at least we now know for sure that she is female... so once she leaves it alone I will remove it and hopefully she wont lay any more..... her food is the only material she has in the cage, there are no newspapers, sandpaper etc she has crushed shell on the bottom of the cage so her seeds and the husks were the only things she could make a nest from.....

I do like to be beside the seaside.....

2006-07-03T08:55:00.000+01:00

As it was such a nice day yesterday and my Dad had borrowed my sisters car, we decided to take a run to Frinton on Sea... was really good! The tide was totally in when we got there, so no sand to speak of but the kids had a great time and even stewart went into the water!

Kia loves water but was a bit wary of the waves... was really funny to watch! She would chase them, then run away really fast!

We managed to stop her getting eye contact with other dogs, so except for one barking incident she was great... and she growled at one person.. but only after they had petted her, what a screwed up dog!

She ended up standing on the wood and looking at the waves, as if to say "ha! you cant get me now!"

My mum & dad had to go back to Elizabeths last night to get the car back.. which was a shame, as it meant I didnt have them here for very long! But hopefully i will get up during the summer and can spend longer with them!

2006-06-30T08:45:00.000+01:00

I don't seem to be doing very well in June.... very patchy blogging! BUT I do have an excuse... I have been totally snowed under... orders, housework, hubs getting home really early... there is just not enough hours in the day! Plus on top of that, my mum & dad are down - staying at Elizabeths, coming out to me today and going back to Elizabeths on sunday, then going home on Wednesday... My dad even shut his ebay shop for the week... wow! So i've had to add housework onto the workload... which hasnt made any difference may i add, the fairies have been out in force!

I'm nearly ready to add products to the websites.. have been updating pics, checking prices etc and doing a stocktake... very tedious stuff!

The bonus is that the templates on this blog are written in the same format that I have been learning, so when i have some spare time I can change the template :)

I bought some gorgeous Antique Copper findings to make jewellery with, BUT cant get any antique copper wire to match! I've tried everywhere.... what a joke! I've got headpins, eyepins, earwires, chain, jump rings etc all in the antiqued colour but only bright copper wire..... so I cant acutally do what i want to do but will have to find another design.

Ok, better go hoover, cos i dont know what time they are getting here at!

to div or not to div....

2006-06-27T16:36:00.000+01:00

Well, after lots of self teaching, experimentation and screwing up i have learned the rudiments of .css, .tpl, .php & xhtml files - now i just have to touch up the graphics, cos i've moved things around so much the orignal graphics arent right now... get the main html pages to match and then i can add content/products... whooo hooo the end is in sight or site (to make a bad pun!)

Its been really hard, due to the fact that you CANNOT preview what you are doing, you have to upload it to your server in order to see what your modifications have done... thats great fun... i can tell you!

The site is www.unique-creations.co.uk and the shop is www.unique-creations.co.uk/shop - remember there are no products in there yet, so if you take a peek and want to comment please remember its still in progress!

I do think that Unique Creations gives me much more scope than Unique Invites though.... now I wont feel silly selling toppers or greetings cards with a Unique Invites logo on it!

pant pant

2006-06-23T16:11:00.000+01:00

ok.. getting there... here is a challenge from Lythan...

What are your earliest memories?

My very earliest memory is going to visit our new house in the south side of Glasgow... My Gran babysat Catherine and my great-granda drove the rest of us over to see the house... This was in feb/march 1972, so i was 2yrs 8 months... i can remember seeing the garden and thinking.. ohhh grass! (we were moving from a tenement close to the city centre) and the kitchen had a big yellow old fashioned deep sink.... the strange thing about this memory is that it finishes when we got back to our flat.. i can remember going up the stairs but thats it, which means i have no actual memory of Catherine... she died (aged 9 months) in the august of that year!

Another early memory is after we had moved... there were 2 girls who lived a couple of doors away the same age as me and Elizabeth and we played together... well I was at Gayles house and needed to pee but I wouldnt use her toilet and ran home - my mum was really annoyed that i came home by myself (3 houses down) as i was only 3....

puff puff....

2006-06-23T15:58:00.000+01:00

Well, time to catch up, i have done a few posts but they are saved as drafts as i've not gotten round to finishing them yet... but to be going on with, here is a challenge from Lythans Blog, which she got from Kathy's blog....

1 What was your first pet and what was it's name? A canary called 'Cheeky'... I loved him to bits and was devastated when he died (I was about 7)!

2 which WtP character are you? Pooh, Piglet? Eyeore? Or one of the others?Tigger

3 Aston Martin or Ferrari? Chocolate Chip with Mint.... ;)

4 Favourite crisps (potato chips) flavour?Chicken

5 Money no object sailing trip - where would you go? Outer Hebrides

6 Tea? coffee? or juice? Coffee, very strong!

7 What's your favourite season? Autumn, I love the colours....

8 Have you ever seen an eclipse? Yes, but I cant remember when or where.... i've slept lots of times since then....

9.Would you rather hold a snake or a spider? Spider as I prefer them... but snakes are good too.

10.Which do you play? And which is your favourite? Chess, Monopoly, Backgammon, Scrabble. I play all of them.. favourite?.. hmm thats hard, i'd have to say scrabble, i take my scrable very seriously and have read the official scrabble dictionaries (twice)

11. Do you do Sudoku? Frequently... the harder the better, I hate the fact that they are pushed under number puzzles though, they would work just the same with 9 coloured squares - maths doenst come into it at all!

12. 3 favourite flowers? The pink funky one in Susan's garden... Orchids... and those those dangling pink ones that look like ballerinas...

13. What's your favourite in a box of chocs? Caramel or fudge

14. How many handbags? none, 1-5, 5-10, 10-15 or more than that? 5-10 but i dont use any as I keep leaving them in shops etc... they are just not safe when out with me....

15. How many different countries have you visited? 3 - Scotland, England & Wales :D

20 things about me....

2006-06-19T17:07:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to do this for a while, so might as well do it now as its the perfect avoidance of doing the washing up!

1. From the ages of 10 to 18 I was going to be - a dog trainer, a writer, a research scientist, a computer programmer (this was when computers used BASIC as a language) , a horitculturist, a botanist (found out they got paid more), a journalist, the first female physicist to achieve worldwide fame, an archeologist and a psychologist - when i left school at 18 with 8 o'levels and 5 A'levels I went to college and did Nursery Nursing to prove that it wasnt only 'low achievers" who did this course. From this I went on to do a Nursing course for learning difficulties (which i never completed)

2. I met my husband 3 days after moving to England to do the above mentioned nursing course and despite having not one thing in common, we've been together ever since - 17 years this september.

3. I used to be confident to the point of arrogance until I had a breakdown which stripped the confidence from me, leaving me just arrogant!

4. I live my life by a long series of principles (which i will write a blog entry on one of these days) which I try very hard not to break!

5. I found out what heresy was when I was 9 years old! Asking questions in school shows you are bright and attentive, asking questions in sunday school shows you are a heretic! This is also the time i found out what Hypocrsy was!

6. I am a very sad, weird type of person who reads acts of parliment, small print on documents and dictionarys! Even sadder is the fact that I then use this knowledge/these words in conversation!

7. I have written hundreds of short stories in my life and started a few novels and got rid of the lot... no-one has ever read any of my fiction! My greatest ambition in life is to write a novel and get it published but I was born 30 years too late - it is harder to get a novel published nowadays than it is to get voted into parliament!

8. I woke up one morning and found I had 3 children, 2 of whom are teenagers!

9. I have an insatiable curiosity about everything... the most begging questions at the moment are: how do the hairs in your eyebrows know what length to grow to and what kind of dog would you get if you crossed a lilac merle border collie with a fawn boxer?

10. I once told a boy in school i had leprosy and threatened to infect him if he didnt stop bullying me and my friends.

11. The thing i hate most about society is injustice.

12. The second thing i hate most about society is discrimination.

13. I have never broken a bone in my body in my life.

14. I did however break my youngest sons leg when he was 18 months ( i was carrying him downstairs and I fell - i was fine, he had a broken shin bone)

15. I can remember nearly every word of conversations and nearly every word i have read but couldnt tell you what i did yesterday

16. I love words! They fascinate me!

17. I have a hair in my eyebrow that is over an inch in length (trying to answer the question above i managed to fool it into not knowing how long it was)

18. I find it very difficult to eat without reading!

19. I love reading, I am totally addicted to it!

20. I played truant in school for my entire o'level year and still managed to pass 8 o'levels.

Phew.. that wasnt easy!

perching perching

2006-06-19T16:43:00.000+01:00

Thats the noise it makes when someone makes another hole in the emotional armour - you know who you are! I spent years building up a solid 3' balwark between me and the world and I armour-plated it and now it looks more like a collander as a result of the guerilla warfare that has been carried out on me by certain people... the strangest thing is that I dont think it is a concerted attack, they are all independent but coincidently have all happened over the same period of time! Very weird!

I've had a very nice day today.... Lythan very kindly gave me a lift to Susans and we spent the whole day playing and chatting... (with a very nice lunch thrown in - Susan is a great hostess!) Lythans photograph stamps are amazing, I need to figure out how they work, there is very little indentation in the rubber - its more scraped away so i dont think the ink adheres to it as well - they look wonderful though. And I made the discovery that the different effects you get with alcohol inks are dependent on the paper used - expensive photo paper works differently to the cheap photo paper and gives a completely different effect - will have to experiment with this!

We had a couple of great conversations in the car on the way there and back - "the basic instability of the infrastructure of society today" on the way there and "the pro's and cons of being a bitch" and "what would the world look like if the steam engine had never been invented" on the way back.... great stuff!

I've been working on the website, which is coming along nicely and I also updated the shop to the newest verion which isnt coming along nicely - this version works on a template system which sounds very cool and is great in theory, but it means that in order to change the colour/look of the shop you have to edit the .css & .tml files directly and there are no wysiwyg editors for these types of files, so basically you have to manipulate the code, upload it, see what has changed, go back and manipulate more code... very time consuming and very frustrating - i know a bit of html but nothing of .php, .css & .tml files so I'm learning by trial and error which is great fun but I dont have the time! Never mind, it gives me an excuse to sit at the pc for hours on end :) and I'm learning the hex codes for colours, which is fascinating.

Fate strikes again.....

2006-06-16T09:17:00.000+01:00

What a week... the amount I have achieved is inversely proportional to the amount I had to do!

I have to find a job - I've run out of time and even though I'm on target for my 2 year plan... I now no longer have the 8 months left that I should have left... We need a certain amount of money coming in every week and it's not coming in and I can't find a way to up my income really quickly so the craft stuff is going to have to go part time and I have to get a job!

This is going to be really hard for a number of reasons....

1. I'm not ready to go out into the world and deal with people...
2. It's going to be really hard working for someone else after being my own boss for over a year!
3. I feel like my business has failed through circumstances rather than any shortcomings of myself... so what was the point of trying???
4. I know it will start off part time but within 6 months whats the betting I'm back to full-time, overtime and stressing over childcare and dogcare!
5. Whats the chances of me getting a job that pays well, frees me up for school holidays and has hours that fits in with the school day?? yes i know i could work in a school but they are not going to be recruiting in June now, are they?? I cant afford to wait until september to start!
6. I had just started a re-vamp of the business when this bombshell fell.... The new domain name is registered and i'm building the new site (unique invites was just too limiting, I do way more than just invitations now) I should have finished by now but I cant get enthusiastic about it.... again, whats the point?
7. I'm not ready to go out into the world and deal with people!

I'm going to set myself a target of getting the new site up and running before I start work... which means i will have to build it as i'm looking.... odds are probably 500-1 of me achieving this!

So I'm a cynical egotist???

2006-06-13T10:12:00.000+01:00

What Spiritual Realm Do You Belong To ???( GORGEOUS ANIME PICS+Detailed Results!)

Your Spiritual Realm is Thought!You possess great intellectual power. You think with your brain, not your emotions. You see with the world with an eagles eye, always full of criticism. The problem with this is that sometimes you are too cynical and egotistic, and forget that you, too, are still discovering, just like everybody else! Your brain is a muscle, keep using it! Your the kind of person who could be the next Sigmund Freud or Mark Twain, or Albert Einstein.
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2006-06-13T09:47:00.000+01:00

Well I'm feeling better today, thank goodness, yesterday was awful! BUT stewart was sick all last night so he's off work today... we cant decide if it was a bug, something we ate or just the heat... could be a mixture of them all.... bit too spread out to be something we ate though!

I've made a lovely new friend on a boxer forum, she makes jewellery (stunning jewellery) and lives in America, so shes sending me some bits that she can get locally, how nice is that? With all the horror internet stories around, I had always thought that the ladies at Carolyns were an exception but looks like they are not the only ones! I will post a pic of them when they arrive, cant wait!

I have so much to do today i dont know where to start... house is a tip (as usual), ongoing party invitation order which is quickly heading towards urgent, website needs updating badly and I need to make up a spreadsheet to cost out jewellery to see if its viable to sell... I have been looking through ebay to see what kind of handcrafted jewellery sells best and scarily its the ones in the occult section - 'power' beads and stones are very popular - I'm a great believer in natural properties of gems etc but I dont know if i would feel comfortable selling under an occult heading... maybe a case of 'a rose by any other name...' etc..

I need to find a varnish that sets really really hard and rigid when used on plastic... modge podge gives a fantastic finish but isnt really rigid!

Better go get started!

I'm sick, she's sick, he's sick, everyones sick...

2006-06-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

Connor started throwing up 6am saturday morning, lauren 4pm sunday afternoon, me at 2am this morning and daryll at 6.30am this morning...... I feel bleaurgh...

then to top it off, stewart leaves for work this morning (the only one not sick) and a car (in a side road at the end of the street....) runs into the side of his car..... must have got fed up waiting for me!

I'm a good looking dog....

2006-06-11T11:35:00.000+01:00

Hmm, not quite what I expected.....

What Common Breed of Dog Are You?

Malamute
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3 in 1

2006-06-11T10:31:00.000+01:00

I've managed to combine my 3 favourite things :) recyclying, alcohol inks and jewellery making... ohhhh the possibilities! Can anyone guess where the recycling comes in?

Soap Box Alert!

2006-06-09T07:51:00.000+01:00

After a great deal of thought, I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an Expert! Instead, there is only people who have a firm belief in their own opinions and can articulate that belief in a way that makes it plausible to other people.
This may seem like a strange statement to make, but it's very logical really... Art experts tell us that a painting has to have certain aspects in it to be a 'masterpiece'... Says who?? why, those same experts. Dog experts tell us that each breed has to be a certain size, weight and ears a certain shape.... Says who? why, those same experts... again! Dieticians tell us what food is good for us and bad for us.... Doctors tell us what situations are good for us and bad for us... Politicians tell us what the country should be run like.... but the FACT is that all of these are just opinions... the opinions of these so-called experts that are imposed on the rest of us. The only thing that can be sure is that there is such a thing as paintings, dogs, food etc etc everything else is just a preference and we are told by experts what our preferences should be... it's ludicrous!
Take house prices.... 2 3-bedroom semi's about 200 yards apart - one is worth £230,000 and the other is worth £160,000... why? because one is in Harold Wood and the other is in Harold Hill, they face each other across the A12... who decides these prices??... Property Experts! We are not told the criteria for these valuations, what makes one area more desirable than another?? Demand? That only means that people are gullible enough to pay more to buy a higher-priced property because they have been told its the better house and thats why it costs more!
I think more of us have to remember that none of the above exists in nature, none of the above has a value more than what we place on it... society decides itself what is good, bad & indifferent but at the end of the day, its just opinion!

On a different note: Kia was on bird patrol yesterday - and then had a nice sunbathe in the garden, I can't believe how big she is getting! She looks so ladylike lying there! And yes, that's my opinion... :)

What a Day!

2006-06-07T12:22:00.000+01:00

and its only lunchtime! So far, I've managed to lock myself out of the house for an hour.... and of course because i've trained the dog not to open the front door, I had to faff around with sticks etc through the letterbox to get back in...

Yesterday afternoon, while out with the dog I fell and cracked my knee.. doesnt seem to be any damage but its badly bruised and hurting really bad! and now after the door incident my wrists and hands are killing me too.....

This afternoon has to get better!

2006-06-06T09:30:00.000+01:00

Haven't updated in ages.... seems to be much harder getting online when Stewart isnt working away, I can't leave stuff to do in the evenings any more which gives me less time through the day both for writing my own blog and reading other peoples....

I have joined a Boxer forum as well... (like i have time!) so I can speak to other boxer owners and get some reassurance about Kia, she is much better than she was but is still quite anxious if she sees other people or other dogs - when no-one is around though she is pretty much back to her ordinary self, which is great - she doesnt even notice cars going by now unless they are especially noisy!

Jewellery wise, I'm at an impasse... I have a design in my head for earrings, I have made these earrings 3 times now and I'm still not happy with it... basically I end up with 5 strands of wire which all need to be attached together and I cant get it tidy enough - I've tried looping, twisting & doubling back and i'm still not happy - might be that my design is too ambitous for my skill at the moment - we shall see!

I've been looking at supplies as well, funnily enough even though I have a drawer full of beads, none of them match the designs in my head - what can you do? Not letting these creative ideas out could do me some mental and emotional damage so in the interests of good health I have to buy some more supplies :D

Claim to fame....

2006-06-02T08:37:00.000+01:00

I never realised before how thrilling it is to get a mention on someone elses blog... but I'm on lythans (even in the title!) and it is thrilling (even though its a response to a cheeky comment I made).. especially since more people read hers than read mine so lots of people are reading my name (sad eh?) I probably need a life!

I've been up since 7am this morning.. daft dog woke me up by barking as the frog she was playing with in the back garden last night had gone (smart frog that!) and she was really upset... I think the dog needs a life too!

I've made 2 pairs of earrings but I may put them in for a challenge at Carolyns so I wont post pics yet, besides I'm not really happy with them... the idea is there, the basic structure is there but they are not very 'tidy' looking.... will work on them today! Why oh why have I been bitten by the jewellery bug?? I cant even wear the darned things!

Watched the last ever episode of Charmed last night... for the first time ever, I'm actually quite pleased with a series finale, tied up lots of loose ends (except for a couple which are only little) and was a nice happy ending - much better than the last ever Buffy or Angel - I was sooo disappointed with those! But thats it, no more charmed... ever.... except for repeats of course (i'm watching the re-runs on living tv during the day as I only started watching it in season 6) it seems as if all the tv shows i like are getting cancelled but they arent replacing them with anything good :(

Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr

2006-06-01T11:00:00.000+01:00

Its thursday morning, first day of June and I have my heating on! It's absolutely freezing... there is something seriously wrong somewhere with this climate, My SIL in australia - where it's winter - doesnt have her heating on yet..... maybe we should emigrate after all!

I have a few jewellery projects on the go today, hopefully they will be finished later and I can post pics... If i can get the hang of this, I may have a new product to offer when the postal changes come in - will have to sit down one afternoon and work out prices and whether its viable or not - I'm sure there are a fair few around who make hand crafted jewellery, so dont know whether there is a niche for me or not, will have to do some research!

Off to put a cardi on!

Down in the jungle.....

2006-05-31T09:47:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went down to Elizabeths to see her and Emma and baby lewen! Was a great day, I only had one shaky moment at the train station but the kids were with me so 1. I had to hide it and 2. as they were with me I got over it very quickly.

I love how expressive baby's faces get at this age, he's 11 weeks old now, he loves playing with his baby gym!

Liz had taken baby to get weighed yesterday and he has gained a whole lb this week... big difference from the 1/2oz last week but she doesnt seem to realise that's quite normal with breastfeeding. She stresses so much about it, its a shame! He's a happy contented baby!

Came down with a major headache though soon after we got home, and went to bed at 8pm - didnt wake up until 9am this morning! Wow, what a sleep!

Beads, beads everywhere...

2006-05-29T22:16:00.000+01:00

I've spent the entire evening making jewellery... its been great fun! 2 more necklaces to share!

I might have to learn more than the basics here.... I have great ideas in my head but just dont know how to translate them into jewellery..... what have i let myself in for????

Air show washout

2006-05-29T12:52:00.000+01:00

Well, its a bank holiday in england and its raining... no surprise there then! We were thinking of going to the air show in southend but its too wet and the pier is shut cos it got burned... again... and I only like watching it from the pier, gets too busy on the sea front... so we are not going!

Elizabeth is going out for lunch so cant go down there, maybe later, i dont know how long she is out for!

I made my first bit of jewellery last night... not too bad for a first attempt, i think i could maybe get into this :) The necklace is just beads on wire with a screw clasp at the back and the earrings are dangly.

BBQ season...

2006-05-28T19:40:00.000+01:00

Just back from a family BBQ to celebrate Stewart's niece's 1st birthday, how time has flown! Was a fun day, i can't believe how many little ones there are around now after my 3 were practically on their own at that age......

They've gone from having 1 cousin as they were growing up to having 6 (the other 5 were born in the last 2 years!)

I love this pic... Mmmmm chocolate!

2006-05-28T09:58:00.000+01:00

Well, my Auntie Christine caught me on the hop yesterday... I got a phone call saying she and her friend would be over in 10 minutes.... total panic stations! I wasnt even dressed, and my craft table was a mess as I'd been playing with AI's all morning, that'll teach me!

Anyways, she came over and it was lovely, they both looked through all my cards, bought a few, looked at all my bits and I made a couple of cards there and then for them... was fun! They were also very impressed with my vase and couldnt tell what it was made from :) We didnt manage to get down to Elizabeths to see the baby as Stewart was knackered from working away and she doesnt know if she can do another day, which is a shame as I dont know when Elizabeth can get up to Glasgow next. But we can cross fingers that auntie christine will manage to get down there while shes here!

Emma arrived at Elizabeths safe and sound yesterday... still seems very strange to have her down and not staying with me but I suppose I cant be greedy!

On the Alcohol Ink front, here are the pictures of the pc cables, these cables come from inside the computer but they inked up a treat.... the scans dont really show the details very well on some of them... This is one that I cut up to just try but it would work on longer ones too!

I'm awake..... so am I!

2006-05-27T10:07:00.000+01:00

I've woken up in two minds this morning, which is a very interesting experience (would be even more interesting if I could be 100% sure it wasnt a prelude to a psychotic episode).

I've always found it fascinating that humans can believe in 2 contradictory ideas at the same time but this is the first time that I have consciously been aware of doing it! My thoughts as I awoke went something like this:

Yay, stewarts not working away any more
OMG stewarts not working away any more
Whoo hooo my aunt and sister are down
OMG my aunt and sister are down... i need to weed the garden
Hooray its the school holidays
OMG its the school holidays

Both thoughts were going at the same time, but slighty out of synch iykwim... was very weird!

In fact, is very weird, as its still happening.... I'm having 2 trains of thought simultaneously as well as the song "what shall we do with a drunken sailor" going through my mind.... I wonder if I'm possibly still asleep.. that would explain a lot!

I also awoke with lots of inspiration as to what I can use my alcohol inks on next.... I'm still tempted to give stewarts car an AI tatoo - its a white ford focus estate and is just crying out for a dash of colour on the bonnet - but I know he'd kill me! I would be the first AI martyr in history.... I have been doing some experimentation with peel-offs and have had some good results, still need tweaking but i'm very pleased so far.

As you can see, there is slight bleeding, but still a very interesting effect!
It works with shapes too.
I will have to try it with a coloured background and the great thing is that you can re-use the peel-offs afterwards and they are lovely colours instead of just plain gold or silver!

I also AI'd some old computer cables, very nice effects, would make lovely belts. I will post pics of them later!

Vase

2006-05-26T12:56:00.000+01:00

Well, here is my Vase in all it's glory! Fabric conditioner bottle with the top cut off, covered in alcohol inks and decorated with 3 old buttons. I'm quite pleased with it even if I do say so myself! and the great thing is it's waterproof!

Ugh!

2006-05-26T11:35:00.000+01:00

Ugh my throat hurts, my head hurts, my nose is running for britain... my legs ache and I almost fainted on the stairs and twisted my ankle stopping myself falling down them...

I can't get ill! My aunt comes down today and my sister comes down tomorrow - still dont know what day they are coming here on but I need to tidy up and I need to weed the front garden and its raining and i dont feel well and the house is a tip...

ugh ugh ugh! Pass the Kleenex!

On the bright side, I finished a vase last night, made out of an old Fabric Softener bottle and ALCOHOL INKS - oh I love alcohol inks! Will post pics later, the batteries have disappeared out of my camera... b****y fairies!

ugh ugh ugh! Pass the Kleenex again!

Box anyone?

2006-05-25T16:38:00.000+01:00

Today just got better as it went on... Went out with Lythan to Artbase, gotta love craft shopping and I bought my first Quickutz dies (mosaic tiles) have already cut some out, some more alcohol inks (cabin cupboard - great browns) and some other bits. I made up some backgrounds using the new inks then cut them into tiles with the quickutz, havent made any cards yet though....

Then I spoke to my sister and we made up, she wasnt very happy but she realised that I hadnt meant to upset her so we are talking again... phew thats a relief! I dont mind confrontations but I hate misunderstandings hanging over my head, I much prefer to sort them out right away rather than let them fester...

I finished decorating my persil box... dont know if i like it or not, I'm not really into vintage antiquey style which is what this has turned into but the technique worked so I can try with other styles :D

This is a closeup of the top of the box. I used some vintage images that I had printed out for a friend - She makes some stunning cards using these!

This is a side view of the back :D

Bear in mind that this is what it looked like before I attacked it with my alcohol inks! These boxes are difficult to cover as most paints dont completely mask the writing/pictures/colours of the original packaging. So I think it worked quite well!

foot+mouth=me

2006-05-25T09:18:00.000+01:00

Why oh why do I speak without thinking? I would say 99% of the time I think very carefully about what I say and who I'm saying it to but the 1% where I just open my mouth and say what I'm thinking is the 1% when I really can't afford to...

Yesterday I really upset my sister, I didnt mean to upset her - in my clumsy way I was just trying to reassure her but I didnt think about what I was saying and how I was phrasing it and now she's not speaking to me... Basically, she is quite stressed about breastfeeding and doesnt think baby is gaining enough weight, so she gave him a bottle of formula milk and she was saying that she is going to give him one bottle a day... then she started saying that maybe he wouldnt gain more weight that way and I said "yes he will gain more weight, of course he will, bottle fed babies do gain more weight than breast fed babies cos the milk is full of s**t" - what I meant was that because the milk contains more fat and sugar (cos its easier to regulate what goes into formula milk than breast milk) he will be bound to gain more weight - i wasnt saying this is a bad thing although the expression i used makes it sound like that - it was just an expression, not a very nice expression but still just an expression - it wasnt meant as a critisism. But she took it as a critisism and hung the phone up on me, when i tried to ring back she wouldnt answer and when i tried again later she still wouldnt answer, so I left a message trying to explain and to apologise but she hasnt rung me yet.

usually I would rationalise things to myself and phrase things to sound positive whilst still getting the message across but she caught me at a really bad time and I'm having a bad week anyway so I didnt think and just phrased it as it occured to me.

She didnt give me a chance to explain that although formula milk is full of s**t, so is breast milk, it has to be - babies need fat, sugar, salt, carbs, protein etc it's what makes them grow, so it wasnt a critisism! The reason babies gain more weight on formula milk is because all these things are measured, whereas in breast milk they are sporadic depending on what the mother eats - so its quite common in breastfeeding for a baby to gain 1/2oz one week and 12oz the following week - they still get all the nutrients they need but in a different way. I've never been a follower of weekly weighings for babies anyway, especially for breast fed babies - once a fortnight or once a month is enough - you can tell in between these times yourself if the baby is happy and growing.

I really really didnt mean to upset her and I just wish she would phone me so I could explain that and tell her how sorry I am that I did upset her!

Ho Hum

2006-05-24T08:50:00.000+01:00

Connor got up this morning looking like he had swallowed 2 cadbury's cream eggs - whole! So he's off school today, I cant wait for him to have this op, then hopefully all these days off school will stop!

Spent most of last night playing with my alcohol inks - I just love 'em! I'm trying out new techniques covering a Persil box so that the writing is completely covered, looking good so far! I wish they would hurry up and sort out the packaging so I can get more colours.... even though I have 2 sets, which is 6 colours - I feel very limited... need more now!

Stye it!

2006-05-23T08:24:00.000+01:00

I've woken up this morning with a hugely swollen eye... and I cant blame hubs for elbowing me in his sleep cos he was working away last night! What a bummer! My eyes have been pretty good lately, minimum redness and hardly any scratching of them and now I get this... not sure what it is though, I cant see any lumps or spots or styes though I cant see very much really its almost swollen shut. Its the bottom lid right beside the tear duct on my right eye, maybe that has got blocked somehow.... it is really hurting! Maybe if I feel sorry enough for myself I will start crying and then it will unblock :)

Had a very easy time this morning getting the kids off to school... very worrying! Nobody lost a shoe or a schoolbook or a tie or a bag or even a hairband, fairies must have had a night off last night - either that or they targeted my craft table which means I won't be able to find anything when I go to make stuff! The fairies still haven't returned my bone folder (which is ok as I bought one at Birmingham on sat) and my small paper trimmer and the base of my bow maker - I wonder what they do with all this stuff?

Birmingham Bash....

2006-05-21T12:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went up to Birmingham with Lythan, Susan and Adele to meet lots and lots and lots of other crafters from Carolyns... What a brilliant day!

I was dreading it so much, even though I knew i was going to be with other people so wasnt going out on my own as such, but I can't remember the last time I seen that many people in one place so it was a bit nerve-wracking! I coped fine until it was time for the demo's, they had to be set up right beside the door so all the chairs were set out and everyone starting sitting down and I could feel my breathing rate go up so I had to get out quick... think I barged right past a few people to get out before it got blocked completely... I spent that time in the kitchen and in the smoking room, which was nice cos I got to chat quietly to a few others who were popping in and out and once everyone had started moving again I was able to go back into the hall.

Have to admit, it was a day full of highlights - Meeting Nicki from switzerland was brilliant, she is an amazing person - full of vitatlity and a personality that hits you as soon as you see her. Meeting Nicola from canada again was brilliant, I never thought I'd meet her once and now I've seen her twice! I'd love the chance to just sit down and have a proper talk and get to know her better though.... In fact, I could probably say that about everyone there though... there just wasnt time to have more than a quick natter which was annoying in a way!

My ticket was first one out on the raffle which was amazing... to reach the age of 36 never having won anything that involves a draw and to then get picked first was beyond my powers of description.. I think a few people noticed my excitement though.. I was sooooo thrilled. The fact that I came home with a Quickutz was a bonus, I'd have been just as happy with a pen!

Lisa was a gem and totally knocked me speechless by giving me a hair pin that she had made for me, it was stunning and I love it but what I love even more is the fact that someone who doesnt know me went to the trouble to design and make something for me - I dont think she will ever realise how much it has affected me, I felt like crying when I got home and showed it to Stewart... Its not great big assaults from therapists and doctors which pierce emotional armour, its little sniper shots like being given a present by a stranger who cared enough to make it that will bring it down and I think thats probably the most profound thought I will ever have! And now that I've thought it, I realise that it's not the first time a gesture like that has affected me emotionally, there have been quite a few... which is worrying because how many more would it take to render the armour useless? Perhaps when I reach that stage, I won't need it any more which is a comforting thought!

All in all, for me, Birmingham was a complete success and even though I had a few shaky moments I got through it without a single panic attack and I really enjoyed myself. I'm so glad I was stubborn enough to make myself go even though I was dying to drop out!

NHS Success!

2006-05-19T23:30:00.000+01:00

Took Connor to see the specialist today, had to get Stewart to take the day off work as I dont think i would have got there on my own.... but i'm glad that I did cos he really pushed the doctor and got a firm decision made!

They are going to take out Connor's tonsils, his adenoids and put in gromets! Finally, something is being done. There is a 5 month waiting list but even if it takes the full 5 months then he will be all finished at the beginning of yr 6, so he will have that year to catch up as much as he can in his final year at Primary school before going up to seniors!

He seems really pleased about it too, bless him, he's quite looking forward to spending a night in hospital, especially as I'm allowed to stay with him. His previous 3 ops were all day cases so he hasnt spent a night in a ward since he was born! He thinks its quite exciting and he's an old now at general anasthetics so he's not concerned about that at all!

I hope they get an appt out soon!

Scottish Windows

2006-05-16T12:09:00.000+01:00

This is a really old one but I love it.

It illustrates some of the finer points of the Scots language...

Windows Recall

It has come to our attention that a few copies of the Scotland version of Windows 98 may have accidentally been shipped outside Scotland. If you have one of the Scotland editions you may need some help understanding the commands. The Scotland edition may be recognized by looking at the opening screen. It reads WINDAES 98, Ye Ken, with a background picture of William Wallace superimposed on a St. Andrews Cross. It is shipped with a Mel Gibson screen saver. Also note the Recycle Bin is called 'The Bucket.' My Computer is called 'Thon Computer Thingie.' Dialup Networking is called 'Phone the Bhoys.' Control Panel is known as 'the Dashboard.' Hard Drive is referred to as 'the tractor.' Floppies are referred to as 'thae wee plastic disc things.'

Other features:

- Instead of an error message you get a windae covered with a picture of a neep.
- OK = 'ats fine'
- cancel = na na ma loon
- reset = Och ye'd be as weel startin again
- yes = Och aye
- no = nae chunce mon
- find = if ye'd bothered to pit it past in a safe place, ye widnae need to look for it noo
- go to = go'n ower 'ere
- back = back the wye
- help = geese a haun'
- stop = pack it in
- start = com on 'en
- settings = sittins
- programs = stuff whit daes stuff
- documents = stuff I hive done afore

Also note that Windaes 98 does not recognise capital letters or punctuation marks.

Some programs that are exclusive to Windaes 98:

- Pincil an paper...........A word processor
- Colourin book.......a Graphics program
- Addin machine......calculator
- Andrex......notepad
- Jukebox............CD player
- Photies.............A graphics viewer
- Tax records.........usually an empty file

We regret any inconvenience it may have caused if you received a copy of the Scotland edition. You may return it to Microsoft for a replacement version.

I understood all of this!!

2006-05-14T09:16:00.000+01:00

After a weeks hard cleaning and housework, i looked round my house with pride .....and noticed that it looked like a tornado had hit it.

5 days cleaning + 5 mins of a non-school day = utter chaos

Now there's an equation that's on a par with anything Einstein discovered. If they ever write a manual for parents (and imho it is badly needed by some people: I name no names) that should be on the first page!

Actually, it should have a chapter all to itself. Another chapter could be dedicated to "Fairy's". Now all parents know what I mean here but non-parents probably don't, so I will explain. Nobody EVER is responsible for anything. Drink spilt on carpet? "wasn't me" "wasn't me" "wasn't me". Of course not, the fairy's did it. Every bit of money you have in the house poked down the toilet? "wasn't me" "wasn't me" "wasn't me". Of course not, the fairy's did it. Have bad PMT and need chocolate worse than an addict needs their fix?? Guess what? the fairy's have eaten the last of the chocolate, and the biscuits, and the sweets, and the crisps.... in fact the Fairy's can go through an entire "treat box" 5 minutes after you have unpacked the shopping, and of course NO-ONE in the entire house has eaten ANY! Fairy's did it!! These are your 'general' fairy's... you also get 'specific' ones... the most prolific being the "Sock Fairy". This is the one who lives in the washing machine and steals one of every pair of socks you put in there. From hearsay and experience I have to say that this one also targets households where there are no children. Then there is the "Shoe Fairy", "Shoelace Fairy", "Key Fairy", "Pen Fairy", "Scissor Fairy"... I could go on and on. If anyone is reading this you will be nodding, you know what I'm talking about here. We have an especially nasty fairy in our house at the moment who waits until the children have picked up and put away ALL their toys (because of course they are good children and do that every time they finish playing) the she pounces and empties out the entire toy box, she even gets out toys that they weren't playing with, just to get them into trouble. How nasty is that? I think she had friends over today, there was evidence of the "dirty clothes under the bed" fairy, "sticky marks on the wall" fairy, "cut bits of paper into teensy weensy little bits and scatter over carpet" fairy, thankfully they didnt bring the "scribble felt-tip pens over wall" fairy - last time she turned up I told her I would stamp on her if she ever came back. I think she got the message!! Oh, I just remembered another 'resident' fairy, the "use every cup for one drink" fairy... she was around a lot today, I know that because not one single person in this house today even had a drink! Not only did that fairy use every cup immediately after I washed them but she also worked her way through six 2lt bottles of juice. Wow, she must have been peeing all day, looking on the bright side she must have stopped the "replace full toilet-rolls with cardboard tubes on the holder" fairy from getting in, as I havent seen her around today yet, probably tomorrow. I think I will set up some spy cameras and catch these 'fairies' in action, then I could sell the pictures and get some recompsense from them abusing my hospitality all these years, or I could invent a "fairy catcher" .... hmmm yeah that might work!!

Family are like buses....

2006-05-11T08:37:00.000+01:00

You go months without seeing any of them then 2 come at once!

My Auntie Christine is coming down to visit her friend who lives about 10 minutes from me on Friday 26th May, and my sister is coming down on the 27th May - now my auntie will be staying with her friend and my sis is staying with my other sis.... I remember the days when they all came and stayed with me! Not that I'm complaining, cos i'm not - they will still come and see me and I will go down to Elizabeths to see emma and then I will get to see my nephew too! I have a funny feeling though that they will both come out to mine on the same day, suppose it means i will only have to tidy up once :D I told auntie christine that I was looking forward to her coming down as it meant I could show her all my craft bits and my paper and she was remarkably unimpressed! She'd better be more impressed by the time she gets here! My baby cousin has bought himself a brand new car! How is this possible? I'm sure he's only 4!

2006-05-07T12:19:00.000+01:00

Still havent managed to make it outside very far... Its so frustrating, I can take the dog a walk and I can go out with stewart and/or the kids but I cant get by the end of the street on my own without panicking... I should be past all this by now - I was past all this! I don't know whats brought it on and I don't know what to do about it.... I suppose I just have to go back to the beginning and start again, set myself little goals and just increase the amount every day!

Swings & Roundabouts

2006-05-05T14:54:00.000+01:00

Well what a two days its been so far! Still havent managed to get to Romford looks like it will have to be tomorrow which is awful, i can think of much better things to do on a saturday than walk round a busy shopping centre especially if its as warm as it is today!

Took Connor to the hospital yesterday and they decided to suction out his ears and scrape his ear drum... poor wee man, he was very brave even though it hurt him, I felt really proud of him! They didnt like the look of the eardrum - it has receded and is crusted with infection - so we have to go back in 2 weeks for the Consultant to look at it and decide whether to operate or not. I think they will go for the op... which will be better for Connor but I do feel for him, this will be his third op on his ear - he's only 10! Anyways, his ear was really hurting him after that procedure so i just brought him straight home and it was still hurting him last night and today so he's off school today... again! Hopefully if they can get this sorted he wont need so much time off, he worked so hard to catch up after all the time off the last time his ears acted up and now he's falling behind again.... its such a shame!

Today i'm running round in circles and getting absolutely nowhere... house is a tip, i have outstanding orders, website needs updating and i have heaps of stuff needing photographed and I cant seem to get anything done! Everytime i start one thing i get called away to something else, its like a conspiracy! I wonder who's cursed me now... even just writing this entry, i've been called away from the computer 3 times... its just not right!

Better get back to work i suppose.. hubs is coming back tonight instead of tomorrow which is great but means i lose a working evening... what you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts!

First entry in a new blog!

2006-05-03T11:09:00.000+01:00

Well, I have decided today to start keeping a blog... I'm still not sure why but hopefully reasons will become apparant as time goes by! I get very uneasy when I dont know the 'whys & wherefores" of certain actions and I am afraid that every entry in this blog will start with "Why......" but we shall see and hopefully some answers to some of the "whys?" will show themselves.

I probably couldnt have picked a worse day for starting this as I am supposed to be in Romford shopping but I remembered that it's Market Day today and although I am much better at going out by myself, market day in Romford is designed to give anxiety even to someone who doesn't have Agrophobia and the fear of people/crowds that I have.... I may have to go tomorrow which will be complicated as schools are closed for Polling Day, although Daryll has to go in for one of his SAT exams and Connor has a hospital appointment but that will still be better than leaving it to Friday which is again a Market Day....

Time I went and explored all the options on this blog site... lots of links to click on and see what they do!