Life with a Siamese Cat ............

........ is never dull !  Mia had a very quiet day yesterday, she snuggled up on my dressing gown most of the time and didn't fancy going out much at all.  But oh, didn't that change once it was our time for bed !  At that point she decided it was time to play, zapping round the house, tagging us, chasing and retrieving balls of paper (one of her favourite games) - okay, that was fine, but the next thing there was a loud crash from downstairs and Max (my son) and I rushed downstairs to find out what had happened, putting on all the lights and checking in every room.

Oh yes, I finally discovered what Mia had done - she must have been chasing a little fly or midge (I had heard her chunnering a little earlier in the evening) - and she had obviously jumped onto the windowsill in the front room to catch it, knocking over a large metal bowl and its contents, as well as completely shredding the net curtains !!!  (Not for the first time, I might add, but now completely beyond redemption and so I'll be ordering some new ones shortly - nets aren't my favourite decor but are necessary in our front room to provide privacy from the outside world ..... I already discarded the ones in our bedroom completely because Mia had ripped them too ...... not sure how long new ones will last though *LOL*) !

How can a creature as gorgeous and beautiful as this (err, the furry one in the picture of course!) .......

wreak this amount of havoc ......... !

Mia definitely keeps us on our toes and, like I say, there's never a dull moment.  As my husband says, there are cats and then there are "Siamese" cats and anyone who is owned by one will utterly understand and sympathise.  (I can highly recommend the very funny books by Doreen Tovey about living with Siamese cats). We've had glass nightlight holders knocked off the mantlepiece and smashed to smithereens (at 3 in the morning ..... now that was a grand way to be woken up!), the sides of the bed shredded, found a diverse assortment of goodies (pens, wire, paper, and other things we'd been looking everywhere for) pushed under chairs and sofas and she's an expert at sniffing out any wool I've got stashed away and tangling it into an unusable mess.  Not to mention her trick of jumping vertically onto the top of the kitchen cupboards, then dropping down suddenly next to you whilst you're making a sandwich!  But of course, we're all totally besotted with her and she gets away with "murder".  (Right now butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, she's all curled up fast asleep on her cushion on the floor next to me).

Well, what else?  Not a lot happening, artistically speaking, at the moment ..... any creative inspiration I've had has deserted me at the moment and I'm waiting for it to come back and visit again. Done some sock knitting, that's about all.  Mind you, I was laid up with a bad back for a week - not something I normally suffer from. All I did was bend to dry myself after a shower and that was it, obviously wrenched something I shouldn't have, and it led to several very painful days, dosing myself up with painkillers and keeping a hot water bottle against my spine.  The worst experience was when I tried to get out of bed one morning, I'd managed to roll onto my back, but I literally could not move and I ended up feeling quite panicky. Graham tried to help best he could (he has a permanently bad back so you can visualise the scenario - at least he understood how much pain I was in).. I kid you not, it took me 35 minutes to finally manoeuvre into a position where I could ease myself out of bed with a bearable amount of pain. I think it was the fact that Graham threatened to call the paramedics in 5 minutes and they'd stretcher me out and take me to hospital that made me have one last final shot at getting up. Not much fun I can tell you, but we did have a laugh about it afterwards.

This week I have a cold and sore throat, so I've been staying home and keeping warm - hopefully I'm on the mend now, but I'm fed up of all this not feeling 100% fit nonsense.

Attended a Remembrance Day Service with Lindsay on 11th November - it was the anniversary of our Dad's death too, so it was a particularly poignant and moving ceremony for us both. Hard to imagine that a whole year has passed since his death.

Then last week Lindsay and I went for a meal and to The Grand Theatre in Blackpool for a ballet performance of "A Christmas Carol".  Something a little different for us to enjoy, with all the dance, music and costumes.  We'll be there again next month too, for a Christmas Brass Band Concert, to get us in a festive mood.

So ...... better go and sort out some net curtains, I think.  Wonder what other mischief Mia has planned for us?

It's been a while .......

...... but life's been fairly quiet here for the past few weeks and I've done no crafting or journalling to speak of either.  Going through one of those uninspired phases that we all suffer from, from time to time.  However, things became a little more exciting last Friday when I was round at Lindsay's for a get-together and we ended up being evacuated due to a suspicious package on the nearby industrial estate!  Lindsay has written all about it on her blog so if you want to find out more, click here and check out her post "Best Laid Plans" of 5th October.  

As if that wasn't exciting enough, I discovered that Alfie Boe is due to play a concert at the Opera House next April (he's actually a local lad who many years ago before he became well-known worked in the TVR factory with a good friend of ours).  As Lindsay is a huge fan, and I rather like him too, I decided we deserved a treat to look forward to after all the unhappy times we've had recently.  Luckily, I was able to obtain a couple of good seats for us in the dress circle - most of the remaining seats were way up in the gallery (not the best place to be if you suffer from vertigo or don't like heights)!!!!  We have another beautiful Victorian theatre (The Grand), a listed building, here in Blackpool and they also put on a variety of concerts, plays, ballets and operas throughout the year.  We both enjoy the theatre and it seems such a shame not to take advantage when we have such lovely venues.  So we are now also booked in for two more concerts before Christmas ("A Christmas Carol" ballet production and a Christmas Carol brass band concert), just to get us in the mood for the seasonal festivities.  It's good to have nice things to look forward to.

Mia is as mischievous and lively as ever and has become an object of desire for some of the local "toms" - she may flirt and tease them a little, but that's as far as it goes - she wants nothing more to do with them.  Our Italian neighbours across the road have two or three young cats who were born to a stray they took in and they tend to spend most of their time outdoors.  One in particular is a real cutie, a little female tabby around the same size as Mia, and comes over to play in our garden with her most days.  Mia's quite happy chasing her about, playing hide-and-seek and stalking each other, but she gets very cross if "cutie" appears at the window and soon chases her away - the garden is fine but she's not having her in her house, thank you very much!  

I took these photos the other day when I spotted them by the pond through the bedroom window......

Well, this is the first time I've posted with the new-look Blogger and so far, fingers crossed, it's working okay.  I know Lindsay had some problems initially, but I think they're all sorted out now.  Why these sites always feel the need to constantly keep changing things, I just don't know ....... when most of us are quite happy with the way things are.  Ah well, I suppose they have to justify themselves by coming up with new ideas and designs (sigh)!

March Journalling

I've finished my journal pages for March with days to spare (that's a minor achievement for me at the moment!).  I created four pages, each with a separate theme around the word "dream", as instructed - with mixed results.  Not altogether happy with what I've done, but there you are, never mind - it's all about the playing with colours and words, images and inks, getting messy and losing myself for a short while.  I hope that, as spring is upon us and we head off into summer, I might lose some of the gloominess that's been hanging around for far too long and have some fun instead.

Dream Definition

On this page we had to add a definiton of the word "dream" - I know what I was trying to do with this page, add random images all over to illustrate the bizarreness of our dreams, where nothing is linked but then again it is - I used water-soluble wax pastels, inks, Glimmer Mist, stamps, Stickles, Dimensional Pearls - ended up far more fussy looking than I intended.  Plus I'd written all over the page as well and toned it down with some gesso, but still not happy with how it shows through - I don't like my writing (must do better next time!)

Dreams of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

We had to add the words Dreams of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow to our page and then write about something for each one.  I began my page with a coloured background using the water-soluble wax pastels again (a new acquisition that I'm enjoying playing with at the moment).  I adhered some torn out sheets from an old diary to the page and blended the edges with more wax pastels; I could then write about the dreams on these.  Added some stamps for illustration and a silvery moon with a sponge dabber.

The Dreamcatcher

Ali asked us to create a dreamcatcher on our page plus add an image to represent the dreamcatcher.  I cheated a bit (well, a lot really) as instead of drawing out or beading my own dreamcatcher, I dug out an old earring I had in the shape of a dreamcatcher (the other one has also been used in another art journal I worked on).  I've been wanting to use this image for quite some time as she looks to be such a wise old woman and thought this was the ideal page for her.  I love the colours on this page.

Dream Song Lyrics

We had to choose and illustrate some lyrics from any "dream" song we liked.  I chose these words from "Dream a Little Dream" by the Mamas 'n Papas as they kept going round and round in my head - seems this has been a popular choice for several others too.  I painted the background with acrylic paints and I've tried to keep it very basic to echo the Sixties style.  I'm much happier with my writing this time, even though my spacing was a little out here and there.

For April, we're going to be working on seven pages to illustrate each of the Chakra energies of the body, so that'll be a bit of a challenge!

Mia loves being in the spare room with me when I'm crafting or on the computer (actually, she follows me virtually everywhere around the house - no use me trying to hide from anyone, they've only got to spot Mia to know I'm not far away).  When she's not curled up on a cushion on the floor or rooting behind the computer after a ball of paper she's pushed underneath it, she's sat like this on the windowsill staring out and chunnering at the seagulls sitting on the lamp-posts and rooftops.  It's so funny to watch her.

A few journal pages

The time's flown since my last post I'm afraid ..... been dealing with quite a bit of "real life" stuff the past few weeks so haven't been able to do as much crafting as I'd planned.  Well, took Mia back for her checkup - all was fine - but it took her a good hour or so when we got back home again before she'd forgive me for yet another visit to the vets!

I've been running badly behind with the Art Journal 2012 that I planned on being involved with but have finally started to catch up and just completed all four pages for January (that had a sea/beach theme).  They're not very inspired (or inspiring) but at least I've done something and I can look back on them and see what I'd've done differently if I'd had more time, imagination, etc.  I posted a pic previously of the first page I did, these are the other three :-

For Week 2 we had to illustrate the quote about "memories lasting longer than our footprints".  I decided to use a copy of a photograph I took on holiday in Anglesey some years back - it was taken on a wonderful day by the sea where we gathered all sorts of beach treasures.  The paper I used to print out the picture was quite creamy so has given a softer (faded memory) feel to the scene and the shells and glass added to the bottom are some of the "treasures" I collected on that day.

For the third week's page we had to design a beach hut and say where we would like to put it.  I had this daft idea really to make a pink beach hut with wings, my version of a magic carpet, that I could travel around the world in and land anywhere I chose, maybe even travelling back in time to the days of the Victorian bathing beauties too!  Just a bit of fun!

Week 4 - we could create whatever we liked with a sea theme and add a four-line poem to it.  Living by the seaside, I've often stood on the promenade (not naked though *LOL*) and gazed out past the piers towards the sea's horizon, imagining the countries far beyond across the waters and taking in the sights and sounds with all my senses.

For the month of February we are supposed to work on our journals about 30 mins each day - I confess I haven't done this but I have at least made a start.  Firstly, we are creating seven different backgrounds which I think we will then be working on for the rest of the month.  This is just the first of the seven - a BLUE background - nice and simple, just used all my blueish TH Distress Inks sponged onto the page, spritzed with water then heat set.

So .... apart from selling bits and pieces on EBay and going to watch my football team ..... that's what I've been up to since my last posting.  Oh, and trying to keep warm too - we've had some ferociously bitter weather here, but thankfully though the ice has been quite treacherous, we've so far missed out on the snow, one of the advantages to living by the coast being that it often bypasses us on its way across the Atlantic and waits till it reaches higher land. 

Hope you're all keeping warm and safe and I'll try to not leave it so long till my next post.

I'm the Ogre !

Poor little Mia!  Last week I took her along to the vet's for her annual "flu" vaccine and when the vet gave her a health checkup she spotted some problems with her teeth - gingivitis and at least one tooth which needed to come out - even though Mia is so young, it's a problem that can afflict some cats (especially Siamese and orientals) due to an allergy to plaque.  Mia wasn't exhibiting any signs of pain or problems eating and there was nothing wrong at her last check up, so we had no idea.

So yesterday I had to take her along and leave her at the vets all day (she was whisked off to the other surgery in nearby Kirkham where they have all the latest surgical equipment).  Of course we were worried all day, having an anaesthetic and everything, and I couldn't collect her till 4.30 pm.  She was fine, she'd been very nervous of course, but had had to have 3 teeth removed at the back - the rest were fine with a scale and polish. 

Unfortunately I've now become the Big Bad Ogre ..... one look at me and Mia just fled the room and stayed out of my way.  I think she's just about beginning to forgive me a bit today.  Only problem is I have to take her back to the vet's on Friday for a check up so I'll definitely be back in her bad books ...... oops !

The start of a New Year

Well, I have to say that I wasn't too impressed to start the new year off with a raging toothache ..... a visit to the dentist on Tuesday resulted in a week's antibiotics to clear up an infection under the tooth (a wisdom tooth, which really is past its best I'm afraid) and if it flares up again (which it will eventually) it's bye bye, tooth!  Good job I don't have a phobia about the dentist as others I know have!  Tomorrow I'm off to see the consultant at Preston Royal for the latest check up on my dodgy hand, though I don't expect there to be any particular new solutions offered to the problem.  But that's enough about that.

We had a quiet but pleasant Christmas and New Year, hard to believe it's already time to take down all the decos tomorrow.  Mia has had a high old time climbing under and up into the Christmas tree, knocking baubles off and running of with tinsel bits.  She also decided to be my little helper on New Year's Day when I sat down to update my new diary and calendar for the year - as you can see ........

As I mentioned in my last post, this year I want to get back to being a bit more creative again and have decided to join in with the latest Art Journal 2012 project in Ali's Vintage ATCs UK Yahoo Group - each month there's to be a theme with a page relating to that theme to be created each week.  January's theme is "Life's A Beach" and the first page has to include these words and what they mean to me.  I tried to keep up with the prompts for the 2011 journal but didn't get too far I'm afraid so I'm going to see how I get on this year.  I managed to put aside a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to sit down and play/create and this is the page I came up with.  The book is a "Pink Pig" one, 8" x 8" with nice sturdy white pages, so provides a good base to work on.  It's a simple page - used TH distress inks for the sky, sea and sand, with white acrylic paint for the waves, a few stamped images and simple writing using Sharpies (thought I'd ease myself in gently)!

I'll try and post a picture of each page that I complete for this Journal - wish me luck that I stick at it!

Merry Christmas and a Happier New Year 2012

It's been a tough old year one way or another but now Christmas is almost upon us and we plan on making it a good one - it was dad's favourite time of the year so we should definitely be celebrating it, he wouldn't want us not to.

I received a beautiful Christmas gift recently from a good friend, Joanne - it's a lovely wall hanging consisting of three small frames decorated in some of my favourite colour combinations (and very wintry-looking).  I had thought of putting photos of Mia in it but then realised that the Crafty Individuals images (from their book series) would fit just right so I changed my mind and added three Christmas "angels" instead.  Here it is, now hanging on the living room wall alongside the fireplace, so I can view it every day.  Thanks, Joanne - I love it!

Last year Mia went completely silly when we tried to decorate the living room - she was quite happy for us to decorate the front room and hall with sparkly tinsel, Christmas tree, fairy lights and baubles, but when I tried to hang up tinsel in the living room she got very scared and refused to even come downstairs the next morning so it all had to be taken down.  Wondered how she'd react this year - well, she was again absolutely fine with the decos everywhere else, then we put up a very plain green garland (no sparkle at all) on the wall over the sofa, draped a couple more garlands around plus a wreath above the fireplace.  She gave it all the once over, went daft again about the garland over the sofa (which had to be removed), but decided that this year we could keep the rest of the garlands and the wreath up!  What a comic she is!

Looks like we won't be getting a white Christmas this year, in fact it's turned quite mild here this last day or two which doesn't seem quite right somehow, but at least it means we can get around quite easily without being snowed in!

I hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Christmas and here's hoping for good things to come in 2012.  For myself, I hope to get back into being more creative again as my artwork has rather been on the backburner for the past 12 months or so.

Mia and I wish Everyone a Very Merry Christmas

and Happy New Year 2012 !

Cat in a box !

We've been going through one of those spells I think everyone gets - when stuff breaks down and has to be replaced - has to come all at once, doesn't it, not in ones?  We had to replace the garage doors as they'd gone rotten and were too far gone (picture me, one wild and windy day, trying to hold the doors shut to stop them falling outwards onto the car and at the same time calling to Graham for help - who of course couldn't hear me, being round the corner and inside the house - enough was enough - so now we have a nice new up-and-over door that won't disintegrate in the wind and damage the car).  The toilet flush packed up and had to be replaced.  Graham's mobility scooter broke down, we thought initially it was the batteries, but turns out to be something else - to do with the computerised starting system or some such, don't ask me the technicalities - so that's had to go away to be repaired and won't be back until Monday.

Then the kettle began to leak so I checked out the Internet for a new one - we have a "whistling" kettle which we really liked so I needed to find the same one again .... the updated model turned out to be way cheaper on Amazon ..... so when it arrived, of course it was well packed inside another larger box padded with brown paper.  You've guessed it - naturally, Mia had to investigate, hop in, make herself at home and that was it - we are now currently living with a large cardboard box in our living room (along with an assortment of paper balls, feathers, wool, catnip mouse and tape measure - mine till Mia commandeered it - we find ourselves having to explain it all to any visitors)!

 Nothing "crafty" to show you today I'm afraid.  Haven't done more than a few ATCs recently and I can't show those yet as they're for a future swap I'm in.  Went to the Royal Preston Hospital last week for more tests on my arm (EMG) - this time both my arms and legs were checked out, with electrical currents, and I had eight needles also put into my dodgy arm, the unofficial result was that nerves/muscles were okay everywhere else and that my left arm/hand doesn't appear worse.  The consultant will get the full results in a few weeks.  In the meanwhile, I'm not so sure about this "not getting worse" bit as some days it feels as though it's deteriorated and right now it's not so good to the extent that I'm having to type using only one finger on my left hand or I'm making lots of typing errors due to the hand weakness.  Very frustrating and a complete mystery as to what's caused it !!!!  But enough's enough, best stop typing now before I completely wear my hand out!  Just didn't want you all to think I'd totally vanished into the "ether" ! 

A Bit of Art Journalling

As promised, I thought today that it was time I posted up some of the art journalling pages that I've created over the past few weeks.  I've been using prompts posted weekly by Ali Brandist on one of my Yahoo art groups (I'm playing about six months' catch-up!) and find them a really useful starting point for my pages.  So here are some that I've made - as you can see, they're mostly quite messy and collagey, quite different from my sister, Lindsay's, journal pages, which are far more artistic.

Ali used her pack of Angel Cards to select a message for each of us - this was mine, appropriately to do with new ideas and inspiration, something I was most definitely lacking in at the start of the year.  The background was distress inks over gesso, dabbed over with a scrunched up paper towel containing mopped up copper Krylon ink.  I'm a big Klimt fan so I couldn't resist using this image from one of his paintings for my angel, with the addition of a stamped wing.  (The hand is my own). 

For this page the prompt was "Word Inspiration" and I took mine from an old fiction book - both the cut out words and the written words.  I threw everything at this background - gesso, inks, blended oil pastels, stencilled punchinella, stamps, H2O paints, then collaged with a gyspy image, wings, butterflies and finished with Stickles and Beadazzles.

The next two pages are a double spread - "Silence Your Inner Critic/Develop an Inner Enthusiast" ..........

For the "critic" page I chose acrylic paints and inks for the background in dark brown colours, with a dictionary definition of criticism and stencilled cogwheels.  The Victorian lady reminded me of a very stern, bossy great aunt from my childhood and Queen Victoria provided another disapproving figure.  I used Dymotape for some of the words, handwrote others.

By contrast, I wanted my "enthusiast" page to be full of colour and liveliness, so I used a colour palette of orange, deep blue and purple for the background; lots of images of people dancing and leaping for joy, and again, a dictionary definition for "enthusiasm" and Dymotape, stamped and handwritten words.  I rubbed Distress Stickles over the harlequin stamp and other areas of the page.

All of these pages were great fun to create - the hardest part is always making the first marks on a page, but once you get going, you just don't know where you'll end up.

Well, that took me a lot longer to type than I expected.  I've been playing a game of Tag with Mia downstairs whilst I was brewing a cup of tea.  It's one of her favourite games, she creeps up behind me and tags me on the legs, then runs away, so I've been chasing her around the house as well - she loves it, it's kind of scarey and exciting for her, but safe too.  She likes to hunker down and leap out at me or run round the sides of a room, hunting me while my back's turned.  So when I came upstairs to use the computer, the game continued with paper ball throwing - over the bed, down the stairs, then behind the computer, under my chair ....... till she's tired herself out (or got bored) ....... and I can finally concentrate on finishing this post!

This week I have mostly been making .......

...... ATCs!  The mood came upon me (at last) and I had a couple of sessions, making a mixed assortment of cards, some for a specific swap (no theme) and others to build up my depleted stash.  Nothing too fancy or complicated, but it felt good to be playing around with inks and papers again.  Here are pics of what I made.

These two cards were made for a monthly partner swap (no theme)

  The next few cards are an assortment I've made to keep for swapping out on a one-to-one basis:-

"Bird Call"

Background created with torn page from telephone directory and distress inked.  Stamped bird and word images.  Words cut from dictionary.  Finished with heart embellishment, paper flowers and Stickles.

"Dream Time"

Background created with alcohol inks using a "Spinart" machine.  Girl stamp (Craft Stamper freebie) tinted with Promarkers and extra circles stamped and adhered around card.  Time Holtz adage ticket (Dream) distressed and torn, with added eyelet and ribbon tie.  Finished off with adhesive stones and Stickles.

 "Gorgeous George"

Alcohol ink background stamped with Paperartsy image.  Embellished with paper flowers, buttons and fibre.  Word 'gorgeous' created with Dymo machine; 'George' from clothes label.

"Playful Days"

Background created using papers from Crafty Individuals mini books and seagulls from CI-278 rubber stamp plate.  Beach belle image from a Somerset Studio free sheet.  Embellished with inked fibre, shells and Beadazzles.

The last ATC I want to show you today is one that I've made for a monthly draw in one of my online groups.  Each month there is a draw for ATCs, the winner takes all the ATCs that have been entered that month and chooses the theme for the following month - this month it's "Pigs" and as I do like pigs (I absolutely loved the mother pig with all her squeaking little baby piggies in the Woodentops when I was a child - anyone remember them?) and I remembered I had a 'pig' stamp lurking somewhere, I just had to make one.  So this is my entry for this month  - won't know till the end of the month who is the winner - but it would be rather nice to have a collection of 'pig' cards:-

I really love all the Steampunk art that's around at the moment and was tempted to join a swap for Steampunk ATCs, so I've had a go at making a few in that style this week - been rummaging around in my stash for old watch parts, metal washers, tiny glass jars and bulbs, anything I can lay my hands on that can be interpreted in a steampunk style, plus going through old encyclopedias I have with Victorian/steam/industrial machinery image in them (I picked up a set of 8 very old but not rare cyclopedias - yes, that's what they're called - for £3 at a car boot fair some years back and they're full of line drawings and maps).  So far I've made four cards and halfway through a fifth, but the swap's not due yet so I won't post any pictures until they've gone out.

Look at my little cheeky madam Mia having a good rootle around in my bin just now - she's obsessed with bits of paper so she's in heaven rummaging about amongst all the crafty rubbish! (Note the stack of dictionaries - great charity shop finds and an endless supply of words).

And what's this fearsome creature with the sharp fangs and gaping mouth ..... is it a monster or is it a devil?  No .... it's Mia, leaping up and attacking the strap of my camera!  (What a good game that was)!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get a bit more crafting done over the weekend, one or two different projects I'm starting on, plus slowly adding some more pages to my art journal.  Might be time to run another challenge/swap on the blog too - if anyone fancies it and enough people are interested in joining in.  ATCs - or something different ...... what do you think?

What a Waste!

Not been around a lot, I know, I know ..... can't believe how quickly the days are flying by, it's almost June already!!!  But I have done a "little" bit of art journalling, couple of pages, and a page for a story book swap that's been doing the rounds for several months now.  So I'm starting to feel like some creativity is weaving its way back into my life.

Anyhow, the title of this blog (and I do have trouble coming up with titles) refers to the day I've had as I had to travel over to Preston first thing this morning to the hospital for my appointment with the consultant regarding my weak hand and to find out the results of the two scans I had about four months ago.  Somehow I knew it was going to be a waste of time and money - after spending around £10 in bus fares to get there, the consultants' clinics were all running behind schedule and my appointment was over an hour late.  When the consultant did see me, basically he asked me if the weakness in my hand was same or worse (some days it's stiffer and weaker than others), told me the scan results had all come back as normal (no bumps or lumps for him to operate on), that he was referring me to the neurologist to see if there was any inflammation or suchlike anywhere (it's the radial nerve that the problem is with - but no-one knows what the cause of it is) and was discharging me from his clinic.  All in all, I could've been with the consultant no more than a minute!

All that wasted time sat around, not to mention the expense, just to be told something that I could have had in a letter - no wonder the clinics are all clogged up and running late!  How much more economical would it have been to send a letter out instead?  I'm sure these consultants must only look at their patients' notes a few minutes before they see them!  Grr!!!  Well anyway, rant over - at least I don't have the worry of surgery hanging over me, just got to see if the neurologist turns anything up now ...... whenever that will be, it's already been going on a couple of years now and no proper diagnosis of the problem so far.

So ...... better shut up, ignore the hand and get on with as much arty-crafty stuff as I can *LOL*!

Whilst I was in Preston I had a bit of lunch and a look round the shops, so as not to let it be a total waste of the day; popped into one of the bargain book shops and was leafing through a "cat behaviour" book.  I was amused to read that apparently some Siamese cats, apart from being very vocal, affectionate and with a passion for wool (oh yes, I know about that one!), also have the habit of urinating on their owners to get attention!  (Mia, you better not try that trick, thank you very much, or you really will be in trouble)!   She's actually curled up, very sweetly, on a cushion on the floor next to me right now, no doubt dreaming up new forms of mischief. 

The Pink Gents are on their way .....

The "pink gents" swap ended at the weekend and as I only had three participants, as well as myself (first cards I've made for ages!), everyone has received a card from every other person.  I swapped the cards out today and Graham has assured me that he dropped them in the postbox at lunchtime (first collection day after the bank holiday weekend).  Thanks to Joanne, Mel and Sonia for taking the time to join in this swap - you really came up with some interesting and amusing takes on this theme ...... here are pics of what they did!

Joanne Parkin

Mel Dunkley

Sonia Jones

....... and these are mine

I was also going to have a draw to win the "Dandy Gentleman" cabinet card which I created (see pics in previous postings).  As there were only three names to choose from, I decided to let Mia once again pick the winner for me, so this is what I did ....... first I wrote everyone's names on differently coloured pieces of paper and then scrumpled them up  into little balls.  Mia's absolute favourite game is chasing balls of paper up and down the hall and stairs, so I threw them along the hall to see which one she'd go for.

As you can see, Mia very definitely made her choice .........

..... and (drumroll please!) the Winner is ..........



Congratulations, Mel - the "Dandy Gent" is coming your way soon!!!



My Little Helper!

It's been a few weeks now since I last posted and I'm afraid not a lot (if any) crafting has happened in the meantime; my hand is still "dodgy" and playing up, making me clumsy and not easy to do a lot of fiddly work - or use the keyboard for any length of time!  One way or another, I think I'm definitely falling apart! *LOL*

Still, I wanted to join in the fun on Joanne's new blog for our crafting pets and took some photos of my little minx, Mia, helping me the other day when I was having a clear out in my "craft room" - I sorted out some old jigsaws and an assortment of leftover balls of wool to take to the charity shop.  I packed them all away neatly in a large plastic shopping bag, but it wasn't long before Mia sniffed out the wool (she's obsessed with it!) and decided to reorganise it all for me - would you believe, there wasn't a single hole in that bag before Mia started on it!  I came out of the bathroom the other morning and walked back into the bedroom, only to discover bags of wool strewn all across the floor and the wardrobe door wide open - she'd only nosed her way in and dragged it all out - it was so funny.  I've had to give her a ball of wool to play with and she's now proudly trotting round the house with it in her mouth, the ends trailing along underneath her - what a comic!

"Now if I could just move this ball here and put that one there,

I think you'll find that looks better!"



"If I lie very still, maybe no-one will know it was me"

"Agh, now this looks interesting!"

"And if I could just check it out from over here"

"Hmm, yes, definitely prefer this blue wool -

I might just have to move it into the light to get a better view!"

If you want to check out the antics of other "crafting pets", then please go pay a visit to Joanne's blog here.

What's this White Stuff?

During the very cold spell of weather we had last week, Mia experienced being out in the snow for the first time.  There wasn't a great deal of actual snow, but the flakes that came down were quite large and she enjoyed leaping up and trying to catch some of them.  I don't think she knew what to make of all that "white stuff" though! 

  

Check out the bushy tail - all fluffed up because of the snowflakes !



A few days ago we decided to put up the Christmas decorations - we set up the tree, tested the fairy lights, decorated it with lots of tinsel and baubles.  We put up garlands and tinsel streamers around the room and Graham festooned more fairy lights around the bay window in our front room.  All the while, Mia was investigating what we were doing - checking out the box of baubles, running off with tinsel, exploring under the tree, sniffing the lights - absolutely no problem, nor had she with the decorations in the hall.

Then we put up some tinsel garlands in our living room - well, what a pallaver that turned out to be!  Mia saw what we were doing and went and hid behind the television for ages, too scared to come out, despite all our coaxings.  After a while she made a dash for the stairs and hid in the bedroom, until I picked her up and carried her back down, wriggling like mad and "shrieking" - I cuddled her and tried settling her on my lap, but she kept peering up to look at the tinsel then immediately buried her head in my arms so that she couldn't see it.  I thought she was finally getting used to it, but then she spotted some on another wall and that was it - up she jumped and fled behind the curtains, before once more going behind the TV.  No matter what we did, none of us could coax her out.  It wasn't until we all came to bed and switched off the lights that she ventured out and came upstairs to spend the night in our bedroom (as per usual).

Next morning, all seemed well - Mia was as perky and playful as ever whilst we were showering and dressing, but refused to come downstairs with us for her breakfast.  Once again, we had to carry her down and once again she wriggled and screamed in fear.  Sooooo ..... that was it ..... the tinsel had to go!  I pulled it all down and Mia was happy again.  We just can't figure why she took so against the tinsel in the living room, but is absolutely fine with it everywhere else in the house - Graham believes it's because she thinks of the living room as her safe place (it's where she spent most time the first few weeks we had her) and was scared by the tinsel being in it. 

What a comic Mia is - never a dull moment these days with her around!