Sunday 29 June 2008

What a weekend!

I think this has to be one of the most disappointing weekends that I have ever spent. Tim and I have spent all the time on the Incapacity Benefit form trying to cover all our bases and say exactly why we think the decision to stop his benefits is wrong based on evidence from our daily lives. It is taking hours and is thoroughly depressing. No-one likes focussing on what they can't do which is what is needed and so it has been getting us both down. We are at the end of the weekend and it still isn't finished. It is so hard to catalogue all the ways in which Chronic Fatigue Syndrome affects Tim and his responses to different things are so variable that it takes hours to document fully. Poor Alex has been left to his own devices more this weekend than I would have liked although he doesn't seem too bothered by it. When I have had the chance to play we have had the greatest of fun giggling and running round like crazy. We also went to the park which he loved, and although he spent much of the time pushing his pushchair round he also practiced his walking and splashing in puddles! I just so love being his Mummy and those giggles and big broad grins of his just melt my heart.
On Friday evening I insisted on having a little time to myself to craft and had fun completing this scrapbook layout. I am not very confident in working with paint but decided to have a go using a 'dry brush' technique and three different colours of blue and white to generate a wave/surf effect for the bottom half of the page. I supplemented that with some pen strokes using the sakura stardust pen and then added sequins and shells (most of which were collected from the beach. I chose the title of 'Natural Pleasure' to reflect the simple pleasure that Alex and I took spending time together on the beach - we didn't need any 'equipment', just being there was enough. The journalling reads 'Alex and I loved every minute of our time on the beach, West Wittering, May '08'.
The only other crafting I have done this weekend was to finish off an A5 zentangle (or doodle as Tim insists on calling it) while watching a little television. This I then cut up to form these ATCs and inchies. I have never actually made one of these before and found it quite fun, although it was hard to find a variety of interesting shapes to use for someone with my limited drawing ability! I am quite pleased with how they have turned out and hope they will be good enough for the swap that is happening on the CM&PC forum later this year. More soon, and I hope I will be able to report that we have finished this wretched form!
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 27 June 2008

A mixed bag...

...of experiences and emotions this week. Poor Tim has had it tough with spending a day stuck at the job centre trying to find out about other options, then trying to get an appointment with the Citizens Advice Bureau (like finding hen’s teeth) and spending hours trying to re-submit evidence for a reassessment of his incapacity benefit application. I have been helping him with the latter in the evenings and during my day off (not the best way of spending a day off), spent all of yesterday at a conference in Leeds, and most of today in meetings. It has been a crazy week and I am quite glad it is over. All being well next week will be less bitty and more focussed and I can finally finish some of these many tasks I need to do. Spending time with Alex in the evenings has been a life saver. He is so much fun and yesterday we spent about 20 minutes with him giggling madly over some silly little thing I was doing. I just love that infectious laugh...it makes everything so much better and worthwhile. He is still into playing the ‘Dat’ game; wanting to know what everything is. For some reason me stacking bricks up and counting while pointing at each brick in turn was the funniest thing in the world this evening. It amazes me what he finds entertaining at times and he is now able to explain what he game he wants to play by either a word ‘down’ – which means I have to say ‘up’ in a high voice when he is standing up and then ‘down’ in a low voice when he is crouching down, or by pointing at a particular thing or moving his toys in a particular way. It is great to see him improving in his communication skills in this way. Although helping Tim with the benefits form has taken quite a lot of time this week I have managed to make an ATC for a competition being held on the CM&PC forum. This one was entitled ‘recycled’ and we had to use recycled things on it...I had great fun making mine although I have to say I don’t think that I stand a chance of winning as it looks like something that you would make at school! I also managed to make this quick and easy card for Susie’s wedding. She was my bridesmaid and we are going down to her wedding in Devon next weekend. Having done dry embossing on Tim’s card I liked the effect so much that I gave it a go for Susie’s and combined it with corner punches and peel offs. I have also messed around with my new colour wash inks, this time using them on mulberry paper and stamping and embossing the images as before, then scrunching up the paper and re-opening it before spraying the inks over it and then re-scrunching. Finally I ironed over scrap paper to remove the embossing and was left with the batik looking effect...this is much more like batik material. I then turned these into ATCs. I would love to know what you think. More soon,
Love,
Caro
x

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Wedding Anniversary fun!

Well despite everything we decided not to completely ruin our wedding anniversary so still had a lot of fun. On Sunday we went out to the Butterfly House near Worksop which is lovely. It is contained in a smallish area so is not too difficult for Tim to wander round and we are able to feed the different animals which meant that they came nice and close for Alex to be interested in. He was most fascinated by a crazy rooster which came up and pecked at his pram and crowed right next to him. The ducklings were probably second favourite, especially when being fed. As usual I am sucker for pigs, sheep and goats and so had a lovely time feeding them.
Inside the tropical house itself Alex liked the fish best of all as there were so many of them and they were very active and visual for him. All in all it was a lovely trip out.
Yesterday we went out to our favourite Chinese restaurant for a meal. It was absolutely delicious and Alex was pretty well behaved which was a bonus. Alex and I also had a great time in the garden playing with his football...he didn't do so well at kicking it but loved to carry it around!
While Alex and Tim had a nap and I got to play with my new crafting toys...Adirondack colour wash inks and some Purple Onion Stamps. I made these three ATCs using the Tim Holtz Batik effect. I am quite pleased with this method and look forward to experimenting further.
I have also made the two ATCs I owe for an Oriental swap...just need to remember who they are for. Both of these used the Kimono stamp from Stamps Away and an Oriental background stamp. The mica colouring in on one of the Kimono Stamps wasn't brilliant so I decided to stamp and heat emboss directly onto a patterned silver card for the other one.
Finally I managed to make the two ATCs for an idioms swap I have joined in where you have to make the ATC resemble the phrase. I chose 'Raining Cats and Dogs' and drew raindrops using a sakura stardust pen and printed out the phrase, umbrella, cats and dogs from WordArt. I also chose 'Fashion Police' and went for strips and spots and clashing colours as well as the little clipart policeman. I hope that these will be OK for the swap. Must dash...masses to do! More soon,
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 22 June 2008

Sadly not such a great ending

I am writing this on Saturday and am somewhat fed-up as Tim and I received some bad news which has kiboshed our plans for the weekend and the foreseeable future. I don't really want to go into detail, but the bottom line is that Tim's incapacity benefit has been stopped which puts us in a tight financial situation. We were planning lots of nice things for this weekend as it is our Wedding anniversary on Monday, but sadly we may have to scale things down. This also means our plans for putting fencing in the garden to make it safe for Alex will also have to be put on hold. Naturally we will appeal this decision as it is totally unjust but the appeal process can take 6 months, so it may be next year before the garden is sorted.
Alex has been a bit more grumpy than usual these past couple of days, partly because he is tired and not sleeping very well, and partly because he is picking up on our stress which is a shame. I have made a real effort to ensure that he is getting lots of love and attention and we have been having fun together in the evenings. He still loves walking around carrying large objects and I think that Kath's suggestion that it helps him balance is probably correct although you may doubt the wisdom of it when you see him carrying a pillow that is bigger than he is!
The only crafting I have done over the past few days is to make some presents for Tim for our anniversary. He is getting two computer games, but they are ones that are downloaded over the internet so in order to give him something to open on the day I have made him this set of cards to stick to his monitor. They are 2inch square and are of images of the different races from one of his computer games.
The second present is an exploding box, again on a small scale. The outer box is one and a half inches square! I have never made an exploding box before and am quite pleased with it. Again the images are screenshots taken from this computer game. Must dash.
More soon,
Caro
x

Wednesday 18 June 2008

A good start to the week

Well this week has got off to a much better start than last week. Everything at work is back to normal so I will just put last weeks mishap down to stress and leave it at that. Work is very busy at the moment and I have three papers to write (2 review articles and a data article) as well as a paper to edit (already written but needs a bit of sorting) so this is keeping me out of mischief. In contrast to last week today I was taken out for a coffee in starbucks and was given some real compliments and confidence boosts and offers of support from someone I really respect and think highly of (my former PhD supervisor) so that was wonderful. Apart from that I have had a grant to review for the MRC which has been a lot of hard work but totally fascinating and caused me to investigate some new areas of research in order to do the job thoroughly.
Alex is highly entertaining as usual. He is so proud of his new ability to walk that he is practicing at every opportunity and wanders round the house in a somewhat wobbly manner. He is falling over less often now and usually only because he is tired or giggling while walking away or trying to run (which he can't yet do!). He still insists on trying to carry large objeccts round which doesn't help. He also entertains me no end with his constant stream of chatter and says 'light' everytime we are near one and asks 'Dat?' while pointing at most objects we come across. I so love to make him giggle and laugh and we have a lot of fun rolling round on the floor together or playing chase.
Crafting wise I have spent my time making Tim's anniversary card as it is our wedding anniversary on Monday. For this I chose to have a go at making a swing card with a heart shaped middle. This was my first attempt at this style of card and I am quite pleased with how it has turned out. I used dry embossing round the edge which was a challenge to line up as I don't have a light box and the heart was in the centre of a free embossing board I had been given. I chose to keep the colours subtle but with pale green (as green is Tim's favourite colour) and silver for the embellishments. As usual I would love to know what you think. more soon,
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 15 June 2008

Weekend fun

Well this weekend was certainly better than the week. We had my in laws round on Saturday which was lovely. We had a yummy meal (cottage pie and rhubarb crumble) and Alex behaved himself beautifully despite not having his usual lunchtime nap. In the end he fell asleep in Grandpa Pete’s arms. Very sweetly Pete and Kath actually came round to see if they could help with some of the jobs around the house and garden and left with much more of an idea about what the various jobs would entail (plumbing, fencing etc). We will have to wait and see whether they feel that they will be able to help with them as I think all the jobs were bigger than they were anticipating.Apart from behaving well for his grandparents Alex hasn’t been having the best of weekends... needing constant attention and inclined to yell and scream at the slightest thing. He hasn’t been sleeping well so is probably overtired, although we don’t know why he isn’t sleeping well. We only pray that he gets better and gets back to his normal happy self. The times he is happiest are sat on my lap playing with my things (pens, pencils, rubber, ruler etc) which somewhat hampers my ability to craft or compute as he tends to hit the computer keys. We did get to the park in between the rain showers today and although we were slightly damp Alex did enjoy the swing and slides, although best of all was pushing his pushchair around. He even ventured some walking unaided there today. He can now walk the length of our kitchen plus extension some 40 steps which pleases him no end. Tim has also taught him a new trick, of making a noise and rubbing his hand across his lips to make the noise wobble. This he finds most amusing and it makes him giggle, especially when we do it too.
Despite having a clingy boy I have managed to make a couple of scrapbook layouts this weekend. This first double page spread uses as many photos as I could of our various trips to West Wittering Beach. It is ages since I have made a page which used so many photos of different sizes so it was quite a fun challenge. I kept it simple with stamping the title and subtitle, putting a journaling box on the page and only decorating with peel offs and shells picked up on the beach. The journaling reads ‘ Alex loved every aspect of the beach; playing in the soft sand, crawling on the hard sand, splashing in the tide pools, crawling in the sea, growling at the waves and of course trying to eat everything! In fact he loved it so much we went back every day of our holiday as shown by these photos.’ I would love to know what you think. This next page is of Alex and Tim rough-housing happily together on our sopha at home. The page is entitled ‘Rough and Tumble’ and the journaling reads ‘ Alex and Tim have so much fun during their games of rough and tumble. Alex’s giggles and happy squeals of laughter are wonderful to hear’. Sadly the handwritten journaling went a little wrong, but apart from that I think that this page is quite fun. Finally I have made two sets of inchies. They are very quick to make if you keep them simple and about the only thing I can manage to do with a small boy sat on my lap. These two are both Disney, one is the ‘Princess’ set, and the other ‘Cars’. I like the contrast of the truly pink and girly with the cars. Have a good week everyone, More soon,
Love,
Caro
x

Friday 13 June 2008

What a week!

This week has been one of the toughest at work for quite a while. It is hard to explain but the bottom line is that someone decided to have real go at me on Tuesday morning about my commitment to work. It is rare that I have been spoken to like that and for the first time in ages (since doing my PhD) I was left feeling that I wanted to quit my job. I know that it was mostly because the person concerned was stressed but that is no excuse for speaking to me like that. Fortunately since then this person was away and only came back in today. I have been too busy trying to sort out my extra data for my Cancer Research UK grant and responses to the referees comments to even think about talking to them about it. I will just wait and see what happens next week. From past experience I wont get an apology so there is no point in asking for one.
On a positive note the evenings with Alex have been lovely, although sadly I had to work late a few evenings this week so haven’t spent as much time with him as I would have liked. He can now walk really quite well (up to about 20 paces round the room before going plop onto his bottom), although he still insists on trying to carry massive objects such as his toy bus when doing so! We have had the usual fun of building towers of bricks and knocking them down, chasing a football round the garden, and asking what everything is by pointing to things and saying ‘Dat’. One of his favourite games at the moment is for me to hold him in my arms and open and shut the door really fast so that it generates wind which blows in his face...this makes him giggle like anything.
Crafting wise I haven’t done so much this week as I have been so busy. I made this Fathers day card using some of Alex’s drawing for Tim. As you may have gathered, Tim is really into his computers so this image which I drew for my PhD these about 7 years ago seemed appropriate when highlighted with Alex’s drawing.
My poor aunt is really ill with Shingles at the moment and it has got in behind her eye apparently. Well I decided that I would make her a necklace to try and cheer her up. It is ages since I have done beading and I really enjoyed getting into it again. She often wears blue so I hope she will like this.
Apart from that I have made just a few inchies as they are so quick and fun to do. These ones were made using some background paper I made for some ATCs a while ago using the resist technique, I then added Oriental peel offs and coloured them using glitter gel pens. I hope you all have a nice weekend,
Love,
Caro
x

Sunday 8 June 2008

Busy weekend

Well, you certainly can't accuse me of lazing around this weekend! The house has been cleaned from top to bottom, the shopping done, 4 lots of washing done, Alex's old clothes sorted and bagged up, Alex taken to the park 3 times, two new scrapbook layouts completed and some inchies made, as well as the usual cooking, feeding, bathing, changing etc. It has been a good weekend and taken my mind off work which is well worth it. Alex has been hillarious giving us a running commentry on all the lights in every shop we went into, and then asking what different things are by pointing to them and going 'Dat' very loudly which we take to mean 'What is that?'. It is great to see him taking such a developmental step forwards. At the park he has been hillarious, as all he really wanted to do was spend the time pushing his pushchair round the playground with the occasional foray to chase his new ball. As a result he has got loads of exercise and is getting better at steering even when he can't see where he is going. He did go on the swing and into the tunnel too, but the pushchair is definitely this weekends favourite toy! Crafting moments have been snatched in the busy times, but have been fun resulting in a couple of sets of inchies. These first ones are entitled 'space' and are simply fun stickers on a glittery blue background. Tim loves them and wants me to make him a set to stick round his computer monitor! This second set is a real mixed bag using old stickers, gems, sequins and sakura stardust pens. I would love to know what you think of these.
I have really got back into scrapbooking again this weekend, although I have suffered a little from scrappers block, I used an old Pencil Lines sketch to make this page of Tim and Alex sharing time at the beach. The one time Tim came to the beach with us was the first time Alex met the sea properly with waves coming up to him. The title of the layout is 'Safe in Daddy's Arms' as Alex was happiest exploring the new environment with Tim holding him securely and these three photos reflected all aspects of that time.
This second layout captured the fun element of Alex being held by Tim and splashing lots with the water. I wanted to capture the dynamic feel of this photo so hand sketched the swirls and droplets which I cut out of patterned paper. These were complimented by the sparkly round gems and the mulberry paper background. This layout was entitled 'Splash' and the journalling reads 'Alex and Tim having fun in the waves on West Wittering Beach, May 2008'. As usual I would love to know what you think. More soon,
love,
Caro
x

Friday 6 June 2008

Making hay while the sun shines!

I have finally managed to find time to mow our meadow and to attempt to turn it back into a lawn! Would you believe that until this week everytime I had the opportunity (Alex asleep and nothing else pressing to do) it was raining. However, we now have a pile of hay (don't laugh) courtesy of a good strim, followed by a rake followed by a mow (with a very dodgy lawnmower) and a lawn that looks something approaching how it should (although it needs another rake). It has been hard work, but worth it as Alex now feels confident enough to explore over most of it and is very happy out there. We just need to get that fence installed as the garden is up a 6 foot drop.
What was a hard week at work has got even harder now as I have received 5 sets of referees comments for my big Cancer Research UK grant. I get the chance to respond to the comments but have to do it within 3 pages of A4 and by next Friday. As the reviewers comments take 8 pages this is proving very difficult but no doubt I will get there with some perseverance. I just hope that I get the grant after all this as it would be fantastic for my career. Any prayers for this would be gratefully received.
In my crafting time I have made another layout, this one using various pictures taken of Alex in our local park entitled 'Fun Adventure'. The journalling round the edge reads 'Despite not yet being able to walk, Alex still loves all aspects of our trip to the local park, especially the swings, slide, tunel and climbing frame April-June 2008'. The layout is based on a Pencil Lines sketch and the titles and circles came from the Hot of the Press my boy kit. As always comments are welcome.
I have also been inspired to make some more ATCs this week, this time using some new stamps I got. The theme of these ATCs is vintage travel and I am quite pleased with how they have come out. Must dash now, More soon,
Love,
Caro
x

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Having a busy time

Why is it that some weeks go smoothly and others are just a nightmare? These past few days have been a complete mixture. Work has been busy and quite difficult in places as I am currently trying to sort out data for a paper that I am trying to write for publication, sort out a mix-up with some histology slides that have been incorrectly labelled for another paper, resolve an issue with my former boss over a grant application, finish off editing posters for the School of Medicine Research day on Tuesday, get to grips with the impossible forms from HR and finance, and to try and undertake some actual experimental research! Talk about asking the impossible...I don’t think I have fully completed anything yet, but hope to get them all sorted out by the end of the week –famous last words! I have to say that all the work hassles are worthwhile when I get greeted with a beaming smile from Alex upon getting back into the car. In the meantime at home Alex is still not eating properly and spitting out anything that has the remotest hint of a lump (unless it is toast or cheerios that he has put in his mouth himself), which is proving very stressful all round. Things are improving slowly in that he is at least eating a range of foods again and not just fruit puree, but he still isn’t back where he was a few weeks ago either in terms of quantity or variety. Before this latest batch of not eating I had been stressing that he wasn’t progressing with his feeding, but have since been reassured by a friend that her son refused to eat anything with lumps in until he was 2 and it didn’t hurt him in anyway, so maybe I don’t need to worry too much. At this stage I am just glad he is eating again. In other ways Alex is developing very well...he is still tottering about (we are up to about 12 steps as the record), although as he is so fast at crawling he may not be as quick to improve his walking as some children are. He has developed a fascination with lights and looks up at the ceiling lamps and points at them and copies us when we say ‘light’. He also likes it when we switch the light off and on while telling him the appropriate word. This is definitely the latest craze as far as he is concerned. In terms of crafting I have been feeling very short on mojo recently and although I have managed to make my father’s day cards, each Dad is getting the same and I don’t feel that they are among my best work (although I am pleased with the little origami shirts!). I have completed this scrapbook layout of Tim and Alex playing in Alex’s baby gym when Alex was only 9 days old. I just love this photo and entitled the page ‘Daddy playtime’. The layout follows last weeks sketch from Pencil Lines and I decided that the photo said enough without me needing to add any journaling. I would love to know what you think. More soon,
Love,
Caro
x