Friday at last!

Well I can't really complain...I did have yesterday off as well! Work has been a little calmer since the BMedSci has managed to hand in his thesis. The only thing of note is that I had my meeting with the boss (Prof Malcolm Reed) and he agreed that I should have my permanent post confirmed (we have a three year probationary period as university lecturers) which is great news. I just need to get the Director of Research and the Dean of the faculty to sign the paperwork and everything will be fine. I have written a powerpoint presentation for a talk I will be giving in three weeks time, and today we went out to lunch at the very nice Chinese Restaurant to celebrate my PhD student going on Maternity leave.

Yesterday we ended up going to Meadowhall...talk about amazing...I haven't managed to go there for three years. Now, we didn't go to every part of it...in fact we only did one end, but it was very successful. I bought a pair of boots, which are my birthday present from my parents, and we bought Alex's Christmas present, a convection heater, a new phone, some matress protectors, a graphics card, 7 rolls of wrapping paper, some kits for making crackers, some stickers, and investigated strollers (which will be our family Christmas present from my parents). It was a pretty successful trip and Alex behaved beautifully, only crying once because he was hungry, so we fed him and then as we were walking around he drifted off to sleep. Perfect.

I have had such a lovely Mummy time with Alex this evening...he has had me in stitches as he has been laughing at the strangest things...including me rustling some paper, playing rowing with him, tickling his tummy, and making silly noises. It has been the greatest of fun and he really didn't want to go to bed.

I have done a little crafting over the past few days, but not as much as I should have done...I have only finished 60 Christmas cards and I have another 20 to do. Instead I started on the bookmarks that we are giving people for Christmas...this is the front of one of them...the back is a disaster and needs re-doing!

Yesterday I recieved a lovely ATC from Doreen (Momiji) which is a cross stitch Christmas tree with little beads to represent baubles...I think it is a lovely ATC and I am thrilled with it. Anyway, must go as my son is yelling. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Exhausted and glad it is over!

The past two days have been totally mentally exhausting! I have been frantically editing the BMedSci thesis which has to be completed and go to the binders by 10am on Thursday morning. I have now done all that I can, in that I have read through the entire thing and made corrections/suggestions etc where relevant and it is now up to the student to finish it off in time and as to how good a job he makes of it in the end. Lets hope he does well as he has worked really hard this year. The photograph above is of some normal human breast tissue stained with an antibody to semaphorin (a protein involved in regulating blood vessel formation) which he stained as part of his degree. The brown indicates semaphorin staining in the normal breast milk ducts and in some blood vessels.

Alex has been my little ray of fun throughout this time as cuddles with him have made everything seem so much better. He is interacting more and more with his environment and is beginning to spend time sitting up, but only when he is sat on the floor in front of my lap. After about a minute he suddenly seems to realise what he is doing and the potential for a game and throws himself backwards into my lap. All good fun! Bath times are getting splashier than ever and although he is still looking really tired, he has been sleeping more in the last two nights. I really hope that he learns to sleep properly.

In the past two days I have actually managed to make a couple of cards which was great. They are very similar with one being a paler version of the other. Both of these cards used the StampsAway rose and music stamps with the rose being stamped onto white card then coloured in, then layered over with a scrap version before the card was then stippled all over using two colours. Finally the music background stamp was applied and the scrap paper peeled away to reveal the rose. This central panal was then mounted onto either a pale pink card or dark red card and then applied to an A6 card with a yellowy parchment card edged with ink.

I am really pleased with the effect of these two cards and they will be perfect for two friends who are musical...one sings and the other plays the violin. Anyway, must dash now. More soon.

Love,

Caro

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Weekend!

I was so tired at the end of last week that all I wanted to do this weekend was collapse in a heap. In reality there were a number of jobs to do and I didn't have as much time to myself as I would have liked as Alex was really unusually tired and grumpy. He hasn't been sleeping very well again and as a result is becoming really moody during the day needing lots of attention and cuddles. I don't mind as I love spending time with him, but it does make doing jobs like washing up and hoovering rather difficult. We had to lower the mattress in his cot as well this weekend as he has become too mobile for it to be safe and he is trying to learn to sit up.

Alex and I have had so much fun together despite him being so tired as he is making a greater range of extremely funny noises including a sort of shriek (not in pain, just because he can -he giggles immediately afterwards!), Darth Vader heavy breathing, and numerous giggles, grunts and shouts. I try and read to him immediately before his bedtime feed each evening and on Sunday night he had a fit of giggles over the pig noises I was doing for him.

My desk and craft area have been such a complete mess that I have done very little crafting this weekend, but I did succeed in re-organising things so that I can now see the desk again and will be able to craft tomorrow! The only bit of crafting I did was this ATC that I owe Angela Clerehugh for her lovely Splat! This was done with a background card that I made a few days ago and then embellished with angel kiss flowers, a dragonfly brad and a rub on. I hope she likes it!

Isn't it wonderful when things turn up at just the right time? I have had such a tough week that it was lovely, a real treat, to find this cute card lying on the door mat for me on Saturday morning. This card was sent to me by Lindsay as part of the CM&PC forum's send a smile scheme where we each send one person a card each month. Brilliant!

I also received a wonderful ATC from Kerry Knowles on Saturday which was very special because she used the flower image from the business card that I sent her. That's all for now. More soon.

Love,

Caro

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Night time antics!

OK, so I wont bore you with work...it happened, I got through it and I came home on time. Yipee. All I can say is thank goodness it is the weekend as I am so in need of a break! What I did want to tell you about was our little monster, aka Alex, who after being really very still in his cot has started moving around so much that he got himself to the foot of the cot and underneath his changing board and then yelled in the middle of the night because he was stuck. Needless to say we aren't going to be able to keep the changing board on there any longer and are going to have to rethink the room a little bit as it is too small for the changing mat to live on the floor. Our little boy is growing and developing. We had another lovely evening together tonight with him chattering away to me and playing well. He also sat on my lap for a happy 10 minutes while I sorted the post and watched him screw up a scrap piece of paper. He got most upset when I tried to remove it from him so I could go and give him his bath.

I haven't done any crafting today, after Alex goes to bed we are going to spend the evening together watching a movie and eating nice food. I hope to do some crafting over this weekend, maybe even finish the 80 Christmas cards that I have worked out we need. I did however receive some fun crafty post. This ATC is by Angela Clerehugh who has called her stitched creation 'Splat' and it is so much fun...I just love the googly eyes! More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Boring Work, but fun evening

Yes, work was soo boring today that I actually dozed off at my desk. OK, so it wasn't really the fault of the work I was doing, rather a case of tiredness...I was up at 5am today and as a result was somewhat tired come 3.30 this afternoon. At least that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. I have to confess that it was while editing the BMedSci thesis that my eyes began to close..oops! The other job today wasn't much more exciting...I was photoshoping some scans of Western Blots, black and white images from experiments where proteins are run on a gel as above. The photoshoping was to remove the rather scruffy writing and replace it with some typed text ready for it to be put into a poster/manuscript/thesis.

The evening was much more fun. Alex and I had a great play time and he was actually trying to sit up and trying to get himself into a sitting position from lying down by all sorts of contornionist movements! He has been not quite homself and off his food for a couple of days so it was great to see him back to his usual smiley bouncey self and we had great fun rolling, bouncing, singing, cooing, laughing, crawling (still backwards) and generally enjoying ourselves thoroughly.

I did a little bit of crafting in mostly completing a further 8 Christmas cards, which just need the stars and angels stuck on. I did receive some wonderful crafty post in the form of these fabulous bookmarks from the swap that was organised by Lottie Middleton. I was honoured to receive one of her fabulous oriental bookmarks with an original gold drawing by her on one side and a Japanese stamped image on the other. My other bookmark is from Dawn Martindale and is a completely different style which is great, I love the fresh colours and the flowers on this one. It is so special to receive two completely different bookmarks and I will very much enjoy using them. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Most annoying!

I hate it when I have to come home late from work and even more since Alex was born. Today I had a meeting on the other side of Sheffield at 4pm, which although it finished on time meant that I got back home very late because of the traffic. Sadly this meant that I missed my special Mummy time with Alex, although I did get to bath and feed him before bed. Just as well that the meeting was a good one and worth it.

I was too tired to do any crafting tonight so I spent my time catching up with the news on the CM&PC forum. I will leave you with this lovely remembrance day ATC based on the poem entitled 'The inquisitive mind of a child' from Dorothy Wilmot. It is a beautiful ATC that I was thrilled to receive today. More soon.

Love,

Caro

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A surprisingly nice day!

I know I haven't been blogging daily for a while, but the past few days seem to have yielded some nice photos and more craft work than normal so I thought I would try and blog more regularly. Today, although it was a work day, I had no meetings so I was able to come home at lunchtime and work from home in the afternoon. Despite Alex being around, which was lovely, I did manage to get all my work done, so it worked very well from both angles. It was very special to spend that extra time with him. Sadly he wasn't so well today...he didn't sleep well last night and has been a bit more sensitive and grumpy than usual. I did manage to get some lovely giggles out of him this evening though during our special 'Mummy playtime'.

I know I was supposed to be making Christmas cards after Alex went to bed, but I got a little sidetracked and made a bookmark and card instead...actually that isn't fair...I did manage to make a further 8 Christmas cards as well! The bookmark shown above is similar to the ATCs I made yesterday with the same background and music stamped on it on both sides, then one side has flowers and the quote and the other side Autumn leaves and a quote. The photos are from before I laminated it, which worked perfectly. I think that I will be making some of these for Christmas presents this year.

The card is based on sketch #39 at CPS, and is for Shiela and Paul, who gave birth to Katie about 2 weeks ago. This is for me to send to them with Katie's present as I have already sent a proper card. I am quite pleased with the doodling on the bottom of this and the way the teddy bear stamp fitted perfectly. The doodling also makes this card relevant for the Scrummy Stash Cafe blog challenge this week. Anyway, that is all for now, so more soon.

Love,

Caro

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Rain, Snow and Fog

Talk about miserable weather, it was actually snowing overnight here in Sheffield. Fortunately the ground was so wet and then it started raining so the snow didn't settle, but it seems a bit early for it! Then to top it all off, we had to drive through thick fog to get to work. Mind you that isn't the only fog around....my brain is completely fogged too. I have spent the day editing the BMedSci thesis and I have had it. My poor student is tearing his hair out as despite my (and my bosses) warnings he has left it to the last minute and he is really feeling the pressure now poor guy. I really hope that he pulls it together as he has worked so hard that he deserves a first, but I am not sure whether he will manage it...I will just have to wait and see. As my work is about blood vessels in tumours, I thought I would share this picture with you of a newly developing blood vessel formed in a laboratory culture dish...pretty cool I think, but then I am sad like that!

Alex has been fun today...we had great fun at lunchtime when I went home to feed him as I put him on the floor to play while I made our sandwiches and within the space of 30 seconds he had got from one side of our 12 foot dining room to the other, by going onto all fours and then collapsing alternately which moved him backwards. It was hillarious to watch! I have loved playing with him this evening as we have played with bubbles, read stories, bounced up and down, made silly noises, rolled on the floor together, been drawing and generally had a very silly and great fun time.

In my crafting time this evening I decided that I wasn't going to make more Christmas cards and for a change made a couple of quick cards for use for anything. These both used pale purple card, mulberry paper and some rub ons. I was quite pleased with how they turned out considering how quick they were to make.

I also received some craft post today in the form of these two lovely ATCs. The first one, 'Simply be' is by Angie Farr and I love the layering up of the patterns and colours to make this very intricate ATC. The second one, 'Autumn Leaves' is by Jan Matthews and is a really beautiful and subtle ATC using a resist type technique and then raised leaves added to it. Anyway, must dash now. More soon

Love,

Caro

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Save me from Space Age Cars!

We currently have a hire car while our car is at the garage being fixed following the prang and it is a nightmare. This weekend is the first time I have driven it and I can see why Tim has been complaining about it all week. It is a Voltzwagen Passat, diesel estate, which in itself is fine, but it has all sorts of buttons and gizmos and doesn't even have a proper key. In order to get the car to start you have to insert the gadget (for want of a better word) into the slot in the dashboard while you have pressed the break and clutch all the way down to the floor, forget either of those and it wont start. Even wierder is the handbrake which is push button and supposedly has automatic release when you get the clutch and accelerator correct. This is amazingly tricky to do and is very strange when you are used to the normal lever style of handbrake. You can end up revving the car and not going anywhere or stalling it really easily. It also doesn't always engage which is a bit alarming as you can expect to take your foot of the brake and remain stationary and the car rolls forwards. AARGH! All in all I will be very very glad to get our car back again.

We have had a good weekend at home with shopping yesterday when it wasn't wet and did the housework enabling us to be nice and free to play today. I have made the most of my time with Alex and we have played all sorts of games, he has been crafting with me again and his drawing is no longer just lines across the page on the backswipe from hitting the desk but more deliberate drawing on the page (and the desk beneath!). He is a little off colour still, being more in need of company and cuddles than normal, but we have still had a lovely time together and I do enjoy the cuddles. He is very tired though as he isn't sleeping enough during either the night or day despite our best efforts.

Today I have had a lovely time crafting, in between looking after Alex, and I have made 12 more Christmas cards (running total of 44) as well as this card for my student Kerry who goes on Maternity leave at the beginning of December. She doesn't know whether she is having a boy or a girl and so I used the blocking technique to put both colours on the background of the card and then stamped little teddies onto butterscotch brayered background paper and coloured their tummies and ears using gold mica powder. To finish the card off I made a buggy out of a circle and added the edging in gold, buttons for wheels and stamped the word Baby in different colours. I will take it into work tomorrow for everyone to sign it.

I also had time to make a few ATCs today as well. This is a set of three which I am going to call Floral Music as the background is stippled with dark pinky red and yellow and then music is stamped in butterscotch over the top. Each card is then finished differently. The first one uses Simple Expressions Floral 5 stamps, with the flower in the background and the words in the foreground in darker red. The second one used Hero Arts real leaves coloured in autumnal colours and other leaf stamps for around the edge and the final one used a transfer of a rose, a dragonfly brad and an eyelet in the corner (set using my crop-a-dile) with funky thread. I am really pleased with this set and it is nice to have some available for swapping with my forum friends. More soon.

Love,

Caro

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Shouting and banging

I have a banging headache at the moment, after an exhausting couple of days at work. I have spent much of the time continuing to edit this thesis, which is proving really hard work. There is a fine balance to be found between editing it so that it is good, well written science, and remaining the students own work. It is a balance that I have in the past found quite hard because I want my students to do well. This student is bright and should get a first, but his writing style and the fact that he has left things to the last minute are letting him down severely. I am currently wading through the materials and methods which are all over the place…too much detail in ‘baby talk’ in some places (I did this, then I walked across the room to do that – OK so I exaggerate, but not much!) and not enough detail in others. The photo is of my desk at work, half way through editing Chapter 2. I have to say that come 4pm today I gave up and decided that I needed the weekend off and will tackle it fresh on Monday morning. It is definitely time for some Alex therapy!
Alex has been so funny in the past few days. For some reason he has started to shout a lot, not upset shouting particularly, just loud shouting because he wants to! Then he will alternate the shouts with blowing very sloppy raspberries and growling. The growls are part of why he still has the nickname ‘Monster’, and a very cute little Monster he is too! I have had such fun playing with him in the evenings, doing all sorts of different little games to entertain him, including rolling on the floor with him, tickling his tummy, trying to sit him up and then catching him when he falls over (this makes him giggle more than anything else), pulling funny faces, making animal noises (this either puzzles him or makes him giggle), blowing bubbles for him, playing the bouncing game and reading to him. It is great therapy for when I come back home tired after a days work. He has started to get himself onto all fours and rock backwards and forwards on his hands and knees so I don't think it will be too long before he is crawling properly. I wish he would learn to sleep though…he now sleeps from 6.30pm-10.30pm when he wakes for a feed and then sleeps from 11.30pm until 5.30am at which point he decides it is morning. Totally exhausting as during the week I can’t go back to sleep again after feeding him at 5.30 as there is no time. Oh well, I hope he will grow out of it eventually.
I have spent my crafting times either investigating Alcohol inks, as Tim is going to give me some for my Christmas pressie, or making Christmas cards. The running total is now 32, which isn’t bad. I did give myself a bit of a break from them though to make these two ATCs! This uses the blue and silver caught in crystal background from before and layered it over blue card with green edging and then added Hologram stickers of dolphins which look like they are actually swimming, and some other fun stickers. Have a nice weekend everyone. More soon,
Love,
Caro
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Brain dead and soggy!

I am totally exhausted and my brain is completely fried! I have spent most of the past two days at work reading and editing my BMedSci students thesis. He is a very intelligent man who is older than me(!) and is doing this as a year out in the middle of his medical degree, however, I have to say that it has been very hard going. This thesis has to be finished and at the binders on 28th November, and I have no idea how he is going to manage it as there is still so much to do. I have only seen the first chapter of four, and it needs a lot of work. I think the reason I found it so hard going was because the order of the writing is so muddled and the writing style isn't easy. I don't know what it is, but I think that medics just don't understand how to 'tell the story' they seem to write in 'bullet points' and phrases, not proper sentences, which makes for very difficult reading. I have finished Chapter 1 now, thank goodness, so will give it back to him tomorrow for correcting.

Alex has been so funny over the past few days, he really doesn't seem to know whether he is coming or going. Yesterday he was in a fantastic mood all day, and then today he seemed to be permanently tired coupled with grumpiness and hyperactivity by turns. As a result this evenings bath was very very splashy and I am soaked! It was great fun though as he was giggling like mad while soaking us.

I have had success with crafting over the past two days, as I have now made 24 of my Christmas cards! As I am not going to show them here (they are the same design as before), I will leave you with a cute photo of Alex asleep in his bed...for the first time he rolled over onto his tummy to sleep. He looks so peaceful and quiet, which is quite rare for my very happy and active little boy. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Weird day!

Today has been a very odd day. I went to work this morning knowing that our car was going to be collected for repair and that a hire car was going to be dropped off. This had all been arranged for 10am this morning so that Tim would be able to collect me at lunchtime in the hire car so that I could come home and feed Alex. While at work the power kept going off and my laptop can only survive for 45 minutes without power so this started to cause some problems, and then the hire car didn't turn up in the morning, so we decided that I would work at home this afternoon. This meant that when Tim came to collect me at lunchtime (in our car) he was in a really really bad mood. The hire car finally turned up at 2pm and then our car was collected at 4pm. I did actually manage to do some work this afternoon, despite Alex not being his usual happy self and in fact I sent Tim and Alex to bed for an hour while I worked in the study.

Alex has had a fairly grumpy and unhappy day today...he has been off his food, and thrown up quite a lot and generally not been his usual happy self. The mood swings have been amazing, happy giggling and laughing one minute, growling but content the next and then screaming abdabs the next. However, I did have some nice quality time with him this evening after I finished my work and we played in his gym, he did some 'drawing' with me and we had a lot of fun bouncing.

I received several ATCs today which was lovely. The Christmas swap ones arrived from Germany and I received the Christmas pudding from Joshua Wade (aged 6), the Patchwork star from Luc William Brunton (aged 11, I think) and Snowflakes from Janet Matthews. I love all of these. The teabag folding for the central snowflake is great and I must have another go at this technique at some point. So many techniques and not enough time!

These very cute dalmations are decoupaged and are from a new member of the CM&PC forum, Emma Ryder. This is hopefully the first of many swaps that I will do with her.

Last, but not least I received this very cute New Years Cherub from Joanne Browne, I love the additional effect of the folded flower in the corner.

I now have an hour to myself in which I hope to get on with some of my Christmas cards...will let you all know how I get on. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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Success!

It has been a very successful few days.. We have spent the time turning our house back into a home, putting away things that have accumulated all over the place, vacuuming from top to bottom, playing with Alex, eating yummy food, going for walks and I have made loads of ATCs. Alex’s cold is finally improving…it hasn’t gone yet, but he has been much more his normal happy self which is wonderful. He still hasn’t learnt to sit up by himself as he thinks that toppling over or throwing himself backwards to be caught by me is the greatest game ever! I introduced him to bubbles yesterday and he thought they were great, if a little puzzling because they kept bursting!
Crafting has been really successful as I have managed to catch up on all my ATCs that I owed people, clearing the decks ready for making Christmas cards. These three have snowmen stamped using the free stamp that came with Papercraft Inspirations, embossed in black on white card and then coloured in using the mica powders to give a nice shimmery effect. The snowmen were mounted on some blue and silver caught in crystal background acetate and then layered onto different backgrounds. I think that although they are similar there are enough differences to make them interesting.

Kerry Knowles, who I have swapped a lot of ATCs with, very sweetly decided to make one using my crafting business card and so as an exchange for that I have made her one out of the thank you card she sent me. I just love this stamp from Simple Expressions flora 5 and think it works really well over the top of the rose. I hope she likes this one.

Angela Clerehugh, who has been organising the alphabet swap asked me if I would do another letter K for someone who has joined in late, so I made this K is for Kangaroo using a photograph of a Kangaroo in mid jump taken from the net. I printed it out with a black background, mounted it on gold textured card, and decoupaged the image of the Kangaroo, before adding the letter K and the word written in gold. A fairly simple but effective ATC.

I wanted to make an extra ATC as a thank you to Lottie Middleton who is organising the bookmark swap and so knowing that she likes Oriental things I made this Oriental butterfly using a similar base to before and an image of a butterfly and a text plaque from a decoupage sheet that I had on computer. I hope she likes it.

Finally I have completed the next three letters (M,N&O) for the Alphabet swap. I was dithering about what to do for M, but in the end had to go for Mickey Mouse as he is a firm favourite of mine. The image was taken from the net, but the background was drawn by me using Whisper marker pens. I like the way this one has turned out.

N is for Nappies was really Tim's idea as I couldn't think of anything and he made the suggestion. I made the background in photoshop using two photographs of branded disposable nappies and layering them over each other. I chose pale blue for the large letter as it went with the picture of the terry nappy that was decoupaged on top.

O is for Owl was the final choice, although it was a close run thing with O is for Octopus. I just love Winnie the Pooh and so decided that Owl had to be the way to go. I wanted to find a good picture of Owls house for the background but failed after spending ages trawling the net so I used the picture of a party inside Owls house instead. I hope whoever gets these cards enjoys them.

I have had a lovely week off work, spending time with Alex and getting things in the house sortedand back to normal, and I have to say that I don't really want to go back to work, but these things happen. Hope all is well with you all. More soon,

Love,

Caro

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