Appointments

I had an appointment today with the surgeon, I need to have an MRI scan as they think that a gall stone has moved into my bile duct. This needs to be sorted out before the gall stone/bladder can be removed, lucky me! Everything is happening so fast, I thought that I'd get an appointment after Christmas but no I'm going on Monday for the MRI, thats really quick, I'm not complaining.

Tomorrow we start doing our pre-christmas family visits giving out presents, they still need to be wrapped!  I should be doing that now but I'm not, husband is out for his christmas works do and I did say that they would be done this evening but to be honest I'm not in the mood.

This year we broke with tradition and put the tree in the dinning room instead of the living room, I'm not sure its right, but its to late to move it. Son called in tonight and said "Mmm thats different" not sure he liked it either, cant wait to hear what daughter thinks when she sees it. Strange how we like things to stay the same!

 

Busy

WOW! do I always start my blogs Its been busy? The New Year will bring a new start to my blogs, that my first new years resolution!

Christmas Cheer

Its been a really busy few weeks, helping daughter to get her place sorted and also visiting father in law more than we have done previously. Now he's on his own I think that most weekends will be like that,  shopping for him or just visiting. His only close family is us or a couple of cousins who have their own families.

I've not been feeling that great for a while and after some investigation at the hospital its been discovered that I've got a Gall stone! My OH spent his birthday yesterday at the hospital while I had a endoscopy, he did get tea and biscuits what more could you ask for. I have an appointment next week with surgeon to find out what is going to happen about the stone.

Tonight we are having the family over for dinner, so his birthday starts when he gets home tonight! This time of year is always busy for us as the 4 of us have our birthdays between the 10th and 31st of December we call it bad planning not family planning! Then sons girlfriend has her birthday on the same day as daughter so that 5 birthdays and I must'nt forget my nephew who is also in December!!!!!! anybody else that wants to join the family is going to be vetted  and no December birthdays will be allowed.

Last Friday we had the ERTF Essex Christmas meal it was really nice to get together socially. This lunch time the girls from my C&G class got together for lunch also a good idea as we had a good meal and had a chat. Not that its unusual for us to chat we sometimes spend the whole of Thursdays talking, although we've only known each other for a short time we all seem to get on really well and we have been talking about starting a group when the class finishes in June, it sounds very exciting! Tomorrow I'm off to the ERTF committee meeting, they are usually marathons, hopefully this one will be fairly short, we'll have to see I wont hold my breath!!!

While all this has been happening I've been getting on with my panel and also I'm getting close to finishing a double quilt for my brother and sister in laws 25th wedding anniversary next year, I've given myself a lot of time to get it done, I can do without any pressure at the moment.

Reading this back I sound quite fed up, I'm not apart from the stomach problems everything is great, and I really love this time of year even though on the 31st I'll be 53!

Bowled Out

It's been a busy time, The Material Girls have had their exhibition it all seemed to go off really well. Now I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do for the next one.

ERTF had their second conference it was a really wonderful day, I'm sure that everyone enjoyed it. The Monday before that my mother in law died, it wasn't sudden she had suffered for quite a while.

Last weekend my daughter moved out of home into a flat share with a friend, it was quite hard work, I've never known someone with so many clothes! When I go into her room here there are still loads of clothes left so the charity shops should do OK in the next couple of weeks. This is the second time shes lived away from home, last time it was while she was at uni, so I knew it was only for 3 years, this time it feels more final. I do understand shes moved back to where all her friends are, its not far away but I'll miss her.

Onto brighter things, last week I finally had my last sample and experimental piece signed off so now I can concentrate on the final projects. The wall panel seems to be coming along OK, I've lots of ideas but its getting them onto paper and then into stitch thats proving to be the problem, but I'll get there in the end!

The ERTF web site is up and running now so give it a look!

K&S

I had a lovely time today at the Knitting and Stitching Show, as usual I spent too much money and bought a few things that I really didn't need. There were lots of knitting wools a weakness of mine, I bought 2 lots of sock wool to knit my D and sons GF a pair each for Christmas, as D was with me she picked the colours. I also got the threads I'll use on my C&G project pictured in the last post, I'm hoping I've got enough. Oh, yes, I also took out a subscription to Selvedge, I've been thinking about doing that for quite a while, I usually ask for that sort of thing for Christmas but it never happens, so I treated myself!

I  went to Maggie Grey's stand, I introduced myself and said I'd bought her book and read her blog, my D was standing close by and said I sounded like a stalker, I'm not! I  just really like her work.

The K&S has become a bit of a tradition for my D and me, it started when she was away at uni and we would meet the for a bit of female bonding, since she's been living at home its carried on. Next month she's moving away again and will be living in North London she hopes!  it'll be like old times, next year we'll meet at Ally Pally.

Tomorrow we are putting up The material Girls exhibition and the private view is on Tuesday. When this week is over I can start thinking about the exhibition next September,  ERTF's first. I'll keep  you posted.

Lakeside Shopping

The day started off really well, we made a trip to Atlantis Art Supplies in East London for the first time. I needed a canvas for my next C&G project 'a panel' see the picture. This is 2 photographs that I took on holiday this year of a sugar mill in Antigua, I played with the displacement mapping on photoshop and a lot of help from reading magstitch.blogspot and came up with this. ( I will update my progress as I go along, promise). I couldn't quite decide how big I want to do it so I had to buy two, and of course the one I don't use will always come in handy.  A trip home dropped off the art supplies which I wont go into, but of course I really need them all! Picked up daughter then off to Lakeside on a sunday, always a bad move, especially when its raining it was packed!!

Oh how I dislike Lakeside on the weekends, especially when it turns out to be a wasted journey, we wanted to update my phone to an i-phone, it cant be done because I have just over a month to go on my contract, even though  its going to cost us a lot more, what's wrong with these people? We want the phone and are willing to pay more for it, but no the shop was right, when we got home my OH phoned 02 and it just cant be done. 

Then we went into the Apple shop OH has been going on about getting an Mac lap top instead of using the emac we already have, I was in agreement, but it turns out we where thinking along different lines he started looking at white ones I want black they are £300.00 more, so we are going to have to think this through again. He's going on about hard drives and gigabytes I'm thinking of how grubby the white will get. I do agree with him that why pay more just for the colour. By this time I'm starting to losing the will to live. 

Meanwhile daughter is looking for a jacket and phones to tell us that Yo Sushi has opened up since our last trip to LS, we decide to have lunch there. When we finally get a seat, we place an order for  the dishes we want and pick a couple of dishes off the belt as it passes by, we notice that a half of the dishes we have ordered haven't arrived, Daughter decides to call the waiter and cancel them. So not a fruitful trip to LS, well it was for D she managed to buy herself a really nice jacket.

Roll on next weekend Knitting and Stitching show the kind of shopping I like.

Sorry for the rant.

The Material Girls

Its not long now till the exhibition, I've only got to get the sketch book finished and then I'm ready. Back to college on thursday for the second year of city and guilds I'm looking forward to it, I hope to post more this year and put pictures of my work on the blog as I go along. I always have good intentions but I get distracted by other things!