Eeeek!

Eeek its only one day until the start of December and Journal your Christmas. So I thought I'd better get organised ... went to my box of Christmas papers, thinking I had plenty.... eeek.... there are hardly any papers there. I had a major clean out last year. Thinking I should have checked before now. Panic panic..
I shall have to go tomorrow and see if my local craft store has any - not exactly holding out much hope for this though, stock is often limited. If not I shall have to order some online, so probably won't get started on my album until late in the week. So much for being organised!!

Some good news is that I get the pin out of my toe on Wednesday so should be more mobile then and hopefully feeling better. I am blaming my toe for my lack of enthusiasm for anything much at the moment!!!

Thought provoking!

We were shown this video last night at Andrew's school parents night. I thought it was very thought provoking. We are living in a world that is constantly changing and we have no real idea of where or how fast future change is coming. Technology has become so much part of our everyday life. When I think back to when I was a teenager and we got excited about getting the phone installed and getting colour TV, there was one TV in the house and Dad controlled what we watched! Now I have a mobile phone beside me as I type this on my laptop. We have two TVs in the house and many many DVDs to watch. Both kids have mobiles, Nintendo DS (as do I!!). We have a playstation and a Wii. There is so much choice and often the boys need  to be encouraged off their electronic toys to do other things. Life seemed simpler then!

Christmas is coming

Yes, Christmas is definately coming closer. Yesterday  I received a lovely parcel of goodies, one to open each day during Advent. I am taking part in an Advent Swap over at FaithscrappersUK and these are the lovely parcels I get to open - I can't wait!!!

Are you getting organised yet for Christmas? I am really not organised yet at all this year, will really need to get a move on. I have still to decide what format my Christmas Journal will take this year as well. So many decisions and so little time....

Thanks with flowers!

A big thanks to all who visited me over the weekend as part of the blog party, and thanks for all your lovely comments! It was great fun visiting everyone's blogs and seeing all the lovely creations. One way of saying thanks is with flowers so.....

here are some flowers that I crocheted. I hope you like them.

Creative Circle Blog Party

Welcome to the Creative Circle Blog Party!

The idea of this blog party is that several friends have posted at the same time about a project that they have done, and also include a link to the next person in the 'circle'. Then you, the reader, can have lots of fun following the trail and looking at some great projects. The circle started with Rinda, so if you get lost you can go back to the beginning here

My project is something crocheted. That sounds a bit like Mastermind - my chosen subject today is.....

I made this bag for carrying my Ipod around in. Often I am working around the house and I am not always wearing trousers with pockets in them, so I thought I would make this bag so that I can have music wherever I go.

I have never written any instructions for crochet before, so I hope you can understand this. I did a chain of 15, then dc (UK terms) into every c, starting with the second from hook, then repeated this each row until it was big enough to fold into three parts, the third part being a small flap. For the strap I did a chain as long as I wanted, then dc into each chain. Then sew together, add a button for decoration, some velcro for a fastening and there you are - portable music!

Now for the next blog in the circle, go on over and see what Lizzie has made. Have fun!!

Meet Frosty

the Snowman! I made this cute litte snowman by needle felting. If you have never tried needle felting you should - it is great for reducing your stress levels! You get to continually jab some roving wool with sharp barbed needles again and again and.... well you get the idea! The only thing is you really have to watch what you are doing and not do it while watching TV - cos those needles are sharp!!!!

I have been practising my crochet again (and trying to use up those odds bits of wool that seem to accumulate), and have come up with these wrist warmers, well one actually - still got one to do!

I came up with a great idea for the boys advent calenders - a chore a day during Advent! Not surprisingly neither of them were really keen on the idea- pity!

Now a reminder to come by tomorrow, after 9 am, to take part in a Creative Circle Blog Party that I am sharing in.

A look back in time.

Shimelle asked us today to have a look back in time and see what we had blogged about this time last year. Well I had a look back at the last two years posts for November and this is what I found:

Nov 2007: I only blogged twice (how different this year!). Neither of the posts were very inspiring either.

Nov 2008: I had just come back from a weekend retreat, so was full of scrapping inspiration and had found my mojo again!!

This year I have done lots of posts in November, due to Shimelle's class and am having great fun reading lots of new blogs.

I need to start to get organised and decide what format I am going to use for my Christmas Journal, I have done one for the past three years, so don't want to miss it. Thinking about some amalgamation of Shimelle's and Holidays in Hand. In the boys advent calender for the past two years I have done something different each day. Two years ago I put in an activity/worksheet/craft along with a joke for each day. Last year I had a poem for every day. Not sure what to do this year - any different ideas?

An adventure is coming your way!

Something different is coming this way.... A bit of a creative adventure for me..... Check back here on Saturday to find out what!!

Dream

The joy of being young and filled with dreams of daring conquests and fighting dragons! The LO was also from a class at the weekend by Traciedoodle. The photo is of John several years ago now. He got this sword and shield at Christmas and was imagining himself being a daring knight! How quickly time passes and how quickly they grow up.

I am doing another online course for the Holiday Season - Holidays in Hand by Jessica Sprague

Today for the first prompt we are asked to think about our Values & Goals for the Festive Season. Here are some of the words that I think of as values for this time of year: family, love, tradition, laughter, sharing. For our goals we are to try and be specific about certain things we would like to achieve. This was a bit harder and needed a lot more thought. I have come up with:

To have fun with the children

To try and make some presents for people this year.

To be less stressed and more flexible.

To concentrate on the spiritual meaning of Advent and Christmas.

To try and get the children to think less of 'getting' and more about 'giving'.

I am hoping that after the past few months that we have had that Christmas this year will be a time of relaxation and enjoyment.

What are your values and goals for this season?

Scrapbooking - dangerous????

Well who would have thought that a nice hobby like scrapbooking would be dangerous? Last night I was sitting at my desk doing a LO when I got up to get something, lost my balance and fell down! All the fault of this silly shoe I am having to wear at the moment, see this post here for a photo of my shoe. Thankfully I was not really hurt - just a bit sore as I landed on my hip and my wrist. So beware scrapping can be dangerous!

In my last post about the cybercrop Kathy asked how the teams worked. Everyone who registers for the CC is allocated to a team, there are differing points for the classes and challenges and when you complete and upload them you can claim the points for your team. All the classes are uploaded to a PDF file which you download and then follow the instructions. At the end of the CC the winning team is announced - just a bit of fun really!

I have managed to do one challenge and one LO so far.

The challenge was to do a LO featuring travel. I chose photos from our visit to Legoland last October, the top one is of Andrew and I and the bottom one is John and myself on a couple of the less scary rides!

The class that I managed to do was Somewhere Over the Rainbow by ifa. It was a really good class and a great way to use up some of my stash of ribbons. The photo is of Andrew at his favourite lunchtime eating place - McDonalds, again from our trip last October when we visited Oxford for the day.

We're off to see..

the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!! Yes it's Cybercrop time again over at UKS and the theme this time is the Wizard of Oz. I am in the ToTos team - Go ToTos Go!!! I have done really done much scrapping for ages so I am hoping the the classes and challenges will inspire me and help me find my mojo again.

I decided that I was feeling a bit better this morning so thought I would bake a cake as it was a Friday. The kids thought that was a great idea when they came home from school and discovered there would be cake for tea - maybe I should do this more often.

This morning I got a very welcome delivery from Amazon

I think the Twilight series of books are great and am looking forward to seeing how the story ends (no don't tell me!!). They are a great light read for me just now when I am spending so much time with my feet up! Although now that I have started it, stopping to join in with the cybercrop might be difficult.

Shimelle's prompt for today on Blogging for Scrapbookers was about how important and good it is to comment on other people's posts. This is something that I have been trying to do during this class as I have realised how good it is to have some comments. So a big thank you to all who have commented here and I shall be visiting your blogs, if I have not already done so.

Fun Playing

A fun video for you to watch today. These pandas look like they are having great fun and the snow looks great too. We don't seem to get snow in this part of the world which felt really odd last winter when large parts of the country were white and we weren't!

This post is for yesterdays prompt by Shimelle on Blogging for scrapbookers course and is the first time I have tried to embed a You Tube video - maybe I will do it more often now.

My first crochet bag!

I have recently taken up crocheting and really enjoy it. This is my first project done myself without following a pattern. I crocheted the squares and then sewed them together and then added the strap. I am quite pleased with it, although I do have a slight problem with my tension at the beginning of each square - it seems to be so much tighter than the rest of the square. I shall have to try to fix this somehow!

Scavenger Hunt

As a fun game to get to know one another The Preachers Wife is having a Scavenger Hunt of sorts, where we all answer the same questions about ourselves and then find out some answers. I though it might be fun to play along:

The Treasures

1. First Name.

Fiona
2. State and Country of Residence.

Scotland, UK
3. Husband’s Ministry Title.

Church of Scotland Minister
4. Length of time in Current Ministry Location. {IMPORTANT: There are several of you who may not be in a current ‘official’ pastorate/ministry, etc. That makes you no less a minister’s wife! You play along, girlfriends, and let us pray for you!}

9 years
5. Children? If yes, give gender and ages.

2 boys, 15 and 10
6. Number of unique homes in which you’ve lived during your marriage.

3
7. Cook Sunday lunch or eat out?

cook lunch
8. Typically on time for Sunday School or not?

depends on whether travelling with husband or coming later!!!
9. Favorite TV Show.

Dr Who
10. Something you watch/like/do that you would never tell the church people. (Except now you just did…lol)

Spend too much on the Internet
11. Most annoying church-related pet peeve.

Make do and mend attitude related to church things
12. One thing you need to throw away but can’t bring yourself to do it.

Too many books
13. The one food you can not live without.

Broccoli (OK its really cake!) but my hubbie hates broccoli and says I serve too often!
14. Parsonage or have your own home?

Church Manse
15. Freak when the doorbell rings or always ready for a visitor?

Mildly freak!

Lest we forget...

They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them...

Collections

I am a bit of a collector(hoarder!) of things. While I admire people who have homes that are minimalist I don't think I could do that, although sometimes I think it would be good to be a little less cluttered. My family seem to be a bit the same and as we are not short of space, there always seems to be little incentive to be a bit more ruthless in what we throw out!

I thought I would share with two of my collections today. The first is my collection of Pendelphin figures, which were collected many years ago, but I still like them.

The second is a collection of Arran pottery birds which take pride of place on our mantlepiece.

There are various other collections around the house and I shall try and take photos of them in the coming weeks to share with you.

A Day in the Life...

of us - a very ordinary family!! Todays blog post is really just about a day in my life at the moment - a not very exciting day, as life just seems to be like that at the moment! After a fitful sleep, again, gosh I do wish the night sweats would disappear quicker, got up, got washed and dressed - which is no mean feat at the moment as I need crutches to get around and I'm not supposed to get my foot wet!! I never realised just how much I relied on my daily shower in the morning to wake me up, I could stand under a hot shower for simply ages!

By this time I need a rest, so its back to lying on the bed, which is really a good excuse to finish reading Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer. Having heard so many people raving about the Twilight books I though I had better go check them out. Now I can see why they were raving. I don't normally read vampire books but these are so very different and definately page turners. I have now ordered the last one, Breaking Dawn, from Amazon, so that I have something to read next week.

After lunch my kind husband took pity on myself and eldest son, who is recuperating from his surgery, and took us to the local garden centre for tea and scone - a welcome change! On the way we saw a gorgeous rainbow - did I have my camera? - of course not!! silly me!! It was a lovely reminder to me that despite hard times God is always with me and after the rain comes a rainbow!!

In the evening we watched some more of the first series of 24. We watched this several years ago and have seen them all, but John has just been introduced to the series and is loving them. We got him the box set of the first four series for coming out of hospital (OK - yes it was also so that we could watch them again too!).

I also started knitting a cardigan for myself with some Jaeger Natural Fleece wool, it knits up really quickly as it is knitted on large pins.

Maybe my day was not so boring after all!

Prompts 2 & 3

Trying to play catch up so that I can feel that I am on top of things (for a short while anyway!)

In the prompt for Day 2 Shimelle talked about the need for safety on the Internet and what you publish on your blog etc. It is certainly something to think about and something that I am conscious about as I have two boys who like to use the computer a lot. We were to think about a story you would like to tell - there are so many and there is so little time! Maybe some day I will get around to them.

The prompt for day 3 was about sharing lists on your blog and provide links or photos. I thought I would share with you the five places on the Internet that I seem to spend most of my time at the moment:

The first has to be Facebook. Since joining earlier this year I seem to be rather addicted to the various games, I have a zoo, two farms and a cafe - maybe this is why I don't have much time for scrapbooking.

The second is Faithscrappers UK. A forum for scrappers who are Christians. It is a great place for chat and fellowship and there are lots of challenges.

The third is UKScrappers, the forum which really got my into scrapping and blogging etc.

The fourth is a recent addition, Ravelry. I have recently got back into knitting and started crocheting and Ravelry is a fountain of knowledge and inspiration.

My fifth choice is really blog-hopping. I don't have a link here for that but ther are some links to some of my favourite blogs on the side.

Mmm maybe I spend too much time on the computer!!!!

Day One Prompt - Blogging for Scrapbookers

Blogging for Scrapbookers online course started on Monday, so I am already running a couple of days behind schedule!!!

Each day we get three options, a quick and easy online only option, one a little bit more involved and the third taking more time and involving making a LO. Guess which one I'm going for today?

On day one we have to blog about our intentions for the next three weeks. I am aiming to be more disciplined in writing a blog post, maybe not every day, but certainly every other day! I do intent to try and include some more photos in my blog posts. Also I would like to try and make my blog posts more meaningful.

As I am still not very mobile over the next three weeks I would like to try and get some knitting and crocheting done - before life starts to take over again.

There that's me done my first blog prompt!

Rock Star!

For Andrew's Halloween Disco on Thursday he decided to go as a Rock Guitarist (complete with guitar of course)! And what does any rock star need but tattoos ...

He had a great time. Although when he was collected he was sitting outside the disco with an ice-pack on his thumb!! It seems that all that strumming his guitar had hurt his thumb, which thankfully was OK by morning.

We are beginning to feel like a House of Doom here at the moment. First with all my operations and now being unable to get about much and not able to drive. Then on Thursday night (amid all the rock star preparations) John got sent to hospital with abdominal pains. Yes, he needed to have his appendix out quickly!! Thankfully he is now on the road to recovery and got home yesterday. As the hospital is some distance away (3hr round trip) we are all exhausted today and hope that is our run of illness over with for now!