March Madness

Firstly - why is it that every school morning I have to cajole children out of beds but on the school hols they are bouncing around at 6.30am!!!!

So its that time - time to round up what has happened in the last month, K has been quite poorly again, Kidney Stones have played a huge part in our lives this month, we thought that K had cracked the secret of getting rid of them, drink water till you slosh about when you walk, it has worked for a couple of weeks but today they have come back, so annoying, he's had a blood test but has to go back for another this week and a chat to a Nurse has been booked about lifestyle changes - that should be interesting, I've never known anyone eat as many veg as he does.

Money has been tight as predicted and we thought we would be ok this month but K had an MOT on his car and it failed to the tune of £280. Gosh and gulp. We have managed to reduce the cost by about £100 - thankfully my brother will do some of the work and the garage will do what he can't, we'll buy the parts ourselves as its cheaper, still an expense we could do without.

C had her 13th birthday, we all clubbed together and got her a Chrome Laptop, the look on her face was priceless, it was one of those moments that I'll never forget, I also joined her on Facebook so now she sits quietly palying away on the Facebook games, worth every penny if you ask me lol.

13!! I never thought I'd be Mum to a 13 year old girl.

K has applied for another job, he had an interview so now he is waiting for the good or bad news, if he gets the job he will be paid £5k more a year - what a difference it will make, so its fingers [an everything else] crossed.

T has found some life in his old bones and continues to plod on, he has bursts of energy and then tires quickly and sleeps a lot.

C and D are both doing really well at school. C has been picked, along with some others, to do a dance routine that will be shown at Bedford University and then later at the School Performance, very exciting, she is also in a school play aptly named "Teachers", I'm looking forward to seeing both performances later in the year.

K has started his own blog. He's an artist and a very good one, it was time to showcase his talents, between us we have cobbled together a blog, unfortunately the photography is all down to me so its not showing his pictures in the best light but maybe in time I'll get better.

So blog hop to kev'sart.miltonkeynes - go on, you know you want to.

I have joined a Gym, ta da!!! £20 a month gets me full gym membership and full use of the swimming pool so even if I just use it for taking the children swimming once a week it will pay for itself and that means the gym bit will be free.

The weather has been appalling all month, hardly any sunshine and lots of snow - for someone who really likes the snow I have to admit to being thoroughly fed up with it now, all I want is some sunshine, I need to start planting seeds at the Lottie but at the moment there's no chance of that as the ground is way to cold and the hard frosts we are getting will kill everything. So I'm late in starting, which means that soon I'll be planting seeds like a mad woman and my hands will be constantly muddy - I can't wait, I'm so fed up with not being able to get started.

Enough of my moans for now

Helen x

1st Day of Hols, Docs visit, Boiler

1st day of the school hols is now over and done with and here's what happened - Avon was delivered at 8am, I'm a Rep don't you know, by 9.30 it was all bagged and ready to be delivered tomorrow, at 10.30 the Boiler Man came to service the boiler, what a nice man he was, he told me that the fitters from 18mths ago had done an excellent job in fitting the Boiler and the relevant pipework was in 1st class shape, he showed me how to bleed the boiler [must be done every 6 months] and then he left. Next C was taken by my Mum to stay for the night at her other Nana at WS where she lives, C likes to go there for a Tuesday as they have a crafting day at the OAP place where Nana 2 lives and C helps out with it, she gets a free lunch and all the old dears love her, then came a visit with D to the Docs, he has had a little cough for 4 weeks now but over the weekend it turned chesty, no tablets were prescribed, instead the Doc told him to have a hot shower, get out but leave the hot water tap running and soak up the steamy air, sorry but does the Doc think we have money!! We can't afford to pay for extra water to keep doing this a few times a day so D will have to steam over a bowl like the rest of us have to, he did prescribe Paracetamol though - 2 bottles, we already have 2 bottles at home so now we are well stocked up! Adults can use it too! Its taken me a year to get the water DD reduced by £8 a month, steaming over a bowl of hot water will do the job just as well as a shower and cost less too. If his cough doesn't clear up by the end of the week we'll go back and see another Doc! I wasn't overly happy with the outcome as I think he has a Chest Infection and the Doc didn't even listen to his chest!!!

At tea-time I spent an hour in a neighbours garden chopping and weeding for them.

Tonight I have cut out some of the overhanging branches from trees out the back, these trees grow to a huge size if they aren't held back [we are already in the shade from some further along but its too late to do anything about them and they aren't in or next to our garden - makes sense to me lol]

The house is looking decidedly disgusting so tomorrow I'll be delivering Avon and doing some housework - the bathroom should be condemned as a Health and Safety hazard.

C will need picking up at some point tomorrow but I don't think it will be till between 4 and 5

We have had glorious sunshine all day, in fact, it got too hot lol

Helen x

School Hols, Weekend Plans

We have finally, finally broken up for school hols, what a busy week they have had at school. Thursday saw D having a fun day at school, they had bouncy castles, space hopper race tracks, go-karting, wii games and lots of other things to do and C went to Wicksteed Park for the day. Today was Leavers Assembly for D, they put on a play - Jonah, a fishy tale. D played God - we'll never be allowed to forget that!! Tears were shed by me and Mum not D, his Teacher is one of those teachers who inspires the children without them knowing, if only all our schools had Teachers like that.

I'm over my moan about money, just got into a bit of a funk about it all.

Plans for the weekend are - C is sleeping in the tent in our garden tonight, they are both at their Dads tomorrow and K and I are at the Lottie for the day, K then goes fishing for the evening, C will go to Nana for the night and D will sleep in the tent. I will have to sleep on the sofa for the next 2 nights as I don't like leaving them in the tent whilst I'm asleep upstairs.

Sunday will bring a walk somewhere as its meant to be sunny so maybe a picnic too

Hope you all have a great weekend

Helen x

Fed Up, weather, migraine

I am completely fed up. I had a migraine yesterday that lasted all day and then this morning I woke up feeling ok but by 10.30 I had another headache and now I've tummy pains, the apcking up for the hols isn't happening, I have ironing and washing to do and if its not raining its overcast and cold.

I can't even describe how fed up I am

Helen :[

Cold and colder

Cold - K has kindly passed on his cold to me, aches and pains and feeling very tired along with a blocked nose and a headache, thanks K.

Colder - the weather has changed and the boiling hot, muggy weather has turned into winds, rain and cold, cold, cold!!

Toby is still poorly, bad tummy isn't letting up

Not a good weekend so far

Helen x

Cold, Hot, Red Hot

Cold - K has been poorly now for 3 days, he's in bed as I type this, he has a cold and a cough but its really dragging him down and he's fed up, this is his long weekend off and he's spent the majority of it in bed!

Hot - boy its hot here, even in the shade its too hot for me to sit out in

Red Hot - C has gone to a friends birthday party, talk about a pressie on the cheap - bath set from Boots 75% off sale and a make up set from the same sale, wrapped in reduced paper from MrT and put into a gift bag I was given for my birthday, card was reduced to. Value should of been £29 actual price was £8! They are going bowling and then out for a meal at "Red Hot" - the cost of this party must be [way too much for me to think about] C doesn't have a party anymore as I think that they should stop when they are 10, at least that's what I've told my 2. The cost of entertaining out is out of our league and the children are at the age when they don't want "home" parties anymore - shame as I loved doing them, oh well :{

Helen x

Birthday, Lottie, Coughs and Colds

Morning

On Wednesday it was my 47th birthday - yeah!!

I was given lots of lovely presents. K and I spent the morning and some of the afternoon at the Lottie, planting things, weeding and generally tidying up. We took the camping stove and K made bacon butties whilst we were there - a lovely way to spend a day. We then went to my Mums for Tea. K stayed at home because by this time he was suffering badly from a cold which has now turned into a chest "thing". Poor man is really suffering now - and that's what happens when you give up smoking.

The weather here has turned very hot, I shouldn't complain but its a tad too hot for me - I like Spring and Autumn days and the snow, this heat makes me tired, it zaps my energy.

Today is another Lottie day if K is up for it, we'll see. He's currently snoring on the sofa lol.

I hope that you are all planning something nice to do this weekend and that you are enjoying the sunshine

Helen x 

Sunshine, Lottie, Gardening, Sewing

The Sun has got his hat on Hip, Hip, Hip, Hooray!!

What a difference a little bit of sunshine makes! No rain today - just for today by the looks of the forecast :[ Today I have done some Gardening at P and C's, cleared the guttering at the back of the house, cut the grass, tidied up the garden, sat and had coffee and read a book outside, went to the Lottie - yeah, planted out Broad Beans, Lettuce, Spring Onions, Radishes. Didn't get everything done at the Lottie that I wanted to but its a start and boy, was it great to be over there.

K has given up smoking, he's done 7 days so far and whilst I'm being as supportive as I can, I just have to say that its hard, I know its harder for him but this is a man who is usually really laid back, I'm now having to deal with a man who is stroppy - comes as quite a bit of a shock, tonight I bit back [how mature of me - not] tomorrow I won't.

I've been cutting up material on my new cutting board with my new rotary cutter - such bliss, I almost don't want to sew the fabric together - I like to see it cut up and stacked up lol. I have made a template of the design that I'm happy with - just need to sew it together now - must measure it first to make sure its the right size!

Ah well - back to rain tomorrow and the huge stack of ironing I have got to do - I'll watch the latest Twilight film whilst ironing - C is insisting that I watch it and nagging me to do so!

H x

Blog reading, cushion, weather

Oh what to do??? I now read and follow so many blogs it would take me forever to read them all daily lol, should I sadly say goodbye to some or should I continue? Sod it, continue I will. I get so much inspiration from you all and I love reading about what everyone is up to.

Cushion - my cutting board and rotary cutter arrived in the post today so guess I'll just HAVE to get some fabric out and practice lol

Weather - its raining AGAIN

Off to do some cutting up now

H x

My 1st follower, weather, ironing and coughing

Hello Hart - thank you for following me :] Hart has a lovely blog about the lovely items she makes, inspiring and creative, lovely, lovely sewing!

Its so cold here, barely rising above freezing. The heating is on all day and most of the evening, snow is forecast for tonight, hopefully there won't be too much although C and D would like lots - they want to go sledging, that'll be K's job if we get enough!

I've just spent hours catching up with the ironing, each time I let it build up I swear to myself that I'll do a bit each day - never happens and then I have to spend so much time catching up with it, its a boring thankless task. I know some people don't iron anything but I can't do that, the obsessive side of me likes to see us wearing flattened clothes! I can never get clothes to dry flat even if I shake the life out of them! Still at least it keeps me warm in the winter.

C is having her second day off school and will be off tomorrow too, she has a chesty, hacking cough and is prone to Seasonal Asthma so it means that when she gets a cough or cold we have to keep her off for a day or two if it looks like a nasty one so that is doesn't develop into an infection that will bring on the Asthma. I tried to get her into the Docs today but her Doctor was off so I'll be phoning at 8 tomorrow to get her in and a new inhaler prescribed - hopefully.

D had his 9th birthday party on Tuesday night, his birthday was in November!! We couldn't afford a party then so he's patiently waited till now. I took him and 7 friends to MacD's and then to Quasar [Laser gun thingy place] They all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had a great time. He's already planning his next and final party lol.

H x