I've now closed my blog down so it's available only to me, If Miz or Michelle want access they can have it. I just want it to be somewhere I can vent and say what I want and no one else has to worry about it. I'll take down all the ancillary links when I have more time.
In the meantime I just want to record that I was awarded a Recognition Award at work yesterday and got some High Street vouchers for £25. Very nice thank you - despite my natural cynicism I was really pleased to get this.  Just a shame I can'y sppend thevouchers at Sew and So or the wool shop!

New Year, New Thoughts, New Everything!

I'm not going to give a boring list of things I want to do this year, all will be revealed as I go. I do intend to blog more often though. I also intend to stitch more, and with this in mind, I have signed up for the WIPocalypse.
Now, I don't have a lot of WIPs, as I haven't stitched that much in the last couple of years, but I do have a couple of things I want to get done this year.
One is Murky Manor.
Two is Six Fat Men (I've started so I'll finish)
Three is a stocking for Tom that I haven't even started yet......
I'm going to ignore the hated Orangutan. I know it is 90% done, but I don't think the intended recipient will want it now, and I hate it anyway - I just need to consign it to a dustbin sometime, and try not to feel too much guilt - but I am not quite able to do that just yet!
I think that's all...?
I am feeling much more positive about my stitching as I think I have now found a comfortable place to stitch. I am moving up to the other end of my sofa - it's more isolated and I can't talk to DH so easily (not always a bad thing), but at least the light from my magnifier doesn't annoy him so much, so I think I might be able to settle down there. It's worth a go. I just need to resolve the restless leg thing now!

Off to WeightWatchers tonight - I'm tempted not to go because I know it's going to be so very busy, but maybe the shocking weather with discourage the New Year resolution people.....
I'm taking my youngest daughter with me - officially for moral support but also because she also needs to lose a couple of stone and I think that she will find attending classes helpful.

Now I'm off to see if there is a TUSAL this year.

Goodness me!

I actually did some stitching tonight! I have finished knitting the three sweaters for my grandson , have sewn up two of them, and only have one seam to do on the other which I will do in the morning. To celebrate I dug out and old WIP that has been on the go for three or four years now - Glendon Place's Murky Manor. It's the only piece I could get all the bits together for, as I don't have the mobility to really rummage through my stash and start the Christmas design I really want to start. But it feels so good to be stitching something I like - again!

Best laid plans and all that...

Well, I came back from Turkey two days late and complete with broken ankle with new metalwork in it, plus a thrombosis in my leg. I won't go into details as it gets tedious - suffice to say I ended up in a Turkish hospital on day 5 of the holiday, and had a difficult journey home.
This means all my plans ae gone to pot as I can't put any weight on the ankle for another 5 weeks and can't drive. I'm completely dependent on my daughters to take me anywhere, and I'm supposed to be using crutches, but as my other ankle was also badly sprained, I have poor balance (I think linked to my deafness) plus my excessive weight, I find the crutches almost impossible to use. We have borrowed a wheelchair, but that doesn't help me get up and down stairs (a major problem) and I don't have the strength to propell it very far either.
Oh well, life just has to go into abeyance for five weeks.

I will be getting back to work asap though, as the office is good for wheelchair access, and as I am now under threat of either redundancy or demotion it's not a good time to be away!

Is it really Autumn?

I can't believe how long it is since I last blogged or, indeed, did very much at all! All the energy and general 'get up and go' I had in the early part of the year seems to have disappeared and I have been in a period of lethargy and ennui. I've done no sewing, although I have done quite a bit of knitting, exercise, dieting and anything else has really just disappeared. So I need to get arse into gear. The early stirrings of Christmas anticipation have stimulated a yearning to stitch again, although only Christmas stuff of course, but I have some sweaters to knit for Tom before I can get going on that. It would help if I didn't spend hours playing games on Facebook!
Anyway, I am off for a week to Turkey next Saturday - not my choice of holiday destination, but Mum wants to go and is happy to pay for me to acompany her, so I have stocked up with books for my Kindle and I anticipate some lazy hours reading and, hopefully, knitting. I'm hoping the weather will be pleasantly warm without being too hot, and it's Sod's Law isn't it, that as I go away the UK is going to move into an Indian Summer, with what looks likely to be the best sustained period of decent weather this year! When  I get back, the diet must start again in earnest - no more 'plans' etc - just straightforward calorie counting. I have signed up for a gym membership and have started my bicycle lessons again, and fully intend to cycle to work at least once a week. I intend to be very, very good indeed until Christmas.
And Christmas prep will start when I get back - the puddings and cake must be made, and I can start planning the menus and what treats I will cook for the Christmas period. I plan to make more of the chutney I made last year, and cook many of the lovely Christmas food from Delia's book - my reliable Christmas bible.
I move back to normal hours at work as well, from October, so hopefully will be doing more cooking and baking now I won't get home quite so late.
But speaking of work, my employer announced on Thursday that they want to lose 40 people from the business. They have asked for voluntary redundancies, but if they don't get enough applications there will be compulsory redundancies. It's all happening very quickly; they want the new business structure in place by 3 January 2012. They want most of the losses to come from my grade, so I am very vulnerable now. I panicked at first, because if the voluntary redundancy package paid more money than the compulsory, then I had to decide whether to take VR or gamble on not being made compulsorily redundant. However, the terms of the two packages are almost the same for me as I have only been there for 13 years, so I have decided to sit tight. I'm therefore not stressing about it - I don't have to make any decisions, so all I can do is wait it out. It will be a financial disaster for us if I lose my job as, because of my deafness and age, I will find it very hard to get another one, but I daresay we will get through it somehow.
So - lots to do and think about!
Yesterday we scattered Dad's ashes. They were cast into his favourite fishing spot with some flowers, and his fishing club put up a brass plaque commemorating him, as he was very well regarded in the angling community throughout the UK - a celebrity in his field, almost! It was a lovely afternoon, warm and sunny, and  we all found it very moving - I certainly became far more emotional than I expected! SO that has almost marked the end of this process - there is only the tree planting occasion in the cramatorium to come and then it will all be over. I'm hoping Mum will then be able to move on a little bit.
I really do want Mum to move - somewhere near some shops and nearer to me, and a house with a smaller garden that she can manage. She seems reluctant to move; I can understand it, but I do think she needs to look at the practicalities a bit more. Hopefully, we can discuss while we are away.

Anyway - thats enough for now. I will make more of an effort to post now that I will have more time!

New starts

I recently sold quite a bit of my cross stitch stash and also some ex study books using Amazon, and with the funds I gained, I bought this:



I've been meaning to try and do some quilting for ages now, plus other sewing too, but my machine was elderly and very basic and I thought a more modern machine might provide a helping hand and help me feel more comfident.
I've started a simple quilting kit that a couple of friends bought for me on my birthday a while back, and while I'm not really doing a brilliant job, I am getting a bit of a feel for the machine and how things go together. Here is the evidence...


I can't truthfully say I'm enjoying it - I'm finding it too nerve-racking for that, but the difficulties I am encountering are not exactly what I expected. I'm finding it fairly easy to do a 1/4" seam, which I expected to find hard, but what is really discombobulating is that when I stitch two pieces of fabric together on the machine, the top piece stretches a little and ends up a bit longer than the piece underneath. This happened on my old machine and I assumed it was a fault, but as it's still happening it must be user error! Not sure what I can do about that. The other problem I'm finding is that the printed pictures on the fabric are not square and so the final blocks are ending up squiffy and slightly different sizes. Also, where the shop cut the fabric, there isn't enough on one edge to give the correct clearance for the seaming. However, I am telling myself that it is all a learning experience and that the finished article wil look fun even if it's far from perfect. Thats what my friends keep telling me!
The irony is that my Mum was a trained upholsterer and made curtains and soft furnishings for a living all her life, and so is expert on a machine, but for reasons of pride, I don't want to ask her for help. And whe wouldn't 'get' modern day quilting and patchwork - she would find it obscene that people spend money on custom fabric and don't just use scraps from home. She has done some pretty cool stuff though - in the fifties she worked on the famous curtains at the London Palladium, and the starry back drops they used for the 'Sunday Night at' shows, and she has made curtains and other soft furnishings for a couple of minor celebrities, some of which were featured in a design and interiors magazine.
Anyway - with things being as they are, I have slipped on the TUSAL, but here is one I took just before I moved in with Mum and Dad for what were Dad's last few days.

I haven't done any stitching since then until this last week, so there wouldn't have been anything to see for April and May, but I shall definitely put one up next new moon!

Contd

I said it was another story, but briefly I'll explain that although I consider my marriage over, I intend that both of us will continue to live together at least for a while. The impact on the family will be too great otherwise. My son and his fiancee live with us and do not earn enough to get a place of their own, and my younger daughter will remain living with us for another 2 or 3 years yet until she and her partner earn enough to get a place of their own. The house is very crowded - a three bed semi with 5 adults living in it is not ideal, especially as we each have a car and trying to fit 5 cars in our small cul de sac is not easy (6 cars when Debbies partner stays). I fear we are not popular with the neighbours! Also, I can't bear the thought of the family having to divide their time between me and Ken and my ex-husband too, it would put such a strain on everyone, and I know I would get resentful about their visits to Ken. Also, Christmas would be ruined for everyone, as my home is at the centre of everyone's arrangements, and I like it like that. So my intention is for me and Ken to live like house mates, which truthfully we have been doing for some years. There is no (mental) intimacy or closeness between us and hasn't been for a very long time; I have tried several times to talk about our relationship and try to resolve the tensions and resentments between us, but Ken just won't open up. He is content with our 'relationship' to continue as it is and he thinks there isn't a problem; I'm not, but as I can't or won't leave, I just have to stop thinking of us as a married couple. It seems to be the only answer. There is an atmosphere between us all the time, which saddens me, especially as it makes things uncomfortable for the kids, but I don't see what I can do about it. I have tried to make myself less angry and resentful over Ken and the way he acts, but I just can't seem to get over it. I'm just fed up with feeling hurt by the way he speaks to me and the lack of affection, I am fed up with getting angry about his laziness, I'm fed up with his racisim and bigotry and general intoleracne of the rest of the world.
It's come to a head now I think because I have come of the anti-depressants and am no longer living with my emotions smothered in a fog of sedation. I just can't let stuff go over my head any more.
I have got to do something about myself though. Over the last few years I seem to have got myself tied up in knots over various principles and views which are causing me and others problems. An example is my attempt to be vegetarian and even vegan which presents problems for catering for the rest of the family and for family celebrations and get togethers. I do get worried and guilty about the way animals are treated in farming and this has been the driver for my attempts to be vegetarian. Dairy farming is even worse, hence my desire to go Vegan but that really is very, very difficult indeed. Then there is the green issue - you need ten times as much land to rear animals than you would to provide the same amount of nutrition for vegetarians. Yet I know that me being a veggie/vegan will make not a blind bit of difference to what goes on; the vast majority of the world care not one jot. And I have no real objections to eating meat, milk and eggs if the animals have a humane life. So maybe I could just buy organic meat and dairy produce - I'm assured that if the products are organic the animals have a better life than those that are not. And yet, I find it hard to let go of the principle, even though Ken ridicules me and despises vegetarians and keeps talking about the 'shit' that I eat. It would be easier for everyone and for me if I just gave it up, but what is the right thing to do - to persevere for a principle, or to accept the realities of the situation and try and let go? I'm making life so hard for myself. I used to be very tolerant, but now I get angry about religion and I get angry about the monarchy. I've got myself uptight about trying to read 'literary' literature which I mostly enjoy but sometimes yearn for the easy read, but won't allow myself to give in to it. I do think if I could just let go of all these things it would get rid of a lot of tension between me and Ken; I mentioned his bigotry - I used to hate his racism, but it's only since having my mind opened by more varied reading and the OU course that his other opinions and views now really grate on me and make me think badly of him.
So in summary, I know it's me that has changed, and I'm really not sure if I can go backwards to how I used to be, or even if I should. Whats the real me? The person who up to 5 years ago was laid back and tolerant and didn't think too hard about issues, or the person I am now? Do I even like me as I am now?