Me on Monday ~ 5

Ahoy there me hearties!  Cap'n Keyworth here -  

Never being one to overdramatise things, you may note that there is an issue with my eye.  (There's also a huge issue with my hair but let's not dwell on that!) If you're going to wear an eye patch, wear a good eye patch.  I went to bed Saturday night moaning that my eye felt scratchy and I woke up to find that everything was blurry.  A quick trip to the pharmacy confirmed my own suspicions that it was probably conjuntivitis.  I told my husband that the pharmacist said on no account was I to do any cooking or any other houseworky jobs but he read all the small print on the eye drops and couldn't find that written anywhere. Oh well, it was worth a try!

 

So, my weekend was a 'buying a couple of new bits of clothing for my holiday, practising some sample wonky log cabin quilt squares, watching more football (getting a bit bored now), moaning about my eye feeling scratchy and weepy, dog walking, dog bathing, discovering Koppaberg Mixed Berries Cider, catching up with a couple more episodes of Season 3 Breaking Bad' kind of a weekend.

 

How was yours?  Let's pop over to Sian's to see how things were for her this weekend.

Let's sit and have a cup of coffee

Have you just been to have tea with Abi? She thrilled to be home relaxing after a busy time with exams so I'm sure you've enjoyed catching up with her news. 

 

The coffee maker's ready, and I have a new supply of Nespresso pods, so choose your colour and we will be good to go!

It's been a little while since you popped in, and I can't believe we are more than half way through the year.  I am counting down the weeks to school finishing, but there's still a lot of work to be done.  I don't work in the long summer holidays so I have to leave my desk ready to jump straight back in on September 2nd.

Enough of work! Let me show you the wonderful quilt squares I've received from around the world

Aren't they fab? I still have four to come but I am already loving how different they all are. Although I'm still excited about the ones that are left to make, I am a little bit sad that there are only a few more squares to make.  I need someone to come up with another sewing related swap!

I've bought a new batch of fabric that I want to turn into a quilt and think that I have finally decided on what to have as a pattern.  I loved the wonky log cabin design of Jackie's quilt square and plan to have a little go at that to see if I could make a whole quilt of them.  Needless to say I've been googling a lot of patterns but, as always seems to be the way, everyone has a different way of doing them.  Have you ever had a go at that pattern?

Are you joining in with Rinda's Scavenger Hunt?  I've managed to track down a few of the 'easy' ones I knew I would be able to find and was thrilled to tick a few of the others off when we went up to Edinburgh a couple of weekends ago.  Can you believe that one of the elusive ones seems to be the 'welcome to your home town' one.  Seems that my town isn't very welcoming!  We live on the borders of Hertfordshire & Essex - literally.  There is a street in town where one side is Herts and the other is Essex!  So we have a welcome sign for each county but not the actual town.  There must be one somewhere, I shall have to check the less obvious routes into town, there is more than one way!

I've just added my name to join in Sian's latest swap - it's postcards this time.  Are you joining in too?  Go on, pop over there and read all about it, it sounds fun. 

Whilst offering you biscuits you may notice that I am restraining myself from taking a second, please help me out by finishing them up.  I joined Slimming World and am now 4 and a half pounds lighter so I will be grateful if you eat them up.  As the saying goes, 'I can resist anything but temptation'! 

It's been lovely chatting, but there are more people for you to visit so I will say goodbye and look forward to seeing you again, same time next month! 

Me on Monday ~ 4

I'm having to split my work hours this week so Me on Monday finds me working, but 10.15 - 3.45. Which means that I had to remember not to get too involved in anything early on. Which meant not getting the sewing machine out and going to the local branch of Sainsburys, not the one in town which is dangerously close to all manner of distracting shops. My selfie for this week is the school picture I have on my identity tag at work. Oh come on, that counts, doesn't it? It is a picture of me after all!

So what kind of a weekend did we have here. Well one of the family spent her morning quite literally becoming a 'hot dog' laying out in the sunshine 

Wasn't it a glorious weekend? Wall to wall sunshine, the Summer Solstice, officially the first day of summer, this is it, get the sun dresses and flip flops out ... and then we wake up on Monday to damp pavements and rain on windscreens. Can we really only have two days of sun at a time?

So it was a bit of a lazy weekend. A kind of drying the washing outside, putting up the garden parasol, eating every meal on the patio, realising that there is no way England will make it any further in the World Cup, having the mother in law over for Sunday lunch, watching the last episode of Fargo kind of weekend. Literally blood (Fargo) sweat (sunning in the garden) and tears (football).

How was yours? 

Me on Monday ~ 3

Another week where I'm not working on the Monday which is a good feeling.  Just to prove I use my time off constructively, here I am with evidence of which shop I popped into this morning

Having posted Fiona's quilt square off on Friday, my attention turned to Jackie's as she is next on the list.  I didn't have any fabric in one of her chosen colours so what better excuse could I possibly need to head into Hobby Craft?  My plans for this afternoon had included catching up with the ironing whilst watching last week's recorded episode of Nashville but that ridiculous plan has been replaced with a much better one of looking for a nice pattern to use to make the next Friendship Quilt square. 

 

So, as part of Sian's idea to share what our weekends held, mine was a getting Rachel to the wedding venue where she was being a bridesmaid, taking flowers to the churchyard in rememberance of my Mum's birthday and for Father's Day, cooking up a large pot of chili con carne for friends coming over in the evening, putting up bunting for the England game,feeling very disappointed and tired after watching the England game (kick off at 11pm? What were they thinking?!), enjoying having Jon home for the weekend, eating the lovely lunch R&J made for Paul's Father's day,(actually it was 99% R cooking and 1% J setting the table), trying to take a photo of all of us together in the garden, then taking Jon back to the airport for his return trip to Edinburgh - kind of weekend.  Some good bits, some busy bits, some poignant bits and now I look back on some of the photos, quite a few pink bits!

 

Me on Monday (on Wednesday), One photo 20 words

They say that women are brilliant at multi-tasking don't they?  Well here's proof of that as I join in with Sian's Me on Monday idea and Abi's One Photo 20 Words.

A glorious sunny walk in Edinburgh visiting Jon. 

Counting down the weeks until he is back living 'Down South' again.

 

 

So the reason for my Me on Monday being shown on a Wednesday?  A lovely long weekend in Scotland.  I doubt we will ever go up there again once he has returned to England so we tried to see all the places we missed last time we went.  It was a dodging the rain showers, visiting the castle, looking for Scavenger Hunt photos, walking for miles, eating in a Tom Kitchin restaurant, trying out Edinburgh's new trams, watching the Gumball 3000 Rally cars arrive kind of weekend.

So, exhausted and foot sore we arrived back yesterday. Bringing Jon back with us for the rest of the week.  It was a good weekend - going back to work was HARD!



 

Me on Monday #1

I'm so excited that Sian has suggested that we share her Me on Monday idea.  I do love to have a regular idea to keep in mind.  So I am eagerly joining in.

Mondays either see me on a half day of working or a whole day off and I am REALLY happy to say that this Monday sees me at home for the day.  Which means that there is a bit of this going on ...

Yes, that's me blog-reading.  Or am I ordering a summer weight duvet from John Lewis? Or possibly a selection of pretty fabrics from Palenna Patchworks?  Hard to tell.  All those things have happened! Suffice to say, I'm probably being inspired creatively or spending money.  My two favourite ways to spend a Monday!

It was a practising Slimming World, shoe shopping for husband, dog walking, tree lopping, friend's 50th birthday celebrating, £25 win on the lottery, sitting in the sunshine, Fargo watching, book reading, working out where I can find Scavenger Hunt photos kind of weekend. A pretty good kind of couple of days!  

Here's hoping your Monday is going well, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.  Why not snap a photo of you, here, now, today and join in?

My Month in Numbers - May

May.  You sneaky little month.  In the words of Gloria Gaynor 'Go on now go.  Walk out that door.  Don't turn around now.  You're not welcome anymore ...'.  You waited until we had nicely filled up our diaries with things to do, places to go and people to meet.  You smirked with amusement as you watched us plan and prepare, let us get ourselves organised and just as we were walking across that shiny marble floor in our high heels - you pulled that rug from under our feet.  You watched us wobble and lose our balance and then grinned as we tumbled to the floor.
 

May - the month where 

8 hours were spent in A&E

24 hours Rachel spent in hospital

48 hours before she should have flown out to Spain

After 7 days she went to see a doctor who quite frankly looked so young I think he may have been on work experience (now am horrified that I have reached the age where policemen and doctors look young.  Dammit)  He said that she was fit to fly out to Portugal 10 days after the op.  I see her recovery as testimony to the many hours of Greys Anatomy that I have watched over the years.  Eat your heart out Meredith Grey and Christina Yang, there's a new medic in town.  However (spoiler alert) not all hospital doctors are as handsome or charming as McDreamy.  Guess you have to live in Seattle for that!

Talking of hotties - 

24 degrees - hottest day of the year so far.  Dinners outside with friends until late in the evening, chilled wine, salads, good times. I even had to put the air conditioning on in my car one day! Summer sandals out of the wardrobe and I accidentally arrived home from town with a new pair too.  There was a sale, they were in my size, I'd been thinking of getting them when they were full price, it was a match made in heaven how could I not bring them home?

May is the month that I am the lucky recipient of the friendship quilt blocks and I've now received 4

The postman is starting to avoid eye contact with me now, as I watch him walk up the front path, I gleefully open the door before he has chance to put anything through the letter box.  I'm not sure what he thinks I'm expecting in the post but I practically snatch anything that arrives in a jiffy bag with a ridiculous grin and an 'oh how exciting' as I quickly slam the door and rip open the packaging.

37 pre-schoolers at my Goddaughter's 4th birthday party.  I only went out to sort out chairs and decorations but ended up staying to help prepare 37 hot dogs in boxes and gallons of apple squash.

And finally - the month I joined Slimming World.  'What's your target to lose?' the lady in charge asked as I jumped on the scales while she worked out BMI values.  And before I could say 'oh just about 7lb would be good' she worked out that 13lb would be perfect.  Watch this space.

 

 

So that was my month in numbers - why not pop over to Julie's to see who else is joining in this month?