A prize & a move

Every year there is a craft/hobby show in Glasgow in March and in October.  It's a good old mix of papercrafting of any description, some fabric crafts and anything else that is small and crafty, and very much aimed at the female market.

I've been going every now and again for years.  Some years are really good, some are less so.  I suppose it depends on if I have a particular project in mind or not.

This year I was in 2 minds whether or not to go, a friend at work was planning to go and I was thinking me and Moo could tag along.  But then it was ALL the way to Glasgow, on a Friday which is my full day off and kind of a freebie day.  So indecisiveness reigned.  Until I got some mail two days before we were considering going.  A hand written envelope, I rarely get mail that isn't some kind of bill these days, and it's even rarer to get a handwritten envelope!  But inside was this .....

In a moment of 'ah why not' I entered a competition in our local paper for a chance to win tickets and I won!  I think the last time I won anything like this I was 12.  It was a pink umbrella with matching head scarf from Mackay's (way, way before it was M&Co).

As for a move, my work has finally moved office.  It has been talked about for EVER (I thought I was going to be returning from mat leave last August to a new office) but as of last Monday we were actually in our new office.  So bye bye this place

and hello our new home

It's a change and it's taking a wee bit of getting used to but it's nice and bright and the building is maintained.  Somethings which our old building were beginning to lack!

Off on an adventure!....?

I live and work in the same town. It's good - it takes 10 minutes at the most to go from leaving my house to sitting at my desk, 25 if I walk.

But occasionally I get the opportunity to venture further afield - today I'm off to Glasgow for a meeting with like minded "private sector" colleagues from other local authorities across Scotland. I get to "network" (that term I despise, it actually fills me with dread, however I don't mind talking to people even if I'm a bit rubbish at it!).

So currently I'm on a train hurtling itself towards the west side of the country and trying to get a little bit of reading for work done at the same time. Although I do get distracted by people watching.  It always amazes me what others get up to on early morning trains - putting on make up, breakfast (coffee/muffin/stuff), reading, rocking out to tunes in their own world while trying to wake up! An interesting peak into the lives of others that I don't normally see.

Mind you I couldn't travel this far to work everyday, it would become tedious very quick. I like my very short commute.

Redesign, Refocus, Relaunch

Welcome to my new bloggy home :)

A new home to record all aspects of my life - family, home life, making stuff!, work - if I do it, then I might just end up blogging about it at some point. 

It's been another period of change in the last few weeks as I've only just returned to work after being off on maternity leave after bringing Little Miss into our wee family.  So me and him (that'll be the husband Pete) are finding our new roles and getting ourselves organised.  We are in a very lucky position where due to how he works (guitar tutor - so mainly late afternoon into evening) and me being part-time, we juggle childcare between us with a little bit of assistance from grandparental units.  It's taking some time to readjust our time management skills.

It's a bit weird being back at work - somethings have changed but somethings have remained exactly as they were when I went of at the end of January.  I shouldn't really be surprised but as there was basically no-one covering my mat leave so a huge chunk of things have been on hold waiting for me to return!

Other than returning to work the end of August was busy with the Dude returning to nursery, he's a pre-schooler now - eeek!  Less than a year til he goes to the 'big' school.  I dread to think what I'll be like next August, I'm already stressing about it *facepalm*  However, he loves it and is definitely thriving because of it, this was him just before he ran off on his first day back (I have no explanation for the 'jazz' hands!)

Now that Little Miss is 6 months we have started down the road of weaning, which I know there have been various approaches to over the years, but I'm stuck to the current recommendation of waiting til babe is 6 months.  However, unlike what we did with the Dude (purees) I'm attempting to try 'baby-led weaning' - basically babe eats pretty much what we do and no purees.  Basically I'm reminding myself of the motto 'food for fun, before one' every time I give her something to try.  She's getting the hang of food and finding her mouth more often than I expect.  This is tonight's dinner, some pasta and homemade tomato sauce and a bit of rice cake - she seemed to like the sauce :)

It's also been my dad's 70th birthday.  It's weird to think of him being that age, part of me sees 70 as an old person.  But give him is due he's still working (3 days a week in a supermarket bakery - his preferred shift if 5am-2pm!), he's getting a bit more forgetful these days but hey, my memory is shocking, so I can't really comment and he does loads of funding raising for his church including making approximately 200 jars of jam and marmalade for the christmas fayre every November and runs a cafe at the church every Monday.

I've even managed to do some making and decided to try my hand at cathedral window blocks.  As ever it's not finished yet but I did the immense ironing task which is involved, and actually found it quite enjoyable, so currently it looks like this  (actually it's a bit further on than this, there's 16 sewn together) just need to pluck up the courage to do the next bit of adding in the 'window' fabrics.  Procrastination is a wonderful thing!

That's a bit of round up of August.  Blogging will happen more frequently (well that's the intention) so I hope I didn't bore you too much and you'll pop by again to see what else we get up to :)