Today is a MUCH better day! Thank you so much for all your lovely supportive comments over the last few days – you have no idea how much they helped. Life is always a bit of a rollercoaster isn’t it?

I can now report that my son is getting better, the antibiotics are slowly having an effect and he may well leave his bed and actually get dressed today! Unfortunately his eldest sister seems to have come down with the same bug – but thankfully not as badly. We’ve also just heard that she is in danger of failing this semester at school which would mean having to repeat the year and leave her class, which she loves. So a bit of a drama on that front, but at nearly 17 I just have to trust that she knows what she has to do to get her grades up. There is a point where mums can’t make it happen anymore, and I think in this case we’ve reached it. I’m trying not to worry and I’m just trusting my daughter on this one.

Granny in England seems for the moment to be under control…until the next time. But today – and let’s face it, today is what matters – things are OK. Many thanks to Lindsay for her offer of a mercy mission as and when!

Otherwise, it’s a bank holiday here for Ascension. The teenagers have been asleep and husband ensconced in his office, so I have had a little production line going to produce my sample swap covered notebooks.

You have no idea how much fun I’ve been having and how satisfying this is! The Kona solids are just such good quality and my machine likes them and they are lovely, really lovely to sew with. Quite a weight off my mind too having them almost done!

So my prototype is finished….here is the front…

..and the back…

….and here are the rest nearing completion… (sorry about all the shadows – it’s that sort of day and both the grass and the patio are still wet after last night’s storm! Somehow the light seems to have made funny rippled shadows on the Kona coal that don’t exist at all in reality – better photo when I’m all finished I promise!! )

Hopefully I’ll get everything finished either today or tomorrow and then I can start getting my other supplies ready for London…..I can’t wait!!

Have a lovely Ascension day wherever you are!

Helen

Today I’ve finally got down to making my swap gifts for the FQ Retreat.

I knew I wanted to cover some nice notebooks, but I’ve been humming and hawing about what exactly to do. There have been a lot of lovely things already posted on Flickr – a lot of linen Zakka-style things and cool trendy prints. There are some seriously creative and talented people attending this retreat I can tell you!

So I’ve decided to do something completely different. I’m working with Kona coal as a background and some bright Kona solids to perk it all up a bit. I think I know where I’m going – I have a plan!

Let’s see if it works!!

Helen

Did you read what I wrote yesterday – all about wonderful, productive fulfilling Mondays. All true, every word, and yesterday proved it down to the letter. I went to bed feeling ontop of the world and like I’d really achieved things.

Today.

I wonder if I should have even got out of bed.

Although I had to …..if only to take my rather poorly teenage son to the doctor to find out that he has a bad ear infection. This could take a while folks. He’s a good patient, but he’s miserable and feeling lousy and more to the point is missing more school than he can afford to miss. We have a bank holiday Thursday and Friday this week, which means I’ll have to trek into town tomorrow to his school try to locate all the work that said son needs to have done by Monday.

I also had a deeply unsettling phone call with my almost 85 year old mother. I cannot tell you how much I wish she was in some sort of sheltered facility. Old age and naivity mean that she puts herself into situations that she can’t deal with. You may remember last year’s robbery – the robbers have just been sentenced to 4 years each – whoohoo. Lessons don’t seem to have been learned though and with no relatives in the UK to keep an eye on things and mum’s absolute refusal to contemplate moving, I really think that we may be staring disaster in the face before too long.

I don’t  know why, but these two things have totally put me on the wrong foot today – I seem to have started and half-done a handful of things, but there hasn’t been any real progress. I need to see that things are moving – and today they aren’t at all. I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof. Can’t settle to anything.

All most unsatisfactory.

This evening is my sewing class though – hopefully the spell will be broken and I’ll be able to make some progress on my Liverpool tunic.

That’s Tuesdays for you!

What do you do when you have a day like mine?

Helen

In the bad old days when I was working 200% as an accountant, Mondays were always a bad day. According to my apparently very tolerant husband, I would already fall into a black fink on Sunday afternoon. Personally I think this may have had more to do with the obligatory MIL visit, but we won’t go into that here.

I do remember waking up on Mondays (and most other mornings, if I’m honest) with a slightly nauseous feeling of dread. After about 10 years I realized that this was a sign that I wasn’t really doing what I should be doing with my life. Once I’d changed direction, had babies and started making my life what I wanted it to be and not what other people wanted it to be, Mondays took on a whole new look.

Now I think Mondays are my favourite day.

You see on Mondays, by some strange sort of magic, more stuff gets done than on any other day of the week. I’m back on my own again after a busy family weekend, the house is generally fairly trashed and the laundry baskets are overflowing. But on Mondays I really swing into action. Of course a lot of what I do is dealing with the carnage. The washing machine is running non-stop, the hoover is doing heavy duty, I’m mopping floors and sorting stuff out.

What I love is that I can tick off the jobs as they get done, and at least until the kids come home I can really see the difference. my world takes shape again and order is brought back in. This might sound really sad….but it makes me feel extremely happy when I feel like I’m ontop of things in my own little world.

Monday always feels fresh and new and as though I can get anything done. By Friday things have generally gone down the slippery slope a bit, but on Monday I feel like superwoman. The diet starts up again and I’m always full of plans and ideas and goals.

Usually I’m juggling work and garden with all this action and maybe like today I’m starting to get myself organized for a trip (FQ Retreat woohooo!), but I like living like this…it feels like stuff is moving and getting done.

I also try to do simple meals on Mondays – meat-free if possible – there’s a lot of driving on Monday evenings and anything complicated on the culinary front just ends up with me tearing my hair out and burning things. So simple and healthy is the way to go…and meat-free is a tiny step towards protecting the environment.

For one day at least I feel like a domestic goddess!

Helen

Nothing dramatic to report from up the hill today.

I’ve been doing a little bit of this…

and this….

and this…

and I’ve realised that the FQ Retreat really isn’t very far away at all and I need to get may skates on with my 4 gifts for the sample swap…

Mmmm that’s a tricky one – and there have been some fabulous things already posted on flickr, which had the effect of making me feel like I’m late and that whatever I make, it has to be good! No pressure you understand.

I’m thinking of starting with these…

but haven’t yet quite decided what to do with them. No I’ll rephrase that, I’ll be covering them in some way, but quite how is still a little on the fuzzy side. That’s the project at the top of my list for this week. That and getting my supplies ready for the classes I’m taking.

I had a hard time deciding on classes – and actually signed up my preferences at a point in time when I still thought I was going to be able to take my sewing machine on the plane with me. I think I’ll be fine without – apparently there will be some machines available and if I’m not super-productive it doesn’t really matter – I’m going as much to enjoy the company of other quilters and learn a few new things as for any other reasons. Coming home with beautiful finished projects isn’t high on my list of priorities.

I’m kind of hoping I’ll get to spend a lot of time just hanging out and chatting!

Helen