Goodness, nearly a month since I posted. Quite a bit has happened since then, though sadly not a lot craft wise! 😦 This won’t be a long blog tonight as my eyes are a bit sore and tired. And it is midnight, haha. And I have work in the morning….
Well, the big news first? We got another puppy! Yep, we got a little black lab. This is one of the first photos we got of him when we got home on Thursday night.
Doesn’t he look tiny!? I’d like to formally introduce Alfie, a ten week old black labrador. (Eight weeks old in that picture). He has settled in very nicely, and has ensured he gets a spot on the sofa every time! Freddy didn’t like him at first, and it took about a week for him to actually play with Alfie properly. Before that he just kept running away or hiding behind one of us! Now he knows how poor Bo felt when he was a baby! Alfie enjoys his food very much, and adores snuggling up to people to sleep. Seeing him half asleep looking at you just makes you go awww! We kept him a secret from everyone in the family until we actually got him. When we picked D up at the station (brother) we had literally picked Alfie up about half an hour before hand, so we had him in the car. It took D about five minutes before he realised I was holding a puppy! (Though I will forgive him for that because it was a dark night and Alfie is very black!) I also wanted to surprise A with him, so had to stop myself from mentioning Alfie at all, and not put any photos of him up on FB. A came down to mine on the weekend. He wasn’t feeling too well so I told him to go straight up to bed. I carried Alfie upstairs and stood in the doorway waiting for A to turn round. He was rather surprised and grinned when he saw Alfie. Got some lovely photos of them together.
Alfie is going to be a lovely member of this family, but he needs to keep his nipping under control. He grabs Freddy by the face, ears and neck and it must hurt Freddy for he squeals loudly and tries to run away. If I tell Fred to tell Alfie off, he will growl at him and sort of push him away with his head, but most of the time he looks to us to tell him off. I’m torn with letting Freddy tell him or always telling Alfie off myself. We shall see how it goes. He isn’t always naughty; look at this –
Fell asleep in his dinner bowl. Bless.
I haven’t been very well the past two weeks. Those who have read my blog before might have seen that I have had an ongoing problem with my hearing. I started going quite deaf in my right ear with terrible tinnitus. Then it spread to my left ear, and then my nose was so blocked I couldn’t breathe in or out. (That’s pretty normal for me to breathe out of my mouth most of the time, but this was different).
I left work early on Friday last week as I was getting very stressed out, I couldn’t hear the children and the noise in my ear was driving me nuts. I managed to get an emergency appointment at the Dr’s and he gave me some steroid drops for my nose because he said that was what was causing the trouble. He also told me I have a deviated septum. I’ll find a simple explanation for that online, give me a second. (I’m not very good at explaining these things).
A deviated septum is a condition in which the nasal septum — the bone and cartilage that divide the nasal cavity of the nose in half — is significantly off center, or crooked, making breathing difficult. Most people have some sort of imbalance in the size of their breathing passages. In fact, estimates indicate that 80% of people, most unknowingly, have some sort of misalignment to their nasal septum. Only the more severe imbalances cause significant breathing problems and require treatment.
http://www.webmd.com/allergies/deviated-septum
Anyway, being told I have this makes a lot of sense. I’ve never been able to breathe out of my nose properly, and this of course would have had a negative effect on my breathing, hence the sleep apnoea, as well as the tonsils and adenoids getting in the way. I’m glad I know what the cause of my nose problems are I know there are ways of helping this. I know you can get surgery, but I’m not too sure I want to go down that route just yet. (Believe me, the other week I would have been saying differently!) Using these drops made a massive difference to my nose, and within a day and a half I was able to breathe out of it. Not comfortably, but still, a lot better than normal. Now six days later it has made a massive difference. Unfortunately, it did nothing to my ears. Days after these drops nothing changed for my ears. I was slowly going mad. Being a teacher, I kinda need my ears! Monday was hellish at work. I could barely hear, for some reason the kids could barely hear me (they said I was speaking quieter than normal) and the ringing in my ears was awful. I think I stayed in my classroom the entire day just so at break times I could get some relief by listening to the sound of rain on my Mums MP3 player. (The only way I could drown out the ringing noise was with some sort of … whooshing noise, and rain and storm sounds helped immensely). I had Tuesday off and went to the Dr’s again. I had to ask for some decongestants (the same ones I got last time) and within HALF A DAY, my left ear went back to normal. Seriously, less than half a day. I’m gobsmacked the Dr didn’t give me these without me asking. I managed to pop my left ear this morning and I haven’t gone deaf with it again. I tried popping my ears again this evening, and both popped! The relief was immense. The ringing noise cut in half with the volume and I can finally hear again. I’m going to continue with the pills and hope that this congestion is on its way out as I have lost money from not being at work this week. It’s also left me absolutely shattered and I was literally staying in bed for days on end, being too knackered to do anything.
I’m sure a lot of people couldn’t understand the fuss I was making, but losing my hearing (albeit not going totally deaf, everything was muffled) was a horrible experience. And the ringing, oh my, the ringing. I thought I would go mad with it. Anyone had tinnitus before? I never, ever want to experience that again. I still have it now, but it’s very quiet compared to what it was. I can live with this. I could have happily gouged out my ears to stop the noise before. I’ve had the ringing since the 23rd December. I am never going to leave congested ears so long before seeing the Dr again.
So, yeah, not been a good few weeks from that perspective! Otherwise I’ve been very busy at work, trying to get as much done as possible. I’m really enjoying it still. I need to work on creating a CPD portfolio, but I always feel like I’m so busy I don’t have time to do ANYTHING else. We shall see, because I need to get that done. I have an INSET day to attend on Tuesday, and a day off on Monday, yay!
I bought some crochet hooks online for my stall in October. I know it’s a long time away, but I like being prepared! They were a fantastic price too. I’ve thought of some great new ideas for my stall too, and I’m hoping that these will work out. I’ll not say anything just yet, but I am thinking. I’m going to go to the Creative Stitches and HobbyCraft show in Glasgow in March with my Mum. She is buying the tickets as a treat for my 24th birthday. I’ll be buying the tickets into Woolfest for both of us. We are looking to see if we are getting any bargains there or any ideas for Kendal. Soooo looking forward to Woolfest, as that is where I am going to buy all of my fleece stock. Yay! Nineteen weeks to go 😀
Talking of crochet, I had a real urge to make something up quickly, so found a neat pattern online I just had to make.
http://favoritelittleprincess.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/easy-baby-sweater-and-hat.html
I used an Aran Wool mix in cream and a size 5.0mm hook. It was extremely easy to do and I’ve already picked out the yarn and hook size for the next one!
You will see the pattern has sleeves, but I didn’t think they would go quite nicely on here. I think it looks nice without sleeves. I used some EmpressFibres ribbon to give it a splash of colour. I might change that soon though, the ribbon is too long.
This is the next type of yarn I’m using. It’s like brushed baby acrylic I think. I will be using a size 4.0mm hook, to make a much smaller size. The colour is pale blue so I think it will work for either a boy or a girl.
I’ve done a bit of spinning on my days off. I managed to sit down and spin one of my Jacobs batts in one sitting. Sorry for the horrible looking photo.
I also had a go at spinning up one of my own kool-aid dyed rovings. I have been too lazy to skein it up, so that is a quick job that needs done soon.
I also got some great books in the post a few weeks ago too. I bought ‘60 Quick Baby Knits,’ and ‘60 More Quick Baby Knits.’ Both of them have some lovely designs in them, and I will definitely be knitting some of them. Some are pretty naff, but you get that with all knitting pattern books. Some you love, others not so much. I also bought ‘The Field Guide to Fleece,’ by Deborah Robson. It’s a pocket book of 100 different kinds of sheep and their fleeces. It literally does fit into your pocket, is pretty thick and full of information. It shows a picture of the sheep, as well as a page of info, and on the page opposite, it shows a lock of the fleece, and some dimensions about it. It even leaves a little space for you to write some notes, e.g. where you can buy the fleece! I was very pleased with it. All of these books were brand new and are highly recommended. I am going to be taking my Deborah Robson book with me to Woolfest, to assist me in picking some great new fleeces.
Ooh, something else I got too, which people either love or hate. For years I have wanted to try out making a reborn baby doll. I managed to buy a kit online for a fairly decent price, and it had everything included in it. It had the doll head and limbs, body, weights, paints, stuffing, etc, etc. The baby kit is called ‘Ember.’ The paint pots are tiny, but the amount you use is laughable. You barely dab your brush in the pot and you have enough to cover the entire limb! Very good value these air dry paints. I started off well with painting a little arm, but since being ill, I just lost interest, which is a great shame. I had painted the two legs in a few layers of paint, practically finished one arm and I think, I overpainted the other arm, which means I will have to strip it with nail varnish remover. The only problem with this kit is that I have to do it during the day time, as at night time the light is just far too poor. I think that is how the paint just didn’t look right on the one arm. No matter. Here is a picture of the kit.
I can’t wait for summer where I can sit outside with the chickens and the dogs, and do my crafts in the summer sun, safely under the large swing chairs cover. Oh well, summer will be here before we know it. Talking of being outside, the weather is dreadful. Storms are coming this way and the UK is set to getting a battering. Trains have been cancelled all the way up to Preston (an hour or so down South from here) and trains in Wales have a strict speed limit. There are 100mph wind warnings and some places are on red alert. Not sure what that is, but it’s been splashed across the news and telly so it must be bad. I feel for the poor people in Wales as one of their train lines has collapsed due to horrific weather and the flooding. Flooding has been really bad in the UK. I hope this problem gets sorted soon. There has been severe flooding in Worcester too, which is very close to where my Nanny lives. I lve Worcester, I hope this gets sorted very soon too.Â
Anyway, the lights have been flickering a little, so I’m hoping they won’t cut out. The wind is very noisy outside, and I hope the chickens are all ok. We have had to put weights on their hutch so the roof won’t blow off.
Right, I think I’ve pretty much said everything about the last few weeks. I apologise for not blogging earlier, but hopefully, since I’ve blogged now, I’ll try and keep on it a little bit more. Have a great night everyone.
xXx Love Kais xXx
EmpressFibres 