Look What The Postie Brought!

I had a lovely surprise when I got back from dropping Nipper at nursery this morning - Beth's 'cheer-me-up' giveaway win!

I love Beth's blog, not just for her crafty stuff, but because she is so honest and always makes me laugh. I have great admiration for her as she manages to produce lovely crafty stuff whilst looking after 3 kiddies under the age of 5, plus husband, and she's in training for a triathlon!

The giveaway was for one of Beth's handmade cuffs but look at what she sent.

The gorgeous cuff:

A crayon-roll for Nipper (I've been meaning to make one of these):

And a lovely card:

Thank you Beth - you are very talented and very generous!

If you want to know what I said that cheered her up then check my comment on this post!

Look What The Postie Brought!

'That' Time

It's 'that' time again. No, not the one where we all get moody and grumpy and want to eat chocolate (though being pregnant I'm luckily missing all that, except perhaps the chocolate bit), but the one where the latest copy of Country Living magazine falls through my letterbox.

I love this magazine and recently treated myself to a years subscription. It was a very thrifty treat though as it only cost £10 using Tesco clubcard vouchers. Mr Earplugs always wants to use these vouchers when we do the shopping but I hide them so he can't and I use them for treats instead!

March's edition has lots of articles which are right up my street. Wouldn't you love to have all this fabric:

And look at this sewing machine:

My grandmother had a treadle Singer and I loved it. I so wish I had one. I don't know what happened to it. When she died the house was rather speedily emptied by one of my aunties, causing a family row!

Lots of ideas for storage:

I think my Dad has a cupboard like this in his shed. He's had it for years and stores all his plant foods etc in it. It's probably worth a few bob now!

One day I'm going to live somewhere a bit more like this than where I live now:

And have a garden that I can do this with:

I love Acers:

We planted a dwarf one in a large pot in the garden as a sort of 'baby loss' memorial following my miscarriage last summer.

There's some yummy food too. Wish my dinner's looked like this (love the plate):

And wish I could eat this:

Sadly not allowed at the mo.

But lots of other stuff to drool over when I get a few free minutes - yum!

'That' Time

So Much Snow!

Well, I couldn't let all the snowy weather pass without a blog post about it. Anyone reading this who has to suffer serious snow each winter will probably think I'm bonkers for enthusing about it. But in the 25 or so years that I've been living in the south I've never seen it coming down like this:



Nor it settling, and staying for days, like this:



I attempted a shopping trip into town but the pavements were so icy that I had to walk in the road (a very busy one) so I decided the shopping could wait! Nipper was very bemused by it all but soon got stuck in with his too big welly boots on, and 'helped' his sister to build a snowman. She was very excited about the snow to start with but the novelty soon wore off when she had to walk to school in it. It takes her 45 minutes each way so it's not really much fun when it's freezing cold!

Hopefully it'll be another 25 years before we get any more weather like this!

So Much Snow!

Back at Last!

Thank you so much for all your lovely messages while I've been poorly.

Things got rather worse before they got better. Despite the double strength antibiotics my chest infection got worse. Mr Earplugs got back from Spain and didn't like the look of me(!!) and whisked me back to the doctor, who said the same thing. I thought she'd just give me more pills but she sent me to the hospital with suspected pneumonia or a blood clot on the lung and they admitted me!!! I was completely unprepared - no spare underwear and badly shaven legs - lol!

My only encounters with hospitals have been when having the kiddies and I'm not too fond of them! Staying in for 2 days wasn't my idea of fun - nor anybody else's I'm sure. Whenever anyone comes near me with a needle my veins collapse and it's virtually impossible to get a blood sample. After 4 failed attempts the nurse called a doctor to take a deep vein sample instead and I still have the bruise. Add to that 2 attempts at a canula, an arterial blood sample, a shot of heparin, and a supersized canula for a CT scan and I felt like a pincushion! Apparently the risk to me of a blood clot was greater than the risk to the baby of having an x-ray (hence the CT scan rather than a standard chest x-ray). I would have preferred not to have an x-ray at all but didn't much fancy dying either! I don't know which was worse - the chest pain and not being able to breathe properly or the sickness caused by IV antibiotics and painkillers.

Luckily the scan showed no clots but some small areas of collapsed lung which would right itself over time (apparently!). I was sent home with even stronger antibiotics which made me rather sick. There was also some debate over whether I had pleurisy or a cracked rib from all the coughing. Since my ribs are still uncomfortable (sneezing really hurts!), and I've finished off the pills, my bet's on the cracked rib.

What was quite funny (well not really) was that I'd recently received the death certificates for my gt-gt-grandfather and his family (I'm a fan of family history). Pretty much all of them died of either pneumonia or TB. When I told my mate Pete he said my 'living history' experiment was taking research a bit too far! It certainly makes you realise how fortunate we are. Less than a hundred years ago people were dying for lack of antibiotics.

Pregnancy update:
I'm just over halfway through my pregnancy now and I'm getting very big. If I carry on at this rate I'll be like a house-end by 9 months! We had a scan on Friday which showed that everything seems ok despite my ill-health, so that was a great relief. They still think that new nipper will be a boy. Mr Earplugs was very pleased as he reckons he doesn't understand women. I said "even me" and he replied "especially you"! I guess ignorance is bliss?? (And we've been together 7+ years and just had our 1st wedding anniversary too!).

Hopefully I'll soon be able to blog something a bit more interesting than the state of my health!

Back at Last!